“I was thinking about a hamburger. I’m starving.”
“Mhmm, I’m sure that’s the case.” He grins and turns to the dresser.
Sasha meows again, reminding me I’ve forgotten to pet her. I pick her up and cradle her in my arms. She instantly calms down. She rubs her head under
my chin and I giggle.
Jace drops his towel and tugs on a pair of boxer-briefs. “I’m not going to lie, I was worried you’d hate her and think I was crazy.”
I gasp and look at Sasha. Her blue eyes are huge and her ears stick straight up. She’s adorable and perfect and the best cat ever, I’m sure of it.
“Never,” I say. “She’s wonderful.”
Jace chuckles and shakes out his jeans before pulling them on.
He buttons his jeans and grabs his belt to loop it through.
“There’s something I want to show you. It’s … it’s a song. But I want you to see it before I send it anywhere.”
I raise a brow questioningly.
“It’s about us,” he confesses. “Fuck, most of my songs are now, but this one … It’s from when you left. But … I love it, and I hope you will too. I want to try to sell it. I’ve been speaking with a record company and sending them bits and pieces so they get a taste of my style, but now they want to see a whole song. This is the one I want to send them, if you’re okay with it. If you don’t want it to see the light of day, I’ll understand and I’ll send them something else.”
“I didn’t know you were actually talking to people about selling your music. I thought you were thinking about it. Why didn’t you tell me?”
He tugs on a white t-shirt and shrugs. “I guess I was worried it would go nowhere and I didn’t want to get your hopes, or mine, up. They could still turn me away.”
“They won’t,” I say confidently.
I might be biased, but I know for a fact Jace’s songs are good. Better than good, they’re incredible. They’re the kind of songs that mean something. The lyrics leaching into your soul and staying there forever.
“You can’t know that,” he argues.
I set Sasha down and she meows in protest. I wrap my arms around Jace and look up at him.
“But I can—I know you and I know what you’re capable of, and if this is the path you want to go down, I know amazing things are going to happen. You’re too talented for nothing less than extraordinary.”
“You really think so?” he asks, and he looks like a vulnerable little boy.
Sometimes I forget since he can be so damn cocky that his dad belittled him and always made him feel like he’d amount to nothing.
I take his face in my hands. “Yes, I really do.”
His smile lights up his face and I see him breathe with renewed confidence.
“You want to see it?”
“Why don’t you sing it for me?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Not yet. I want you to read the lyrics first. Like I said, if you don’t want me to try to sell it I won’t.”
“That’s unlikely.”
Jace could write about anything and I’d still want him to sell it to pursue his dreams. It’s his song, his lyrics, not mine, even if some are about me. It’s his thoughts and feelings he’s penning and he needs to be comfortable with the world hearing them. If he’s not, then he should keep it, if he is then he needs to go for it.
Either way, I’ll be cheering him on.
He steps off the raised level of our bedroom and down into the living area.