Write or Wrong (Common Threads #9)

Chapter 20

CHAPTER TWENTY

INDIA INK

ASA

Nikki had been his best friend since he could cogitate. It was hard to remember when they had become friends because in his mind she was always there. He didn’t remember a time without Nikki. Even his oldest memories that didn’t include her, his mind put her somewhere in the background. He had more memories with her than his own family.

Or maybe Nikki was his family and always had been. They often joked about how they’d gotten separated at birth by some horrible accident and good thing they’d found their way back to one another.

Nikki had this amazing way of encouraging people to be themselves. She didn’t judge and she didn’t shame. She reveled in people’s uniqueness. The weirder the better. She was the only person he’d ever felt comfortable being himself around.

Until now.

He lay on his back on his bedroom floor staring up at the ceiling, his ankles crossed, his hands folded behind his head, listening to Zara hum and strum and scribble on the bed beside him.

“My goodness,” Zara murmured. “Your mind… You didn’t even use your best stuff for Winking Pete.”

“I wanted to save some of it back. Just in case.”

She peeked over the edge of the bed. “In case of what?”

“I don’t know,” he replied honestly then chuckled. “Something.”

She narrowed her eyes at him and then went back to whatever she had been working on.

For several hours every night for the past three nights, they’d been in his room going through his shit.

And he wasn’t freaking out about it.

If anything, he was completely at peace.

“Okay, what if this actually goes with this…” She wasn’t really talking to him. Mostly she was just thinking out loud while he enjoyed it.

She began to play the old acoustic and he closed his eyes. It was the song he’d been working on every night, the one she’d been listening to through the door. But she had a lighter touch than he did and it changed the sound of those steel strings.

He did an ab curl and sat up. Her eyes flicked to him but she didn’t stop playing. He grabbed the paper in front of her and scanned the words until he found what he was looking for.

Zara grinned. “And then you can shift it here.” Her fingers moved expertly over the frets, changing the key.

She hummed where words would be and he grabbed the pencil off the bed and started scribbling.

“Play that part again,” he said. She did and the words kept coming. He stopped writing and she went back to playing the original part of the melody.

“Please tell me you have that memorized,” he said, sitting back on his heels.

She snorted and nodded at her phone. “Dude. When I’m writing I record everything.”

He shook his head, admiring her. It was never a question why she was at the top of everything she did. But every once in a while, he was reminded that she wasn’t just anyone. She outworked everyone in every room, stayed locked-in to her creativity, and never wasted a single drop.

“You’re remarkable. You know that, right?” he asked knowing that his words and respect were nothing compared to the accolades she received all the time. He was a nobody with a nothing career. But sometimes, like right then, he was able to be a part of something magnificent. And it took his breath away.

She beamed at him, sticking her tongue between her teeth in a cheesy smile. Then she patted the paper on the bed. “Write me a bridge, rock star.”

He watched her for a beat as she returned her fingers to their starting position and began to play again.

And then he wrote her a bridge.

“Are you sure this is okay?” Zara made a face like she was worried she was breaking eight laws at once and the cops were around the corner. “I don’t want you to get into trouble.”

Asa snorted and grabbed her hand, tugging her down the hall of XY Records to the control room of studio Y. “Killer, you’re Zara Lorna. No one is going to be mad at you for being in a recording studio .”

She snickered behind him and he shot her a grin over his shoulder. She looked up at him through her dark lashes with a flirty smile and he almost stumbled.

Living with her, spending time with her, seeing her every day had not desensitized him to her beauty. If anything, she was more potent than she’d ever been.

He tore his gaze away as they entered the large recording space of Studio Y. It wasn’t a space he got to spend a lot of time in, but it was his favorite.

The thirty-foot ceilings, high windows, open space. The first time he saw it, he knew he wanted to make music there.

Not music for someone else. But something of his own.

And now he was going to do exactly that.

They’d gotten to a certain point in their writing where both of them voiced their desire to start putting it together. Which was why he was sneaking the world’s most famous woman into a neighborhood recording studio in the middle of the night.

Johnny wouldn’t mind.

Probably.

Hopefully.

The really cool part about writing with Zara (okay, all of it was awesome) was that they both had talents in different areas. In a way that complimented one another.

And then there was the flow.

The mystical space where creatives connected on an almost spiritual level while constructing something. It bordered on insane, looked a lot like telepathy, and felt like intoxication. A hazy fog of ideas, emotions, words, and music.

He could honestly say he’d never experienced it at this intensity though.

Zara had spent enough time in recording studios that she knew what to do. They switched off and on, taking turns with instruments, the soundboard, the vocals. Just messing around and playing the way he had in his youth. With zero hesitation or thought of an outcome other than making something .

The flow they found themselves in was so powerful that he was honestly shocked when he looked up to find Nikki standing in the doorway.

“Nik. Hey,” he said, surprised. Had the neighbors complained? Or…?

“Hey…” Nikki’s curious frown shifted from where Asa sat on the couch to Zara who was lying beside him, her bare feet in his lap. “What’s going on, guys?”

He flicked a glance out the control window and saw sunlight peeking through the high windows. “Oh shit.”

Zara chuckled, deep and low, and he grinned at her. They’d been playing in the studio for hours. She hadn’t slept and she still looked as gorgeous as ever. Wearing black leggings and a dark green hoodie of his she’d swiped from his closet before they’d left. It was enormous on her but seeing her in his shirt stirred something in him he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt before. It was almost possessive but mixed with adoration and attraction.

He was so fucking gone for her. In a way that he never wanted to come back.

Tearing his eyes away from Zara and back to Nikki, he cleared his throat. “We’ve been writing.”

Nikki’s gaze sharpened at him. “You’ve been writing?” She tried to make it sound casual but he heard the barely stifled surprise.

He nodded once, holding eye contact.

Nikki swallowed hard and blinked too fast.

“For fuck’s sake, Nik,” he muttered. “Don’t cry.”

She shook her head in denial even as her blue eyes got glassy.

Zara sat up and dropped her feet to the floor. “Why are you crying?” she asked, concerned.

Nikki wiped under her eyes and blinked up at the ceiling. “It’s uh…” she cleared her throat. “It’s allergies.”

Asa rolled his eyes, but his chest compressed with something that felt like guilt. She’d been worried about him, he’d known that. But he had no idea she would have this kind of a reaction.

Nikki took a deep breath and looked at Asa seriously. “It’s good. I’m glad is all.”

“Do you want to hear what we have so far?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“Are you joking?” Nikki asked like he was crazy.

He got up from the couch and went over to the control board. Zara sat on the stool by his side and keyed up the track they had roughly finished putting together earlier.

A low hum filled the room, the echo he’d had stuck in his head and body since that night in LA. He’d managed to find it in a particular keyboard at the studio. He’d plugged it in and it had lit up every neuron in his brain. The sound was how it felt to be near her, to create with her, to know her.

The hum was joined by an under riff she’d written and then played on that same keyboard. It was heavily synthed and reverberated throughout the control room. A sound that wasn’t all her and wasn’t all him but was something new. Something that didn’t exist until they’d met.

The drums they’d added had a tight popping snare that sounded like a slow heartbeat that he could feel in the center of his chest. It was welded to the rest of the sound with his characteristic bass notes and her talent for melody.

It still needed a lot of work. It was rough. Backing vocals and echoes and mixing, just to start. But he could hear it. The song that had started in the middle of a thunderstorm months ago. It was alive and starting to breathe on its own.

The song ended and he shared a smile with Zara. She could hear it too. He turned to get Nikki’s reaction.

His bestie was staring at him with wide eyes, her arms crossed over her middle.

“Holy shit, Ace,” she said just above a whisper.

He tipped his chin down. “You think you could polish this up? Maybe make it into something?”

Nikki’s eyes darted from him to Zara like she wasn’t sure she heard him right.

“I mean, unless you’re busy,” Zara added when Nikki hadn’t responded after a minute.

Nikki’s expression turned annoyed before she barked a laugh. “You two are going to kill me, aren’t you? With all this—” she wiggled her fingers to encompass both Zara and Asa— “extreme talent working together. What’s the plan? Is this a Zara record or something new?” She arched an eyebrow with her question.

Asa shrugged. He hadn’t really thought that far ahead.

That was a lie.

He’d thought about it. He wanted it to be hers. For all of it to be hers. He just wanted to be around to help make it.

“We’re still discussing that,” Zara said, spinning back around on the stool.

Nikki shot a curious frown to Asa but he didn’t have an answer.

“Hey, Nik, have you talked to—oh.” Johnny came into the room and stopped when he saw who was there. He scratched the back of his head. “Hey.”

Nikki took a deep breath and blinked at their boss. “No. I just found them in here. Johnny, you gotta hear what they’ve made.”

Johnny nodded and took a seat on the leather couch, elbows on his knees.

Zara played it again and Asa made a note on the page they’d been passing back and forth. She leaned over and read what he’d written and then took the pencil from his hand, her fingers warm and soft against his, and added her own idea.

“You keep making music like that here in this little place and I’m going to have to rename it to XYZ Records,” Johnny said when it was finished.

Asa curled his hand around the back of Zara’s neck and gave it a soft squeeze. She tipped her head back and smiled up at him sleepily.

“We should go home and sleep. Or you should at least. I have to work,” he amended.

She pouted and he almost laughed.

Too bad they’d agreed not to kiss in front of anyone, because he really wanted to kiss her in that moment.

“I can nap in Nikki’s office,” Zara offered hopefully.

She was in the same state he was; she didn’t want to risk leaving the flow. It was hard to know if it would fade when you unplugged. FOMO to extreme detriment.

“Whatever is happening here, let’s not mess with it,” Nikki said. “I’ll get you food and you can both nap in my office. I have blankets and everything. Does anyone need to tell Cas where you are?”

Zara stood up. “I texted him earlier. He knows I’m here. Where are my shoes?” she asked, looking around.

Asa spotted them on the far side of the couch. He handed her sneakers to her.

After she slipped them on, he followed her down the stairs and out of the studio, down the hall to Nikki’s office.

Andre had redone the space in year the year before and it was clean and cozy. The couch against the far wall was covered in fluffy pillows and dark shades were drawn over the windows.

Nikki grabbed a blanket out of the pull-out cabinet and handed it to Zara.

“I’ll get food when you guys wake up,” Nikki said as she left the room.

Asa watched her go over his shoulder and turned back to Zara and stifled a yawn. “I can nap in one of the lounges—” he stopped speaking as Zara’s gave him an impossibly cute frown. “What?” he chuckled.

She shook her head and approached him but didn’t say anything. Taking one of his hands in hers, she tugged him away from the door, then she shut it. Still holding his hand, she led him over to the couch and pointed at it.

He should really nap in one of the lounges.

But instead he laid down on the couch on his back. She shook out the blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. Then she crawled into the space between him and the back of the couch, snuggling her small body in the gap. She draped one leg over his hips and pulled the blanket over the both of them, resting an arm over his middle. He wrapped his arms around her and they both let out a long exhale, their bodies melting against one another.

How did this feel more intimate than kissing?

Maybe some friends could snuggle with each other and not have it mean anything. He was just now realizing he wasn’t that type of friend.

She let out a soft sigh that went straight to his gut and various other locations. Her scent floated around him, filling his lungs and stirring his thoughts to ideas he had no business having in Nikki’s office.

They weren’t at home and he needed to remember that.

He closed his eyes and the heat of her body lulled him to sleep in seconds.

ZARA

A few hours later she woke up to the smell of tacos. She rolled over on the couch where she’d crashed earlier.

Asa was on the floor with a bag of food between them and a couple canned drinks. It wasn’t where he’d been when she’d fallen asleep. Which was probably for the best she reluctantly decided.

She sat up and pushed her hair out of her face.

Asa’s lips twitched as his eyes scanned her. “So, your hair just does that even when you haven’t slept that long.”

“My Medusa hair is my superpower,” she croaked, her throat dry.

She lowered herself to the floor and he pushed a bag her direction.

“I got you a variety since you like pretty much everything.” He set two cans of different kinds of carbonated water in front of her. “And Hannah keeps the lounge stocked with seltzer water. So you can go to town on those.”

“Thanks,” she said, starting with the water to help her dry throat.

They ate silently for a few minutes. Neither one speaking, the writing fog still heavy around them. Something occurred to her and so she asked, “Am I going to get you in trouble?”

He snorted. “What for? Coming into the studio?”

“No. You’re supposed to be working and I’ve been monopolizing all of your time.”

Asa finished chewing and his eyes wandered to the ceiling. “I’m still getting all my other stuff done.”

“You are?” That surprised her. He’d been coming home early and going in late and then last night’s all-nighter.

He shrugged one shoulder. “My job’s not that hard.” He rolled his lips inward like he was thinking about how much he wanted to share. “They’ve been trying to get me to take a bigger role with some of our other artists. I’ve been…reluctant.”

She understood a little of what he was saying. When they’d met, he’d been very closed off to even the idea of making music again.

“Then why work at a recording studio?”

His mouth tugged up on one side. “Nikki asked me for a favor.”

He said it so simply. Like it was obvious.

“You’re a good friend,” she said.

“So are you,” he replied. He took a breath and the exhale seemed to release a lot of the tension he usually carried around with him. “You gave me the space I needed.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, a funny feeling sliding through her insides.

“Living with you, spending time with you. I’ve never felt as free as when I’m with you. And that’s made all the difference.”

Her heart hiccupped like an inebriated sailor having the best night of their life. Warmth spread through her body, blooming from her heart. Tears tingled at the back of her throat and she swallowed them down.

Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.

No one had ever given her such an enormous compliment. He was giving her too much credit for work he’d done himself. She was thankful that anything she had done had helped. To be a part of anyone’s journey back to where they belong was an honor. But especially when it was Asa.

“You okay?” he asked, his eyes scanning her features and posture.

She glanced down at her hand pressed to her chest like her heart was trying to escape. “Yeah,” she said, voice rougher than she expected. “Asa.” She took a breath and met his dark brown gaze. Eyes that had become so much of a home to her over these past months.

Words that she never expected to say to anyone again held still in her throat. Her pulse roared, thundering through her veins like she was possessed by another force entirely.

A knock on the door stopped her from having to make a huge decision she wasn’t sure she was ready to make. The door opened and Nikki poked her head in.

“I’m ready for you in Y when you’re done here. Ooh, La Morenas?” she asked.

Asa chuckled and held out a paper bag. “I gotchu.”

Nikki swiped the bag of tacos. “You’ve always been my favorite,” she said.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Asa waved her away and got to his feet, their moment over.

Zara crumbled up her garbage and tossed it in the can Asa held out to her.

“You ready to make something awesome?” he asked.

She got to her feet nodding. “I really am.”

She was ready for a lot more than she realized.

She folded her legs up, wrapped her arms around them, and rested her chin on her knees. “Play it again.”

Nikki hit the playback and they listened to the track for probably the fiftieth time.

The sun had gone down long ago and fatigue pulled at her. She was too tired to make any decisions but she didn’t want to walk away yet.

A warm hand slid up her spine and she recognized Asa’s close presence before he spoke.

“I think we need to get home and sleep for a bit.”

She knew he was right. She needed a shower and to sleep for at least ten hours.

“We can come back tomorrow,” Asa promised, his voice low and so close to her that she felt his breath on the side of her face.

“Johnny and I made arrangements so no one will be in for the rest of the week,” Nikki added around a yawn.

That’s what finally did it. Seeing her friend exhausted and knowing she had a family at home waiting for her. No one was waiting for Zara. Sometimes she forgot about that small fact.

“Okay,” she agreed, unfolding her body and standing.

Asa put a hand on her lower back and guided her out of the studio. Cas waited by the door to drive them home.

In the back of the SUV, she sat in the middle beside Asa, their sides pressed together. Her mind swam with everything they’d worked on that day and everything she wanted to do next. She was drowning in ideas.

Part of her was amazed at the intense height her creativity had risen to. But most of her wasn’t surprised at all. She’d been writing and making music the entire time she’d been in Chicago, but the moment Asa had let her in, had given her that trust, everything shifted. She’d been catapulted into the stratosphere.

It was almost as if everything in her life had been leading to this.

To him.

They got home and Cas and Devan searched the house before taking off. She said goodnight to Asa and then went to go shower.

As the water cascaded down her hair and back, a soft chorus began in the back of her mind.

“Endings are sad, so they say,

And I’ve known my share of pain,

But yours was a special kind of blame,

Did you even miss me?

Did I cross your mind once?

Did you know I thought it was my doing?

Your reason for moving

On”

She finished in the shower, humming the melody over and over. She wrapped a towel around her hair and one around her body before picking up her phone and taking a voice note.

The song wouldn’t leave her alone as she brushed her teeth and moisturized. She put on a short, black, satin nightie with lace detailing on the bodice and neckline and matching satin panties. She’d have to change before heading down for breakfast in the morning but that was later. Right now all she wanted was to sleep for three days.

She crawled under her covers and passed out the moment her head hit the pillow.

A crack of thunder woke her up some time later. She swam to the surface of consciousness and rolled over. The words that had snuck up on her in the shower came back just as strong.

She rubbed her eyes and blinked at the dark ceiling. Lightning flashed across the room and she swung her legs out of bed. She checked her phone. She’d only been asleep for a couple hours. Not nearly enough time.

Did you even miss me?

Did I cross your mind once?

Not even once?

Well shit. It wasn’t going to leave her alone, was it?

She took a deep breath and then headed for the stairs. She detoured to the kitchen for a glass of water before moving on to the music room.

Rain pelted against the windows, adding a rhythm to her thoughts that hadn’t been there before. She slid onto the piano bench, the wood cool on the backs of her bare thighs and flipped to a new page in the notebook she’d left there. Taking the pen out of the spiral binding, she quickly jotted down the words that hadn’t let her go.

Putting the pen down, she rested her hands on the keys before her. Carefully, she tested the notes and chords until she found what matched the sound in her soul.

The words came almost too quickly for her to catch them. They poured out of someplace she’d kept locked for too long a time.

Back and forth, her hands moved from the keys to the notebook, her lips constantly moving and repeating. She tried not to play too loud, not wanting to disturb Asa downstairs. But she must have because after a while she felt his presence hit the room.

She lifted her eyes to find him watching her from the doorway in dark blue lounge pants and no shirt. Momentarily distracted, she let her eyes linger on the hard packed muscles of his chest and abs. She hadn’t seen them since that day she’d hosed him off in Nikki’s backyard.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t,” he said, his voice impossibly deep.

“I had to get it down. It wouldn’t leave me alone,” she explained with a small shrug.

He nodded once, his dark eyes never leaving her face. “It’s about your mom?”

Her smile was soft and sad. “How’d you know?”

“I could hear it.”

And didn’t that say everything about Asa? That she didn’t have to explain something complicated because he just knew what she meant.

“How have I lived my life up to this point without you?” she whispered, not really intending him to hear her.

But he did.

His beautiful chest rose with the deep breath he took and he slowly crossed the room toward her.

Lightning flashed across the room followed by a low rumble of thunder that pulled at her insides.

Asa slid onto the bench beside her and his eyes drifted over her chest and down. A large warm palm glided over her knee, up her thigh and his Adam’s apple bobbed. His gaze came back to hers, heated and dark.

“What are you wearing?” he asked, his voice a low rumble that matched the thunder inside of her.

She licked her lips and noticed her own palm pressed to the center of his chest. She flexed her fingers against his skin, feeling his heartbeat just beneath the surface. He covered her hand with his own.

“Zara,” he whispered.

Her gaze tangled with his and she reached up with her other hand to slide her fingers through his thick hair at the temple. She trailed her touch along his jaw and leaned closer. Wanting, wanting, wanting .

The hand covering her own fell away only to catch her behind the neck. And with a groan that would be burned into her memory for the rest of her life, his mouth met hers.