Then he blinked as Nick’s last words sunk in. “’Sugar Kiss?’ Christ, that’s perfect.”
Nick grinned. “Helps when you have some familiarity with the subject matter.”
Gray was about to grin back when he realized Nick definitely did—particularly with Jazz. His throat went tight but he shook it off, focusing on the words in front of him.
That didn’t matter anymore. Nick and Jazz were ancient history. She was his now.
“Thanks, man. This is great.”
Nick shrugged. “It’s your song. It was all there. Awesome stuff.”
“Yeah, but I couldn’t pull it all together. I’m rusty.”
He’d let too many things go the last few months. Songwriting had always been one of his favorite things yet he hadn’t done it seriously since last summer. He’d lost the last few months in a blur of self-loathing and white powder.
No longer. He had plenty of reasons to get his head in the present and stop dwelling on the past. Jazz. The band.
Jazz.
Nick grabbed the guitar he’d leaned against the side of his chair. “That didn’t read rusty to me. Now let’s see what you’ve got on the rhythm side.”
Gray dragged his guitar into his lap and started to strum his way through the chord progression he’d come up with between texts from his source of inspiration. “Here’s what I’ve got so far.”
Nick listened for a couple of minutes, joining in with him and adding an extra layer to the melody. He started to sing the lyrics, growled, and dug out his pencil again and the newspaper off the side table. “I can’t work without paper. I can’t just spin off notes in my head. That’s what Simon does.”
“I used to be able to do that,” Gray said, rubbing his thumb over a scuff mark on his Epiphone.
Before the coke. Before the last few years. Just…before.
“Useful skill to have,” Nick said at length. “Okay. Let’s run through it again. From the top.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Then
Jazz covered her mouth to contain her laughter. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“Shh. Gotta be quiet. We have an hour before they’re due up yet.” Gray stopped in front of the rarely used fireplace—they weren’t often necessary in Southern California—and shoved his arm inside. He fumbled around. “Damn. Nothing. Last year this was a sure bet.”
It had been a couple of weeks since the party at the Feldmans’ house, and she and Gray hadn’t mentioned it since. She hadn’t brought up partying again. It would be too weird to go with him to a get-together when they weren’t a couple. So she contented herself with playing her music—and lusting after a sweet, sexy boy she would never, ever have.
“You search for your presents every year? Why not just wait?”
Gray dusted off his blackened hands and shook his head. “Must I explain everything to you? There’s a certain way we do things in the Duffy household. Since Brent and I were kids, we always snuck around and found our presents early. Now you’re my partner in crime.”
She shrugged in spite of the belly tingles his words caused. You’re my partner in crime. “Seems like a lot of work when you’re going to get them soon enough.”
“Didn’t you ever look for yours?”
Jazz scratched her bare toes over the back of her calf. It was hard not to squirm when Gray looked at her like that, his intense gray gaze probing into her head to ferret out all of her secrets. “I didn’t really get that many,” she hedged. “Especially after Molly came around.”
“Yeah. I saw her picture in your room. She’s cute.”
Jazz nodded, smiling at the memory of the tiny blonde girl with huge brown eyes like their mother. “Everyone thinks that. Mama wanted to get her into modeling.”
“Huh. I can see why. But she’s not half as pretty as you,” he said, turning away to poke at the leather ottoman.
His careless compliments always made her blush and now was no different. While his back was turned, she flapped her hands at her cheeks to try to dispel the heat coming off her face. “You need to get your eyes checked.”
“I see just fine. Now come over here and help me feel around under this chair.”
She scrambled to help. “Under the chair?”
“Sure. These recliners have a spot near the back where there’s just space. Dad hid my new video game console in here last year.” He tossed her a grin and went back to his task.
She knelt on the opposite side of the chair and began fumbling around underneath like he was, feeling more than a little dumb. “I’m not finding—” Her fingers bumped his and he gripped them, curling them into his warm, dry palm. She swallowed, expecting him to let go right away.