The work week aka NaNo slowdown. As always, please keep in mind that this is unedited, uncorrected, and unproofed and under deadline and no outline. If I think of any more qualifictions, I’ll list them on tomorrow’s entry. heh 😉

Word Count: 11,112

Chapter Three

The first thing Kaden did when he walked into his Malibu beach house was to lock himself in his music room, find the treasured vinyl of Led Z IV and blare “Black Dog” until he felt the music merge with his body. Page’s powerful guitar riffs, Plant’s a capella wailing. This is what made him want to make music, the dirty honesty of music like this. The blues. The palpable mind-blowing artistry. As “Rock and Roll” drove, he sang along and released all of the frustration that had been in him for the past two weeks.

Damn Serena (he still didn’t know her last name and didn’t care) and damn the fact that Jared had told him that she had probably stolen the last song he had worked on and offered it to some Canadian pseudo-rocker she wanted to get off with. Scary little drama queen. He had no words for someone like her. Nothing.

He listened to the entire album, felt his mind in the groove and picked up his guitar.

The guitar had always been an extension of him, the strings like his own veins, lifeblood through his system. Up until the Serena debacle he hadn’t appreciated, hadn’t been grateful for this expression. Today with the music and words flowing freely, he felt changed, reborn. The ability to create music would be a gift he would never take for granted again.

For the first time in weeks the words just poured out of him like they had been behind a floodgate and needed release.

His thoughts were dominated by hazel eyed Phoebe with her shy honest smile. On a separate journey through the night he had composed a poem, an act he didn’t do often. Poetry required a different rhythm sound in his head, a different cadence. But seeing Phoebe in his mind, he composed a poem and then recomposed it as a song.

Jared took one look at the sheet music and glanced up, frowning. “What the fuck? Are you high?”

Maybe. A little. But not the kind of high Jared was speaking of. Women didn’t stay in Kaden Roarke’s head afterward. They were like blips. They satisfied a need and were replaced. It was dick behavior. No doubt about it. He had never given it much thought. Why wasn’t he treating them like human beings? He didn’t used to be that guy. No two ways around it: an asshole. On the other hand, a relationship with its mawkish sentimentality and false flutterings wasn’t something he was after either. He didn’t need to have his ego petted. He liked that with Phoebe he was just a regular guy. No pretense. She didn’t even know his music. Any attraction between them was real, not built on some falsehood of his being a rock star.

Ha. He almost wanted that to be a thing. To find women who weren’t groupies. Who didn’t want and expect to be treated badly and then wouldn’t react badly themselves when the end came.

He moved to the keyboard and started building the structure of the song in his head, the percussion, the dissonance. Maybe this time he would include some keyboard tracks. He seldom did that anymore.

“Keyboard? Dude, what sound are you going for? I thought we quit with that sound,” Jared said. “You’ll have us playing freakin’ Coldplay or The Fray in a minute.”

Kaden’s smile was rueful. “I don’t think you need to worry about that.” He laughed and launched into an approximation of  the keyboard of The Doors’ “Touch Me.”

“What in the hell happened to you?” Jared asked, shaking his head in disbelief. “You seem crazed or on something or both. Dude, are you on something?”

Kaden laughed and stood up. “Not really. I don’t think you understand just how screwed up things were. Think about not having your music, bro. Those weeks were hell.”

“Okay. I get that. We’re going to have those last few songs for the album?”

“Don’t think it will be a problem.”

Jared picked up the sheet music he had tossed a moment ago. “Please tell me we’re not doing this one.”

Kaden shook his head and then laughed at the thought of them performing a song like that. Critics never knew where to place them. Post-grunge? Alternative? Both?

“Maybe we could reinvent the power ballad,” Kaden suggested and then laughed at Jared’s expression, a mixture of confusion and fright. “I’m joking. I was going to run it by Bob and see if that new group he’s taking on would want it.”

But then he wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear another guy sing this song about her.

“So what was Chloe’s family like?” Jared asked and Kaden could tell by his tone that he had a lot riding on the answer.

“The Aunts are eccentric, but cool.” That was a safe answer and a true answer.

“And Phoebe? Chloe makes her sound a little scary and controlling.”

“Oh, yeah. She was just a hardass. An amazon in combat boots.” He chuckled thinking about her, the delicate line of her collarbone, her beautiful fingers. He had never thought about fingers being beautiful until he had stared at her while she mixed herbs and oils and thought about the magic those fingers could do on him.

Crap. Even now, his body reacted. He really needed to move on. Unless Jared and Chloe got married, he was never going to see Phoebe again. That would be fine. Excellent in fact. He just had to get her out of his head. Those eyes though. Those raspberry colored lips. Damn, if he could have just once felt those lips under his, maybe the spell of her would be broken. He wouldn’t have needed to imagine what it was like.

“Yo, Kade, where are you, man?”

“Just remembering some things.”

“You didn’t really finish answering my question. Will Chloe and me have problems with her sister?”

Kaden shook his head, almost regretfully. “Phoebe’s a kind person. I think she only wants what’s best for Chloe. You might just tell Chloe to be a little kinder to her sister.”

Jared’s eyebrows darted up. “You like her?”

“She was just a lovely, kind woman. End of story.”

end of Day 7