CHAPTER 14
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I’m sitting at my kitchen table and Dean is on duty to make sure I’m not alone. The guys have been around all the time, and I’ve spent some time at O’s. The upside of the boys all working at different hours, is that there’s always someone available. Dean and Gil have been spending a lot of time in Charlington, but don’t really seem to mind. The knife that was left in the door has freaked us all out.
The police haven’t come up with any leads and there is no evidence left behind for them to follow up on. Since we almost know for certain who’s behind it, they’ve advised us to just wait. What they didn’t say is that we had to wait for something else to happen. We all know it’s coming anyway and it’s making us nervous.
I’ve got some writing planned for today. I’m going to fix some plotholes in my story, but I don’t know how yet. My characters have gotten themselves into trouble on account of being stubborn assholes, and now it’s up to me to fix it. It’s like the Inception; writer's edition. My own train of thought confuses me, and I try to shake it off.
With a bored look on his face and his feet on the table, Dean’s draining the last sip of his coffee. I can’t really blame him. He has to hang around me on his day off and I can’t even entertain him. My mother would be horrified by my behaviour and if I had a badge for being a good housewife, I would have to hand it back right this second.
“Want to watch a movie or something?”
“Nah, you have a deadline.”
Damn him for knowing and making me stick to it. Procrastinating is way harder when someone calls you out on your bullshit. I give him an evil look.
“You have to do something; you can’t just sit around here all afternoon and watch me work.”
“I don’t have to do anything. Maybe I’ll just be here, meditating.”
“Meditating?”
“I could be zen.”
I snort, and he grins back. Only to prove my point by standing up immediately after we share a look. He walks to the door and my eyes fall on his jeans clad ass, which isn’t a bad sight. At all. While I’ve been moping a little over the guys being around all the time, I don’t want to see him leave all the same.
“Where’re you going?”
“I’m picking up my guitar from O’s,” he answers as he turns around in the doorway.
“Your guitar? You play guitar?”
While looking at his feet he gives me the tiniest of nods that’s possible. It’s weird to see him act so uncertain and shy, he’s usually so confident in everything he does.
“I haven’t played in forever. I used to play all the time and then I stopped. Lately I’ve been feeling like playing again, so I thought I’d give it a try.”
His hands are fidgeting as he slowly raises his head to look me in the eye. I just nod, as the subject clearly makes him uncomfortable and I decide to leave it alone for now.
“I’ll just… try to play something I guess, while you write your book I want to see if I still remember how to play anyway.”
Swooning, I change into a puddle. He doesn’t just play music, he writes music. Now that’s sexy. Like, give me the name of a hotel and I’ll sleep outside just to get a glimpse of you rockstar - sexy.
I forget all about the story plots I planned on fixing in my writing right then and there, and want to find out everything there is to know about Dean and his music. He leans against the doorframe in one of those poses only guys can pull off. You know, with crossed arms and one foot over his other ankle, making it look all casual. If I would try to lean against the doorway in the same pose, it’d just look like I lost my balance. As he catches me staring at him, he gives me a side smirk.
“You’ve got a little something here,” he says as he brushes his thumb over the corner of his mouth. Automatically I reach to touch my own mouth, but don’t find anything. I seem to miss what he’s trying to tell me.
“You’re drooling a little.”
Frustrated that he got the better of me, I throw my notebook in his general direction. It doesn’t even land anywhere near the joking prick. Laughing, he turns around and leaves to go get his guitar.
I’m suddenly wondering if I can turn one of the characters in my book into a musician and get side-tracked by possibilities of switching it.
It’s hopeless. Completely unsavable. I try to focus on my book and my writing, instead I just sit there and stare and listen to this musical godlike creature that’s occupying my home. I’m perfectly content to look at him at any given moment, but seeing him this relaxed while toying with chords on his guitar is everything. I don’t know much about music. I can tell you what I like and what I dislike, but that’s about it. I’ve always been a girl that focuses more on words than on music. Words are my thing, you know. So it makes sense. But Dean is playing riffs, I think they’re called? Maybe it’s still chords? Something like that. And he keeps practicing them over and over again until he finally is satisfied with what he’s doing. The way his fingers strum over the strings is mesmerizing.
“What song is that?” I ask him when he keeps playing the same thing over and over again, giving me a sense of serenity. It sounds familiar but I can’t really put my finger on it.
“Just something I came up with myself. It’s been stuck in my head for a while.”