Our mouths explore each other slowly and heavily, like we have all day. Like we don’t need to part for air. It’s a searing kiss, the kind that stokes the flames, building and building until I know we’ll eventually, inevitably, combust from the pressure.
All I can do is hope that once it settles, enough embers will have reached those dark, cold, deserted places where loneliness lives and fear thrives.
Fuck if I don’t ever want this fire to die.
“How long do we have?” he whispers, as if sensing where my thoughts have gone. His lips slide over my jaw, teeth scraping my stubble.
I shiver, throwing my head back to give him better access. “Five days.”
“Two more than planned, then.”
Smiling, I hold his face to my neck. His tongue lashes out against my overheated skin, and I thrust up against him, bringing out a low, raspy chuckle just over my racing pulse.
“After that?” I manage to whisper, knowing it needs to be addressed.
Lifting his head, he smiles up at me with that peaceful, dimpled grin. Eyes like sunlit forests stare back at me. “After that, we try again.”
Pushing away some of the dark messy hair from his eyes, I nod. “We try again.”
Knowing it’s our only option. Knowing it’s what's best, no matter how much we now know it’ll hurt.
It will get easier.
I have to believe that.
His lips find mine once more, and my hands are down his sweats, smoothing over his warm skin. We’re bare chest to bare chest, hearts racing wildly as we lose ourselves once more to this messy, stubborn love of ours.
Maybe we failed this time.
Maybe we’ll keep failing.
Maybe that’s the point.
Tonight’sgonnabeagood night.
Mason and I finish belting out the final chorus to our newest—andimproved—track, “Sun Chaser,” headphones cupped tightly over our ears, neck tendons straining as we lean up against our respective mics.
With our hooded, heated gazes locked on one another’s, it’s as if we’re silently daring each other not to stop. As if we’re silently spurring each other on.Come on, come on. Higher, higher.
We’ve already hit that pivotal pitch where our voices merged into one seamless, harmonized sound, so why not see how far we can take it?
Why not see what we’re capable oftogether?
Maybe some musicians would resent it, but I’m not one of them. And neither is Mason. This is about connecting, not competing. And all I can think is,this. This is what was missing.
For days, this song has been the bane of my existence, despite how good it felt when I first wrote it on the plane. A six-hour fevered rush where nothing else existed but the lyrics pouring out of my pen, and the melody playing in my head.
As soon as we landed in LA and got settled in the hotel, I unpacked my guitar and let the song trapped in my chest finally breathe. And it feltgood,so damn good.Like a soft gust of fresh air, rather than teeth-squeezing anguish, like the majority of the songs I wrote or co-wrote.
It felteasy.Like it was meant to be. And I didn’t mind sharing it with Paul, our agent, or even the label once he decided,Yes, yes, this is theone! and all but dragged our tired asses to the studio.
I was all about adding it to the album, still running on that high of finishing something. Hell, I wasitchingto share it with everyone, the entire world if I could.
But then the label started doing that thing labels do. Somehow, this one single song set off a chain of events as it became a sort of anchoring counterpoint to the whole album.
Suddenly, it’s to be our first official single under Slater Records.
Suddenly, it’s the name of our debut album.