Our Song

by Morse, Jody

  He raised an eyebrow at me. “Do you want to enlighten me?”

  “Sure, I can give you a lesson. It’s really easy. All you need to do is mix vodka and tequila and gin. Oh and Jack—can’t forget good ‘ol Jack…. and voila! You’ll be wasted.” I grinned, proud of my accomplishment. “It works just like magic, except really easy magic. I bet Harry Potter wouldn’t even need to use his wand to pull this shit off.”

  As Colton stared at the road ahead of him, his lips remained in a flat line. “So, what are you trying to say? That you tried to get this wasted?”

  “Try again later.”

  He glanced over at me, his eyebrows knotted together at the center of his forehead. “What?”

  “Try again later,” I repeated. Then I burst into a fit of giggles. “Get it? I’m like a magic eight ball!”

  He shook his head, clearly frustrated. “Damnit, Viola. Why would you intentionally get this drunk?”

  “Because I needed to.” I rolled my eyes, as though the answer should’ve been an obvious one. “It was the only way I could get through tonight.”

  “What do you mean? What happened tonight?”

  “I had to see the asshole,” I said quietly, choosing not to elaborate on who the ‘asshole’ was. I figured that everyone in the world should already know who he was, just for the simple fact that he was the assholeiest asshole of all the assholes on the planet.

  Colton remained quiet for a few long moments.

  Finally, he broke the silence. “I just wish you wouldn’t drink so much.”

  I glanced over at him sharply. “Why? Do you have a problem with it?”

  “Yeah,” he admitted. “I do.”

  “Well, it doesn’t really matter what you think.” I shook my head angrily. Who did he think he was to think he had any say in the amount of alcohol I ingested? We’d had a one night stand and we were co-songwriters; that didn’t give him the right to go acting like he had any right to parent me. “I haven’t had a father my entire life. I don’t need one now.”

  His blue eyes darted over to meet mine. “I didn’t know that…about your father.”

  I stared out the window, avoiding his gaze. “That’s because we barely know each other.” Just because he probably knew what everything down under looked like (unless we did it in the dark) didn’t mean he actually knew me.

  “I’m sorry.” There was a genuine note of sympathy in his voice.

  “Thanks, but don’t be sorry. It is what it is.” Sympathy was my second most hated thing in the world (my first, in case you’re wondering, is peanut butter. Peanut butter is the grossest thing ever).

  “Can I ask what happened to your dad?” Colton asked.

  “He died.” The lie came easy and effortless; it was the same lie I’d been telling people my entire life. My father—AKA the donor of the sperm that created me—may not have really been dead, but he might as well have been. He was to me.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. His jaw tightened as he glanced away from me and stared at the road ahead of us. There was an intense look behind his eyes, unlike anything I’d ever seen from him before. I got the feeling that he wanted to say something, but he kept his mouth shut.

  We drove in silence the rest of the way back to my apartment building. When he pulled into the parking lot and slid into a space, I glanced over at him. “Thank you for driving me home. I’m pretty sure I can take it from here.”

  There was still a slight slur in my voice, but it wasn’t as bad as it’d been earlier. I was pretty sure I would be able to make it back to my apartment, just as long as I could figure out how to work the elevator. Elevators are a better alternative to stairs for staggering drunks, but they can also be extremely difficult to operate when you can barely see straight.

  Colton laughed. “You’re kind of cute when you’re not being crazy. I’m not leaving you here.”

  “You’re not?”

  “Hell no,” he replied. “Let’s take a second and do the math here. It’s already three a.m., and we’ll be writing together at nine a.m. If I were to go home right now, I would get less than six hours to sleep before I have to come back here, not to mention the fact that I’d get to waste money on gas. Does any of that make sense to you?”

  The only thing I understood was that he wasn’t leaving me by myself, which must’ve meant that he was coming inside. Holy crap.

  Natalie’s last text message entered my mind again. Was I planning to sleep with him? I was a hot mess, but… I’d been a hot mess the first time we’d had sex. What difference did it make? Maybe getting it on while we were drunk was our thing. Shit, maybe that was the whole entire reason Colton was coming back to my apartment with me—for a wham, bam, thank you, ma’am visit. The weird part was that I was pretty sure I was okay with that.

  There I was again, letting my vajayjay call the shots when I was drunk.

  Oh, well.

  I was going to do it with Colton King again and I wasn’t going to have any regrets. I was going to prove to him that he was right, that I could be crazy...in the bedroom, that is.

  Chapter 15

  The next morning when I woke up, I stretched out the same way I usually did in the morning, except this time, I ended up hitting someone across the face.

  Colton jolted up in bed, seemingly startled, and glanced over at me. He breathed a sigh of relief. “You’re awake.”

  Shit.

  It felt like history was repeating itself. Well, minus that whole me hitting him across the face thing—that part was new. But waking up next to him again wasn’t.

  “Yeah, sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you. But what are you doing here?” I questioned. This time was sort of different. I remembered him bringing me back to my apartment complex, but what happened from that point on was a complete blur in my mind.

  That seemed to happen a lot when Colton and I ran into each other at nightclubs/bars, apparently. It was like I developed some weird form of amnesia, a type that only let me forget what happened when he and I were in bed together.

  “I had to rescue your drunken ass last night. You were so wasted. You thought you were talking to Owen Wilson and that Skylar was with Ricky Martin—”

  “I remember that!” I laughed. “That guy actually looked nothing like Owen Wilson now that I think about it, but are you sure she wasn’t dancing with Ricky Martin? I still think she was.”

  “Trust me, I’m sure.” He laughed. “Anyway, she went home with him last night, and you were drunk, so I drove you home. Then when we got back to your apartment, I realized how pointless it would be for me to go home when I was just going to be coming back again this morning to write with you. So, I decided to stay.”

  “Okay, but that still doesn’t explain what you’re doing in my bed,” I pointed out in an almost accusing tone of voice. “There are two perfectly good sofas for you to crash on in the living room and a floor if you’re so inclined.”

  “That may be true, but you insisted that I sleep in here with you.”

  “I did?” I asked with raised eyebrows. That didn’t sound like me at all, but come to think of it… I really did want to get it on with him the night before.

  “You practically begged me.”

  Crap. Shit. Fuck. I hadn’t begged him to have sex with me, too... had I?

  “And I was sort of afraid to leave you here alone, anyway,” he went on. “You puked on my shoes.”

  I gaped at him, completely horrified. “I did?”

  He nodded.

  I cupped my mouth, trying to hide my embarrassment. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I didn’t really like them anyway,” he replied with a shrug. Then he rolled out of bed. “So, I’m not trying to break your heart or anything, but I’m going to make you coffee today instead of getting it from Giorgi’s.”

  “Okay,” I replied with a small smile. I could think of far more heartbreaking things in life than Colton King making me my morning coffee.

  As he stepped out of my room
and headed for the kitchen, I stretched again and then climbed out of bed.

  At least I’d actually woken up with my clothes on this morning. That must’ve meant that we hadn’t had sex the night before.

  Well, clearly we hadn’t. Who would want to have sex with someone who’d puked on his shoes? What a turn-off that must’ve been for him.

  I sucked.

  Doing a onceover in the mirror, I realized something. The clothes I’d gone to sleep in weren’t the same clothes I’d gone out to the club in the night before. Did that mean that I’d somehow changed my clothes… or had Colton dressed me?

  I didn’t know. Scratch that, I didn’t even want to know. The idea of him helping me change my clothes after I’d just puked all over him was completely horrifying.

  Deciding to stay in my pajamas, I stepped out into the hallway. I could hear the sound of the Keurig working its magic.

  As I stepped into the kitchen and slid into one of the chairs, he set my hot pink coffee mug, which read This Bitch Doesn’t Do Mornings, down on the table in front of me. “Here you go. This should help ease your hangover.”

  “Actually, I don’t feel too hungover today,” I admitted.

  His eyes widened. “I don’t see how with all you drank last night. I figured you must be a lightweight.”

  “Nope. I can handle my booze like a champ.” I paused and then realized something. “What were you doing at the Wild Frog last night, anyway?” I asked with raised eyebrows.

  It wasn’t the most popular of L.A.’s bars that celebrities frequented. What were the chances that Colton and I would both happen to show up on the same night?

  “I was actually meeting someone there,” he explained. “The person cancelled on me almost as soon as I got there, though. That’s when I spotted you.”

  “I see.” I wondered if ‘the person’ who he was supposed to be meeting there was Mystery Girl. Maybe he wanted to tell her how dead sexy she was and that he wanted her to fly away with him…

  Okay, I seriously needed to stop that. If anyone listened to my last album, they would’ve thought I was either a brokenhearted psycho or straight up pathetic. It would probably never cross anyone’s mind that I was actually over Jake, since, um, it was hard to believe that someone who’d written those desperate-sounding song lyrics could ever move on.

  Of course, I was sure there were probably also those who just thought my songs about him had been written to sell albums. If only they knew how much my album sales had sunk as a result.

  “So, are you feeling up to writing today?” Colton questioned.

  I hesitated for a moment. I didn’t feel hungover or anything of that sort. And although I knew it was technically his turn to write the next verse, I just didn’t feel inspired. At first, I thought it was because of my crazy drinking night, but I began to wonder if it was because I felt such an emotional disconnect from the song.

  Glancing across the table at him, I admitted, “I think I need a break.”

  “Then a break is what you will get.” He paused for a moment, a thoughtful look in his eyes. “Hey, do you want to get out of here for a while? Go for a walk or something? It’s pretty nice out.”

  “Sure,” I agreed with a shrug. “Let me get dressed.”

  “Okay, cool. I’ll wait out here.”

  I glanced at his clothing, noticing that it looked fresh. I wasn’t sure when he’d changed his clothes, but he must’ve.

  Once I was back inside my bedroom, I stepped into my walk-in closet and tried to decide what to wear. We were just going for a walk, but I still wanted to look cute.

  After a few moments of deliberation, I finally settled on a black and pink floral dress. I chose a pair of pink flats. I guess you could say I had a mild case of PTSD when it came to wearing heels around Colton.

  When I stepped back into the hallway, I heard the sound of Skylar’s voice coming from the living room.

  As I stepped inside, she glanced over her shoulder and her light brown eyes met mine. “Hey, Vi!”

  “Hey. Did you just get home?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Yeah, I stayed out all night with Enrique.”

  My eyes darted over to meet Colton’s. “See, I told you. That’s Ricky Martin’s first name.”

  He laughed. “Okay, whatever you say. If you want to believe he really was Ricky Martin, who am I to stop you?”

  “Thank you,” I replied, proud of my ability to put two and two together.

  Skylar just stared at us blankly for a moment. Then she seemed to resign to being left in the dark and said, “I guess I should let the two of you get headed for your walk. I, on the other hand, am going to try to go get some sleep, since Lord knows I didn’t get any last night.”

  “Goodnight,” I told her.

  “See you soon, I’m sure,” Colton added.

  “I sure hope so.” She batted her eyelashes at him again.

  I held back my eye roll. I knew he was cute, but come on. Was he so cute that she had to flirt with him every time she saw him?

  Yeah. Yeah, I guess he was, and I couldn’t say that I wouldn’t have been doing the same if I were in her shoes. But I still found it irritating.

  “Are you ready?” he asked me.

  “Yeah, let’s get out of here,” I replied, making a dash for the door. I didn’t know where we were going for a walk but anywhere had to be better than being cooped up in this apartment with my flirty roommate.

  Chapter 16

  I let Colton lead the way. He took us to a park about three blocks away from my apartment.

  “You know, I’ve actually never been to this park,” I commented as we walked down a stone path in between lines of trees on either side. “I usually go to Hollenbeck Park.”

  “Yeah, there’s not a whole lot here,” he admitted. “I just like to come here to think sometimes. It’s a good place for me to clear my mind, you know? It’s actually where I do a lot of my writing.”

  My eyebrows rose. “Wow, really? Don’t people bother you too much? I figured they would just swarm around you when you play.”

  “I usually try to write verses in my head before I sing them out loud,” Colton explained. “And every once in a while, someone will ask me for an autograph or something, but most of the time, people seem to leave me alone. I don’t think people recognize me as much when I dress down.”

  “Hmm.” It was hard to imagine anyone not recognizing him. I mean, come on, his face was on the front cover of People magazine, and trust me… it wasn’t the first time you’d find him staring back at you when you were waiting in line at the grocery store. I was pretty sure that his gorgeousness must’ve spurred magazine sales, so he got featured on the front cover a lot.

  “My dad always used to bring my brother and me to this park when I was a kid,” Colton finally said, his voice slicing through the silence that hung in the air between us. “I guess that’s the reason I like it so much. So many memories here.”

  Aww. That was sweet. Even though he had this uncanny ability to drive me nuts like no one else could and he could be a dick sometimes, he apparently did have an emotional side, too. That surprised me.

  “I used to wish I had a family to go to the park with,” I admitted. It was the first time I’d ever said anything like that aloud to anyone besides Skylar and Finn, but something about confiding in Colton somehow just felt…well, effortless. It was a feeling that I’d never really experienced with anyone before.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what that must have been like,” he murmured, a faraway look in his eyes. “Did you grow up in foster care?”

  I shook my head. “No. I might’ve been better off in foster care,” I said bitterly, even though I’d heard enough horror stories about kids who grew up in the foster system to know that probably wasn’t true.

  “That bad, huh?” He glanced over at me with a concerned look in his eyes.

  “My mom just wasn’t around much,” I replied with a shrug. “I’d rather not talk about it.”
>
  “I understand.” We walked in silence for a few more moments before he spoke again. “What made you want to be a singer?”

  “You know, I actually hate that job title,” I told him. “I don’t consider myself a singer. A singer is someone who just sings songs that have been written for them. I’d like to think I do more than that… and so do you. We don’t just sing music… we create it. We’re musicians.”

  “Touché.” He nodded, a grin taking over his lips. “Let me rephrase that, then. What made you want to be a musician?”

  “When I was younger, life wasn’t easy. A lot of the time, I felt really alone. The songs I heard on the radio and on TV were the only thing that helped me make it through. Music was sort of like my therapy.” I paused for a moment before continuing. “When I was in high school, I started writing poetry—another therapeutic outlet. I never showed them to anyone. Then one day, it occurred to me… why not turn my poems into songs? And why not write and sing them? I learned everything I could—I taught myself how to play the guitar and the keyboard.”

  Wow. I may have left out the part about how my mom’s death was what had given me the real push I’d needed to pursue my career, but I’d never shared this much with anyone. Even Finn and Skylar had no idea about my poetry. I usually kept these details to myself, because they were too difficult to talk about. I wasn’t sure what made Colton so different, but something did…clearly.

  “Wow…that’s pretty cool,” he replied as we turned down another path.

  “How about you? What made you want to be a musician and not just a singer?” I asked teasingly.

  “When I was a kid, I used to sing in the choir. Everyone said I had a really good voice. My dad always said he thought I should go ahead and make a career out of it, so I did.” He shrugged.

  “You make it sound so easy—like anyone can do it.”

  Colton laughed. “So do you. If I read your story in an interview, I’d assume any girl who has a shoebox full of poems in her closet can just turn them into songs with the snap of a finger. You seem to forget that you were also blessed with an amazing voice.”