The Songwriter

by Jensen, A. P.

  “I can teach you,” Trey said with such confidence that she believed him.

  “What about my clients?”

  “The tour is six months. Whatever you agreed to during that time, I’ll make sure you have the time and space you need to write. I’ll fly you to your clients if I have to.”

  Gwen began to shake her foot again and tried to bring her thoughts into focus. She could do video chats, phone calls and email for the most part. The hardest thing would be to find the quiet and time during a hectic tour schedule. There was only one client that wouldn’t accept the distance, but she could deal with him when the time came. Trey knelt down on his knees in front of her and gravely took her hand.

  Gwen shook her head. “You’re insane.”

  “I’m serious. Come on tour with me. I’ll take care of everything.”

  “I have stage fright.”

  “I figured. I can help with that.”

  “Telling me not to have stage fright isn’t going to work,” she snapped.

  “Four songs per show and I’ll still be onstage with you for each one. It’s six months and I’ll pay you what Natasha would make.”

  She gaped at him, well aware how much Natasha made on these tours. “Why would you do that?”

  “That’s how much I believe in you.”

  Damn his smooth hide. That line sold her and she looked into those wicked blue eyes of his and knew that for him… she would do whatever it took.

  “How do we do this shit?” Gwen sighed.

  Chapter Three

  The next day Gwen was having an anxiety attack in a bathroom stall when Trey slammed open the door to the women’s room. Gwen didn’t answer when Trey called her name but he knew her too well. He put his eye right up to the gap in the door.

  “Damn it, Gwen! I thought you didn’t show up!” he shouted.

  She crossed her arms. “I-I changed my mind. I don’t want to help you. I don’t c-care about the tour.”

  “Open the door.”

  Gwen shook her head and when he disappeared, she let out a breath of relief until he appeared above her in the next stall. Gwen shrieked and cursed as he jumped into her stall, unlocked the door and dragged her out of the women’s bathroom while she pummeled his arm.

  “You can’t make me do this!” Gwen yelled as he dragged her down the hallway.

  People stopped and stared.

  “Too late. You’re committed. Everybody’s waiting.”

  “Who’s waiting?” she shrieked.

  Trey kicked open a door and Gwen went limp as she took in the beautiful white stage with lights and moving parts that would change throughout the show. They were in a warehouse where the stage crew ran around, making sure the sound and lights were just right. Angie paced in front of the stage with an unlit cigarette in her mouth and turquoise heels. Angie came to a stop when she saw Gwen and tapped her shoe. Gwen didn’t have to hear Angie speak to know she thought this was a cruel joke. People called out greetings as Trey hauled Gwen over to the stage and thrust a microphone into her hand. Gwen’s hand shook so badly she almost dropped it. Everyone stopped what they were doing. Trey walked to the edge of the stage and addressed them all.

  “Gwen is going to take Natasha’s place,” he announced.

  Dead silence.

  “But, does she sing?” someone ventured.

  “You think I’d replace Natasha with someone that can’t sing?” Trey snapped.

  Gwen wished the trap door she was standing on would swallow her so she could disappear beneath the stage and run like hell. Trey turned to her, every inch the demanding superstar.

  “Sing,” he commanded.

  Gwen’s mouth opened and closed and she was suddenly drenched in cold sweat. A spotlight clicked on and she couldn’t see the crew anymore but she knew they were there, watching and listening. Bile rose in her throat. Trey waved his hand to get her attention and she looked at him through dilated eyes.

  “You’re fine,” he said. “Sing to me.”

  She opened and closed her mouth and heard Angie snort derisively. Gwen shook her head to clear it and her whole body trembled.

  “I can’t,” she whispered.

  “Everybody leave,” Trey commanded.

  For a moment no one moved but when he cast a dangerous look around they scrambled out of the warehouse. Gwen tried to tell him it wasn’t necessary but her throat was so dry she thought she was going to vomit. She grabbed a bottle of water and drank half of it before she felt as if she wouldn’t faint. She sank to her knees and buried her face in her hands.

  “I’m telling you, I can’t do this,” she whispered.

  “You can. Get up.”

  Trey held out his hand. She looked up at his implacable face and let him pull her up. He didn’t say anything for a moment so she strolled over to the stand where his guitar was. She ran her hands over the strings and took a deep, bracing breath.

  “Is it the audience that freaks you out?”

  “I guess.” She shook her head and drank more water. “I don’t like being in front of people. I never have.”

  He looked her up and down. “I never thought of you as timid. Your mouth is usually running all the time.”

  She shot him an irritated look. “I’m not timid. Talking to you one on one is different than being onstage.”

  “Why? Think of singing onstage as you and I just chatting.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “I’m serious. Just sing to me.”

  “I don’t like singing in front of anybody!” she said, stomping her foot in frustration.

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t think I sound good.”

  He put his hands on her shoulders and shook her. “Gwen, listen to me. I’m a great singer.”

  “Is that supposed to help me feel better?” she asked scathingly.

  He shook her again. “And you are a great singer too.” She rolled her eyes as he continued, “You’re not Natasha. No one else will ever be like her. It’s the same with you. Natasha can’t sing the way you do and I’m telling you, if you can do what I heard in the sound room Natasha will lose her mind.”

  She looked at him for a long minute. “Are you trying to suck up to me?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  She paced the length of the stage and shaded her eyes from the blinding light.

  “What’s going on in your head?”

  “How did I get myself into this?”

  He snickered. “You were born for this, you just don’t know it. Stop thinking you can get out of this because you can’t.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “How can I make you feel-” Trey plucked his guitar from the stand and handed it to her with a flourish.

  Despite her current predicament, Gwen was touched. “You’re giving it to me?”

  “If you make it through the tour, it’s yours.”

  She strapped it on, closed her eyes and ran her fingers over the strings and before she thought better of it, played the beginning of The Better Man.

  “Alright. We’re in business. Now sing to me.”

  Trey stood in front of her, blocking the light with his body. His eyes seemed more piercing than ever because of the white stage and they temporarily mesmerized her. She played the chords for the song but didn’t sing. She was gearing herself up for it but she wasn’t quite there yet. She didn’t want to admit she was intimidated by Trey. He was a friend and that was separate from his professional life of being a country superstar. Being onstage with him brought back years of hero worship and watching him entertain thousands of fans screaming his name. The thought of measuring up to Trey and Natasha made her throat close up.

  He cocked his head to the side. “So you think I should cancel the tour?”

  She blanched. “No.”

  “There are over one hundred people hired for this tour, expecting it to take off in less than two weeks. Those people lose their job if you don’t sing.”

  No pressure.
Gwen licked dry lips and began to sing.

  I have a man that loves me,

  that holds me at night

  Her voice cracked on the first line but Trey’s expression didn’t change. She struggled through her own song and was mortified with all the inconsistencies in her voice. She grit her teeth in frustration because she knew she was better than this.

  “You need more confidence.”

  “I have confidence!”

  He wagged that damn long finger in her face again. “You have confidence in songwriting, not singing. What if I replaced you with one of the girls from yesterday?”

  “I’d tell you that you’re better off canceling the tour.”

  “Okay. You need to change what you’re thinking when you sing. Whatever you’re thinking comes out in your voice. I can hear you holding back and doubting yourself. If you believe in your song, it should translate into your voice.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “You believe in the songs you write?”

  She stared at him and emotions he didn’t understand passed through her eyes. “You’re trying to sing The Better Man the way Natasha does. Stop. Only Natasha can pull that off. We’re going to sing the song the way you wrote it. I think it’s more powerful that way.”

  Natasha and Trey were rock stars. They hit hard, loud and fast with a lot of energy. Doing the songs acoustic was going against the grain, but she secretly applauded Trey for the change. The songs had much more impact acoustic and it was one thing in her favor.

  Trey smiled. “You’re not coming on tour to be Natasha. You’re coming on as yourself and we’re going to do things different.”

  “Natasha’s going to shit a brick.”

  “It’s about time we shook it up, huh? I kicked her out of my life and I want to start fresh. You can help me with that. New start, new kind of tour. You feel me?”

  She so badly wanted to help him break his Natasha habit. “I feel you.”

  “Okay. Let’s do this. Sing to me.”

  They faced each other and she began to play the guitar again and unconsciously rocked from side to side. Moving was as much a part of her as writing lyrics. Her body moved with the beat and she closed her eyes to fall into the lyrics. I can do this, she thought. It’s just Trey and he thinks I can sing. He won’t laugh.

  Should I marry the one

  who loves me for who I am

  Or hope one day

  you’ll see the real me?

  “Look at me, Gwen.”

  She opened her eyes and immediately began to stumble over her words.

  “It’s just me,” he said and spread his arms wide as if there was absolutely no reason for her to be nervous.

  Gwen shot him a dirty look. Oh yeah, nothing to worry about. It’s just Trey Phoenix, voted sexiest man alive three years in a row and the largest country superstar in the world. It took several seconds for her to find her rhythm again.

  “Louder, Gwen. It’s just you and me.”

  I have a man that loves me,

  that holds me at night

  “Say it like you mean it.”

  He tells me he loves me everyday

  He wants what I do,

  a stable home, children

  “Move around the stage,” he said.

  She obliged and felt like she was in a marching band as he told her to walk here and there, sing louder and “again, from the top!” On her third try, Trey grabbed a mic and jumped in during his part.

  I can’t give you what you need

  The man who put that ring

  on your finger loves you

  Goose bumps rippled over her skin. This is why I write songs, she thought. She just stared at him for several moments, frozen by his voice. When he raised his brows at her, she stumbled through her lines. She waited for Trey to get angry or impatient, but he was unnaturally calm and patient and that helped her relax bit by bit.

  Trey stared at her as he sang his lines.

  I can’t give you more,

  I’m not the man you think I am

  Marry the better man

  They finished the song together and he tapped his chin. “Better. Now we have to work on the emotion.”

  “What?” Gwen was outraged.

  “You had the emotion in the sound room. Out here, you’re just singing. I want to feel it. The audience needs to see it on your face. They need to buy into the fact that this song is about you and me. Got it?”

  She swallowed. “Yeah.”

  “Good. Now give me the guitar.”

  Reluctantly, she handed it over and felt naked. He handed her the mic and she clutched it with both hands. Trey started the song again and it felt so weird to be without an instrument that she stumbled again when she sang. Trey patiently restarted the song until he seemed satisfied. As soon as they reached the end of the song, Trey would “take it from the top” and they would begin all over again. It became so repetitive that she had no choice but to relax. She forgot about the spotlight and focused on blending their voices together.

  She pictured Trey singing when she wrote these songs, but the reality of it was amazing. Standing within an arm’s length of him when he sang at the top of his range nearly bowled her over. She was stunned when he asked her for tips to make his voice shine during the acoustic version. When he immediately adjusted his voice to hers, she felt a little star struck and berated herself. After being around Trey thirteen years it was ridiculous to have such a juvenile reaction to his voice but she did.

  She looked around the warehouse and tried to imagine the stadiums that they would perform in and felt her legs tremble. If she thought too closely on what she was about to do, her throat closed up and she felt ill. But if she just focused on the here and now… it was kind of fun. She had the best singing teacher money could buy and he was focused exclusively on her.

  Someone cleared their throat and Gwen looked around and saw Angie standing with her arms folded on the stage, crooking her finger. She tried to look aloof but inside she trembled as she ambled over. She waited for Angie to tell her this wasn’t going to work.

  “So,” Angie drawled. “Where the hell you been hiding that voice, girl?”

  Gwen went beet red. Angie was an all-around hard ass and that compliment from her meant the world. Gwen did a little bounce like a twelve year old.

  “Really?”

  Angie chewed her bubble gum and popped a bubble before she answered. “I thought he was nuts when he told me. He’s always had a thing for you. I never understood it but now that I’ve heard you together…” Another bubble pop. “I think I can do something with this.”

  Gwen felt her heart swell so big she couldn’t breathe. Angie held up one finger.

  “But there’s more to a show than finding someone to sing. You need presence, you need to command the audience and make them believe in the story you’re telling. You feel me?”

  Trey texted the crew to come back to the warehouse. Gwen shifted nervously as people filed back in. Alan, the bass player copied Angie below.

  “You can sing?” Alan asked.

  “Sure as shit,” Angie drawled.

  Trey called Gwen back to him. While the crew and band gossiped about her, she squirmed and tried to look for a place to hide on the flat stage.

  “Okay, let’s take it from the top,” Trey said.

  She kept forgetting to hold the microphone in the right position and Trey corrected her several times throughout the song. When her attention strayed, Trey would invade her space and stroke his hand down her face or use bedroom eyes on her. That made her stumble a bit but she recovered quickly. They “took it from the top” so many times that Gwen lost count. Gwen wanted to bang her head against the wall and she forgot about the people milling around because she was so pissed off that she didn’t care if they watched.

  “I think I know the song, Trey, I kinda freaking wrote it!” she growled.

  “You wrote it and you can sing it, but you’ve never performed it, have you?”
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  She was surprised she didn’t break the microphone in half. “That’s what I’m doing right now!”

  “No,” he corrected. “You’re standing in one place onstage and singing as if you’re singing about strangers.”

  She glared balefully at him. “Singing the song two hundred times with feeling would put me into a coma.”

  “You think you’re ready to perform?”

  “Yeah.”

  Trey clapped his hands together and everyone stopped.

  “Can everyone gather in front of the stage for a second?” Trey shouted.

  Gwen went rigid as people came out of the woodworks and clustered in front of the stage. Her hands began to sweat and her knees felt weak again. There was now around fifty people staring at her silently, waiting. Trey turned to her, bowed slightly and backed away. She cursed him, took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She remembered to raise the mic to her lips after the first verse. She didn’t want to “take it from the top” again so she sang the song with as much umph as she could on a huge white stage with a cluster of onlookers.

  When she finished, there was a horrible moment of silence. She opened her eyes and looked out over the crowd. She met Alan’s eyes as his mouth curved and he began to clap. Others joined until the crowd whistled and cheered. A blush crept over her cheeks and she wasn’t sure whether she should curtsy or give the Miss America wave. Before she could decide Trey came up beside her.

  “As you can see, we have a lot of work. Thanks, everybody, you can get back to work,” Trey said.

  Gwen whirled on him. “What?”

  “You think you can sing at the shows with your eyes closed?”

  Gwen had to restrain herself from pushing him off the stage. She groaned when he said what was becoming her least favorite phrase in the world.

  “From the top!”

  Chapter Four

  “Gwen, move around the stage!”

  “Gwen, open your eyes when you sing!”