Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57804 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57804 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
An ache echoed through my entire chest as I buried my face in my hands, memories flashing behind my eyelids. I thought that things would be perfect after that night. We finally showed each other that we cared, and I thought that the guy I loved was mine. I thought I was his.
But I didn’t hear from him after that night. He didn’t answer his phone. He wasn’t at home. I had to ask my best friend where her brother was, only to find out that he randomly took off to take a drive. He didn’t come back in time for me to say goodbye before I left for New York, and we never saw each other since then.
I thought about him every single day, wondering what I did wrong and what was going through his head. Did he just want to sleep with me and that was why he ditched me? Or did he realize that I wasn’t what he wanted? Every scenario that ran through my head was a painful one, and I had to face the fact that the guy I fell for didn’t love me back.
What a great start to my romantic life, and as of lately, it hadn’t gotten much better. I was already wary about working with a band before learning more about them. Now, I wanted to call Mark and tell him that I couldn’t do it. How could I work with the man who’d tossed me aside like trash after what I thought was a special moment together?
If he wanted to stomp on my romantic life, whatever. But he wasn’t going to ruin my music career with his selfishness. If he thought that he could run this show and use my voice for profit, he had another think coming.
Chapter 2
Ryder
“Alright, that’s a wrap for today!”
The other band members of Amos and the Collectibles stretched and gathered their things as we ended our studio time for the day. We had been working for the past few hours on a new song, playing around with some instrumental ideas and brainstorming themes and new things to try.
There was one idea lingering in the back of my mind that I hadn’t pitched quite yet though.
“My arms are beat,” Wyatt, our drummer, muttered as he twirled a drumstick around his fingers with ease. He never held back when he played, but the same could be said for the rest of us.
We devoted a lot of our lives to our music, and I even had a small building constructed on the cattle ranch I owned that served as our own studio. My parents were ranchers and handed me down the Overton Ranch, but I knew that I was born to do music the moment I got a guitar for Christmas at ten years old. I could handle both responsibilities.
“A drummer is useless with sore arms,” Carson, our rhythm guitarist and the youngest member of our band at twenty-five, commented with a smirk as he shrugged on his black jean jacket.
Amos, our dark-haired lead singer, ruffled Carson’s slightly shaggy, blonde hair from behind.
“You complained all day about your fingers hurting because you forgot your guitar picks,” he chuckled.
I shared an amused look with Jesse, our bassist and the only parent in the band. Some of us had been friends for years, while others were new connections. Regardless of the time we spent together, we were a tight-knit group with a shared love for music and the same goal of spreading it as much as we could.
Granted, it wasn’t all that easy being in a tiny town like Chalice Falls, but the local support was greater than we could ever imagine. All we had to do was speed up our momentum, and I thought of the perfect way to mix things up.
“I’ve been thinking of some different ways for us to really make this new single stand out among the other things we’ve done before,” I told the band as we huddled in the main room of the studio, which glowed from vintage-colored light bulbs and was decorated with an abstract, red and black rug, framed records, and a leather lounge chair set. It was home right next to home for me.
“Electronic country album,” Carson pitched.
“Absolutely not,” Jesse scoffed as he crossed his arms over his chest.
“We should bring in a female vocalist,” I told them, feeling a twinge of nervousness deep in my chest once the words left my mouth. I wasn’t anxious about pitching an idea to my band. We did that all the time. However, this certain idea… had some baggage to it.
“Another singer? I don’t know, man,” Wyatt replied with an unsure look on his face. “Amos handles all that well himself.”
“And would it really have that big of an impact to bring in another vocalist on this song? I’m sure we can think of more ideas that’ll get more people’s attention,” Jesse spoke up.