Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 114223 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114223 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
“Take a picture. It lasts longer.” New Girl threw my words back at me from her spot by the window. The sharp-edged crescent moon winked behind her shoulder. “I can see your reflection through the glass,” she explained as an afterthought, a sad lilt in her voice.
Our eyes met in said reflection. Time stood still.
I still hated her.
I still wanted her gone.
But for the first time since she tagged along, I was starting to suspect she might not be as useless as I’d originally viewed her. It was that curve between her neck and her shoulder that did it. I wanted to bite that spot, produce blood, and write the lyrics of my next song with it. And the fucked-up thing about it was that this was my train of thought when I wasn’t using.
“You chased my muse away.” My tone was low, lazy, and sort of psychotic. Even to my own ears.
“And?” She didn’t bother turning around.
“And now you owe me. So it’s a good thing you’re in my possession.”
“Your possession?” she echoed, incredulous. “I’m not your anything, Winslow.”
“You are. For three months. I have a signed contract to prove it, and now I’m going to take what’s inside you and put it in my notebook, because I’m empty and you’re full.”
It was weird. To say the truth out loud. The truth was meant to be whispered, not shouted, but I didn’t care what she thought of me, so I stood up and grabbed my leather jacket, not bothering to offer it to her.
“Meet me outside your hotel room at midnight,” I said.
She opened her mouth. I didn’t stay long enough to listen to what she had to say.
I was going to get my muse back and write that album.
Take over Billboard with every single I released and make it my bitch.
Reclaim my title as king of alternative music from that wanker, Will Bushell.
And claim what was mine. What had always been mine. Fallon.
Even if I had to cheat my way or bulldoze through everyone else to get it.
Legs stretched and crossed at the ankles, Tania in hand, my fingers flew over the fret board as I tried to come up with a melody. My back was pressed against my door, so I had a direct view to New Girl’s door. Our rooms were in front of one another. Jenna had asked Hudson, my PA, to make sure New Girl was always ten feet or closer in all the hotels we’d stayed in.
At five past midnight, her door opened and she stepped out.
She was wearing red plaid PJ shorts and a gray hoodie with the name of a college she couldn’t possibly afford plastered on it. I motioned to her with my chin to sit down, and she did. Her face, clean of makeup and pretense, was rapt. She slid down her door, tucking her knees under her chin, blinking at me. I couldn’t decide if she had no personality at all, or too much of it. I was about to find out.
I continued moving the pick over the strings of the acoustic guitar, ignoring the red, lush carpet and impersonal hallway, and imagined we were someplace real. A house or a beach or a cobblestoned London street with the bite of rain pinching at our nostrils.
“Why am I here?” she asked.
“I’m asking myself the same question.” I stared at my callused fingers strumming Tania before looking up. “You’re hanging onto this job for dear life. You in some sort of trouble?”
“No,” she said, not taken aback by my candor. “I have a nephew. His parents can’t find steady jobs, and he deserves more. More than we’re giving him. More than constant ear infections. More than drinking milk that expired two days ago because it’s cheaper. Just…more.”
I poked my lip out, considering her answer. I didn’t care too much for my family. In fact, the part I dreaded the most about the tour—along with trying to come up with new songs—was seeing my mum, dad, and older sister, Carly. If I was going to see them at all.
“What’s his name?” I asked, not entirely sure why. I never felt compelled to be polite, least of all to people who were on my payroll.
“Ziggy.” She smiled. Her smile wasn’t as annoying. Dimpled and genuine and Botox-less. Big lips. Small teeth. I liked it. Flaws were intimate. Telling. Pure. Indigo was pretty. Like a wasted sunset, beautiful in a taken-for-granted sort of way.
“Like the David Bowie album?” My eyebrows fell into a frown. I banged up a few notes on Tania, and they actually made sense. Maybe I was remembering “Starman” or “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide.” Though it sounded different, fresh.
“My brother is a fan.” She stared up and started absentmindedly chewing on her bottom lip. “Ziggy is two years old. Smart, funny, and kind. I always tell him he is Ziggy, and I am…”