No Place Like You Read online

  “I didn’t hear you,” he continued, as though he hadn’t noticed that she hadn’t replied to his greeting. “Did you knock?”

  “I just got here,” she said. “Just this second,” she added. No way did she want Zach knowing that she’d been standing outside the door, hesitating like a weirdo.

  “Good.” He held the door open with one arm, angling himself sideways so there was room for her to squeeze past. “Come in.

  She managed to pass him without actually touching him by practically sliding her butt against the doorframe. She held her breath as she did so, not wanting to get a noseful of that familiar delicious Zach smell and lose her cool.

  Once inside, she kept moving, heading into the rehearsal room without waiting for him. It was messier than the day she’d asked Zach to hire her. There were three guitar cases propped against the wall, not just one, though it was still Grey’s old Martin cradled carefully in the stand nearest the mic and stool set up in the middle of the room. A pair of high-tech sneakers and a backpack lay on the floor behind the stool, and a tangle of cables and pedals curled around them. A laptop, a water bottle, and a yellow legal pad covered in Zach’s familiar black scrawl sat on the small table along with packets of M&M’s and pretzels. Classic Zach supplies.

  He’d always loved M&M’s, though he insisted that the green ones tasted weird.

  Just Zach, she reminded herself again. The boy whose taste in M&M’s she knew. The boy who never liked wearing shoes inside unless it was officially freezing. The boy who’d been mad for guitars as long as she’d known him.

  The man who’d given her one of the best nights of her life and then left her behind.

  No.

  Not going to think about that.

  Behind her came the sound of the screen door creaking shut, and then footsteps across the floorboards.

  Right. Time to get a grip.

  “Looks like you’ve been busy,” she said, turning to face him.

  Zach. The right-here, right-now Zach, who looked so damn good despite all her intentions not to notice. His inky blue T-shirt somehow made his eyes look extra green.

  She took a breath.

  “Well, I’ve been working,” he said. “Not much to show for it yet.” His mouth twisted. She knew that expression. The face of a musician wrestling with a cranky song.

  “It’s only been a couple of days.” She did soothing-the-musician voice on autopilot. It was part of her job, talking nervous artists off the ledge, getting them to take the leap of faith necessary to make something magical out of nothing.

  He hitched a shoulder. “I know.”

  “So what did you want to talk to me about?” Her voice sounded overly cheery, but hopefully he wouldn’t notice.

  “I wanted to say, um … crap, wait here.” He disappeared into the back room where there was a tiny kitchen beyond the recording booth.

  He reappeared fairly quickly, before she had time to wonder what the hell he was doing.

  In his hands he had a familiar pink-and-white striped bakery box.

  He held it out toward her. “Here.”

  She took it. The familiar yeasty smell of fried dough wafted up to her. “Doughnuts? From The Last Crumb?” Why was he buying her doughnuts?

  “Faith said they’re your favorite.”

  And why, exactly, was Faith discussing Leah’s pastry preferences with Zach? She frowned at the box, trying to ignore how good the doughnuts smelled.

  “I wanted to apologize for the other day,” Zach continued. “I was a jerk.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “You were.” He was apologizing? What was going on?

  “So, um, sorry. I shouldn’t have been rude. I could say I’ve had a bad couple of weeks, but that’s not an excuse.”

  “No, it’s not.” She took a breath. Which only gave her another lungful of doughnut-scented air. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that lunch had been six hours ago.

  “So I hoped you’d accept the doughnuts and my apology,” he said.

  “Well, the doughnuts are a no-brainer,” she said, keeping her face straight. He’d said “sorry.” She was mostly willing to take that in the spirit intended. Especially when he’d had the sense to sweeten the deal with pastry. But it wouldn’t hurt to tease him a little first. “I love Stella’s doughnuts.”

  His expression turned worried. “And the apology?”

  “Why’s it so important that I accept?” she said. “All your big-shot producers turn you down?” She grinned at him, hoping he’d find the joke funny.

  His expression didn’t change.

  Did that mean …

  “Actually”—Zach took a breath, blew it out—“the answer to that is yes.”

  That shouldn’t make her happy. But it kind of did. Did that make her a terrible person?

  “Go ahead,” Zach said. “You can gloat if you want to.”

  Dammit. She’d forgotten that her knowing him well meant that he had a pretty good handle on how her mind worked too. “Who said I wanted to gloat?”

  “Human nature,” he said. “Pride goeth before a fall and all that crap.”

  “Who did you ask?” she said. Gloating would be petty. She would rise above.

  Zach reeled off a couple of names, including Davis Lewis—not exactly a surprise that he’d said “no” given how notoriously picky the man was these days—and Chen Freakin’ Li.

  “Chen Li turned you down?” Interesting. She would have thought Zach had just the right kind package of talent and platform to interest Chen.

  “No,” Zach said. He folded his arms. “Actually he was interested.”

  “You turned Chen Li down? Seriously?” No one turned Chen down, did they? The guy had a string of Grammy-winning artists and albums to his credit that was too long to list.

  “I sent him a demo,” Zach said. “He did a mix.”

  “And?”

  His expression changed to a scowl so fast she almost flinched. “Let’s just say he had a different vision than I did.”

  “Different?”

  Zach didn’t answer. Instead he flipped open the laptop and then hit a button. The song that came out of the speakers was electronic and poppy. Catchy in a way but hardly what she’d envisioned Zach playing. She could barely make out the acoustic guitar buried deep in the mix.

  “That’s the song?”

  Zach shut the laptop, killing the music. “Yep.” His frown as he stared down at the computer could only be classified as disgusted. “At least it used to be.”

  “So you said no?” She couldn’t imagine it was the direction Zach wanted to take.

  “Yup.”

  “Good decision,” she said. “I don’t know what sound you’re going for exactly but that’s not it.”

  “You know better than Chen Li?”

  She hitched a shoulder. “I know you. Look, I’m sure Chen can make songs that will be hits for you. The question would be, will they be songs you’d want to play for the next twenty years?”

  “Based on a sample of one, I’d say no,” Zach said. He scowled. “Which kind of sucks. I loved what he did for The Scavengers.”

  “Yeah, that was cool.” The Scavengers were another indie-edged rock band like Fringe Dweller. Their album with Chen had gone platinum. Which only made the mix he’d done for Zach even weirder. “But their sound is too much like Fringe Dweller. You need you.”

  “And you know what my sound should be?” He sounded hopeful.

  She shook her head. “Not yet. But I think I could help you find out.”

  He smiled then. One hundred percent pure happy Zach. Happy with her. It shot through her like a lightning bolt. She blinked, but the image of him just floated in front of her closed eyes like it was burned there.

  “I’d like that,” he said.

  Three little words. They shouldn’t feel like a caress over her skin, should they? She fought the urge to rub her hands over her arms where the hairs were prickling with awareness.

  Maybe this wasn’t such a g
ood idea. But it was too good a chance career-wise to pass up. She just needed to control the situation.

  “Right. So how about you send me that song and then I can try some ideas. See if you like mine better than Chen’s.”

  “How long do you need?”

  To be ready for working with him? More time than they had. Maybe forever. But she was going to suck that up and ignore it. “A day or two.” She wasn’t going to rush this. Wasn’t going to screw it up. But she couldn’t take too long. Zach needed to hear what she could do working fast if he was looking to have songs ready for CloudFest. That was a tight deadline to finish songs, get them recorded, and rehearse a set. Not to mention finding the other musicians he’d need. He needed to know that she could get the job done. “You’ve only just started writing, right? So you have plenty to do in the meantime.”

  Zach glanced around. “Yeah, I’m just settling in. Okay. A day or two sounds good.”

  She looked around too. The sky outside was just starting to fade into sunset, the light around them warm and gold and growing darker. It made the studio feel even smaller. Like the walls were wrapping around the two of them, pulling them into a tiny private world. Too intimate.

  “You know,” she said in that overly cheerful voice that kept surfacing around Zach, “I think we should work in the big studio for the first few days. When I’m done with the song, I mean.”

  “Aren’t you busy with Nessa?”

  “Faith got them a two-weekend gig in L.A. They’re leaving Wednesday and won’t be back until the following week. So, perfect timing really.” Timing that might just save her butt. They would still be mostly alone in the big studio, no one else was due in this week, but the studio building was close to the Harper offices and Faith and Theo and the other Harper staff wandered in and out during the day to check out what was happening. Not to mention that the place was just bigger. Less intimate.

  Zach looked unconvinced.

  “The equipment there is better. You have to let me put my best foot forward here.”

  He considered that a moment, then nodded. “Okay. That’s fair. So. That’s settled. I’ll send you the track and you’ll get back to me?”

  She nodded. “Deal.” She tried not to let the grin spreading across her face get too wide. Fist pumps and happy dancing would have to wait until she was safely alone. She was going to produce Zach’s album. Or some of it. She needed to keep her cool around him.

  “Deal,” Zach agreed. He held out his hand.

  Did he seriously want to shake hands? That sounded like a bad idea. She didn’t need to be touching Zach. Not when she wanted to keep her head. But she could hardly refuse to take the man’s hand.

  So she did. And tried to ignore the tingle of delight that passed through her when his skin met hers. She kept the handshake as brief as she could without being weird. Then stepped back. “Right. I should get out of your hair.”

  “All right. But I have one more question.”

  “Yes?”

  He grinned at her and this time it was all kinds of wicked. As was the sudden glint in his eye. “Are you going to share your doughnuts with me?”

  “Hell, no,” she retorted and beat a retreat with the striped box firmly in her grasp.

  chapter seven

  “What happened to you?” Faith asked at lunch the next day.

  “Too many doughnuts,” Leah groaned. “Sugar is the devil’s work.” Though really it was excitement and terror at the thought of working with Zach that had kept her awake last night, not the sugar high. She’d listened to the track he’d sent her—a song called “Falling Through”—about one hundred times already. It was good. But she could make it great.

  “Tasty though,” Faith said. She frowned as the breeze coming through the open French doors in her kitchen blew one of her long curls in her face and pushed it out of the way. Then her face brightened. “Who gave you the devil doughnuts? Was it Zach? Please say it was Zach.”

  Leah nodded. “It was Zach.” She looked down at her plate, speared a piece of salmon out of the salad Faith had made them, so there’d be no chance Faith could read her expression when she said Zach’s name.

  Faith clapped her hands like a toddler who’d just spotted all four Wiggles. “He asked you, didn’t he? To work with him? That’s awesome.”

  “I though you were mad at him?”

  “I am. Kind of. But that doesn’t mean I can’t approve when he does something non-jerkish.”

  “I don’t think that’s even a word.”

  Faith stuck out her tongue. “Sometimes big brothers require a whole new vocabulary to deal with. But he did ask you, right?”

  “Yes. Sort of.”

  “Sort of?” Faith said indignantly. “He should jump at the chance.”

  “No, he shouldn’t,” Leah said. “Not sight unseen. He’s given me one of his songs and I’m doing a mix. A try-out, I guess.”

  “Well you can’t do worse than Chen Li. That track was so very wrong.”

  “He played that for you?”

  Faith shuddered. “Yes.”

  “It wasn’t bad,” Leah said. “What I heard had some interesting stuff going on.” She forked up more salad. Surely if she ate enough vegetables she could reverse the sugar overdose?

  “It wasn’t Zach though,” Faith said.

  “No. I agree with you about that. Zach is not the electro-pop kind. He could pull it off but he’d hate it.”

  “It would be kind of fun to see him in a video trying to do some choreography with a bunch of backup dancers,” Faith said, then burst into laughter.

  Leah laughed too. Zach as boy-band heartthrob trying to shake it was a mental image that was arresting for all the wrong reasons. “Yes, but it wouldn’t be worth the pouting that would accompany it.”

  “No. I guess not,” Faith agreed, looking sad for a moment. “Well, there’s an opportunity for torturing my brother lost. So electro-pop isn’t what you’re planning?”

  “Not at this stage. Not unless he gets annoying. Then it might be worth it, just to see his face. But that’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Oh?” Faith looked intrigued.

  “I have a piano part for his track. I was hoping maybe you’d play it for me.”

  “Play it or record it?” Faith said, looking wary.

  “Let’s start with playing it for this try-out.”

  Faith glanced over her shoulder at the bright red upright against the kitchen wall. “You can play the piano just as well as me.”

  “That’s not true and you know it,” Leah said. “I can play but you give it that something more.” She knew her limitations. She’d taken years of piano lessons, just like Faith. Hell, she’d started because Faith had already been able to play by the time they’d started elementary school together and she wanted to play too. She could play well enough to work out a melody or to keep herself entertained or to accompany someone at a jam session or to demonstrate something in the studio, but she couldn’t turn it into art. Not the way Faith could. When she let herself.

  “I’m out of practice,” Faith said.

  “Liar, I’ve heard you playing recently,” Leah said. “Unless Caleb has secret piano-fu that I don’t know about. Sound carries around here, you know. So if you’re trying to keep it quiet, then you need somewhere more soundproof to hide your piano.”

  “That’s just for fun.”

  Leah shrugged. “And that’s just fine with me. But I really want this track to sound good. It’s really stripped down. Just the piano and a touch of drums and the guitar. I can fake the drums on my computer but I don’t want to fake the piano if I don’t have to.”

  Faith looked torn. “Zach might not want me involved. He wants to do his own thing.”

  “I’m not asking you to join his band, just give me a decent piano part for my mix.” Leah pulled out her laptop, opened it up. “Here, just listen this. I did a version earlier. You can make it better.” She walked over to the piano, lifted
the lid. There wasn’t a speck of dust on it, which made it even more obvious that Faith hadn’t exactly been telling the truth when she’d said she hadn’t been playing. Her cleaners might dust the outside of the piano but they weren’t going to bother making sure the inside gleamed. She touched middle C lightly and the note rang out, pure and true. So Faith had kept it in tune. Given that a beachfront location wasn’t the most piano-friendly environment, that also took effort.

  Turning, she pulled one of the kitchen chairs up next to the piano stool. “Come on, Faith. I’m not going to leave until you do. Don’t make me invoke the best-friend-assistance clause.”

  Faith rolled her eyes. “You won’t need to do that. I’ll play the darn thing.” She came to join Leah at the piano, making a show of reluctance. But as her hands touched the keys, she smiled.

  Yeah. That was good. Even if Faith didn’t want to perform, she still needed music. To play, not just to listen to. She’d cut herself off from that for too long. There had been quite a few years when Leah could have wandered into this kitchen and the piano would have been, well, if not out of tune because Faith wasn’t going to neglect a Steinway—Grey had had the thing lacquered red but it was still a Steinway—but at least dusty inside.

  “Okay, here it is.” Leah hit play on the laptop. She waited while Faith listened to Zach’s track with the piano part she’d inserted last night.

  When the song ended, Faith nodded. “It’s good, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Leah said. “And it will be better.”

  She studied Faith a moment, searching her face. “Are you really okay with this? I don’t want to bring up bad memories.”

  It seemed to take a long time for Faith to answer. “It’s okay. It’s not like the stuff Zach and I played together. And that was a long time ago.” She played a chord. “It’s ten years, when you think about.” She blinked at Leah. “How the hell did that happen? We’re getting old.”

  “Thirty is the new twenty,” Leah retorted. “And we’re only twenty-nine. Or almost twenty-nine in my case.” Her birthday was more than a month away. Faith had turned twenty-nine in April. “So I still have my youth.”