Page 63 of Sing Your Secrets
“Just some old covers I sang.”
My excitement takes over and I don’t even stop to ask. I rip Miles’s headphones out of the aux port and press play on the YouTube video he has pulled up.
It takes about five seconds of the interlude before the world falls away. The kitchen disappears; Miles drifts away. It’s just me, this sad love song, the most painfully beautiful words, singing straight to my soul. We’re in a world that’s obsessed with trap music and wordless club beats. On the rare occasion I hear soulful sounds like this, it seeps into my bones, flooding me with every harrowing emotion the artist felt when they wrote this. The song is good…
But Miles’s performance—his cover—makes it perfect.
I have to listen to it at least twice more before I finally pull myself out of the trance. The kitchen snaps back into place, and Miles’s handsome face is once again in clear view.
He looks bashful, running his hands against his espresso-colored facial hair. “I used to love to sing,” he says, forcing a humorless laugh. Stroking his finger against the touchpad, he opens a folder on the screen that reads Demos. He double-clicks on a file and a new type of song plays. A commercialized, pop-filled, heaping pile of desperation rings through the laptop speakers. Miles laughs at me trying my hardest not to be so damn direct for once.
“You can say it.”
I clear my throat. “Say what?” I ask, dead set on swallowing my tongue.
“That’s the first song on my demo. It’s not good. I didn’t even really write it. The producers threw out all my suggestions.”
“A good producer is supposed to help your vision come to life,” I say. “Not force you to put something together that isn’t you.”
He pops his shoulders. “I wanted a deal so bad. Have you ever wanted something so much it fucking hurts? The longing physically ached. I wanted to be a singer, not a construction worker. I would’ve put on blue lipstick and sang K-pop if it got me closer to securing the career I wanted. But I did everything I was advised to do and still, nobody wanted to sign me.”
“But you’re good, Miles. You have something special.”
He presses his cool lips to my forehead and the smell of fruity cereal kicks up between us. “Thank you,” He kisses me again, this time on the lips. “But I don’t know…I’ve been kind of thinking about how I’d feel if I let it all go. Maybe there are other things here in Denver that are worth my attention.” He looks me dead in the eyes, indicating he means me.
“You want to give up?”
Licking his lips, he pulls away, like I said something wrong. “Maybe I want to grow up.”
He's not going to hear it from me.I just slept with the guy and told him his hard dick was the eighth wonder of the world. Obviously, he thinks I’m just biased. He needs to hear how much potential he has from someone else.
“I’m meeting my dad tomorrow, Miles. I’m still allowed to talk to him about you, right? I just have a good feeling about what he could do for you. Dad has a special way of pulling out the best parts of musicians and helping them lay it all on the track. And screw demos. Make an album. You can sing whatever you want, however you want. All you need is people to listen.”
He scoffs, loudly. Heading to the fridge, he fetches the milk I just stashed away. “That’s sort of the problem, Reese. No one’s listening.”
“Hey,” I say firmly. “I’m listening. I’m someone.”
“Reese,”he says in a groan as he returns, “I’ve never even thought as far as an album. Step one is get a record label to back you, then make an album. I never finished step one.”
“That’s why indie artists are running circles around labels. They aren’t worried about steps, Miles. They’re worried about making music and connecting with people. That’s what you should be doing. We can help—”
“Reese—”
“Please, just think about it?” I beg.
“I don’t know…”
“Here, pull your pants down, I have a surefire way of convincing you.”
He laughs as he fills his cereal bowl to the brim, then drenches it with milk. Picking up the colored corn puffs that fell out of the bowl he says, “You keep bragging about this blow job.”
“It’s brag worthy. If they gave out Grammys for head, I’d be revered in the music community.” He snickers but his eyes latch onto my lips, hungrily. “Okay, I’m kidding. Now I feel like I’m officially overselling myself.”
“Time will tell,” he says with a cheeky smile.
I poke my tongue out at him. “So, what do you say?”
“To head?”