Page 48 of Beautiful Noise
“No, it’s a part of you. I want all of you, Ri. Even the things you’re not comfortable sharing.”
“Does that go both ways?”
“Why wouldn’t it? I’m not selfish, you can have full access. That’s what I promised and I’m a man of my word.”
“We’ll see.”
He smiled sexily and I exhaled a sigh. “I’ve been writing poetry since I was in high school but it really felt like a part of me my senior year. We took a field trip for an art expo and my teacher was cool as hell. She took us to a poetry slam that night and I fell in love with the entire vibe. The lyrics, the delivery, the expression. I could never be on stage as a performer, but the words come easy. When I’m feeling things, I write them down.”
“You damn sure couldn’t be on stage with your tone deaf ass.”
“Poetry isn’t songs. Being tone deaf doesn’t matter and for the record, I’m not tone deaf.” I shot him a narrowed stare.
“It’s cadence though, so kinda the same, and you would not be good at it.”
“If this is what being your girlfriend feels like, then yes, I’m reneging on our agreement.”
He grinned and leaned close, dropping a kiss on my cheek. “I’m being honest, Ri. I’m sure you’d rather I hurt your feelings than for you to go out in the world and let someone who doesn’t give a damn about you do it.”
He had a point but still…
“And the site?”
“It started in college. An assignment for my creative writing class. Back then I used my name but everyone loved the poems so much I decided to keep the site active. I changed the name to Cyan Indigo Bleu.”
“Why Bleu?”
“It’s my favorite color.”
He nodded.
“And why the pseudonym?”
“Those are my thoughts, sometimes they’re intimate and expose me in ways I’m not comfortable with others having access or knowledge of.”
“I respect that. That’s how I felt aboutStoned Heart. The lyrics were my personal feelings. The words exposed too much and made me feel raw. I was so fucking angry about losing my father. I didn’t know what to do with those feelings. Writing the songs helped.”
Our eyes met and his were sad, dark, and vulnerable.
“The world lovedStoned Heart.”
“They love Bleu too. You damn near have half a million followers.”
“How do you know how many followers I have?”
“Your page has links to your social media. I checked it out, trying to see if there was a picture so I could verify it was you after I noticed one of the poems in your journal was on the site. You were being all secretive, so I was on a mission.”
“I was protecting my anonymity. It’s not the same.”
“I’ll let you have that, but just know, I’m demanding full access…”
I was about to respond but both of our cellphones began vibrating with notifications and since my iPad wasn’t on silent it sang in protest with the same notifications. My heart thumped erratically with the thoughts of my face plastered all over social media from our dinner last night.
There was no other reason for both of our devices to be receiving so much attention. When I woke up this morning free of tags I was hopeful that we’d managed to slide under the radar. I wasn’t interesting enough to be made into a news story about Ezren but apparently I was wrong.
“Shit,” he muttered. He swiped a few times and I watched him, feeling my anxiety spiking. The expression on his face was grim and when his eyes met mine, a twenty-pound boulder sank to the pit of my stomach.
“They posted us from last night?”