Page 113 of Broken Lines

It’s like I have this constant need to war with her. To butt heads. But also, to protect her. To shield her from anything and everything. I want to swat that ass into submission while she chokes on my cock. But then, I also want to wrap her in soft blankets and stroke her hair until she sleeps.

What in thefuckhappened to me out here?

I roll my eyes as I butcher the steak from my freezer, slicing it thin for the Vietnamese-style stir-fry I’m making for dinner. I use the knife to push the slices off the cutting board into the bag of marinade, and then deposit that into the fridge while I clean up a little.

When I’ve washed my hands, I go off to seek Melody out. But even though she’s been here all of three days, I know exactly where I’ll find her.

The studio.

She’s drawn to it like, well, like I’d be if I were her. Like Iamdrawn to it and all recording studios. It’s been interesting to me watch her slowly come out of her shell when it comes to music. When she first set foot here, I had her pegged as the enemy; the worst kind of reporter: amusicreporter.

There’s a quote I read somewhere once that said, “writing about music is like dancing about architecture,” and it amuses me to this day.

Music journalists always got under my skin in an especially needling way. A regular reporter just asks dumb, obnoxious, prying questions about what you do. And it’s annoying, and I usually fucked with them as much as I could. But, at the end of the day, you could just answer the questions, they’d smile and nod, and that was it.

Butmusicreporters? No. They’re a special breed of holier-than-thou. They think because they write about music all day—other people’s music, I’d like to underscore—that they understand it. Or “get it”. They think they’re boss-tier level “fans”.

But they’re not fans. They’re poison. With them, you can’t just answer the asinine questions, have a drink and be on your way. No, they feel the need to pry deeper. To make you dance around the bullshit answer you gave, even if you both know damn fucking well it’s the answer they were looking for anyway.

They’re professional buzzkills is what they are. Andthat’swhat I pegged Melody for when I first laid eyes on her.

But she’s not that. In fact, she may be the most non-toxic music reporter I’ve ever met. That, or, in my opinion, she’s in the wrong fucking industry. She’s on the wrong side of the battle, so to speak.

She’s not a reporter. I mean not under the surface, that is.

Deep down, she’s like me.

She’s an artist. She’s a creative. And part of me wonders just how much of her desire to writeaboutmusic is because it’s as close towriting musicorplayingmusic that she can get after what that motherfucker did to her.

My jaw clenches as I stalk into the living room, even just thinking about it.

One day…one day, come hell or high water, Iwillfind out who hurt her.

And I’ll fucking drown him in his own blood.

For the time being, though, I shake the fantasies of murder and castration from my head. But just as the fog of it is lifting, I wince as I trip over something next to the couch I didn’t even see.

I glance down to see Melody’s backpack, the contents half-spilled across the floor.

Shit.

When I stoop to push her things back into though, I frown as my hands stop on her notebook. I tell myself not to open it, but…fuck it. She’s already pried into my own shit enough times anyway. And besides, it’s probably just her notes for Ignition Magazine or something.

But when I open it, I realize how wrong I was. It’s not journalistic notes. It’s not dirty little secrets about yours truly.

It’slyrics.

My brows knit as my eyes drag down one page, and then another. And another.

Fuck me. Not just lyrics.Goodlyrics. I mean the girl is twenty. And all due respect to twenty year old wannabe songwriters and poets, but that shit is usually about as “deep” as the black and white photos of telephone lines or train tracks that come out of a high school photography class.

But not these. This shit isgood. Really, really good.

I smile curiously, reading another page before I snap the book shut and head for the studio.

She gaspswhen I step in behind her, pulling away from the guitar she’s been dancing her fingers over to look at me.

Melody’s dressed in what has become, A; her go-to outfit around the house. Which also happens to be, B; my new all-time favorite outfit on any woman ever: one of my button-up plaid flannels, which goes down to mid-thigh, and…