They sat in comfortable silence; her head nestled on his shoulder. Occasionally, he’d squeeze her arm, hold her tightly, or kiss her hair.
“Can we pause this for a little bit? This conversation?” Jase asked. “Things are getting muddled in my head, and I need a minute to sort them out.”
“Of course. Want to take a little time out? I’ll go see if the road has been cleared yet. If it has, we’ll head out, but if it hasn’t, we’ll meet back here in a couple of hours and try to work on something new instead. Perhaps write a different song together?”
Jase nodded and stood. He offered her his hand, and she took it as he lifted her easily to her feet. “I’m glad you ran me over.”
Cerys smiled softly. “Almost ran you over, because you ran out into the road like an errant toddler.”
He looped one of her curls around his finger. “Errant toddler?”
Cerys nodded. “It was the kindest description I could come up with.”
Two hours later, Jase sat next to her at the mixing desk. He smelled of soap, his hair still damp from the shower he’d taken after a workout in her father’s gym. The road was still well and truly blocked.
“How do you want to do this?” he asked.
“I think the rule is how do you want to do this?”
“Normally, Matt and sometimes Luke, come up with a—”
“I didn’t ask how the band normally do things. There’s no band in here. This recording studio is yours. I’m your music tech. I’ll fill in instrument gaps. But this is all you.”
Jase tapped his fingers on his knee as it bounced up and down. He stood, then sat back down again just as quickly, his hands on top of his head as he blew out a breath. “Lyrics. I think I’d want to know the tone of the song from the words.”
Cerys grinned. “Lyrics it is. How do you want to come up with them? Are you a brainstormer, just throwing out themes? Do you already have an idea in mind?”
“Wait. Maybe not lyrics. Shit. Now all I can think of is the intro to the Artic Monkeys’ ‘Brianstorm’. That super-fast drum, explosive lyrics.”
Cerys reached for a notebook. “I’m just going to keep track of everything you say. Keep talking. I’ll capture it all. Maybe your way of songwriting is to verbally explode onto the page what’s in your head, then sift through it.”
Jase frowned. “But what if that doesn’t yield anything?”
“At a minimum, it will yield that exploring your ideas that way doesn’t work for you. Being creative doesn’t need to be efficient. And perfection will get in the way of progress every single time. All we need is a nugget . . . no, a seed we can nurture today.”
“Fuck, Cerys. You’re like a walking encyclopaedia of analogies. Seeds, waves.”
She bit her lip. “Fine. I’ll cease and desist on the analogies.” She circled her pen dramatically and placed it on the page. “Ready when you are, rock star.”
The corner of Jase’s lip twitched. “They are all just random thoughts.”
“So, dump them out. You might find a theme or say something in such a way that it becomes a line in the song.”
“I feel like I’m about to cross the line between therapy and songwriting. Does this need a nondisclosure?”
“Oh, shit. Of course. I’m sure there’s stuff you want to draw on that I don’t need to know. Here.” She handed him the notebook and pen. “Take them.”
Jase pushed the notebook and pen back at her. “I was kidding, Cerys. I doubt there is anything that some members of the gutter press haven’t already dug out about me over the last month, since that song went viral.”
Cerys quickly wrote in the book. “I have an idea . . . Here.”
Jase looked at the note. “I, Cerys Bronwyn Hughes-Bexter . . . wow, that’s quite a name.”
Cerys slapped his arm. “Not like it was my choice. Continue.”
“I like it. It suits you. A bit fussy, cute sounding, more long-winded than it needs to be with the double barrel.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “Stop it. Here, let me.” She snatched the book back off him. “I, Cerys Bronwyn Hughes-Bexter, do—”
“Take thee—”
Cerys gave him side eye. “No. I, Cerys Bronwyn Hughes-Bexter do solemnly declare—”
“That I am up to no good?”
“Stop it. No, because I’m not Harry freaking Potter. I do solemnly declare that I will never reveal any of the details discussed with Jason Palmer in the personal recording studio of Jimmy Bexter under penalty of a million pound fine.”
“Only Nan ever calls me Jason, and it’s usually when I’m in trouble.” Jase looked over her shoulder, his cheek brushing against her, his breath against her neck. It made her shiver. “You signed it.”
“I did. You should sign it too.” He took her pen and scribbled his signature.
“How do you know I’m not going to leak details and blame you so that I can get a million quid from you?”
She turned her face slightly, so close it would take nothing for her to brush the corner of his lips. “Would you?”
“Not sure I’d do anything to hurt you, Cerys. Not on purpose, at least.” He stood up and placed his hands on his head and began to pace. “Although I am the son of an abuser, so who the fuck knows what runs in my blood.”
“Jase,” Cerys gasped. “I’m so sorry, I—”
“No, just write it down. You made me think of something with that question.”
Cerys readied her pen as her heart hurt for him. She’d deliberately stayed away from gossip sites when she’d researched details about him and the band.
“He beat me up the day I turned six for telling a teacher at school that he beat me at the weekends. Showed up at Nan’s that afternoon and called me a lying little shit. Bust her back door down to get in. He got three years in prison, and I got a lifetime of worrying how much of his genetics are now mine. Am I him or am I truly me? Is his legacy all I’ll ever be?”
Cerys scribbled it down. “Did your mum at least look out for you?”
Jase stopped pacing. “If you mean did she do her best to keep an eye out for us in the short time she was around by taking us everywhere with her, not really. She got pregnant with Matt at seventeen, with me at nineteen. So if you mean did I enjoy going to house parties at five years of age and sleeping on a pile of coats in someone’s spare room until it was time to leave, because it was cheaper than getting a babysitter, not really. Matt remembers more of it than I do. My dad was apparently a shit to her, so I don’t get why she made me go see him . . . how she never guessed what he was doing or why she didn’t care when she left us. Oh, yeah, and the final thing was when she wrecked her car while three times over the legal limit with Matt and I in the back. That’s when Nan decided we’d be better off with her instead. Mum never contested it and fucked off, leaving me with Nan during the week and my dad on weekends until he took it all too far.”
“And that pushed you and Matt further apart?”
“Family’s complicated. You know that, Cerys. Look at you and your dad.”
Cerys looked around the recording studio. She was in one of his homes, surrounded by his things, but she didn’t feel close to him at all. “Fair point. That’s a good theme. There’s good and bad in every family and every person.”