I have been informed that the review button is not green anymore. My bad… Anyways, here's the next chapter. Enjoy :)
"Do I really have to do this?" Edwards asks for the millionth time.
"Yes, you do! Or I'll never, ever talk to you again." It's an empty threat, there's no way I would last a minute.
"Fine. If he doesn't like it, I'll hate you forever."
"He'll love it. And no, you won't."
"Good point. It'd kind of be hard to hate the person I live with. That wouldn't really work out," he says. We are sitting on the big couch at the door to the recording studio, waiting for Steve. I decide to look at his guitar, just because it's something to do. I open the case and take it out. It's very pretty, probably cost him a small fortune. I pluck at the strings.
"Ouch. Jeez, when was the last time you tuned this thing?" At least 3 of the strings are dangerously out of tune.
"I can't remember. I don't hear much difference." Bloody hell, how could you not hear the difference? They're different notes then what they should be! I start to tune it by ear. It's not hard for me, all my music teachers said I have perfect pitch.
"You can tune it by ear?" he says, like it is some great feat.
"Yeah. It's not that hard. I mean, when you have perfect pitch…" He laughs.
"Perfect pitch, eh? Well let's test this. Where's a keyboard?" I raise an eyebrow.
"In the storage room, near reception. Why?"
"You'll see," he mutters ominously. He gets up and goes toward reception. He comes back a couple of minutes later with the keyboard. Dude, he can carry it by himself? That things weighs close to 50 kilos (A/N: that's about 110 lbs). He also has all the cords wrapped around his hand. It takes him no time to plug it in and sit it on his lap.
"Sing a C," he insists.
"Um, ok." I am still confused, but I sing a C anyway. He plays a C on the keyboard. They're the same pitch. What do you know, I got it right.
"Ok, now a G." I do what he asks, and he does the same thing, plays it on the piano, and I get it right. This goes on for a while. He asks me every note he could think of. I get them all right of course.
"Told you so," I say in a matter of factly voice. He smiles. I smile back. For a moment we just stare at each other, neither of us could look away. I never noticed how pretty his eyes were until now…
At that point someone clears their throat. I look up and Steve is standing the door way, one eyebrow raised. Oops.
"May I ask what you're doing?" he asks. We both look at each other.
"No," we say in unison. Steve laughs.
"Fair enough. Well, come on, what did you want to show me?" This is it. Edward is going to blow his mind. Edward looks at me with a scared look on his face.
"You'll be fine," I whisper. "Well, last night I discovered something about Edward that no one knew. He's a muso," I beam.
"Really?" Steve poses.
"Yep. And a good one too." I can't stop smiling, just the thought of singing with him…
"Well, I guess I'll have to hear for myself. What are you going to sing?" Steve asks, intrigued now.
"Ummm, well, I thought I'd do a cover… The Shake by Kisschasy?"
"Oh, ok. I've never heard of them before…"
"They're an Australian band," he states as he walks into the studio, me trailing. He sits down on one of the stools, as we go into the booth, where all the electronics are. You can't see people in here form the studio. That's good, because it feels like you don't have an audience.
"When you're ready, Edward," Steve says into the special microphone, which allows you to hear from inside the booth. Edward let's out a deep breath, and starts to play. He plays so much better than I do. Then he starts to sing with that heavenly voice of his.
The scratching of paper and pen
reminds me of a song I wrote two years back.
I remember each and every line
like a photo glued to the lids of my eyes.
The shiver of my wheezing chest
reminds me of the way I felt two years back.
And as we lose all track of time
I feel her breath like ice on the tip of my spine.
The shake before I sleep, the shake before I sleep, the shake before I sleep.
The shake before I sleep, the shake before I sleep, the shake before I sleep.
I wait for the bed to get warm
as my eyes adjust to the darkest light form.
And as I start to drift away
you're the shake that pulls me back to this state.
The shake before I sleep, the shake before I sleep, the shake before I sleep.
The shake before I sleep, the shake before I sleep, the shake before I sleep.
He plays the last chord and smiles. Obviously pleased with himself. As he bloody well should be. Steve is speechless. He hasn't even moved. I notice a few of the other staff are watching from the window. One of them has her jaw dropped. I smile proudly. I discovered that genius. Edward gets up and walks into the booth. He's still smiling. Steve is smiling too.
"Umm… WOW," he stutters. "We have got to get you recording something. Do you write songs?"
"Yeah, kind of… I'm not very good at it, and I've only written a few," he lies.
"Bull. I looked at your songs. They are freaking awesome. Much better than I could write," I challenge. He gives me a nervous look.
"Well, you didn't look at all of them…" he mutters. Well, yeah, because you snatched the book away from me before I could look at them.
"Whatever. Look, the fact is, you're more talented than anyone I've ever seen before. And I'm not just saying that."
"Sure, sure. I'm going to go get coffee now. Wanna come?" he asks me.
"Of course. I'll go get my jacket," I reply. I walk out of the booth, expecting Edward to follow, but he doesn't. I'm sure Steve just wants to talk to him some more about a record deal or something. While I'm walking to the lobby, I think about when we ran away from Puccini's hand in hand. Ever since I met him I've dreamt about holding his hand. I smile as I think about how perfectly our hands fit together. I sigh. That very same hand on my shoulder startles me. I jump out of my fantasy.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," Edward says. I turn around and can't help but dive straight into those gorgeous eyes of his. I shake my head to regain my concentration.
"It's ok. Let's go."
"Hey, I need to ask you a favour," Edward says in a apprehensive tone. We are walking back from Starbucks, coffee cups in hand.
"Fire away."
"I still have some stuff back at… Jessica's place, and I need to move it. Could you help?" he pleads.
"Of course I'll help. I mean, I'm not the strongest person in the world, so if it's heavy lifting your after, I won't be much help, but the little stuff I can do," I rant.
"It's just CD's and things; little stuff." He smiles his glorious smile of his. It leaves me flustered. I should really start paying more attention, because Edward is now waving hand in my face. "Bella? Earth to Bella?"
"Sorry, I wasn't paying attention. What?"
"I'll say. You completely zoned out. I said we should head over there now if we want to be done by today., okay?" he says again, apparently.
"Um, okay. I'll just call the limo then, I guess."
"No need. It's just around the corner," he chuckles.
"Right. I knew that," I stutter. He touches my cheek lightly and says;
"Wake up, Sleeping Beauty." I frown, and he laughs. "Come on then," he says, taking my hand.
I've only ever been to his house once before, to drop something off. But it looked vastly different to now. The house looked emptier than before. And it looked emptier, it didn't have that feeling of warmth, and family. Now it was just a house, with some stuff in it. Edward directed me to where his stuff was. It was already in boxes. I guess Jessica took the liberty of chucking all his stuff in boxes. We started to carry the boxes to the curb. Two boxes later I realised Edward wasn't following me anymore. I went back inside and found him in the living room. He was standing by the window, near a shelf. It took me a minute to realise that the shelf had a photo frame on it. The photo in it was a picture of him and Jessica. He was just, staring at it. There were no tears, no nothing. I clear my throat.
"Are you okay, Edward?' I ask. He turns to look at me, and the Edward I know returns. He smiles at me. I smile back.
"Fine. Thanks for helping me with this junk."
"No problem. Happy to help. But there's still more boxes," I remind him. I pick up a box, and so does he. He walks out to the curb, and I start to, but a book falls out of the box I'm carrying. I put it down to grab the book. I notice that it's a manuscript book. Must be one of Edward's old ones. Well, he said I hadn't seen his other songs, so I might as well have a look. I flip the book open and have a read. Of course, the melodies are brilliant. I read the lyrics as well, and they send a shiver up my spine. The lyrics are all about love. Love songs? I didn't know he was that deep. I read the lyrics to one of the simpler songs, and go completely pale, I could feel it. The title is called plainly, "Bella". Oh my God, he wrote a song about me. Since when? I look outside at Edward and back to the book, over and over again. No, maybe he just wrote a random song and called it Bella for some random reason which I don't know. Yeah, that's it. He probably didn't even know me when he wrote it. Oh crap, he's coming back.
"You need help with that box?" he asks as I quickly shut the book and put it back on top of the stuff, where it fell from.
"No, no. I'm fine…"
"You look a little flushed, are you sure you're okay?" he persists.
"Yes, I'm fine. Just fine," I say, gritting my teeth so I don't explode.
"Okay," he says, hands up in the air.
A song. About me. I keep telling myself that it's not about me. It must be about another Bella or something. But I can't help not ignoring the signs. Oh god, this is madness. I can't just ask him about it, because he'll get all defensive and stuff, and then demand to know why I was looking through his stuff. Oh, crap here he comes.
"Hey Edward. Oh, hey, have you done any house hunting?" I ask, as casual conversation.
"Umm, yeah, a little bit. There's nothing really in my price range that close to here though…" he mumbles.
"Oh. Fair enough. You want a coffee?" I ask him.
"Yeah, sure. Black, two - "
"Two sugars, I know." He smiles. He heads to the TV. I start to make the coffee and think about some of the future songs I might write. I absently mindedly look at the calendar. Oh my God! My birthday is next week! Wow, that snuck up on me. I'll have to have a party, obviously. I think my house can hold more than 100 people… The real issue is whether to invite Justin Beiber or not, because he's underage… hmmm. Edward interrupts my thinking when he comes into the kitchen.
"Bella, it's been 20 minutes, are you okay? Do you need any help?" he asks with real sincerity. 20 minutes? Wow, time can really fly when your thinking about stuff.
"Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about my birthday, and how it's next week."
"I was wondering when you might remember. I was going to say something, but I figured you could probably remember your own birthday, so I didn't."
"Of course you would remember my own birthday better than me," I snort. He laughs.
"So are you going to have a party? Stupid question. Of course you are. Who are you going to invite?" he says wryly.
"Um, I' not sure yet. As many people as I can! I was just thinking about inviting Justin Beiber, but since he's underage, I don't know."
"Pshh. He's probably done things that 16-years-olds would dream of. I'm sure he'll fit right in with all your alcohol buddies. But if you don't want to invite him, I have no problem with that."
"Good point. You don't like him?" I guess.
:No, definitely not. Did you hear about when he went over to Australia, and about 100 12-year-old girls stampeded the place where he stayed? People got injured. I think there is way too much hype surrounding him. Anyways, about that coffee…" he reminds me.
"Oh, right. I'll be there in a minute," I say, going back to the kettle.
"This movie is crap. What else is on?" Edward and I are sitting on the sofa watching Love Actually on TV.
"Crap? Please. You just don't understand the magic of Hugh Grant." He starts to grab the remote from the other side of me, but I grab it and hold it out as far away from me as possible, but he still reaches for it. I start to get up, but he pulls me down and we end up in a heap on the floor. He are laughing and breathing hard. Then our eyes meet and we stop laughing. I decided this would be a good time to tell him.
"Edward, I have to tell you something." He looks puzzled, but makes not move to get up from under me. He didn't say anything, so I kept going. "While we were moving you stuff yesterday, one of your manuscript books fell out of the box. I had a look and I… I saw a song that you wrote… and I think it was about me…." I look at him to gauge his reaction.
"You looked through my song books?" He looks angry now.
"It fell out of the box and I though there's no harm in that, because you said that I hadn't seen all of your songs - " I start to panic.
"I can't believe you would violate my privacy like that. I don't go looking through your stuff! I don't open your song books and demand to know what they mean! I can't believe you!" he pushes me off, gets up, and storms off to his room, I assume. Now I've done it. I knew I shouldn't have told him. I get up and slump on the sofa. I sigh. I think I'll just go to bed.
Don't worry this feud won't last forever! Now the next chapter is possibly going to be the party, so I need some good songs to put in there. Review if you have an idea. Heck, review anyways!
p-sout