Dissonance (6 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT

K
enzie was up half the night trying to perfect her verse of the song, and went through several sheets of paper worth of false starts. First, she tried for happy and upbeat, but then she remembered Chase’s words about wanting a song that came from the heart. Nope. The whole “love is amazing and wonderful” thing felt a little hollow to Kenzie.

It was close to two a.m. when she finally had a verse she’d be comfortable sharing with Chase. She should have collapsed in a heap on her bed at that point, but Kenzie was wired from too much sweet tea and couldn’t fall sleep, so she stayed up two more hours watching the shopping channel. Finally, about four a.m., after ordering a great set of earrings for Aunt Audrey, Kenzie finally dozed off.

She didn’t stir again until the door buzzed shortly after nine, and she jolted out of bed with a start. Chase was here. Kenzie let him in the building and met him at her door, still rubbing sleep from her eyes.

“Did I wake you?” he asked. To his credit, Chase looked fully awake. He was clean shaven, and his still-damp hair was hanging over his brow. Today, he wore a Dartmouth T-shirt, faded jeans and the familiar combat boots.

Time to get this man a pair of alligator-skinned Luccheses,
Kenzie thought, followed by a
Down, girl.
The sooner she got control of this attraction, the better.

“Yes, sorry,” she said, glancing sheepishly down at her Vanderbilt Commodores sleep pants and oversized Tennessee Titans T-shirt. It was highly doubtful that Chase was having any sexually-charged thoughts about her dressed this way, especially with her hair pulled back in a disheveled ponytail. “I was up late.”

“Writing lyrics?”

“Yeah,” Kenzie admitted. “Or trying to.”

“I know the feeling,” Chase said. “It wasn’t easy.”

“No.” So he struggled, too? Given his relaxed and fully awake appearance, Kenzie wouldn’t have guessed. “I got it, though. At least I think so. Can I get you some coffee?”

Chase nodded. “Sure. Coffee’s good.” He followed her into the kitchen, where she pulled out a handful of single serve packages.

“Pick your poison,” she said.

“Doesn’t matter much.” He pointed to one without even glancing at it. He obviously wasn’t the coffee aficionado that she was.

Kenzie brewed his classic roast, then her own preferred flavor, and set both on the table.

Chase took a drink, nodded, then asked, “What’s yours? It smells good.”

“Gingerbread,” she said. “And it is good.”

“My cousin’s wife has one of those fancy-schmancy coffee makers, and always has at least ten different flavors on hand.”

Kenzie laughed. “Then I like her already.”

“She’s a good woman, for sure,” Chase said, taking a drink. “So tell me about the lyrics you wrote.”

“Hold on a sec,” Kenzie told him, and ran up the steps to the loft area. She retrieved her notepad and took it back to the kitchen, where she set it on the table.

Chase didn’t even look at it before pushing it away.

“What? It’s so bad you can’t even look?”

“Of course not.” Chase gave her a smile. “I don’t want to read your lyrics, Kenz. I want you to explain them. Or better yet, sing them to me.”

“You want me to sing them?” Kenzie stared at him. “When we haven’t even discussed a chord progression or musical accompaniment?”

“That’s right. Come on, don’t tell me you haven’t already practiced singing them, and have an idea what the notes are.”

She couldn’t deny it. That was part of what kept her up late, trying to get everything just right. “I have,” she admitted. “But singing them in front of someone else is a different story.”

“Come on, I don’t bite,” Chase urged. “And it’s not like you won’t have to sing them for Keith next week. He’ll be a more critical audience than me.”

Kenzie didn’t doubt that, so she took a drink of coffee to bolster her nerves, followed by a deep breath, and began to sing.

I’ve been battered, I’ve been bruised

I’ve been hurt and I’m confused

Then you walk in my life and turn it upside down

And I find myself wearing a smile, not a frown.

***

Chase listened with a critical ear. Sometimes he found rhyming lyrics to be forced and contrived, but these didn’t bother him. They worked, and even though the verse was short, it was a good starting point and segue to what would be his part of their story.

“Do you hate it?” If Kenzie spoke of smiling in the song, she now sported an uncertain frown.

Yeah, someone tore her down, and good.

“Not at all,” Chase said. “I think it’s a good solid start, and I could see this song going from uncertain and wary in the beginning, to something hopeful and positive in the end.” He furrowed his brow as he thought of what they might be able to do with the piece. “I think a little more stretch in your middle register after ‘confused’ to build to the next section can help build a little tension, though.” He was thinking out loud now. “You know, the first part’s pretty sad, then there’s a shift there, to a more positive-sounding song. With that little stretch, maybe people aren’t sure what they’re getting.”

“Hmm.” Kenzie’s eyes narrowed in a thoughtful expression. “You may be on to something there. Are you sure you’re not a producer?”

Chase couldn’t help but laugh. “Hardly, and Keith may have a completely different idea about how to arrange the song.” He shrugged. “I have a passion for music, though.”

“It shows.”

“Thanks.” Chase averted her gaze and reached for his coffee. He appreciated compliments, but was still never exactly sure how to take them. Maybe it came from having a family—with the exception of Colin—that still insisted on treating his music as a silly hobby he’d grow out of. “If I haven’t said this before, I like your voice. It’s got a real Stevie Nicks quality to it. Deep, smoky, sultry...”

“Stevie Nicks?”

“You have heard of her, right?” Chase asked, half-teasing.

“Um, yeah... I’ve just never been compared to her before.”

“Then those people are crazy or dumb,” Chase said. “She’s the first one that came to mind when I heard you. Stevie’s a legend.”

“That’s for sure,” Kenzie said. “I... thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“So what do you have?”

“What?”

“For lyrics,” she said. “What do you have for lyrics? You did write your verse?”

“Oh, that. Of course.” Chase reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out the piece of paper with lyrics he’d finally managed to keep and not discard. It had been a process that probably killed a few trees. “You want me to sing it?”

Kenzie smirked. “I think that’s only fair...”

Yeah. He figured she’d say that. “Can’t get anything past you, can I? Okay, here goes.” Chase took a deep breath, trying to ready himself to capture the right tone.

I wasn’t looking for anything

I sure wasn’t looking for you,

Then there you were, in front of me

Now I’m feeling things that scare me,

Thrill me, Turn me upside down,

And I don’t know what to do.

Chase kept his eyes on the paper as he sang the words, all six lines of them. Six freaking lines, and it’d taken him almost as many hours to write them. Worse yet, he wasn’t even sure he liked them all that much. This might end up being the hardest song he ever wrote.

When he finally had the nerve to glance up, he noticed Kenzie was smiling. “Well?”

“Turn me upside down? Seriously?”

It took Chase a second to realize what she meant. Upside down. They’d both written a lyric about being turned upside down. Coincidence? Or fate? Not that he actually believed in fate or anything. “Yeah. Weird, huh?”

“Maybe,” Kenzie said. “Or maybe it was meant to be. We were meant to write this song together.”

Great. There she went with the whole fate thing. “You really believe that?”

“I don’t know.” Kenzie shrugged, and Chase wondered if he’d made her self-conscious. “I just know this project came along at exactly the right time for me, and I don’t think it’s entirely coincidental that we both used the phrase turned upside down,” she said. “Maybe it’s not fate or destiny or whatever, but it at least means we’re clicking. We’re on the same page.”

“Yeah, I think so, too,” Chase acknowledged. And hopefully that would bode well for the rest of the song. “And maybe that should be our title.”

“
Upside Down
?”

“Sure. Or maybe
Turned Upside Down
.” Chase thought for a minute. “No, I think I like your suggestion,” he said. “And we’ll tie the two opening verses together in a chorus. You open with yours, then I sing mine, then we’ll come together with a chorus. Something like ‘Upside down, you’ve turned me upside down, and now nothing is the same. Not sure where to go or what to do, no, I’m all upside down over you.’”

His mind was racing now, and it felt a little like when he wrote songs with Jordy. Well, except Kenzie was a lot better looking. And where did that thought come from?

“Whoa, slow down,” Kenzie said. “It’s hard to write that fast.”

“You were writing that down?” Sure enough, she was.

“Yeah, you wanted me to, didn’t you? I mean, it’s great.”

“You think so?”

Kenzie laughed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think you suffer from the same self-doubt complex that I do. Yes, Chase, I think it’s great.”

Chase nodded, relieved. “Okay. I’m glad you like it. I’m honestly not sure where it came from. I was just kinda thinking out loud,” he said. “And I think all artists, whatever their work, suffer from occasional self-doubt.”

“Probably,” Kenzie agreed. “This could be good, though, really good.” She stood up.

“Where are you going?”

“Upstairs,” she said. “Let’s grab the ukelele and try to set this baby to music.”

Chase grinned. “Now you’re talking, darlin.’”

“Careful. You sound very Southern when you call me that,” Kenzie teased.

“Do I? Maybe being in Tennessee is rubbing off on me.” Chase followed her up to the loft, where she handed him the ukelele. She sang the first line of the song, and he strummed a few chords.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“Not bad, but not perfect. Maybe an ‘e’ note at the end, instead?” She took the instrument from him and tried it, then looked at him. “Well?”

Chase nodded. “That’s better. The ‘g’ was a little too upbeat for the lyric.”

“Agreed.”

They worked together for the next two hours, first working out the basic chord progression, then writing two more verses. It was past noon when they finally stopped, but they had a song. “Wow,” Chase said. “I think we did it.”

Kenzie smiled. “We sure did. And it didn’t even take us a week.”

“It also didn’t waste nearly as much paper as I did last night to get six measly lines.”

“Hey, I only wrote four. But those ten combined lines fit, and they led us to this.” She waved the notebook in the air. “We have a song, Chase. Okay, it needs a little fine-tuning, but it’s a song.”

“Yeah, and a pretty darn good one.” She looked adorable, and completely kissable, parading around the room waving their accomplishment in the area. Since kissing her was out of the question, Chase changed the subject. “Are you hungry? I’m starving.”

“I’m always hungry,” Kenzie said.

“Want to go to lunch?”

“Sure,” she said. “Just let me jump in the shower first.”

So much for a safe change of subject, Chase thought. Now he’d probably be picturing her in the shower.