Real Time by Jeanine Binder Read Free Book Online Page B

notes. “Find something you didn’t like, love?” Nick asked.
    Kate jumped as he spoke; she hadn’t heard him walk across the stage. “It sounds wrong through the middle. I was making some notes on how to possibly correct it.”
    “I didn’t know you wrote music,” he said, surprised.
    Kate shook her head. “I don’t as a rule. But I know the basics and this section is choppy. I was going to bring it back so you could review it.”
    “Why don’t we go through it now? That’s why I came over. Run through the melody and we could see if what I had put together worked.”
    “Sounds good to me. It’s nice, from what I’ve been playing. I was trying to picture it with the rest of the guitars and Trent stomping with his lead foot on the bass drum.”
    Nick laughed and pulled out the acoustic guitar he always kept with him, rather than transporting it on the truck with the rest of the gear. It wasn’t bright and shiny like the electric one he usually played on stage. This one was much older and showed obvious use. Pulling up the drummer’s stool, he sat down next to Kate. He counted off three and Kate started to play. It was a good minute before he started . When they got to the part Kate had been working on, she stopped. Nick stopped with her, lifting his eyebrows to question her.
    “Which version do you want? Yours or mine?”
    “Let go with yours. I know what mine sounded like, love,” he answered.
    They went back to the start of the verse and Nick could easily hear the changes she had made. And they seemed to fit nicely. This suited him fine because he hated doing arrangements. The studio had a company they contracted with to do this kind of work, but the movie guys had called before he flew to London, informing him the release of the movie had been moved up. They needed the title song in seven weeks – which was the week they got back to Los Angeles, in between the two tours.
    “Rock on,” he told her. “I like what you did. “
    “Me too,” she agreed.
    “We don’t have time to mess with it. I need to have the song done in six weeks. Everything – all the parts - and it has to be perfect the first time around because we won’t have a week to make corrections.”
    “Why the push?” Kate asked.
    “The movie producers changed the movie release date to spring break,” he answered. He continued to play a couple of cords and strum a few notes. “Last night,” he said, a mischievous smile turning up the corners of his mouth. “Sam wasn’t supposed to let anyone in the room.”
    “I got that part,” Kate said. “Your greeting wasn’t exactly blooming with sunshine.”
    “I should be angry about it. I gave him pretty direct orders,” Nick said, in a definite tone. “They don’t usually disobey direct orders.”
    “So why aren’t you angry then?”
    “Because all my anger went out the window with your touch,” Nick told her softly. “I lost this argument with myself last night; I need to know how you feel, love. Because I’m not going to open myself any further if this road is going nowhere.”
    “I like you, Nick,” Kate answered him honestly, her tone level and smooth. “More than just a friend or my boss. I almost couldn’t stand the calls from London – all I could hear was the hurt in your voice and I was powerless to help.”
    “You did more than you know,” Nick confirmed. “But let me ask you this – do you have the patience to wait another six weeks to sort this out? Right now I’m your boss and it’s the difficulty I’m having. I’ve already said and done more than I should.”
    “What’s going to be different in six weeks? I’ll still work for you,” Kate said. “Unless you plan to fire me when we get back.”
    Nick smiled at her. “I’m not going to fire you, Kate. But I barely know you – outside of the fact you like sugar in your coffee and don’t like to leave your hair down.”
    “It gets in the way when I play,” Kate said, amusement sparkling in