The music wasn’t going to save Rafe Howard this time. Music was his solace, his passion, his true love, but now it was nothing more than a job. He didn’t play his guitar anymore, he worked it, like any other tool. Two decades after his one hit song in America, he finds himself opening for one of the biggest acts in the world, but instead of being excited at the opportunity, he feels humiliated, old, and pathetic.
Jamie Nix is a star. He has all the natural beauty and talent, but also works hard for everything he has. He’s earned his place as one of the world’s biggest performers, and he has the fans, the wealth, and the fame to prove it. But there’s one thing he wants more than all of that -- a chance to perform with his childhood hero, Rafe Howard. To him, Rafe will always be the headliner.
When the two men meet, their chemistry is electric, their passion off the charts, but are they too far apart to build something real?
The sound of a guitar being strummed pulled Rafe from his thoughts. It wasn’t coming from the speakers -- it was a soft sound, but definitely live, and just to the immediate right of him. Close to his ear. There were a few starts and stops as the strings were adjusted, and then the player found the sound they wanted and started to strum a pretty little melody. Rafe didn’t know it, but he liked it. Had somebody joined them on the bus? He didn’t remember hearing anybody board, but he could have dozed for a few minutes and missed their arrival. They were good, though. Probably somebody from Jamie’s band -- the guy in Rafe’s backing band was proficiently good but he played the music he was given, he wasn’t writing melodies. And this tune was something new.
Then the singing started. Even without the auto-tune and layers and reverb and screams, Rafe recognized the voice -- and Jamie definitely didn’t need all that shit over his vocals because he sounded amazing. Clear as a bell, lower pitched than Rafe would have expected but with a smooth, almost sweet quality. After a few lines, Rafe started to recognize the words, too. It was his lyrics. The song he wrote just that morning. In almost any other scenario involving somebody singing his songs without permission, he would have been furious, but now there was no anger, just a thrill rolling down his spine at how well the words and music merged, how the melody lifted the lyrics, how Jamie’s voice tied it all together with an almost aching soulfulness.
The final chords faded into the air, and Rafe caught his breath, suddenly afraid Jamie would pull the curtain open or say something to make Rafe admit he was awake, he was listening. He didn’t want Jamie to know he heard that. His face was hot again, tingling all the way down to his throat, and he had a strange, almost familiar squeamish feeling deep inside his ribs. Was he embarrassed? No, it wasn’t embarrassment–he was shy. Shy, of all goddamned things. Like Jamie had just stripped him from head to toe and he could see every bit of Rafe. He couldn’t imagine anything more terrible than facing Jamie after that.
But Jamie didn’t pull the curtain open or speak to Rafe. He did play the song through again, with a few little changes, and Jamie had a good ear because the song already sounded solid but he made it better. Rafe would have crumpled the paper into a tight ball and set it on fire that morning without a second thought, but now it didn’t sound like something expendable. It sounded like something that belonged to Jamie.
It sounded like it was always meant for Jamie.
Rafe wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. Perhaps it was merely the influence of being on the tour. He’d only seen the show once and never really even spoke to Jamie before he wrote the lines, but he’d been surrounded by Jamie’s energy, night and day, for two weeks. There was no telling how much influence he’d had on every aspect of Rafe’s life while on the tour–everything from the color scheme of the buses to the type of fruit in the fridge was probably a result of a choice Jamie made. Hell, he’d been more productive than normal over the past two weeks–maybe all those songs had some sort of environmental Jamie Nix influence.
Or maybe it was nothing like that. Maybe it sounded like a song meant for Jamie Nix because Jamie made it sound that way. That was his job, after all. And he was quite good. Besides, it wasn’t some complicated, obscure piece of music that only the best could perform. It was four verses and a bridge without any chord notations. Jamie could have sung it to the tune of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and it would have sounded just fine. The more likely explanation, and the better one, too, but it still gave Rafe a curious sense of disappointment. Like he wanted it be what Rafe had imagined–a song he wrote specifically with Jamie in mind, specifically for Jamie to sing and hear and know.
Fucking hell, maybe he did get knocked in the head proper if that was the sort of bullshit pushing through his brain. All he really knew now that he didn’t know before was that Jamie could actually play an instrument and could sing for his supper even if he didn’t have all that fancy shit manipulating his voice. Which meant that he did have a new respect for the younger man, and that was all good and proper, but he couldn’t get caught up on fantasies of writing for Jamie Nix. He sounded good, but he didn’t sound like the guy playing sold-out stadiums across the world. Rafe had already tanked his own career, he didn’t want to be the assassin who took out Jamie’s as well.
