Free Bounce by Noelle August Page B

cloud you float around in. It’s not pretty and safe and neat. When I sing it love sounds flawed and dangerous, but what else would it sound like from me?
    My own mother walked away from me when I was five. She left me with my dad and stepmom and never looked back. If your own mother doesn’t stick around, what girl ever will?
    Enough, Grey. Shit.
    I cut the engine, but the song keeps playing. The spare guitar intro ends, and it’s me. I come in, and I realize right away, on the first lyric, that Rez put the Grey-version on this playlist. Not the prettified version I pilfered from Shane and Adam’s experiences. And I don’t want to know what Skyler thinks. Not of my voice, or how I’m making a mockery of a love song. How I sound like love is fucking painful, raw and dark and awful, because, really, that was my first. It was my first taste of love.
    I jump out of the car. “Be right back,” I say casually like my heart isn’t bleeding through the speakers in the background.
    Skyler doesn’t even look up.

   Chapter 12   
    Skyler
    G rey didn’t have to tell me it’s his voice coming through the speakers; I’d know it anywhere. It’s got this wicked, velvety rasp that just grabs you—more so in song, even, than in conversation. When Grey speaks, it’s a glancing thing, the dip of a word or two into this gravelly lower register. In song it’s . . . ​it’s everything. It’s him.
    I try to home in on the lyrics, but I’m too swept away by the tone, which is pro-level good and filled with depth. So full of wounds and wisdom, which seriously steals my breath and makes me reconsider my impression of him as just a kid, albeit one who looks delicious and flirts like a pro.
    I wonder what caused those wounds.
    Under all the brittle brightness and swagger, who is he? What haunts him to make him sing like this?
    After a while, I realize I’ve listened to a few songs, which makes me check my watch, which makes me realize we’re due at Adam’s in twenty minutes, which causes adrenaline to spike through me so hard it feels like my hair’s going to lift off at the scalp.
    It occurs to me to go check on Grey, which also means meeting my potential costar, something that sends another surge of panic through me. But what the hell, it has to be done, and I’ll feel worse if I walk in late for everything.
    Coaching myself to breathe, I get out of the car and head over to the front door of a bougainvillea-draped bungalow. I climb the stairs up to a small porch, feeling like an intruder.
    Just as I’m about to touch the doorbell, a voice from nowhere calls, “Come on in!” and I jump like a cat, almost tumbling down the steps.
    I look around and see a tiny camera mounted under the eaves, a speaker beneath.
    Opening the door, I squeeze into a space that smells like fresh paint. Tarps cover the polished wood floors and drape over mysterious lumps that I take to be furniture.
    â€œDon’t mind the mess,” says a man, coming into the room. “I just moved in and am on a mission to obliterate every trace of harvest gold and navy shag carpet that once defiled this gorgeous space.” He shudders. “Thank God I’m a master at spotting potential, or I’d have run screaming from this place the minute my Realtor brought me here.”
    â€œHi, I’m Skyler Canby,” I tell him, wondering if he’ll spot my potential or want to run screaming.
    â€œI know. I saw your screen test. So good.” He drifts closer to take my hand. “Though you’re much more adorable in person.”
    But, really, he’s adorable. Blue, blue eyes. Like blue to the nth degree. Wavy black hair. Gorgeous skin. Startlingly good looking, even by LA standards. With an elegant posture that makes me feel like I’m looking at a reincarnation of Oscar Wilde.
    He gives my hand a squeeze.