Free Our Song by Jody Morse, Jayme Morse

me.
    He shrugged. “It’s all about interpretation.”
    “Well, your interpretation is wrong.”
    His blue eyes gleamed with amusement. “And let me guess. Your interpretation would be right?”
    “Yes, because it’s everyone else’s interpretation, too. You’re the only weird one who would see it that way.”
    He shrugged. “Maybe we just watched a different movie.”
    “I hope you won’t apply that logic to our songwriting. Our fans will get a disaster love song.”
    “Well, there’s a solution to that.”
    “What?” I asked with raised eyebrows.
    “We could just fall in love and then write our breakup song.” He shrugged. Then a smile spread across his face. “Just kidding. You’d twist it around and make everything my fault.”
    This time, I didn’t even bother to hold back the dagger eyes. “I’ve never done that to anyone.”
    “Mmhmm,” he murmured. “Anyway, we’re getting off topic.”
    I wanted to grill him about what he was talking about, but I didn’t. I let him continue.
    “We need to find something about love that we can both agree on,” he said. He paused for a moment with a thoughtful look in his eyes. “Why did your last relationship end?”
    “I don’t actually know,” I admitted.
    His eyebrows knitted together in surprise. “Really? It’s not because he went to jail?”
    “Jail?” I narrowed my eyes at him. Did he know something about Jake that I didn’t know?
    “Well, yeah. He killed you… except, I assume he didn’t succeed, since you’re sitting right in front of me. But he apparently tried to kill you and that’s why you wish a thousand deaths upon him.” He shook his head. “Poor guy. Sounds pretty fucking painful, if you ask me.”
    The anger was boiling over now, and I was beginning to understand why everyone thought Colton King was a douchebag. He was .
    “For your information, he disappeared without any explanation.” Saying it aloud for the very first time put into perspective what a douchebag Jake really was. Clearly, I had an emotional connection to multiple douchebags. Maybe D-Bag should’ve been the title of one of our songs.
    “Wow. You got ghosted.” Colton stared at me a moment longer, clearly still surprised. “I’m sorry. That actually sucks.” Then he added, “No wonder you have so much song material from it.”
    I glared at him. “Why did your last relationship end?”
    “The better question would be why it didn’t end,” he said with a laugh. “She had some serious issues.”
    For wanting to date him, I’d have to agree. “ She did, huh?”
    He laughed. “Serious trust issues, just to be clear. I would be on tour and she would just call and text me all day long asking where I was or what I was doing or who I was with. I just couldn’t handle it. I’d rather be alone than have someone who needs to be in constant contact with me.”
    “I know that feeling all too well. I hate the clingy types.” On second thought, I realized I was the clingy type. I’d sent Jake a text message every day since we’d broken up. I knew it was a pretty obnoxious habit of mine, but I hadn’t been able to help myself. I was just crazy like that.
    Well, not really. I didn’t act that way with everyone I’d broken up with. Jake just made me crazy.
    At that moment, an idea hit me. “Actually, I think we might be able to work with this!”
    “Yeah?” He eyed me curiously, waiting for me to tell him my idea.
    “Why don’t we write a song about someone’s phone being blown up?” I suggested.
    He considered it for a moment and then nodded. “Yeah… yeah, I think I like this idea. I have more than enough personal experience to put into it.”
    We had experience from both angles, but I wasn’t about to confess to that.
    He scanned the room. “Do you have something we can write it on?”
    I grabbed my songbook, relieved that I’d burned everything that had been written in it already. The last thing I needed was for him to find more songs