CITY OFANGELS
19
Lucky
The bus jerkedas it switched lanes. Lucky alternated between trying to work on new songs and looking out the window. Jude's footsteps thuddedtowardsher.
"Talk to me,"Judesaid.
Lucky kept her head buried in her new notebook, hoping he'd go away. She knew it wasn't very mature, but she couldn't bring herself to tell him to leave her alone, so operation 'I Can't Hear You' began. It seemed to be working too because he kept walking away. Granted, he alwayscameback.
"This is ridiculous, Olivia. You have to talk to me. I know you need my help with thesongs."
He walked away again. She knew he'd be back. Each time he left, he came back sooner. Wishing he'd leave her alone, she returned her focus to her notebook. She really needed to write, but her mind was as blank asthepage.
Since she met Jude, all her songs had been about him. She only had two days to come up with new songs and she knew she needed his help, but there was no way she was going to let him see those lyrics, let alone share them with the world. She had to writesomethingnew.
She heard his boots thudding back down the aisle and wrote "Boomerang Man" at the top of the page. It figured the first somewhat creative thing she thought of would be because of himanyway.
This time he didn't say anything. He stood beside her seat, looking sexy as always, but this time his burning gaze penetrated her. Jude didn't need to say anything to get herattention.
"Fine, what?" sheasked.
"Ignore what happened between us if you want, but we do need to work together. I think I know part of yourproblem."
"You're a big part of my problem," she said, hoping she sounded more convincing thanshefelt.
He pulled out his folded notebook from his backpocket.
"Read this," he said. "Especially what's dated during the tour. Maybe it'll help you feel better about what you've written. I know you have a lot of stuff. You're wasting time trying to write new lyrics. I mean really, ‘BoomerangMan?’"
He tapped the words she wrote earlier on her notebook, dropped his notebook in her lap, and walked back to his seat. She held his notebook, waiting to see if he would come back. When he didn't, she flipped through it looking at the mess of lyrics and poetry, some first drafts, others edited. She couldn't bring herself to read anything though, it was toopersonal.
Looking around her seat to the back of the bus, she expected to see him, but he was out of her view. She grabbed her bag and his notebook and brought it backtohim.
"I can't read this,"shesaid.
"Whynot?"
"Because these are your songs. Your babies. These are personal," she said as she handed his notebook backtohim.
"And that's exactly why you shouldreadthem."
Jude's eyes were locked on hers. She knew by reading his lyrics she would get to know more about him than anyone else. His soul was on those pages. Offering his words to her was his way of talking to her when she didn't want tohearit.
She wanted to read his lyrics more than anything, but it didn't seem fair to her. Sitting beside him, she opened her bag and looked at her old notebook for a moment while she thought. Pulling out her old notebook that had stapled pages held together by a rubber band, she handed ittohim.
"I'll show you mine if you show me yours,"shesaid.
"I've played that game before," he said withagrin.
"Yeah, I've heard about that, from a friend of afriend."
They spent the next couple of hours reading each other's lyrics. Lucky blushed when she read some of the lyrics about her and caught Jude looking at her several times as hereadhers.
"Tell me how you write songs," heasked.
"What do you mean? Like myprocess?"