Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 71698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
With that playing in my brain on a loop, I can’t help but look down. Those high pants are cupping all the right places in the front, and when he turns, also in the back. They’re giving sexy wedgies, and there’s absolutely nothing old man about them.
“I booked this studio because I know someone who knows someone, and they had a few days where it was going to be empty. I looked it up online. It’s a gorgeous space, and it isn’t too far from Sanoma, while being just far enough. It’s not what I originally thought of when I wanted to take you away. I would have loved to go to Colorado or somewhere with mountain man vibes, but instead, you get this. Me. Exhausted, stressed, sweater vest, in all my glory. While we’re here, I swear you’ll have my undivided attention. For your music, or for anything else. It’s your choice. You sort of kidnapped me, so you’re calling the shots.”
I elbow him playfully in the side, hoping he can’t see how my heart is banging all over the place and simultaneously melting, while the rest of me follows suit. “It was more of a role-playing kidnapping. If we call it anything other than that, I feel like I’m going to have to do some good deeds to make up for the bad karma I’m putting into the world.”
He tips his head back in a wolf howling to the moon pose and lets out the longest, deepest, heartiest laugh. His chest swells, his shoulders rise and fall, and his throat expands and contracts the same way it does when he’s belting out an intense part of a song.
It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in the past two weeks.
Then again, I’ve spent fourteen days staring at the walls of my house, applying for jobs online, and watching my cats lick their own butts.
But if I’d spent that time journeying to the most incredible spot on earth, it still wouldn’t be half as beautiful as the man before me.
His eyes crinkle at the corners. When he laughs like that, he smiles with his whole face.
“I can’t wait to show you everything. Should we go in?” he asks.
“They just left it unlocked for you?”
“The door has a code. I’ll be able to let us in. Let me get your bag for you.”
I want to protest, but he’s already heading to the trunk. I pop it with the button on the fob and let him shoulder it. I make sure I walk in front of him so I don’t pop a hardcore lady boner over those damn pants. He gives me the code and lets me type it into the keypad. The door lock whirrs, and the big metal door opens easily when I try the handle.
In my head, I have a pretty good idea what a studio looks like. I’ve spent some time deep diving the internet. I even looked up what the equipment does in the control room. I know the part where the artist performs, with all the instruments, is called the live room, or the actual studio part of the building. But I didn’t realize there are often individual rooms for things like drums.
Learning the technical terms and studying photos online did nothing to prepare me for the straight-up magic that I walk into. Granted, the large control room with two long rows of equipment, huge speakers in the corners, a flat screen TV above a massive window that opens into the live room, two giant leather couches, and gorgeous hardwood floors and overhead lighting that bathes the room in gold is breathtaking, but it’s not that much different from what I saw online. It’s just the fact of being here. Me. In person. With Wilder.
It’s just us, and all the instruments glittering in the sealed-off studio.
The microphones, the incredible grand piano, the array of guitars, the drums in the far corner of the room, and an ornate organ on the opposite side—all of it is expensive and pristine, beautiful beyond anything I’ve ever dared to touch. It’s a different world. Wilder’s world. He made this happen. He wanted to open it up to me and give me this gift.
Even if we just sat on that couch all night and stared at the place, it would still be one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. I’ve seen a lot of backstage stuff—almost all of it, actually—but this is so different.
“Please tell me you don’t hate this. If you don’t want to record any of the songs, we don’t have to. We don’t even have to turn any of the equipment on. We can just play. Or not. We don’t even have to do that. We can just sit here, look at the walls, and breathe each other in.”