[Karie]

Why do I let that man get to me the way he does? He can get under my skin better than anybody I have ever met in my entire life.

I threw my purse on my sofa and stared at the CD sticking out of it.

“Fine, I’ll listen to it,” I muttered to myself as I took it out of my purse. I opened the case and ran my fingers over my name. I loved the way he wrote my name for some reason.

I put the CD in laptop that was sitting at my makeshift desk that was my dining room table.

The computer instantly started playing and the song he had written about us before we broke up came on.

It’s 3 a.m., I can’t sleep….

I don’t need to hear that one again.

I skipped to the next song and heard a slow melody begin to play.

There’s me, looking down at my shoes
The one smiling like the sun, that’s you
What were you thinking?
What was the song inside your head?
There’s us, going on about a band
Working out how we’d play our hands
I lay there dreaming later, all alone in my bed
If I was stupid, maybe careless, so were you
Not everything is supposed to come true
Some words are best unsaid
Some love is not really love at all
I’ll keep everything I shared with you
And that’s enough.. there’s us

I didn’t know if I wanted to hear anymore.

I clicked to the next song and heard a nice sounding acoustic set. This didn’t sound like a sappy love song.

I can see it in your eyes
Broken windows, fallen skies
Baby, baby what you hidin’ from?
The light that followed you around
Lately nowhere to be found
Don’t you know that I’m your place to run
You’ve been holding on so long
Tryin’ to make believe that nothing’s wrong
Not letting it show
And there ain’t nothin’ you can do
To make me turn away from you
I need you to know
That you can let go
I sat there, listening to the lyrics and knew what they were about.
Sifting through shattered dreams
Livin’ in the in between
Baby, babe it’s gonna be alright
When you’re lost, let down, disappointed and jerked around
In this cold, cold world
I will always be by your side
I was trying my best not to sit there at my computer and cry.
Never let me see you cry
You lock it somewhere deep inside
Baby, baby let me hold you tight

“Oh god,” I suddenly laughed, putting my hands over my mouth.
[/Karie]

[Nick]
“So?” Brian asked as I walked into the recording studio where he and AJ were working on a song. “How was dinner?”
“It went okay,” I said, tossing my bag down. I sat down on the sofa and watched as one of the producers the guys were working with went to the bathroom. “She basically knows I want her back.”

“Did you come out and say this to her?” AJ asked.

“Not technically but in so many words, I did,” I replied. “She’s so hardheaded. She paid for dinner again and refuses to date someone in the industry.”

“You can’t make her do something she doesn’t want to do,” Brian said as I rolled my eyes.

“She wants me, trust me, she does,” I said. “She just doesn’t want to risk her job. She even told me that she dated someone else and that they moved in together but it didn’t work because he didn’t like her hours at work. She even said that what they had wasn’t what we had.”

“You’re gonna have to work for this, Carter,” AJ said as Brian agreed.

“I made her a CD of the songs I wrote about us,” I said as Brian smiled.

“Put the one we wrote together on there?” Brian asked.

I smiled in return.

[/Nick]

[Karie]

I made it through seven songs and there are eight on the CD. I made it through the majority of them, but some I had to skip the ending. I couldn’t listen to it all at once. I couldn’t take it.

Finally the last song. I skipped to the last song on the disc when a country sounding guitar began playing.

I knew this song.

This was a country song.

Baby what are we becoming?
It feels just like we’re always running
Rolling through the motions everyday
I can lean in to hold you, or act like I don’t even know you
Seems like you could care less either way
What happened to that girl I used to know?
I just want us back to the way we were before

“Luke Bryan’s new song,” I whispered to myself, reaching over in the stack of albums that I had just reviewed. I picked it up and looked at the back cover to see the songwriter’s name.

“N. Carter, B. Littrell,” I read, as I continued listening to the song.

Do I turn you on at all when I kiss you baby?
Does the sight of me wanting you drive you crazy?
Do I have your love, am I’m still enough?
Tell me don’t I, or tell me do I baby?
Give you everything that you ever wanted
Would you rather just turn away and leave me lonely
Do I just need to give up and get on with my life?
Baby, do I?

Nick did it. He wrote a country song. I put the Luke Bryan CD down and listened to the lyrics more closely.

Remember when we didn’t have nothing
But a perfect simple kind of loving
Baby those sure were the days
There was a time our love ran wild and free
Now I’m second guessing everything thing I see
Do I turn you on at all when I kiss you baby
Does the sight of me wanting you drive you crazy
Do I have your love, am I’m still enough
Tell me don’t I, or tell me do I baby
Give you everything that you ever wanted
Would you rather just turn away and leave me lonely
Do I just need to give up and get on with my life
Baby, do I still give you what you need?
Still take your breath away
Light up the spark way down deep, baby do I
Do I turn you on at all when I kiss you baby
Does the sight of me wanting you drive you crazy
Do I have your love, am I’m still enough
Tell me don’t I, or tell me do I baby
Give you everything that you ever wanted
Would you rather just turn away and leave me lonely
Do I just need to give up and get on with my life
Tell me baby do I get one more try
Do I, baby do I

I stopped the disc so that it wouldn’t completely replay.

I couldn’t believe that Nick wrote this song. It’s all I kept hearing myself say in my head. Not only was Luke Bryan from my neck of the woods, he was one of my favorite new singers. I’d been following him since he first started singing the college circuit while I was in college.

Now he was singing a song that the guy I was in love with wrote.

A song he wrote about me.

A song that I absolutely adore and did the first time I heard it a few days ago.

What the hell do I do now?

[/Karie]

[Nick]

“I like that other line better,” I told Brian as we set in the green room of the recording studio, writing lyrics to a new song. Suddenly my cell phone beeped, telling me I had a new text message.

“Who’s it from?” AJ asked as I smiled, seeing Karie’s name.

You wrote a country song about me.

“She said I wrote a country song about us,” I said as Brian smiled. AJ laughed as I began to text her back.

U like it?

“At least you’re not singing the country song,” AJ said as I laughed, hearing my phone go off again.

Love it… and Luke is one of my fave people. It’s perfect.

“She said the guy who recorded it is one of my favorite people,” I said, replying to her message.

So? Do you?

“There’s no way she’s going to be able to resist that song,” Brian said as I sighed. “If she can resist it, she’s the strongest woman I know.”

“I don’t know, she’s pretty set in her ways,” I said, hearing my phone again. I flipped it open to read the message.

You know the answer, I do. I just can’t lose everything I’ve worked for.

“She said she does,” I said as Brian and AJ gave each other a high-five. “She’s still worried about her a job.”

Karie I promise I won’t interfere with ur work I’ll do ne thing

[/Nick]

[Karie]

“Anything,” I whispered, reading Nick’s last text message.

I can’t deny that I love him. I never really stopped but I can’t risk everything that I’ve worked for. I know he’s tired of hearing me say that.
Hell, I’m tired of saying it, but it’s the truth.

Give me time to think about it and talk to some people within the industry, k?

I could talk to people at my bureau to see what they thought and could talk to other people within the industry. There has to be some country people married to journalist around this town. There’s too many of each for it not to hook up once in a while.

My cell phone beeped and I opened it.

Just remember I love you

I put my cell phone down on the table and looked at my laptop monitor.

He spelled out ‘love’ and didn’t use text shorthand.

I needed to talk to the people around me, my supervisor, my boss, my friends in the industry and most importantly, myself.

[/Karie]