Fireworks 1 and 2

Chapter Sixty-Eight

    Later that evening, Drake and Mia cuddled in bed. He lightly caressed her upper arm with his fingertips while she rested her head on his chest.

    "I have one of those microphones at home," she said softly, staring into the darkness. "One with a pop filter. I rigged it...ghetto style in the living room of my apartment. I sang into it for my YouTube videos. But...it felt nothing like being in an actual studio, singing."

    "Being in the studio felt more official?" he asked her.

    She nodded. "Crazy, crazy feeling. I know I'm not a singer, but I felt like one when I was in that booth."

    "You underestimate yourself way too much," he told her. "You have me and you have 40, who are considered pretty big deals in this industry, telling you that you have a gift. You need to forget what you think you know and believe in us. Believe in our ability to see talent."

    She went quiet and didn't respond.

    He raised an arm and propped it up behind his head. "40 and I...when we work together, I swear magic happens." He paused. "There have been times when we were in hotel rooms. And I would get inspired. Completely out of the blue, no warning. And I'd call him into my room or my suite, if he was in a separate room, and we would just jam out, you know? Jimmy rig a microphone with a filter on it, hook it up, and he'd get to cracking on his laptop and we'd just go." He laughed in the dark, staring up at the ceiling. "Man, remembering those days is so crazy. I was so hungry. I guess I still am, but it was different then. The hunger was more pure back then. And he rode with me. He didn't care how late it was. He never complained. I called on him and he was ready. Always there when I needed him. Still is."

    "You have an amazing group of guys around you," she commented.

    "I do, I do," he said softly. "I wouldn't be here without them. I really wouldn't. I mean...those nights in those hotel rooms. When I say jimmy rig a microphone, I mean using a light fixture and stringing the microphone up so it was hanging from that. Like...jimmy rigging. But we were still happy, you know? We were doing what we loved. Staying up late as hell. Recording late as hell. Staying up until the sun came up, writing or recording. And me...I was a slave to the writing. Whenever it called on me, I answered the call. Always. I would drop what I was doing, you know? And I would get out whatever had to come out. Because if I didn't, I could lose it. An amazing thought...a piece of art...just gone. Lost. All because I didn't take a quick few minutes to jot it down. Or type it in my Blackberry."

    She traced invisible lines into his abdomen. "I've had moments like that before. Great ideas I got, and then lost. I used to think that if an idea was truly great, it was an idea that would come to me again. I used to think that if the idea never occurred to me again then it wasn't as great as I thought it was."

    "Do you still think that now?" he asked her, sounding curious.

    "I don't know...it may have just been a way for me to cope with losing a really good idea."

    He laughed." Losing good work is a shitty feeling," he said. "I've lost cell phones that had some great lyrics in it. And when shit like that happens, I'm always devastated at first. But then I get over it. I just know I have to come up with something else just as good."

    "The benefit of being an artist of any kind," she agreed. "You can come up with something and lose it, whether you sell it to someone else or whether it just gets lost. You can always create more."

    He continued staring up at the ceiling. "I almost forgot how amazing it is to date a writer."

    She lifted her head and looked up at him. "You've dated another one?"

    "My little black book...isn't so little, remember?"

    She rolled her eyes and laid her head down.

    He tightened his arm around her and squeezed her. "No one I've dated is like you," he told her. "You...you're different."

    "I'm sure you say that to all of the other girls," she muttered.

    "Don't be like that," he said laughing.

    "I've dated a writer before too," she declared. "You're not the only one."

    He arched an eyebrow in the dark. "Oh, really?"

    "No, I was just trying to make you jealous," she said.

    He laughed hard. "You're a mess, Mia."

    "Were you...serious? About me being able to visit Bri?"

    "Of course," he told her in a tone of voice that said implied he wondered why she'd even had to ask. "Speaking of Bri...talking about her those weeks ago...and her situation. Got me to wondering."

    "About?" she asked, but her heart rate was already speeding up.

    "Just...the future, you know?" He continued rubbing her upper arm. "About...marriage, kids, all of that."

    Her hand stilled on his abdomen. "Oh?"

    "I mean...you said she didn't want to have kids or anything like that," he said quickly. "And that had me wondering what your viewpoint was."

    She lifted her head again and looked up at him. "You're asking me if I want to have kids?"

    "I mean...pfft. Way down the line, you know? Not right now or anything," he clarified. "But yeah. I was wondering."

    She smiled at him and shook her head. "I want to have kids," she told him.

    "Yeah?" he asked her, smiling. "How many?"

    "I don't know...maybe three or four."

    He nodded. "Respectable."

    "You?" she countered.

    "Three sounds good."

    She stared at him for another moment before laying her head back down. They lapsed into silence for so long, she thought he'd fallen asleep.

    But then there was his deep voice again, asking, "Which would you want to have first? A boy or a girl?"

    She laughed and turned her face into his chest.