Marigold and Daisies (H.S.)

Fifteen

Harry's POV

Words can't describe how amazing these past few weeks have been. Scratch that, the last few months. Having Marigold back in my life has been a dream come true. I never thought that we would cross paths again, let alone fall in love again. But here I am, completely head over heels for this woman.

It's so cliche. Childhood friends turn into lovers then tragically part ways only for the universe to bring them back together years later, it was straight out of a romance novel. I never expected to find her in LA, or that she'd have a daughter too. She always talked about leaving South Carolina, but I didn't think she'd actually do it.

I'm not going to lie, I've been in a bit of a funk in terms of my music and songwriting. After two very successful albums, I've never felt more pressure to push out new hits. Granted, I think I've been placing high expectations on myself, everything that I wrote I scrapped, none of it seemed right.

Nevertheless, the inspiration and motivation was gone.

Then I saw Marigold. With her hair messily thrown back with strands hanging down the sides of her face, concentrating on the arrangement she was working on. Her tongue poked out through her slips slightly, I couldn't help but smile knowing that some things never change. I noticed her before she saw me, but I was too nervous to say anything to her so I pretended like I didn't see her. What was I supposed to say? But then I heard her voice and I couldn't stop myself from speaking up. That's when everything changed, I knew I needed to have her back in my life.

Then it all flowed out of me. I had new inspiration, my Marigold.

Mitch and I have been in the studio almost everyday, the songs seemed to pour out of us so easily. The music we've been writing has been a completely different sound than what I've released. I've always wanted to release songs that were one hundred percent me, but I've never let myself do it, too scared that the fans wouldn't like it or that they wouldn't make the charts. Honestly though, I didn't really care about the numbers anymore.

I've been trying to perfect a song we've named Old and Red, the name being a work in progress. Something's missing, but I can't figure out what it is. I think we'd run the song about five times just this morning. Mitch is definitely ready to kill me because each time he suggested an idea I shot him down.

Mari was easily the inspiration behind this song and I wanted it to be perfect for her. The idea came to me after we went on a date last month. I surprised her one day at work, already calling Allie to convince her to watch over the cafe. I knew Mari was always hesitant to leave it, business being better than ever right now. But after she called me one night in tears with how overwhelmed she's been I knew she needed a break. I packed a small picnic lunch for us and a bottle of wine. I wanted her to feel at ease and stressed free and I wanted to be her reason why.

"You need an intro, that's what I've been trying to tell you," Mitch said to me, laying back on the couch in the recording studio. He closed his eyes, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, annoyed with me.

It's been a bit of back and forth all morning. He would spit ideas at me, and I would so no. I would spit ideas out at him, and he would say no.

"No shit, but I don't know what," I threw myself down into the rolling chair in front of the sound controls. "Why is this so difficult?" I groaned, my arm flying up to cover my eyes.

"What about just a simple 1, 2, 3, 4?" He called out. I shook my head, instantly hating the idea.

I pressed play on the control panel, the instrumental coming through the speakers. "What if we expand that portion? Like make the instrumentals longer. It needs more depth.. Mitch hop on the bass real quick, give me some heavy strings." I nodded my head at him, hoping this would tie everything together.