That's What I'm Looking For (Anthem Lights Fan Fiction) Book 1 in the "Light For You" Series (COMPLETED!)

Chapter Ten

~ Early November ~

Susanna's POV

        Its hard to believe that I've been in Nashville over a month now. The guys listened to my CD and said I had some really good potential. They are letting me check out the studio and helping me out with my playing and singing. Chad is a really good teacher when it comes to vocals. Alan and Joey are both helping me on my playing. Caleb is helping me out with my song writing.

       Oh yeah. Also since, Caleb's birthday was just a few days after Joey's we had yet another birthday party. Kelsey did the planning all on her own on that one and it went great. It was a surprise party and Caleb almost believed that everyone had forgot about his birthday. But when he walked into a party that had a Mario and coffee theme, he was thrilled.

        But back to now. I've been in the studio again today, and Joey and I decide to just walk back to my apartment since its nice out. He never lets me go by myself, either I get drove there or we walk there, and no arguments from me can convince him otherwise. He's such a gentleman. I look over at him now, and he's humming a new song that's he's been working on but won't tell anyone about. I smile and my heart picks up a beat.  If I hadn't known better I would have thought that my heart was falling for Joey a little bit. No! I'm sure it's just a mixture of my inner fan girl, following my dreams, and my gratitude for all that the guys were doing, especially Joey. Stop it, Susanna! I mentally shook that thought off, and started talking about something random with Joe to get my mind off my heart.

        We were joking around when we came upon a nice park where the leaves were already starting to change, and Joey pointed out how we could go around it if we wanted. My logical side would have said, sure thing. But today I felt really in touch with my silly side, and a part of me I had almost forgot about, felt alive again. I playfully shoved Joey's shoulder and called out, "Race ya!"

        I took off through the park and up ahead was a nicely stacked pile of leaves, I leaped into it bursting with laughter. With crunching of leaves, Joey followed suit. "Your actually a pretty cool guy, Joey."

        "Well I'll take that as a compliment." He said jokingly copying my statement from my first full day here. We got up and ran a little way's through the park until we came to a shaded spot with a nice wooden bench, and we were both well winded.

        Joey looked at me and starting chuckling. I looked at him puzzled. "What? What is it?"

Joey's POV

        I grinned at Susanna and reached over, plucking a couple of leaves out of her hair. "You're very in season." I twirled a leaf between my fingers, laughing.

       With an laughing eye roll, she replied. "You're a goof." I just watched her as she took in the park with her happy blue eyes, I had also noticed she'd kept wearing her hair down since the day of our surprise party. I liked that. She glanced back at me, her hands flying to her hair, "Is there something else in my hair?"

       I blinked, "No. Nothing." She just smiled a little confused smile.

       She blinked, and looked down at the ground and back to me again, her expression suddenly more serious. "I can trust you right?"

       "Of course you can, Susanna. You can tell me anything." I took her hand in mine to comfort her and she gave a weak smile in return.

        "Just around the time you joined Anthem Lights, my life was really going south. I had always found my escape in music..." Susanna hung her head lower, I patted her back with my free hand. That seemed to encourage her to go on. "I was growing away from God, Joe. All because of the guy I was dating at the time. He said he loved me, and for the first few months he treated me pretty good. Then as I got to now him better I began to see his true colors. He said that the only way we could stay together was if I started going full time to his church and stayed away from my parents. We had a fight and I broke up with him. He tried to chase after me but I got away...."

        "Sus. It's okay." I scooted closer and wrapped her in a hug. "It's over now. You've moved on and away."

        Susanna nodded, wiping the tears from her eyes. "I know. It's just during that time, people had convinced me my voice was through my doing. I'd never thought that before, I always had knew it was a gift from God. But some how I was fooled and became overly confident.... Joey, God took away my voice. I've only just been getting back to what I used to be able to do with it. And the only reason I've been able to do that is that I asked for God's forgiveness. He let me have my voice back, but I'll never take credit for it again."

        "Thanks Sus, for sharing this with me. I'm glad that you could trust me with something like this." I reached over and brushed her hair out of her face.

        A smile came up on her lips, "Thanks. For listening. For being my friend. For just being there and helping me out."

        She leaned over and kissed my cheek, and for some reason my face suddenly felt hot and my tongue as heavy as a rock. "Your welcome."

        Susanna hiccuped and added, "Also during that time. You came on the scene with Anthem Lights. I was determined to not like you, I felt like you were breaking up my favorite band, what kept me going on some days." A giggle escaped her lips, and my heart felt lighter that she was getting happy again. "You are a hard person to dislike, Joseph Stamper. Eventually you grew on me though."