Just What I Needed

Just What I Needed (26)

Yeah... she definitely didn't like him, but she wasn't in denial!

He leaned forward farther to shut off the water, and a chain fell from it's hidden place beneath his shirt.

Instantly Keely's eyes narrowed on it, following the long plain chain with her eyes carefully. Her eyes traced it until she what was attached to the thin chain, and she found herself frowning as she resisted the urge to lean over and snatch it up.

"Are those dog tags?" she blurted thoughtlessly.

Unless she was very much mistaken, those were army dog tags, they looked much too official.

Hastily he grabbed the chain, and shoved it back into his shirt. He looked at her, frowning slightly as if pondering how to answer. Although she blinked to make sure it was true, she was seeing that dark look in the hazel eyes she'd noticed only once before when he'd been playing at the old club.

"Yeah," he answered simply, apparently finding that the damage was done and it'd be pointless to lie.

"So you were in the army or something, you did the whole Elvis thing?" she asked hurriedly, straightening in her perch upon the counter. "Did you have to shave your head?"

Yet he just gave a snort, looking at her incredulously as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Really, that's what you think? Staub, I was working on my first album when I was seventeen, it was released when I was eighteen and I've been touring, producing and recording ever since. No time to join the army there."

She frowned, "Then why do you have dog tags?"

"C'mon," he said, taking a step towards her, filling in the space between them so he could grip her by her forearm, and tug her off the counter. "Let's just go back to the studio."

"Seth," she whined.

"I was thinking you could do the guitar track on For You, even if we don't finish it tonight we could keep going on it tomorrow."

It was becoming clear he wasn't going to share, but Keely only pouted for a moment. Because, really, did she have to know everything about him? She couldn't even stand him when they were out of the studio. Yes, she was curious, but she didn't need to know everything about him.

"I thought we were going to get Colton to do the drum track tomorrow and if we had time I could lay down the guitar..."

"I changed my mind," Seth answered stiffly, hauling her down the hall.

Keely was no fool, she knew exactly what he was doing. He knew he wouldn't be able to get her to leave the studio, so he was shoving her into the booth to record where she couldn't pester him with questions. Well, he could be as secretive as he wanted! It wasn't like she cared or anything. She was quite fine with not knowing and playing the guitar instead.

"You sure you can handle it?" Seth asked, finally letting go of her arm when they pushed through the door into the studio. "It's not the easy song to do on the guitar, especially on the solo, it gets pretty heavy."

She scowled up at him. "I wouldn't write something I couldn't play, I'm good at this, Seth."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he muttered, grabbing one of the Stratocasters that belonged to UAE Records, and handing it to her by the neck. "Just watch the finger noise, we already had to deal with Marco today."

Although she would have liked to reply to his comment with an insult, Keely held it back. That seemed to be becoming a habit too. So she simply pushed through into the sound booth without a word, hooking the guitar up to the amp as she slipped the strap around her shoulders.