Read Online In Your Dreams (Falling #4) by Ginger Scott - Free Book Online Page A

make room for recent ones.
    “Well, there’s a whole lot of me, so it turns out that even less me is still, like, a shitload of me! ” I say, falling back into the couch, this time tossing my hat to the side in frustration. “And I might have hit her car.”
    I throw the last part in quickly, mumbling and pulling the cap from my water bottle fast to drink. I don’t like lying to Houston. I had to tell him. I feel like a kid who broke a lamp.
    “You…that dent…my car…” he stutters chopped up sentences. I only nod. “Damn it, Casey.”
    That single phrase has been uttered by my best friend so many times.
    “I know,” I say, an apologetic half smile. It’s all I got. I smile my way out of messes. “I really will fix your car.”
    He stares at me for a few long seconds.
    “I know,” he blinks. My stomach rushes with relief—not because he isn’t yelling at me, but because he knows I’m good for my word—that I at least have some integrity. It makes me feel less like a bum.
    After a minute of silence, my head falls to the side, and I nod to regain his attention.
    “She’s probably not going to call me,” I say, my face scrunched up.
    “Probably not,” he agrees.
    I’m really disappointed that I screwed this up. She’s talented, and something about her voice motivates me to think big. And, oddly enough, it’s not just because I think she could help me get ahead, but I really think I can help her, and the thought of helping her makes my chest squeeze the way it’s supposed to.
    “I really think she’s good though, man,” I sigh.
    “She is,” he approves again.
    I look into my friend’s forgiving eyes and build up the courage to test him again, to add to my ever-growing list of IOUs.
    “I’m gonna want to go to her next open mic,” I say.
    “I know,” he says, holding up his hand to stop me from saying more. “And yeah, I’ll go with you.”
    I breathe out a soft laugh and smile at him, even though he’s standing and not looking at me. He’s frustrated with me. I do that to him a lot. If I could afford it, I’d buy him an entirely new car. Hell, I’d buy him a new house. Maybe one day I’ll get to.
Murphy
    I threw that ugly card away a dozen times over the last week. Two dozen! I threw it away again on my way into Paul’s. I thought if I threw it away somewhere public, where I didn’t have the safety net of knowing it was my own fairly-sterile trashcan, that I wouldn’t go diving back in after it.
    Chalk this one up to a fail. I got mustard—or at least I hope that’s mustard—on the sleeve of my blouse as I reached in to pull his card back out.
    It’s that whole special thing he said. I’m pretty hung up on it. It wasn’t a line or some cheesy hook to push me into something. In fact, the entire time we talked, that one sentence about me having a real talent was the singular time it felt like Casey Coffield was truly being real.
    I know it’s weird to have a dream, but to also be terrified of it. But that’s where I’m at. I have a dream—and living that dream scares the ever-loving crap out of me. I want to write songs and sing them and have people download them into their iTunes accounts. Then, I want to be so popular, people will bother to buy my music in record format, to play on vintage turntables, because I love that retro sound with the small pops and cracks that accent the crisp magic that comes from a needle on vinyl.
    But…I also don’t want them to boo . I don’t want them to say my lyrics are weak, or that my voice doesn’t evoke enough emotion, or—like on those reality singing shows, when the judges tell the contestant they’re pitchy. Sometimes, I am pitchy. I just don’t think I can handle someone saying it to my face, or in print, or on Twitter. This is why I freaked out when my brother put the video on YouTube—that place is a gateway to criticism, and my hard shell, it’s still soft. And mushy. I have a mushy shell.
    “Murph, hey!” says