Read Out Of Place (Face the Music Book 2) for Free Online

sun was drying the salt spray on his face and making his skin itch. He could hear the sounds from the beach. It looked like some kids were already on school holidays for the summer.
    He was either going to sit, or he was going to surf what was available.
    Usually, if it wasn’t good enough he’d pack up and go home.
    Was he waiting for the perfect wave? The perfect chords?
    He knew in that heartbeat Gemma had nailed his problem. Somehow he’d turned into one of those people. Everyone knew stories about artists who couldn’t do anything unless it was perfect and just so. While he was fretting about the small stuff, everything else had stilled.
    He glanced around him. He didn’t need good surf to enjoy the surf. He was going to make the most of the morning.
    After stacking it for a second time, he decided that he wasn’t going for a third in one day. He had no idea what time it was, or how long he’d been out, only that the sun was climbing higher and it was getting hotter. As he stripped off his wetsuit, he was glad it had saved the skin up his arm, if not the top of his foot. That took a special kind of talent to get a sand burn there.
    After changing and loading his car, he debated heading home or staying for a coffee. No breakfast this time, but a coffee he could handle and it might be nice to sit, and even if he wasn’t writing anything down he could at least contemplate some ideas. Taking the pressure off the actual writing was almost working.
    He crossed the road and went into the Indiana Swan. He could’ve gone to any of the other cafés along the beachfront but the Swan was an icon…and he’d enjoyed his last visit. There was no mothers’ meeting today; a few men and women in suits and some older people were enjoying their free time.
    He was sure they were all judging him in his faded boardies and t-shirt that had seen better summers. No doubt they were wondering why he wasn’t at work.
    That he could walk around and no one recognised him was telling. In his home state, Selling the Sun wasn’t well enough known for him to be spotted. While the anonymity was nice, what that meant wasn’t.
    He sat down at a table with a good view of the water, but all he could think about was Mike’s bad attitude and Dan’s now regular drinking. It was like they hated each other—which didn’t bode well, given that they were living together. He didn’t want to think about the friction and barely restrained anger. He wanted to remember the good times. They’d been friends for longer than they’d been band mates. They’d had fun on the road.
    But those memories slipped away, dragged under by his own dissatisfaction and the tension that thrummed when they all got in a room. That was part of his problem; he was trying to force himself to be happy and positive instead of embracing what was going on and using that as a driving force. That’s what Gem and Dan had done in One Mistake . Both of them feeling the sting of a breakup. And while he didn’t know the details—or want them when it came to Gem and his sister—the emotion was there, and that’s what the audience connected to.
    He pulled out his phone and tapped a note out to himself. It was that idea about monsters beneath the calm surface that wouldn’t leave him, even though he didn’t want to work with it. Given it was all he had, for the moment he’d see where it went. Typing on the phone wasn’t the same as handwriting and letting the idea spread over a page, but there was enough that he’d be able to look at it when he got home.
    The blonde woman from last time appeared from out the back. She worked here. That was why the staff knew her. Yet she wasn’t wearing the staff shirt, just a plain pink t-shirt and a denim skirt. Did she own the place? She didn’t seem calm this time. Her lips were pressed together and she was rushing out the door with no time for coffee or cake or her book. He resisted the urge to turn and watch her walk