3 TOWNS, 4 HEARTBEATS [RINI AU]

six

"I'm having your baby, and it's none of your business."

This tag line occupied Ricky's mind like an ear worm. It repeated in his mind day and night, it was his only tangible thought. He had tried everything in his power to force the statement out of his mind, but the task was simply impossible. Her words were in his dreams, they reflected in his song writing, and they were consuming his being.

It had been a week since he had last seen her, and Ricky had decided that the smartest thing to do would be to get an apartment in the city. New York City seemed like the place Ricky needed to be. After all, if Nina decided to pull a one-eighty and let him be apart of baby's life then he would be close. On top of it all, it was time to start writing his next album, and Ricky had never used New York as his inspiration, and now was his chance. His management team was lucky enough to find a place that was only a fifteen minute walk from Nina's apartment, and Ricky moved in at the soonest possible date.

The space was still pretty bare, just a mattress on the floor and a few instruments strewn around the space, not to mention the beer bottles that littered the floor.

As much as Ricky hated to admit it, it was true, he was using alcohol as a coping mechanism. He wasn't proud of it, but for a split second, right before he would black out, that haunting phrase would leave his mind, and he would forget all about Nina and the baby.

As he read over a text from his manager, Ricky made a promise to himself that tonight he would steer clear of the alcohol and actually start writing his next big hit.

"Carolina" was absolutely going to be the opening track on the album, if not his entire is inspiration for the album. It's the first song Ricky had written in a while that he actually felt connected to. While he loved his first album and all of the great work he had put out, a lot of it felt forced. Like he was making up a dramatic breakup between him and Lily that simply wasn't there. They had called off it because their careers were going in different directions, and they certainly weren't in love.

So no harm, no foul.

All Ricky had known was false love, or pretend love, but after meeting Townes, or, Nina as Ricky had to constantly remind himself, Ricky felt they had the potential. Everything he wrote in "Carolina" was true. They were real words that Nina had spoken to him, the things her grandmother had told her were true.

And from that moment on Ricky had vowed that all of his future works would be the truth, and nothing but it.

So that's why he planted himself in New York. He yearned for his new truth. He yearned for the thought of what would become of him and Nina and this baby, if anything at all. As Ricky contemplated this yearning, the lyrics began to flow and he picked up his guitar and empty sheet of staff paper, starting on a melody. What would become of it, he didn't know, but he knew that it was a start.

A start that was cut fatally short when a text from his manager's assistant came through.