Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 92749 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92749 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.”
We stand there for a moment, the space between us charged with everything we’re not saying. He’s wearing the same worn jeans from that first night, a black henley that fits him too well, and I have to look away before my brain starts cataloging all the ways this could go wrong.
“Come in.”
I lead him to the corner where the piano sits, pulling two stools close but not too close. Professional distance. Creative partnership space. Not knee-touching, skin-remembering proximity.
He sets the bourbon on the piano bench and pulls out his guitar, fingers automatically finding strings, adjusting tuning. I grab my notebook, the one with half-finished lyrics and whole-finished doubts, and flip to the page where our song exists in fragments.
“You were right,” I say without preamble. “It is a good song.”
Something shifts in his expression, surprise maybe, or relief. “I’m happy you got my note.”
“Hard to miss when you tucked it into the most important pages.”
“I wanted to make sure you’d find it.”
“It’s how you’re here . . . sitting next to me.”
Darian smirks and pours bourbon into two glasses I grabbed from behind the bar, slides one toward me. Our fingers don’t touch, but they almost do, and that almost feels louder than contact would.
“I’ve been thinking about the bridge,” he says. “The melody wants to climb there, build to something.”
“I know. I tried writing it alone but—” I stop, not wanting to admit how empty it felt without him.
“Yeah. Me too.”
“Play what you have,” I say.
He starts with the verse melody I wrote, the one he found that day I want to forget but can’t. His interpretation has evolved since I heard him working on it. There are layers now, complexity that honors the simplicity of the original. When he reaches the pre-chorus, I hum the harmony without thinking, and he smiles without looking up.
“There,” he says. “That. Do it again.”
We work through it three more times, each pass revealing new possibilities. I scribble lyrics as we go, crossing out lines, adding new ones. He suggests a key change I resist until I hear it, then wonder how I ever thought it could work any other way.
An hour passes. Maybe two. The bourbon level drops slowly, responsibly. We’re not drinking for courage or escape, just taking small sips between musical phrases. At some point, our stools drift closer. At another point, his knee bumps mine and neither of us pulls away.
“Try this,” he says, playing a variation on the chorus that makes my chest ache with how right it sounds.
I sing the words I’ve been holding back, the ones that feel too honest: ”I built these walls with careful hands, mortared tight with fear. You show up with your wrecking ball disguised as harmony I need to hear.”
He stops playing. “Rye.”
“It’s just a metaphor.”
“Is it?”
I reach for the bourbon instead of answering, but he catches my wrist gently. Not holding, just touching. A question, not a demand.
“This is a bad idea,” I whisper.
“The worst,” he agrees, but his thumb traces the inside of my wrist where my pulse gives me away.
“I can’t do complicated.”
“Neither can I.”
“I have a kid.”
“Doesn’t bother me.”
“I have a venue to run.”
“I know.”
“I have trust issues and control issues and probably ten other issues I haven’t even diagnosed yet.”
His thumb keeps moving, the smallest motion that somehow affects every nerve in my body. “I’m not exactly uncomplicated myself.”
“This is just about the song.”
“If that’s what you need it to be.”
I look at him then, really look at him. There’s no performance in his expression, no carefully constructed musician’s mask. Just him, tired and talented and patient in a way that terrifies me.
“Don’t kiss me unless you mean it,” I hear myself say.
His hand shifts from my wrist to cup my face, thumb now tracing my cheekbone with the same gentle certainty. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
“I mean it, Darian. I can’t do casual. I can’t do meaningless. I can’t do another person who takes what they want and disappears.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Instead of answering with words, he leans in slowly, giving me every opportunity to pull back. I don’t. I meet him halfway, and when our lips touch, it’s nothing like that desperate collision in my apartment. This is deliberate. Conscious. A choice we’re both making with eyes wide open.
He tastes like bourbon and possibility. His hand in my hair is steady, grounding. When I make a small sound against his mouth, he pulls back just enough to look at me, checking, always checking that this is okay.
“The song,” I manage.
“Can wait,” he finishes.
“That’s not what I was going to say.”
“What were you going to say?”
I take a shaky breath. “The song deserves better than us using it as an excuse.”
He considers this, hand still tangled in my hair. “You’re right.”
“So if we’re doing this—”