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)
It’s everything.
rye
. . .
I wake up to warm skin and the sound of breathing that isn’t mine.
For a split second, I can’t remember where I am. This couch isn’t mine, and neither is the dimly lit lamp or the gold wallpaper. I close my eyes, thinking it’ll help my focus. There’s a crumpled henley on the floor and an arm draped over my waist. I shift and the arm tightens. I take a deep breath, and that’s when Darian’s cologne—woodsy and warm—washes over me. My body sighs against his until everything crashes back.
The song. The candlelight at the piano. His hands on my skin. Fingers, rough and calloused from years of playing the guitar. Lips, needy and tender, pressed to mine.
Panic hits hard and immediately.
I extract myself carefully, holding my breath as I slip from beneath his arm. He doesn’t stir. In sleep, his face loses that careful watchfulness he wears when awake, and he looks younger. Vulnerable in a way that makes my chest tight.
I grab my sweater from the floor and pull it on, then stand there staring at him. At what we did. At what I let happen.
Again.
The green room feels smaller in daylight, shabbier. The couch where we had sex suddenly looks like what it is: an old leather sofa that’s seen too much, and witnessed too many mistakes. Somehow, I feel dirty, like what Darian and I have done makes me feel like a roadie.
I need to move. I need to clean. I need to do something with my hands before this feeling swallows me.
The venue needs attention. Always needs attention. I can inventory the liquor, check the sound system, count register receipts. Normal things. Safe things. Things that don’t involve sleeping with musicians who play guitar like they’re pulling secrets from strings.
I’m wiping down bottles that don’t need wiping when Darian appears in the doorway, shirt dangling from his hand, hair mussed from sleep and my fingers running through it. I swallowed hard at the sight of his abs. Deep, defined ridges now familiar to my fingers and tongue.
“Morning,” he says, voice rough.
“Morning.” I force myself to look away, focusing instead on the bottle of whiskey in my hands. The same whiskey we shared before he kissed me.
“You left.”
“I woke up.”
“And immediately started cleaning.”
Now I do look at him, prepared to snap about making assumptions, but his expression is more curious than accusatory. Like he actually wants to know what I’m thinking.
“The venue opens in three hours. There’s work to do.”
He leans against the doorframe, watching me attack the bar with unnecessary vigor. “The bar’s been clean since Jovie closed it last night.”
“There’s always something.”
“Rye.”
I pause in my scrubbing, shoulders tense.
“Talk to me.”
The request is gentle, which somehow makes it worse. If he were demanding or pushy, I could build defenses against that. But gentleness slips past walls.
“What do you want me to say?”
“Whatever you’re thinking.”
I set down the rag and finally face him fully. He’s still beautiful in the morning light, still looks at me like I’m music he wants to learn. It would be easier if last night had been a mistake, if the connection felt forced or desperate in daylight. Instead, I can still feel the weight of his attention, the careful way he listened to every sound I made.
“I’m thinking that this complicates everything.”
“Does it?”
“Of course it does.” I gesture between us. “We’re not casual people, Darian. I don’t know how to do this halfway.”
He slips his shirt over his head with deliberate, slow movements. “What would doing it all the way look like?”
The question catches me off guard. I expected him to argue or reassure or push. Not to ask what I actually want.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been good at wanting things and keeping them.”
“What if you didn’t have to choose?”
“Everyone has to choose.”
He walks closer, stops at the bar but doesn’t cross into my space behind it. Respecting the boundary even as we talk. “What if we finished the song and saw what happened?”
“Just that simple?”
“Just that simple.”
I want to believe him. I want to believe it could be uncomplicated, that we could write music together without the rest of it getting messy. But I know better. Know how quickly creative partnerships turn into dependencies, how artistic intimacy bleeds into everything else.
“Music stays music,” I say finally. “No distractions from real work.”
Something flickers in his expression, too quick to catch. “Okay.”
“I mean it. I have a business to run, a daughter to raise. I can’t afford to get distracted by whatever this is.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
He meets my eyes steadily. “You’re protecting what matters most. I get it.”
The validation shouldn’t surprise me, but it does. Most people, especially men, take boundary-setting as a personal challenge. Something to negotiate or work around. Darian just accepts it.
“So we finish the song,” I continue. “Record it, make it good, then that’s it.”