Chapter 4 #2
“They believe what you let them believe.”
My jaw tightens.
Cy sets down a cable. “Careful.”
Melody’s eyes flash toward him, then back to me. “Admit it.”
“I’m done with this.”
“No, you’re done with almost everything except saying something true.” She steps close enough that I can smell her tea, honey and lemon. “Admit the only thing between us is that ring.”
The room goes quiet. The phone on the music stand keeps recording.
I look at her. Really look. She's beautiful. Young. Talented. Hungry enough to bite through bone. She sees me as proof of something she wants to believe about herself. If Cade Tyler wants her, then she didn’t just arrive. She conquered.
And me? I’ve let her think there’s a maybe because maybe is useful.
Maybe keeps the room charged. Maybe keeps the comments moving.
Maybe keeps me from having to admit the charge was never desire.
It was fear with better lighting. It was the sick relief of walking into a room where nobody asks why my wife’s eyes looked bruised at breakfast. It was praise.
It was momentum. It was a version of myself I missed so badly I let it use another woman’s hand to point away from home.
My ring feels too tight.
“You want the narrative,” I say, low, “to be that the only reason I’m not with Melody Hunter is because I’m married. That I’d be with Melody instead of the woman I’m married to—”
The studio door opens.
“Sorry,” Cy snaps from near the hall. “Am I interrupting your career suicide, or should I come back with a notary?”
The sentence dies in my mouth.
Melody’s face changes. Not much. Just enough for me to see she knows where I was headed, and enough for me to see she’s relieved I didn’t get there.
Cy steps fully into the room. I didn’t even hear him leave. His eyes move from Melody to me, then to the phone on the music stand. The red dot glows. He sees it too.
“Turn it off,” he says.
Melody reaches for the phone, too quick. “It’s just voice memos. I record writing sessions.”
“Turn it off.”
She does.
My heart is beating too hard.
I should finish the sentence. I should say it again, clean and complete, with the phone off and Cy in the room and Melody close enough to hear every syllable.
I should say: There is no version of my life where I choose you over Emmy. I married the only woman I’ve ever wanted. I've been a coward, not a man in love with somebody else.
The words are right there. But my throat is dry, Melody looks wounded now, and Cy looks furious.
All at once, I’m tired of being the bad guy in every room. So I pick the weakest possible sentence.
“We’re all tired,” I say.
Cy stares at me like he can’t believe I’m still finding lower ground.
Melody laughs once, small and sharp. “Sure. That’s what this is.”
She grabs her bag and walks out, phone clutched in her hand. The door closes.
I stand in the room I chose, surrounded by instruments, cables, empty coffee cups, and the wreckage of another thing I didn’t quite do.
Cy doesn’t move.
“Say it,” I mutter.
He steps closer. “You want the short version?”
“No.”
“Good. You don’t deserve it.”
I rub both hands over my face. “Nothing happened.”
Cy’s laugh has no humor in it. “You keep saying that absolves you.”
"It should."
“No,” he says. “And you're a damned fool if you believe that.”
I look toward the music stand where Melody’s phone sat. Empty now. Harmless, if I want to lie to myself.
Cy lowers his voice. “Emmy called you four times.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you still here?”
Because here I’m not a man failing his wife. Here, I’m brilliant. Here, I’m wanted. Here, an entire industry looks at me like I clawed my way back from the edge by sheer force of talent. At home, Emmy looks at me like she’s waiting for me to remember I already had something worth coming back to.
I pick up my phone. Her last text waits on the screen. I don’t answer it.
Cy sees. He takes off his hat, runs a hand through his hair, and puts it back on. He looks older than he did yesterday. Maybe I do too.
“There’s an after-party tomorrow,” he says.
“I know.”
“Fix this before it.”
“I will.”
“No.” His voice cuts clean through me. “Not the song. Not the story. Not Melody’s feelings. Your marriage. Fix your marriage tonight, or lose her.”
I almost tell him he’s being dramatic. I almost tell him Emmy knows me, Emmy loves me, Emmy understands the business.
Then I remember the way she said, I miss knowing which one is coming home. I remember the blue folder under her hand. I remember kissing the top of her head because it was easier than listening.
The trap I’ve built around myself shows itself all at once. Every yes. Every late session. Every joke I let land. Every phone call I silenced because I liked the room I was in better than the hurt waiting in the one I’d promised to share.
And still, even seeing the bars, I reach for the door that leads deeper in.
“I’ll talk to Melody at the party,” I say. “Privately. I’ll set it straight, and then I’ll go home with Emmy.”
Cy looks at me for a long time. “That order,” he says quietly, “is exactly the problem.”
He leaves me with that.
I stand alone under the red studio light, holding my silent phone, while the guitar with my name on it waits in the corner like a promise I’ve already agreed to keep.
Tomorrow night, I tell myself.
One private conversation. One clean line. One more chance to get this right before the whole thing burns.
This time, I won’t be too late.