Chapter Twelve
Loved You Wild
Briar Booker was a goddamn genius.
River and Lara spent Thursday morning with Amanda, filling out paperwork and listening to her strategize. Then they went over to Briar’s studio and Briar astounded them with the depth of their knowledge and insight into River’s seedling of an album.
“The songs are all pretty different now,” Briar explained as they sat in the sound booth.
“But they’re also—and I don’t mean this to be offensive—they’re bare-bones.
There’s so much room to play. I think adding the right instrumental tracks can really help pull it all together.
The question is what instrument or instruments, and do we use that alone, or can we actually work in a motif… .”
River slid the headphones over his ears before they even finished talking and gestured to Lara for his guitar. Here, this part of the patter song—it needed a bass lick. And in a different key, a different instrument, that same series of notes would work in the pop ballad.
Lara grabbed a set of headphones too and listened for a minute, nodding. “Yeah, like that,” she said. “And maybe something similar on trumpet, in a different key, for the pop song? Like, kind of Beatles-y.”
River was already nodding along before she finished the sentence. “And we can tie it in on the bridge of—”
He didn’t know how long they sat there, alternating between plucking out notes on guitar (River) and keyboard (Lara—for now) and jotting things in their notebooks, before Amanda pulled the headphones down.
“Oh,” River said. He looked at Lara, who was coming out of the same music trance he was, then Amanda, then Briar. “Uh. Sorry. Got carried away.”
Lara snorted, the color in her cheeks high with enjoyment. River knew she’d be perfect for this.
Amanda rolled her eyes, but Briar only craned their neck to read River’s chicken scratch. They tapped the page thoughtfully. “You know, that one’s almost done. We could do a better demo today, take some video, get it on TikTok tomorrow.”
He caught Lara’s nod of agreement—and deference—out of the corner of his eye. Biting his lip, River looked at Amanda. He didn’t think she’d go for it—she always liked to have a full strategy ready.
But if one of these songs didn’t get out into the universe soon, River would explode.
Thankfully Amanda only raised her hands to say, “Just remember to keep it anonymous, right?”
That would be easier here than in River’s home studio, which had featured on more than a few of the Flat Tires’s TikToks.
Oh, but that also meant—
“Substitute guitar?” Briar asked.
Ugh. “Maybe we do it in black and white,” River countered. He’d get to play his baby, and the deep burgundy color wouldn’t give him away.
Lara shrugged and started unbraiding her hair. “Works for me. Nobody recognizes me with a ponytail.”
“I’m gonna leave you three to it.”
River barely noticed her leaving, already dialed in on Lara and Briar’s ideas for turning “All that Glitters” into something that would lure new fans to a TikTok account.
“Let’s do a fresh recording first,” Briar suggested, “and we’ll shoot the main part of the video while you play. Then we can do some mixing until we’re happy with it and put the pieces together.”
River didn’t sing lead vocals for the Flat Tires.
Ward had a distinctive voice and a broader range and the lung capacity of a humpback whale, so River’d always just done backing tracks.
It made that part a little easier to keep anonymous, and a little more difficult when Briar offered interesting suggestions like “try jumping up the octave here.”
River’s falsetto got a workout, and Lara gave him the expected amount of shit, but they recorded a more dynamic song, full of tension that built to the bridge.
While they waited for the video to process, Briar spun their chair toward River. “I gotta say I’m excited for this to pop up on TikTok so I can listen to it.”
“You’re going to have the file on your computer,” River pointed out. “You could listen to it whenever.”
“It’s no fun if you can’t make your friends listen to it too.”
River couldn’t argue with that. The best part about being in a band was being able to nerd out with people who understood music on the same level he did and could have conversations about it.
That, at least, he wouldn’t lose.
Recording the song and the video took most of the morning, and then Briar ordered falafel from their favorite local joint for lunch. What was this, the third time this week River had eaten a midday meal? Grace would be so smug.
They were demolishing the last of the fries with garlic dip when Lara said, “So don’t take this the wrong way, because this whole project is awesome and I’m having a great time, but I gotta ask.
Where did this stuff come from? It’s not like anything I’ve ever heard you do before. I mean it is, but it isn’t.”
It definitely didn’t have a ton in common with the Flat Tires’ usual stuff. But the reason for it made River’s face go hot before he could answer.
Briar hooted. “Oh, this has to be good.”
Lara reached for another fry, her eyes never leaving River’s face. “Fascinating.”
Ugh. He shot her the finger. But he might as well answer; it wasn’t like it wouldn’t be obvious soon.
“You suck. It’s a couple things actually.
But the big one? It was like six in the morning and I woke up to hear splashing and I went outside and my boyfriend was in the pool.
And like, the pool light was on, right, so—”
Briar cackled. “Are you telling me you wrote a song called ‘All that Glitters’ and it’s about your boyfriend’s glistening wet muscles?”
“No!” River laughed. He wasn’t offended. “Okay, look, obviously my head can be turned by a pretty boy standing in good lighting, I’m not made of stone—”
Lara booed at his choice of words.
“—but actually the whole idea started with Jem anyway. We were on our first date and he was talking about this kid in his kindergarten class and he went on this rant about just letting people like things. You know? Life is tough enough without people shaming you for loving what you love or enjoying what you enjoy because it’s not cool.
And I don’t know, it unlocked something for me.
I thought about it so much.” He knew he was rambling—gushing, even—but he couldn’t stop himself.
“And then the pool thing happened later, presumably,” Briar finished.
“Excuse you, yes, I’m a gentleman.”
Leaning forward to steal the last garlic fry, Lara said, “Sorry, I’m still stuck on the part where your boyfriend is an actual kindergarten teacher.”
River maturely ignored her. “Anyway, then it just became about finding the beauty in things, even if it’s a drop of gasoline in a puddle that makes a rainbow.”
Briar picked up their plates to put in the dishwasher, but Lara went suddenly, uncharacteristically serious, her eyes and voice soft when she said, “Sounds like something a person in love would say.”
Was that what River was? Surely it was too soon to be in love with someone. He was still in the infatuation stage. But love songs—he couldn’t deny he’d been writing those. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s my turn to fill the world with silly love songs.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Briar said. “You ready to get back at it?”
That night Jem beat River home, and River walked inside to find him in the middle of making some kind of stir fry that had River’s stomach growling the second he got in the door. He was getting so spoiled.
“Hey, sunshine.” He wrapped an arm around Jem’s waist and pressed a kiss to the side of his head. “Good day?”
Jem leaned back against him. “One bathroom incident, one projectile vomit, one wasp scare.”
River whistled and squeezed a little tighter. “Yikes. You want a drink?”
“God yes. Do we have cranberry juice?”
Huh. “Is your drink a cosmo?”
“Don’t shame me. They’re delicious.”
“No shame.” River raised his hands. “I agree with you. Plus they’re a pretty color.” He smacked another kiss on Jem’s cheek. “Let me go find a cocktail shaker.” He paused, then pulled Jem in for another kiss. “Hey—what’s Tori doing this Friday?”
“So I got you a present,” Jem told Tori at lunch. “But um… you don’t have to use it if Ivy’s not up to it.”
“Ivy owes me for eating all your Huguenot cake.” She made grabby hands. “Gimme.”
He waggled his cell phone. “Check your email.”
A moment later Tori squealed. “Are you serious? Jem!”
“I mean, I’m not going to need them.”
“Why? Is River gonna sit you on the stage and just serenade you the whole night?”
God, Jem hoped not. He could barely handle it when River played his songs for him at home without any other audience. “Uh. I think I’m like, with Eric and Ward’s families. There’s like a little….”
“VIP area?” Tori suggested.
“Well, no, because you can’t buy tickets. But yeah. Something like that.”
He should’ve known better than to do this in the lunch room, because inevitably, someone had to come investigate her squeal. “What are you two conspiring about?” Frank wanted to know.
Tori glanced at Jem as though to confirm she could tell the story. He gave her a nod.
“Jem got me tickets to his boyfriend’s concert.”
“River got you tickets to his concert,” Jem corrected. His cheeks burned a little. “He wanted to meet you.”
“Jem.” She whacked his arm. “I don’t have anything to wear to meet a rock star.” As if she’d wear anything but cargo pants and a polo even if she did.
Frank blinked at them both. “Rock star?” he asked. Then he looked pointedly at Jem’s watch. “Who exactly is your boyfriend?”
Well, shit. It was going to come out eventually. “River Wild.”
“The guitarist from the Flat Tires,” Tori filled in, in case the name alone didn’t ring a bell. “Oh shit, I gotta go call Ivy and figure out if she’s up to this. Can you go to a rock concert if you’re like, enormously pregnant?”
“Do I look like an OB-GYN?” How was Jem supposed to know? “That’s a question for the internet. But I can check if River has an extra set of the fancy headphones he got me.”