Chapter 8 Rye #2
The admission surprises me. I expected denials, justifications, maybe anger at being confronted. Instead, he sounds tired in a way that transcends the early hour.
“Did you?”
He considers this, leaning against the doorframe. “I don’t know. Maybe. I didn’t mean to.”
“You didn’t mean to take my melody and write an entire fucking song around it?”
“I didn’t mean to find something unfinished and want to complete it.” His eyes meet mine. “I played that harmony because it belonged there. The words . . . fit.”
“That’s not how this works.”
“How what works?”
“You don’t get to take someone else’s music and decide it needs fixing.”
“Is that what I did?” He steps closer, close enough that I can see gold flecks in his brown eyes. “Fix your music?”
“You tell me.”
Instead of answering, he opens the door wider. “Come inside. Please. Let me show you something.”
Every rational neuron in my brain screams that entering his apartment ranks among the worst ideas in human history. That I should hand over his notebook, demand he destroy whatever he wrote using my music, and walk away before this conversation ventures somewhere beyond my control.
I step inside anyway.
The apartment breathes temporary existence and hasn’t changed over the years.
Books stack on shelves instead of set there with love and tenderness.
Guitars lean against the window. The hardwood floor is covered by threadbare rugs.
The Martin from his performance sits on a stand near a chair that’s clearly his preferred spot for playing.
“Sit.” He gestures toward the chair while moving to the kitchen area. “Coffee?”
“I don’t want coffee. I want to know why you thought you had the right.”
He pours himself a cup and returns with his phone. “Because I didn’t think. I heard something beautiful and incomplete, and my fingers moved without permission. You inspired me.” He scrolls through something on his phone. “Listen.”
Sound fills the small space—a recording of that night at The Songbird. The piano melody I worked on, tentative and searching. But underneath it, barely audible, his voice hums the harmony that transformed everything.
“This is what I heard,” he says. “Not just your melody, but the song it wanted to become.”
I listen to myself play, remembering how lost I felt that night. How music helped me think through problems I couldn’t solve any other way. The melody sounds smaller than I remember, more fragmented.
“Turn it off.”
He stops the recording and sets the phone aside. “The words weren’t written about you, Rye. They were written for the song itself. For whatever you were trying to say that night.”
“You don’t know what I was trying to say.”
“No. But I know what the music was trying to say. Sometimes that’s enough.”
The distinction cuts deeper than I want to admit. He’s right—there’s a difference between stealing someone’s story and finding the story that already exists in their music. Between taking something that belongs to someone else and excavating something that belongs to the song itself.
“Show me.”
He moves toward the guitar, lifting the Martin from its stand. “Are you sure?”
“Show me what you heard.”
He settles into the chair and finds my melody on the guitar strings. But this time, instead of just playing my creation, he weaves in the harmony line from that night. The song begins to breathe, to expand beyond what I originally created.
Then he starts singing.
Found myself in a city of second chances
Where the music cuts deeper than the pain
His voice transforms the words from text on paper into something alive. The melody I abandoned becomes the foundation for something complete, purposeful. Like it was always meant to exist this way.
She left her song unfinished in a room that holds too many secrets
But some melodies refuse to die
They wait for hands that understand their weight
For voices brave enough to try
The chorus builds exactly where it should, the harmony supporting rather than overwhelming the original melody.
My throat tightens because this is what I reached for that night without knowing how to grasp it.
This is the song I couldn’t write because I was too afraid of what it might reveal about me.
He finishes and looks up, guitar still balanced on his knee. “That’s what I heard.”
Silence stretches between us. I should be angry. I should demand he delete the recording and burn the notebook pages. Instead, something loosens in my chest, like a knot I’ve carried for years finally giving way.
“It’s beautiful.”
“It was already beautiful. I just gave it words.”
“My words. The ones I couldn’t write.”
“Your melody. Your emotional blueprint. I just followed the map you drew.”
I stand abruptly, needing movement to process what just happened. “That doesn’t make it okay.”
“No. It doesn’t.” He sets the guitar aside and stands too, close enough that I can feel heat radiating from his body. “I should have asked permission.”
“Yes.”
“I should have made sure you were okay with me building on something you created.”
“Yes.”
“And I definitely shouldn’t have assumed that finding something unfinished meant I was invited to complete it.”
“Definitely not.”
We’re standing too close now, close enough that I can see stubble along his jawline and smell coffee on his breath. Close enough to notice the way his eyes keep dropping to my mouth before returning to meet my gaze.
“But I’m not sorry I did it.”
The admission hangs between us like a challenge. He should be sorry. He should be apologetic and deferential and willing to destroy everything he created using my music. Instead, he looks at me like someone who knows he crossed a line but would cross it again if given the chance.
“You should be sorry.”
“I know.”
“You stole from me.”
“I collaborated with you . . . without permission. There’s a difference.”
The distinction matters in a way I don’t want to examine. Because collaboration suggests partnership, shared creation, the kind of musical intimacy I haven’t allowed myself to want in years.
“That’s not a collaboration. That’s theft.”
“Is it?”
He moves closer, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. Close enough that the question becomes less about the music and more about whatever builds in the space between our bodies.
“Yes.”
“Then why haven’t you asked me to delete it?”
The question stops my breath because he’s right. I should have demanded he erase every trace of the song the moment I found it. I should have made him promise never to use my music again. Instead, I asked him to play it for me.
“Because you’re good at making me forget why I’m angry.”
“Are you angry?”
I consider this, trying to untangle the emotions coursing through my system. Anger, yes, but also something else. Something that resembles recognition. Like being seen by someone who understands the language I speak most fluently.
“I was angry.”
“What are you now?”
Scared. Excited. More turned on than I’ve been in years.
“Confused.”
He reaches up, fingers barely brushing my cheek. “About the song?”
“About a lot of things.”
“The music?”
“The music. You. This.” I gesture at the small space between our bodies, the electric tension that’s been building since I walked into his apartment.
His thumb traces along my jawline, a touch so light it might be my imagination. “What about this?”
Instead of answering, I kiss him.
Nothing gentle or tentative or resembling what first kisses are supposed to be. This is desperate and hungry and driven by months of loneliness I didn’t realize I carried. His hands find my face, fingers threading through my hair as he kisses me back with matching intensity.
I taste coffee and something else—surprise maybe, or relief, or the specific flavor of getting something you didn’t know you wanted.
His body presses against mine, backing me against the wall beside his bookshelf. Stacked books dig into my spine, but I don’t care because his mouth moves along my neck and his hands find the hem of my shirt.
“Rye.” My name sounds different in his voice, lower and rougher than five minutes ago.
“Don’t talk.”
My fingers find the buttons of his jeans, and yank—hard—working them open with hands that shake slightly.
“Are you sure about this?”
“I’m not sure about anything. But I need this.”
“Need what?”
To feel something other than careful. To remember what it’s like when someone touches you because they want to, not because they think they should.
“You. Right now.”
He pulls back just enough to look at my face, searching for something I’m not sure he’ll find. “Rye—”
I silence him with another kiss, deeper this time, tongue sliding against his until he groans into my mouth. My shirt hits the floor. Skin against skin, heat building between us with the same intensity that filled the room when we played music together.
His hands map my body like he’s learning a new song—careful attention to rhythm and pressure, finding the places that make me arch against him. When his mouth follows the path of his fingers, I forget why I came here in the first place.
This isn’t about the notebook or the song or creative theft. This is about the way he listened to my music like it mattered. About being seen by someone who understands the difference between entertainment and art.
We move toward his bedroom, shedding the rest of our clothes along the way. The bed is unmade, sheets twisted like he’s been having the same restless nights I have. Sunlight streams through gauze curtains, painting geometric patterns across our skin.
He kisses me like he owns all the time in the world, hands exploring with the same careful attention he gives his guitar. When I reach for him, he catches my wrist gently.
“Tell me what you want.”
“I want to stop thinking.” The admission scrapes out rougher than intended. “I want to forget everything except this.”
“Just this?”
“Just this.”
He understands what I’m not saying—that this isn’t about promises or futures or anything beyond the immediate need for connection. This is about two people who found something unexpected in each other’s music and want to explore what else they might discover.
When he moves over me, settling between my thighs, something loosens in my chest that I didn’t realize was locked tight. His body against mine, inside me, creates a rhythm that matches the harmony we found at the piano. Like we’re continuing the same conversation in a different language.
I lose myself in the movement, in the way he responds to every sound I make. When release builds in my core, spreading outward through my limbs, I don’t think about consequences or complications. I just let it happen.
Afterward, we lie tangled in sheets that smell like sleep and possibility. His arm curves around my waist, fingers tracing patterns on my hip that resemble music notation.
“I needed that.” The words slip out before I can stop them.
“Good.”
“Not good. Honest.” I turn to face him, studying the way afternoon light plays across his features. “I don’t want you to think this means anything more than what it was.”
Something flickers across his expression—disappointment, maybe, or understanding. “What was it?”
“Two people who got caught up in the moment.”
“Is that what you want it to be?”
No. Yes. I don’t know.
“It’s what it needs to be.”
He nods slowly, gets up and gives me a fine view of his very nice ass, and disappears into the other room, leaving me there to wonder if I just made another mistake.