Chapter 13 Darian
darian
. . .
Bishop Hart’s studio sits in a converted warehouse in downtown Nashville, all exposed brick and Edison bulbs that cost more than most people’s rent.
I’ve been here enough times to know which floorboards creak and where the good coffee lives.
Today, though, I’m carrying something different than my usual half-formed ideas and bourbon-soaked melodies.
The track plays through Bishop’s speakers, filling the control room with Rye’s melody layered over my production.
I watch his face while he listens, reading the micro-expressions I’ve learned to decode over years of pitching songs.
His fingers tap against the mixing board, not in time with the music but ahead of it, already hearing possibilities.
“Play it again,” he says when it ends.
I hit replay and lean back in the leather chair that probably cost more than three months of rent. The second listen is always more telling than the first. First listen, producers hear what is. Second listen, they hear what could be.
Bishop’s nodding now, really nodding, not the polite kind he gives to songs he’ll forget before I leave the parking lot.
“Who wrote this with you?” He spins his chair to face me, eyes sharp behind designer glasses.
“It’s complicated.”
“Complicated how? Because this melody . . .” He gestures at the speakers like the music is still hanging in the air. “This isn’t your usual style. There’s something vulnerable here. Female perspective, if I had to guess.”
I think about Rye at The Songbird’s piano, humming fragments that night when the venue was closed. The way she pulled melodies from nowhere like she was remembering something that already existed.
“Her name’s Rye. She’s not signed anywhere.”
Bishop’s eyebrows shoot up. “Is she looking for representation? Because with melodies like this—”
“That’s not how she works.”
The words come out sharper than intended. Bishop holds up his hands in mock surrender, but he’s smiling.
“Protective. I get it.” He swivels back to the board, pulling up the track’s waveform on his computer. “Look, I’ll be straight with you. This could be something. Real something, not Nashville something. But it needs her voice on it, not just her melody.”
“I know.”
“You talk to her about recording it properly? My studio time, my engineers, standard co-write split?”
I shake my head. “She doesn’t even know I finished the production.”
Bishop whistles low. “You’re playing with fire, brother. Taking someone’s melody without—”
“I’m not taking anything. I’m trying to give her something.” The defense comes quick, maybe too quick. “She writes these pieces, these fragments, but never finishes them. Never lets them become what they could be.”
“And you think you know what they could be?”
“I think I hear it, yeah.”
Bishop studies me for a long moment. The guy’s got a reputation for spotting talent early, for being the producer artists seek out when they’re ready to level up.
“You’re not talking about just the song, are you?”
I don’t answer. Don’t need to.
He sighs and saves the file to his system. “Alright. Here’s what I can do. I’ll hold studio time next week, Thursday and Friday. Prime slots. If you can get her here, we’ll cut this properly. Full production, session musicians if needed, the works.”
“And if I can’t?”
“Then you’ve got a beautiful demo that’ll never see daylight because you’re too decent to release someone else’s heart without permission.”
The truth of it sits heavy in the room. Bishop’s already pulling up his calendar, blocking out the time.
He believes in this song, maybe more than I do.
But he doesn’t understand that Rye isn’t someone you convince or pressure or dazzle with studio time.
She’s someone who has to choose it herself, every time.
“Send me her info,” Bishop says. “I’ll have legal draw up—”
“No.”
He pauses, fingers hovering over his keyboard.
“No contracts, no lawyers, no official anything until she decides she wants that. If she wants that.”
“That’s not how this business works.”
“I know how this business works. That’s why I’m doing it differently.”
Bishop leans back, crossing his arms. “You really think she’ll just show up? No guarantees, no contracts, nothing?”
“I think if I approach her the industry way, she’ll run.
And she should.” I stand, suddenly needing to move.
The control room feels too small, too full of possibilities I might be building alone.
“This has to be her choice. Real choice, not the kind where we pretend there are options but really we’re just steering toward the outcome we want. ”
“You’ve got it bad.”
“It’s not about that.”
“Sure it’s not.” Bishop’s voice carries thirty years of watching musicians fall for each other, usually badly. “But whatever it is, that song deserves to exist. Full version, proper recording, her voice on it.”
I head for the door, then turn back. “Thursday and Friday?”
“I’ll hold them. But Darian?” He waits until I meet his eyes. “Don’t be so noble you let something good slip away. Sometimes protecting people from opportunities is just another kind of control.”
The drive back to my place takes forty minutes in good traffic, fifty in bad. Today it takes forever because I’m thinking about what Bishop said, about protection being control wearing a nicer suit.
My apartment’s quiet when I get back, just me and the guitars leaning against the wall. Good. I need to do this alone.
I need to find a way to reach her. My notebook sits on the kitchen counter where I left it after she brought it back. She has her own lyric book—I’ve seen her writing in it at The Songbird. That’s where I need to leave the message. Somewhere she’ll find it but can choose to ignore it if she wants.
I tear a page from my own notebook, the one filled with half-finished songs and whiskey-stained margins. My handwriting looks rough against the clean paper, but maybe that’s appropriate.
It’s a good song. Let’s finish it.
Simple. Direct. No pressure about studio time or Bishop’s enthusiasm or the way I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her melody since she hummed it into existence. Just an acknowledgement and an offer.
I fold the note once and pocket it. Tomorrow I’ll find a way to get it to her - maybe leave it at The Songbird when she’s not around, or slip it under her office door. There are boundaries that matter, lines that mean something even when approaching someone who’s pulled back.
My phone buzzes. Bishop, sending a text about session musicians he could call, producers who might want to hear the track. The industry machine is ready to spin up, to take something fragile and personal and turn it into a product.
I don’t respond.
If Rye wants this, she’ll let me know. If she doesn’t, then the song stays what it is: a moment between two people who understood something without needing to name it. Maybe that’s worth more than any recording contract or studio time.
I pour myself coffee instead of bourbon, progress my sister would approve of if she knew.
The Martin sits silent in the corner, holding space for whatever comes next.
I’ve spent years charging forward, taking what I wanted and apologizing later when necessary.
But this feels different. This feels like something worth doing right, even if right means slow, even if right means maybe never.
The coffee’s gone cold by the time I remember to drink it.
Outside, Nashville keeps spinning, writers writing, singers singing, the machine grinding forward.
But here, in this quiet space, I’m learning to wait.
Learning that sometimes the best thing you can do for someone is give them room to choose, even when every instinct screams to pull them closer.
There’s a song that needs to exist, Bishop’s right about that. But more importantly, there’s a person who needs to decide for herself if she wants to be part of bringing it to life. No contracts, no pressure, no industry machinery. Just a note in a book and space to breathe.
I sit with the Martin across my lap, not to play but just to hold it. The bench still holds the impression of where she sat, or maybe I’m imagining it. Either way, I’m here, waiting without expecting, hoping without demanding.
The afternoon light shifts through the windows, marking time in ways that have nothing to do with deadlines or recording schedules. Somewhere in the city, Rye’s probably writing, or not writing, or doing whatever she does when she’s not accidentally creating magic at her venue’s piano.
I think about texting her, then don’t. Think about calling Bishop back, then don’t. Think about pouring that bourbon after all, then don’t.
Instead, I sit with the quiet, with the possibility, with the strange peace of having done something right even if it leads nowhere. The song exists now, recorded and saved in Bishop’s system. But whether it becomes more than that isn’t up to me.
It’s a different kind of power, letting go. Not the explosive kind that ends marriages and recording contracts, but the quiet kind that might, if I’m lucky, build something worth keeping.
The sun sets eventually, painting the room gold then gray then dark. I should eat something, should return those calls, should do any number of things that successful musicians do to stay successful.
I wait. Not desperately, not anxiously, just openly. The note sits in my pocket, undelivered. Maybe she’ll read it when I find a way to get it to her, maybe she won’t. But at least it’s her choice, real and uncomplicated by everything else I could have put on the table.
Bishop would say I’m an idiot. Zara would probably tell me to stop overthinking and just talk to her.
But none of them were there when Rye hummed that melody, when she turned something broken in me into something that might sing.
They didn’t see the way she pulled back when things got too close, too fast. They don’t understand that some things need to be approached sideways, gently, with patience I’m still learning to have.
My phone lights up with another call. This time it’s Benny, probably checking if I need anything for the apartment. I let it go to voicemail. I’ll call him back tomorrow, thank him for pushing me to get out more.
All true, in their way.
The apartment settles into night sounds, familiar creaks and sighs that used to drive me out to bars and other people’s beds. Now they just feel like company, like the building itself is learning to be alone with me.
I finally get up from the chair, joints protesting the long sit.
Tomorrow there’ll be decisions to make, calls to return, the business of being Darian Mercer to attend to.
Tonight, there’s just this: a note in a book, a song in the air, and the radical act of letting someone else decide what happens next.
It’s not much. But it’s honest. And maybe, after everything, that’s the only currency that really matters.