Chapter 14 Rye
rye
. . .
The note sits on my kitchen counter like a live grenade.
Seven words that shouldn’t matter this much: It’s a good song.
Let’s finish it. I’ve read them at least fifty times since finding the piece of paper tucked into my lyric book this morning.
Darian's handwriting is somehow both careful and rushed, like he wrote it fast before he could change his mind.
I make coffee and stare at it. It’s a good song. Let’s finish it.
I take a shower and think about it. It’s a good song. Let’s finish it.
I check the inventory at the venue and the words follow me. It’s a good song. Let’s finish it.
By noon, I’ve memorized every curve of his letters, the way the L loops slightly, how the cross of the T is darker than any other letter.
Like everything about him, he's confident but not arrogant.
Direct but not demanding. The way he wrote “good” instead of “great” or “amazing” feels honest. Real.
Not trying to convince me of anything, just stating a simple truth.
“You’re going to burn a hole through that paper,” Jovie observes from behind the bar.
I fold the note and shove it in my pocket. “I’m just checking something.”
“For the twentieth time today.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“I’m understating.” She sets down the glass she’s cleaning. “Either text him or throw it away, but stop torturing yourself.”
The truth is I’ve written the text message seventeen times. Deleted it eighteen. Each version sounds wrong. Too eager. Too cold. Too much like I care. Too much like I don’t.
My phone feels heavy in my hand as I type again: One song. One session.
Delete.
We can finish the track. Nothing else.
Delete.
Fine. When?
Delete.
Lily texts me from camp asking if she can go to her friend’s house after class, and I respond on autopilot, giving permission while my mind stays stuck on those seven words.
The melody we started creating has been looping in my head for days, incomplete and maddening.
Every time I try to work on it alone, it feels wrong.
Like trying to harmonize with my own echo.
He’s right. It is a good song. Could be better than good if we let it.
By three o’clock, I’ve accomplished nothing productive. The venue’s ready for tonight’s show, thanks to Jovie handling most of the prep while I pace circles in my own head. The repair Darian helped with looks perfect after two coats of paint, and I hate that I notice it every time I walk past.
I pull out the note again while sitting in my office.
The afternoon light catches the paper, and I notice something I missed before.
There’s a tiny smudge near the edge, like his hand dragged across the ink before it dried.
For some reason, that small imperfection makes it real.
Makes him real. Not just the fantasy musician who showed up and complicated everything, but an actual person who writes notes with actual hands that sometimes smudge actual ink.
My phone buzzes. Jovie again: Stop overthinking. The song deserves to exist.
She’s right. The song does deserve to exist. That’s what makes this so hard. I can feel what it could become, the potential sitting there waiting for us to reach for it. But reaching means touching. Means being in the same room. Means trusting him not to take what we create and disappear with it.
Means trusting myself not to give him more than just music.
Four-thirty. The sun’s starting its descent, casting long shadows through the venue windows. I unfold the note one more time, smooth it flat on my desk. It’s a good song. Let’s finish it. Such a simple assessment. No pressure, no expectations. Just acknowledgment of what we both know is true.
I grab my phone before I can think myself out of it again.
One song. One session.
Send.
The response comes faster than expected, like he’s been waiting by his phone: Tonight? After the venue closes?
My heart does something complicated in my chest. Yes.
I’ll bring whiskey.
I’ll bring boundaries.
Three dots appear, disappear, appear again. Finally: Fair enough.
The rest of the hours crawl by. Tonight’s performer is a folk duo from Memphis, harmonies so tight they could make you believe in God or love or whatever you’ve been avoiding believing in. I watch from the back of the room, arms crossed, trying not to check the time every thirty seconds.
“You look like you’re going to your execution,” Jovie whispers during the break between sets.
“I might be.”
“Drama queen.” She bumps my shoulder. “It’s just music.”
But it’s not just music. It never has been with him. From that first night when he played like he was bleeding out through the piano keys, there’s been something else. Something I don’t have words for. Something I definitely don’t have defenses against.
The venue finally empties at eleven-fifteen.
I send the staff home, even Jovie who offers to stay and “supervise.” The silence after everyone leaves feels thick, expectant.
I light the candles we use for acoustic sets, turning off the harsh overheads.
If we’re doing this, at least the lighting won’t feel like an interrogation.
He knocks at eleven-thirty exactly. I find him at the door holding a bottle of bourbon and his guitar case, looking like every bad decision I’ve ever wanted to make.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.”
We stand there for a moment, the space between us charged with everything we’re not saying. He’s wearing the same worn jeans from that first night, a black henley that fits him too well, and I have to look away before my brain starts cataloging all the ways this could go wrong.
“Come in.”
I lead him to the corner where the piano sits, pulling two stools close but not too close. Professional distance. Creative partnership space. Not knee-touching, skin-remembering proximity.
He sets the bourbon on the piano bench and pulls out his guitar, fingers automatically finding strings, adjusting tuning. I grab my notebook, the one with half-finished lyrics and whole-finished doubts, and flip to the page where our song exists in fragments.
“You were right,” I say without preamble. “It is a good song.”
Something shifts in his expression, surprise maybe, or relief. “I’m happy you got my note.”
“Hard to miss when you tucked it into the most important pages.”
“I wanted to make sure you’d find it.”
“It’s how you’re here . . . sitting next to me.”
Darian smirks and pours bourbon into two glasses I grabbed from behind the bar, slides one toward me. Our fingers don’t touch, but they almost do, and that almost feels louder than contact would.
“I’ve been thinking about the bridge,” he says. “The melody wants to climb there, build to something.”
“I know. I tried writing it alone but—” I stop, not wanting to admit how empty it felt without him.
“Yeah. Me too.”
“Play what you have,” I say.
He starts with the verse melody I wrote, the one he found that day I want to forget but can’t.
His interpretation has evolved since I heard him working on it.
There are layers now, complexity that honors the simplicity of the original.
When he reaches the pre-chorus, I hum the harmony without thinking, and he smiles without looking up.
“There,” he says. “That. Do it again.”
We work through it three more times, each pass revealing new possibilities. I scribble lyrics as we go, crossing out lines, adding new ones. He suggests a key change I resist until I hear it, then wonder how I ever thought it could work any other way.
An hour passes. Maybe two. The bourbon level drops slowly, responsibly. We’re not drinking for courage or escape, just taking small sips between musical phrases. At some point, our stools drift closer. At another point, his knee bumps mine and neither of us pulls away.
“Try this,” he says, playing a variation on the chorus that makes my chest ache with how right it sounds.
I sing the words I’ve been holding back, the ones that feel too honest: ”I built these walls with careful hands, mortared tight with fear. You show up with your wrecking ball disguised as harmony I need to hear.”
He stops playing. “Rye.”
“It’s just a metaphor.”
“Is it?”
I reach for the bourbon instead of answering, but he catches my wrist gently. Not holding, just touching. A question, not a demand.
“This is a bad idea,” I whisper.
“The worst,” he agrees, but his thumb traces the inside of my wrist where my pulse gives me away.
“I can’t do complicated.”
“Neither can I.”
“I have a kid.”
“Doesn’t bother me.”
“I have a venue to run.”
“I know.”
“I have trust issues and control issues and probably ten other issues I haven’t even diagnosed yet.”
His thumb keeps moving, the smallest motion that somehow affects every nerve in my body. “I’m not exactly uncomplicated myself.”
“This is just about the song.”
“If that’s what you need it to be.”
I look at him then, really look at him. There’s no performance in his expression, no carefully constructed musician’s mask. Just him, tired and talented and patient in a way that terrifies me.
“Don’t kiss me unless you mean it,” I hear myself say.
His hand shifts from my wrist to cup my face, thumb now tracing my cheekbone with the same gentle certainty. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
“I mean it, Darian. I can’t do casual. I can’t do meaningless. I can’t do another person who takes what they want and disappears.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Instead of answering with words, he leans in slowly, giving me every opportunity to pull back. I don’t. I meet him halfway, and when our lips touch, it’s nothing like that desperate collision in my apartment. This is deliberate. Conscious. A choice we’re both making with eyes wide open.
He tastes like bourbon and possibility. His hand in my hair is steady, grounding. When I make a small sound against his mouth, he pulls back just enough to look at me, checking, always checking that this is okay.
“The song,” I manage.
“Can wait,” he finishes.
“That’s not what I was going to say.”
“What were you going to say?”
I take a shaky breath. “The song deserves better than us using it as an excuse.”
He considers this, hand still tangled in my hair. “You’re right.”
“So if we’re doing this—”
“We do it honest.”
“No hiding behind the music.”
“No using each other as material.”
“No promises we can’t keep.”
He kisses me again, softer this time. “How about promises we can?”
“Like what?”
“Like I’ll be here tomorrow. Like I won’t take anything you’re not willing to give. Like this matters to me more than I know how to explain.”
The words sit between us, heavy with meaning.
I think about all the reasons this is dangerous, all the ways it could implode, all the damage we could do to each other.
Then I think about the note in my pocket, those seven words that started this.
Not just “Let’s finish it,” but the acknowledgment before it.
“It’s a good song.” Like he sees the value in what we’re creating.
Like he respects it. Like he respects me.
“Let’s finish it,” I say.
“The song?”
“Everything. The song, this conversation, whatever’s been building since you walked into my venue.” I pull back enough to see his whole face. “But Darian?”
“Yeah?”
“If you ghost me after this, I will hunt you down.”
His laugh is quiet, real. “Noted.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.” He traces my bottom lip with his thumb. “I’m not going anywhere, Rye. Not unless you tell me to.”
Something in my chest loosens at the words, a knot I didn’t realize had been pulled so tight. We sit there in the candlelight, foreheads touching, breathing the same air, while the unfinished song waits on the piano and the finished bourbon sits in our glasses.
“We should work on the bridge,” I say eventually.
“We should,” he agrees, but neither of us moves.
“This is going to complicate everything.”
“Everything’s already complicated.”
He’s right. He has been since that first night when he played like he was trying to exercise demons and I stood there like I could save him. Or like he could save me. Or like maybe we could save each other.
“Play it again,” I tell him. “From the beginning.”
He picks up his guitar, fingers finding position.
This time when he plays, I don’t hold back the harmony.
I let it exist fully, the way it wants to, the way it’s been trying to since we started.
Our voices find each other in the space between notes, creating something neither of us could make alone.
The song builds and breathes and becomes. Just like whatever this is between us. Dangerous and necessary and too late to stop now.
When we finish the last verse, he sets down his guitar and looks at me. “Again?”
I nod. “Again.”
We play it through three more times, each iteration revealing new layers, new truths. By the time the candles dim, we have something complete. Something whole. Something ours.
“You were right,” I tell him quietly.
“About what?”
“It’s a good song. Better than good now.”
“Rye?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For trusting me with this.”
I know he means more than just the song. I know he understands what this costs me, letting him in even an inch. I know because it’s costing him something too, this careful offering of himself without defense or pretense.
“Don’t make me regret it,” I whisper.
“I’ll try not to.”
It’s not a guarantee. Can’t be. We’re both too scared for guarantees, too aware of how easily things break. But it’s honest, and right now, that’s enough.
The candles flicker, casting shadows that dance across his face. I know the complications are waiting. The doubts, the reasons this can’t work, they’re all still there. Right now though, there’s just music and possibility and two people choosing to stop running from something that feels inevitable.
“Stay,” I hear myself say.
“Here?”
“Just to play. We could work on another song. Or finish polishing this one. Or—”
He kisses me quiet, and I let him. When he pulls back, he’s smiling. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I’ll stay. We’ll play. See what happens.”
See what happens. Such a simple phrase for something that feels like jumping off a cliff in the dark. But his hand finds mine, fingers interlacing, and suddenly the fall doesn’t seem so far.
We reach for the instruments again, for the music that brought us here, for the connection neither of us quite knows how to name. The venue holds us in its quiet darkness, protective and patient, while we create something new from all our broken pieces.
The song is finished, but we’re just beginning.