Chapter 16 Rye
rye
. . .
I wake up to warm skin and the sound of breathing that isn’t mine.
For a split second, I can’t remember where I am.
This couch isn’t mine, and neither is the dimly lit lamp or the gold wallpaper.
I close my eyes, thinking it’ll help my focus.
There’s a crumpled henley on the floor and an arm draped over my waist. I shift and the arm tightens.
I take a deep breath, and that’s when Darian’s cologne—woodsy and warm—washes over me.
My body sighs against his until everything crashes back.
The song. The candlelight at the piano. His hands on my skin. Fingers, rough and calloused from years of playing the guitar. Lips, needy and tender, pressed to mine.
Panic hits hard and immediately.
I extract myself carefully, holding my breath as I slip from beneath his arm. He doesn’t stir. In sleep, his face loses that careful watchfulness he wears when awake, and he looks younger. Vulnerable in a way that makes my chest tight.
I grab my sweater from the floor and pull it on, then stand there staring at him. At what we did. At what I let happen.
Again.
The green room feels smaller in daylight, shabbier. The couch where we had sex suddenly looks like what it is: an old leather sofa that’s seen too much, and witnessed too many mistakes. Somehow, I feel dirty, like what Darian and I have done makes me feel like a roadie.
I need to move. I need to clean. I need to do something with my hands before this feeling swallows me.
The venue needs attention. Always needs attention. I can inventory the liquor, check the sound system, count register receipts. Normal things. Safe things. Things that don’t involve sleeping with musicians who play guitar like they’re pulling secrets from strings.
I’m wiping down bottles that don’t need wiping when Darian appears in the doorway, shirt dangling from his hand, hair mussed from sleep and my fingers running through it. I swallowed hard at the sight of his abs. Deep, defined ridges now familiar to my fingers and tongue.
“Morning,” he says, voice rough.
“Morning.” I force myself to look away, focusing instead on the bottle of whiskey in my hands. The same whiskey we shared before he kissed me.
“You left.”
“I woke up.”
“And immediately started cleaning.”
Now I do look at him, prepared to snap about making assumptions, but his expression is more curious than accusatory. Like he actually wants to know what I’m thinking.
“The venue opens in three hours. There’s work to do.”
He leans against the doorframe, watching me attack the bar with unnecessary vigor. “The bar’s been clean since Jovie closed it last night.”
“There’s always something.”
“Rye.”
I pause in my scrubbing, shoulders tense.
“Talk to me.”
The request is gentle, which somehow makes it worse. If he were demanding or pushy, I could build defenses against that. But gentleness slips past walls.
“What do you want me to say?”
“Whatever you’re thinking.”
I set down the rag and finally face him fully.
He’s still beautiful in the morning light, still looks at me like I’m music he wants to learn.
It would be easier if last night had been a mistake, if the connection felt forced or desperate in daylight.
Instead, I can still feel the weight of his attention, the careful way he listened to every sound I made.
“I’m thinking that this complicates everything.”
“Does it?”
“Of course it does.” I gesture between us. “We’re not casual people, Darian. I don’t know how to do this halfway.”
He slips his shirt over his head with deliberate, slow movements. “What would doing it all the way look like?”
The question catches me off guard. I expected him to argue or reassure or push. Not to ask what I actually want.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been good at wanting things and keeping them.”
“What if you didn’t have to choose?”
“Everyone has to choose.”
He walks closer, stops at the bar but doesn’t cross into my space behind it. Respecting the boundary even as we talk. “What if we finished the song and saw what happened?”
“Just that simple?”
“Just that simple.”
I want to believe him. I want to believe it could be uncomplicated, that we could write music together without the rest of it getting messy. But I know better. Know how quickly creative partnerships turn into dependencies, how artistic intimacy bleeds into everything else.
“Music stays music,” I say finally. “No distractions from real work.”
Something flickers in his expression, too quick to catch. “Okay.”
“I mean it. I have a business to run, a daughter to raise. I can’t afford to get distracted by whatever this is.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
He meets my eyes steadily. “You’re protecting what matters most. I get it.”
The validation shouldn’t surprise me, but it does. Most people, especially men, take boundary-setting as a personal challenge. Something to negotiate or work around. Darian just accepts it.
“So we finish the song,” I continue. “Record it, make it good, then that’s it.”
“That’s it.”
“No late-night sessions that turn into something else. No bourbon and candlelight. No repeating last night on green room furniture.”
A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “The couch thanks you.”
Despite everything, I almost smile back. “I’m serious.”
“I know you are.” He picks up his guitar case, slings it over his shoulder. “When do you want to run through the song again?”
“Tonight. After closing.”
“I’ll be here.”
He moves toward the door, and I should feel relieved. I should be happy that he’s respecting my boundaries, taking the terms I’ve set without argument. Instead, I feel something that might be disappointing.
He pauses at the threshold, hand on the doorframe. “Rye?”
“Yeah?”
“For what it’s worth, I don’t regret last night. Even if it never happens again.”
Before I can respond, he’s gone, leaving me alone with the smell of his cologne and the echo of guitar strings that still hangs in the air.
I stand there for a long moment, watching him walk away. The rational part of my brain approves of how I handled this. Clean boundaries, clear expectations, protection for the things that matter most.
After he’s gone, I find myself walking back to the green room. The quilt is folded neatly on the couch arm. The lamp is off. Everything is back to normal, except for the indent in the leather where our bodies pressed together, the lingering warmth of shared space.
I reach out without thinking, my palm finding the back of the couch where his shoulders rested. The leather is still warm.
This is what I want to avoid. This moment of reaching for something that’s already gone, of missing something I told myself I didn’t need.
I’ve been down this road before, I know how it ends.
With broken promises and stolen songs and the kind of heartbreak that makes you forget why you loved music in the first place.
The smart thing would be to call him, cancel tonight’s session. Finish the song on my own if it needs finishing, or leave it incomplete. Incompleteness is safer than whatever comes after completion.
But as I pull my hand away and head back to the bar, I can’t shake the memory of how he looked at me when I set my terms. Not disappointed or frustrated, but understanding. He’d rather have me on my terms than not have me at all.
It’s been a long time since someone respected my boundaries without making me feel guilty for having them. Most men hear “no” as a negotiation starting point. Darian just heard it as information and adjusted accordingly.
That should make me feel better. Should make the decision easier.
Instead, it makes everything more complicated.
The venue won’t open itself, and there’s inventory to finish, supplies to order, a dozen small tasks that keep this place running.
I throw myself into the work, letting the familiar routine steady my nerves.
Check the beer coolers, count register cash, review tonight’s booking schedule.
Normal things that have normal solutions.
But when I pass the piano later, checking that the bench is properly positioned, I catch myself humming. The melody from last night, the one we built together note by careful note.
I stop humming immediately. Music stays music. That’s what I said, what we agreed to.
But the song keeps playing in my head anyway, stubborn and persistent. It wants to be finished. Wants to exist in the world as more than just memory and possibility.
Maybe that’s what I’m really afraid of. Not that working with Darian will complicate things, but that the song we’re building together might actually be good. Good enough to matter. Good enough to change something.
I’ve been hiding behind this bar for years, convincing myself that managing other people’s music is enough.
That keeping the venue running is contribution enough to the world of songs and stories.
But last night, sitting at that piano with someone who heard what I was trying to say and helped me say it better, I remembered what it felt like to create something new.
That’s the real danger. Not Darian himself, but what he represents. The possibility that I might still have something to say, something worth saying. The chance that the voice I buried under years of practical concerns and protective instincts might still exist, might still matter.
Tonight we’ll finish the song, and then it’ll be done. Clean lines, clear boundaries, no complications.
I just have to make it through the day without touching the piano keys, without wondering if the harmony we found extends beyond music, without remembering how his voice sounded when he promised to be here as long as I’d let him.
The afternoon stretches ahead, full of ordinary tasks that should keep me busy. Should keep me from thinking about tonight, about seeing him again, about whether finishing the song will feel complete or just the beginning of missing something I told myself I couldn’t want.
I turn on the house music and get back to work, drowning out the melody in my head with classic country and the comforting noise of preparation. But even with the distractions, I can still feel where his hands touched my skin, still taste the whiskey-warm kiss that started everything.
Lily will be home in a few hours, and I need to have dinner planned, the normal rhythms of motherhood that ground me in what matters most. She’s the reason I built walls in the first place, the reason I chose safety over possibility, responsibility over risk.
As I make a grocery list and plan our evening routine, part of me wonders what example I’m setting. What I’m teaching her about women and music and the courage it takes to let people hear your voice.
Darian and I will finish the song and put this behind us.
By the time evening comes, maybe I’ll have convinced myself that boundaries are enough.
That finishing the song will satisfy whatever hunger last night awakened.
That I can go back to being the woman who manages other people’s music and sleeps alone and never has to worry about whether someone will still be there in the morning.
Maybe by tonight, I’ll believe that story.