Chapter 24 Rye
rye
. . .
The house sounds wrong without Lily. I keep expecting to hear thundering down the hall, yelling my name or her music through the walls.
She packed her overnight bag three times, adding and removing items until she had exactly what she needed—clothes, her dinosaur, and the twenty I tucked in her pocket.
“Call if you need anything,” I told her at Felicity’s door, fighting the urge to walk her inside and check the sleepover setup myself.
“Mom, I’m literally next door.”
“I know, but—”
“Mom.” She gave me that look, the one that says she’s ten going on thirty. “I’ll be fine. Sophia’s mom has your number, grandma’s number, and probably NASA’s number just in case.”
Smart ass.
Right. Next door. Where she’ll eat junk food and stay up late and forget about me until tomorrow afternoon when I pick her up, probably overtired and slightly nauseous from too many Doritos. Which gives me eighteen hours that belong to just me.
The venue’s covered—I arranged everything yesterday.
Jovie’s handling tonight with Gus on security, plus the new hires we brought on last week.
Jessa’s proving herself behind the bar already, and Cade’s eager enough that he’ll probably reorganize the entire storage room just to impress someone.
They all insisted I take a full night off.
“Go live your life,” Jovie said, practically shoving me out the door yesterday. “Between me, Gus, and the newbies, we can manage one Saturday without you hovering.”
“The newbies need more training,” I protest.
“Jessa mixed drinks in Memphis for five years, and Cade’s been haunting this place for so long he knows where we keep the extra toilet paper. They’re fine. We’re fine.”
She’s right. They can manage. The question is whether I can manage this—whatever this is about to be.
I check my phone again. The text I sent Darian twenty minutes ago shows delivered but unread.
Lily’s at a sleepover. Come over if you want. I’ll make dinner.
Not exactly subtle, but after weeks of careful distance, even this feels huge. We’ve been navigating around each other since the family dinner, since Lily decided he was worth her French toast, since my boundaries started feeling less necessary and more like obstacles to something I actually want.
Except he’s exactly the type I swore I’d never get involved with again.
Another musician. Another man who lives on the road, in studios, in that world that chewed me up and spit me out.
Jason was a session player, but Darian—Darian’s the real deal.
Sold-out tours, platinum records, the whole package that comes with groupies and late nights and promises that dissolve when the tour bus rolls out.
My phone buzzes.
Give me thirty minutes. I’ll bring wine.
I stare at the message too long, my pulse doing that thing it does when his name appears on my screen.
Thirty minutes to figure out what I’m doing.
Thirty minutes to remember all the reasons this is a terrible idea.
Thirty minutes to decide if I’m really going to let another musician into my life, into Lily’s life.
He’s already in it.
Shaking away the voice in my head, reminding me that Darian is, in fact, in our lives, I pull the ingredients from the refrigerator without planning.
Chicken breasts, cherry tomatoes, basil from the plant Jovie gave me that I’ve kept alive through sheer determination and Google searches about proper watering schedules.
My hands move through familiar motions—seasoning, chopping, arranging—while my mind races through worst-case scenarios.
Him joining Levi’s tour, or his own because it’s only a matter of time until everyone realizes Darian Mercer, founding member and guitarist from Reverend Sister, is hiding out in Nashville, playing dive bars and open mic nights.
Lily getting attached to someone who sees Nashville as just another stop.
Me falling for someone who writes songs about women in every city.
The marinade needs time to work, so I mix olive oil with lemon juice and garlic, trying not to think about how Jason used to smell like other women’s perfume when he’d come home from “writing sessions.” Different musician, same story.
Except Darian doesn’t lie about what he is.
Doesn’t pretend the road isn’t his real home.
I remember finding Gage’s notebook once, filled with my melodies, my words, rewritten in his handwriting. “You inspire me,” he’d said when I confronted him. “Isn’t that what love is? Making each other better?”
Gage didn’t make me better. He made me resentful.
So did Jason.
That’s two musicians I let into my life, and now Darian’s the third.
“Third times a charm,” I mutter.
Twenty-five minutes. I check my reflection in the microwave door, then hate myself for caring. It’s just dinner. Just Darian. Just the man who’s been slowly dismantling every defense I’ve built without even seeming to try.
I change my shirt twice, settling on the black one that fits well without looking desperate.
The one that doesn’t scream “single mother trying too hard.” Apply lip gloss, then wipe it off.
Put it on again. Consider opening the wine I already have, then decide that might make me look either too eager or like I need alcohol to handle this.
The knock comes exactly thirty minutes later. Of course it does. Darian shows up when he says he will, follows through on what he promises.
So far.
I open the door to find him holding wine and a grocery bag, wearing jeans and a black henley that fits him well enough to make me reconsider every boundary I’ve set. His hair’s damp from a shower, and he smells clean, like soap and something cedar that makes me want to lean in and breathe deeper.
“Hey.”
“Hey yourself.” I step aside, trying to look casual. “What’s in the bag?”
“Dessert. Figured if we’re doing this, we should do it right.”
This. Such a small word for what’s happening between us.
He follows me to the kitchen, setting the wine down before unpacking ingredients—heavy cream, good chocolate, vanilla beans. “You started dinner without me.”
“I needed something to do with my hands.”
“I know the feeling.” He catches my eye, and something passes between us, acknowledgment of all the things our hands want to do.
We work side by side, finding rhythm immediately.
He opens wine while I sauté garlic, the sound of it hitting hot oil filling the space between us.
I season chicken while he whips cream, his forearms flexing with the motion in a way that’s distracting.
Our bodies navigate the small space with careful awareness, brushing against each other in ways that feel both accidental and deliberate.
“Music?” he asks, nodding toward the speaker on the counter.
“You pick.”
He connects his phone, scrolling through options with the same focus he brings to everything. “Any preferences?”
“Something that won’t make me think too hard.”
He selects something jazzy that fills the space without demanding attention—bass and piano trading phrases like old friends catching up. Not his music, I notice. Never his music when we’re together, like he knows that would be too much, too close to the world I’m trying to keep at arm’s length.
“Tell me something,” I say, sliding chicken into the oven. “What were you doing when you got my text?”
“Sitting on my couch, trying to write, failing spectacularly.”
“Writer’s block?”
“Writer’s distraction.” He hands me wine, fingers brushing mine in a way that feels intentional. “Hard to focus lately.”
“Why?” I ask, even though I know the answer.
He looks at me directly, not playing games. “You know why.”
Heat spreads through my chest. I turn back to the tomatoes, needing something to do, something to look at besides his eyes. “Bishop must love that. You’re probably a dream for him, but too distracted to finish anything.”
“Bishop understands that good songs take time.”
“Does he? What about when venues want to book you? When people start expecting Darian Mercer to tour again?”
He moves closer, not touching but close enough that I feel his warmth through my shirt. “Is that what this is about? You’re worried I’m going to disappear?”
“Aren’t you? Eventually? It’s what musicians do. You chase the music, the next gig, the next city.”
“I’m not any of those piece of shit musicians you’ve dated.”
His statement lingers between us, heavy with history. “I know you’re not.”
“Do you?” He sets down his wine, studying me. “Because sometimes when you look at me, I see you calculating how long before I leave.”
“Can you blame me? You know what they did. What they took.”
“Those men were thieves and cowards,” Darian says quietly. “I’m neither of those things. I think I’ve proved as much when Apex pounded on my door.”
He had.
“No, but you’re still a musician. You still have a life that exists in tour buses and green rooms and cities I’ll never see.”
“That’s my job, not my life. There’s a difference.”
“Is there? When you’re gone for months, when Lily asks where you are—”
“Then I call her. Every night if she wants. I send her postcards from every city. I come back the second the tour ends.” His voice carries certainty that makes me want to believe him.
“I’m not going to take your music or your trust and disappear.
When I leave for a tour, it’s for work. When I come back, it’s because this is home. You’re home. Lily’s home.”
“How can you say that? We’ve barely—”
“We’ve been dancing around this for weeks, Rye. And before you say it’s just physical, we both know it’s more than that.”
He’s right. What happened in his apartment, at the venue—that was heat and need and trying to scratch an itch. But the family dinner, teaching Lily guitar, the way he looks at me when he thinks I’m not watching—that’s something else entirely.