Chapter 13 Wild Horses #3
He has no idea... “Minus the last few weeks, I’m a human yawn.
Friend’s goin’ through a breakup, so I been stuck in nightlife hell for the first time in years—bars, clubs, draggin’ her home at 3 a.m. Hate the life.
Try to avoid it at all costs. Only scene I care about’s got a stage and speakers.
Small rooms. Loud music. No small talk.”
A siren wails somewhere below,
distant, then fading.
“Most nights? It’s just me.
“I work. I eat the same shit every week.”
When I say it out loud,
it sounds more miserable than boring.
He leans closer,
elbow sinking into the blanket.
“You don't even know—
“sounds real good to me right now.”
A disbelieving smile breaks across my face.
“That boring-ass life sounds good to you?”
“Yeah. With you? Sounds fuckin’ perfect…
“Sonny, I’m in a bar four nights a week with drunk idiots. But when you said you don’t go out?” He takes a moment to breathe it in. “I dunno. Just sounded good. Like somethin’ I’d wanna come home to.”
I freeze.
“You said that out loud, you know.
“The ‘come home to’ part.”
His eyes go wide,
then narrow,
trying to snatch the words back.
“I meant—y’know, in general.
“Not—not like, right now. Obviously.”
The way he's flustered makes me smile.
He grabs at the back of his neck.
“I’m just sayin’, it’s nice. That’s all.”
A second passes.
His jaw locks up,
hating that he sidestepped the idea.
Then he swipes the air.
“Nah, you know what? Fuck it.
“You said no bars, no clubs.
“That’s straight-up forever-type shit.
“I ain’t walkin’ it back.”
A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth.
“Good,” I say. “Stay there.”
He falls back again,
a short laugh slipping off his lips.
"What?" I say.
He lifts a shoulder.
"The fuckin' odds of us, huh?
"Think about it—" He gestures between us. “You? Don’t go out, barely talk to people. Me? Workin’ two jobs, always bouncin’ around. Yet somehow—" he laughs, "—we still crashed into each other. And thank fuck for that.”
I know the odds.
Not the horoscope shit,
but the actual numbers.
I sat up at three in the morning
and ran the math.
“This shouldn’t have happened,” I say, casual, cool, blasé.
“I had better chances of getting struck by lightning while slow-dancing with Steven Tyler at a gas station.” I keep my eyes on the skyline, silhouettes and golden ghosts this time of night.
“The odds of you and me are 1 in 3.75 quadrillion,” I confess.
At the corner of my eye, Andrew goes still.
“Yeah,” I say, spinning the stem of my glass between my fingers. “A number that says the universe rigged the system, rewrote the rules, cut some corners just to put you and me at Type that night.”
The look on his face is a little shaken.
He tilts his head, clearing his throat.
“You calculated the odds of us, Sonny?”
I sigh. “I know. I’m a nerd.”
“Don’t downplay it,” he says,
pointing at me. “That’s next-level romantic.”
He glances into the city, his voice faraway.
“Three-point-seven-five quadrillion…
“That’s fate in a fuckin’ chokehold.”
It’s there, behind his eyes:
Type night, still burning.
“Nah,” he says quieter, gaze returning to me.
“Fate got you in the room.
“Fightin’ for you after? All me.”
The bones in my chest cave in,
trying to cover my heart’s ears from hearing it.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. You might regret your twenty-eight night investment. I’m not easy. I disappear sometimes. Ask my car and all the miles I’ve racked up.”
I face the skyline, too ashamed to meet his eyes while admitting it.
The buildings stare back at me—
glass-eyed, watching.
“Some nights, even my place turns on me.
“So I drive.”
“Drive? To where?”
“Anywhere. Nowhere. Everywhere. Wherever. Doesn’t matter. Too alone sometimes, but want everyone to fuck off. Go figure.”
“So…” he tosses his hand between us. “Homebody. But only when it’s your call.
” He’s not guessing. He’s laying it out.
“You want people close. But on your terms. You give just enough to keep ‘em around.
Not enough to let ‘em in. And if someone gets too close…” He tips his head.
“…you pull back. Put distance. Drive. Reset.”
He says it as if he knows me.
And none of it scares him.
I suck in a breath. “Yeah. That.”
“So, what you do for work—
“it’s independent?”
I squint over at him. “You profilin’ me?”
He pops a blueberry,
smirking and not letting this go.
I finally tell him with a shrug, as if it's not the only reason I wake up every morning—“Okay. I'm a songwriter.”
He’s still as stone.
“Wait—hold up,” he breaks.
His brows raise, a smile cut in half by surprise.
“You’re a songwriter?”
I swirl my drink again. “Songwriter and producer, but I don’t press the buttons. I don’t sit at the board with headphones twistin’ knobs like I’m God.”
Usually this is where the questions pile up,
but he’s sitting back, listening.
“I know where the strings should break.
“Where the drums should hold their breath.
“Where the synth needs to crawl up your spine before the chorus hits.
“I know how the song feels, I just don’t push the buttons to make the feeling real.
“I don’t care to be the machine,” I tell him.
“I just need someone who listens when I say, ‘right there—that’s the moment the world should stop breathing.’”
He blows out a breath,
hand scraping through his hair,
jaw tight, eyes locked on mine.
“Jesus… My fuckin’ heart, Sonny.”
He’s not smiling anymore.
“Songwriter,” he repeats with the revelation.
“Course you are.
“Music’s where you put it all, isn’t it?
“All the shit bottled up inside you.
“The parts you don’t want anyone touchin’.”
His hand moves while he talks,
unable to help it.
“You bury it in songs,
“pretend it’s someone else’s pain.”
He stops, then looks at me.
As if he can’t do both—
talk and look into my eyes—
at the same time.
“It’s how you cry without anyone watching.”
And my mouth goes dry.
He just stripped me down to the bone without meaning to.
“Goddamn,” he mutters,
then nudges my foot.
“Hey, why didn’t you wanna tell me?”
“Because then come the questions and—”
I hang my head back.
“God, I hate the questions.”
Andrew rambles them off—
“What kind of music.
“Which label.
“Who’ve you worked with.
“Can I Google you…”
“Exactly.”
He side-eyes me,
bringing the glass back to his lips.
“So you play?”
“Mostly guitar. Piano. Don't mess with synths or drum machines when I'm writing. They feel fake to me—engineered emotions." I glance over at him. "An electric guitar bleeds. Bass crawls. Violins haunt. Synths try. They just don’t hurt right.”
Never wanted art with artificial ache. I want art that took a piece of the one who made it.
I smile, leaning closer.
“It’s the classic rock in me,
“got the blues in my veins.”
He’s staring at me like I just lit a cigarette and walked out of a music video. “You’re unreal.” He swipes his thumb across his bottom lip, tasting me or the wine. “You talk about music like it’s in your blood.”
Blood. Dad’s word.
The one thing he said music needed
if it was ever going to mean anything.
Now Andrew's saying it, and it guts me.
“Yeah, well, music’s the only thing I let walk into my chest and stay.”
His grin fades, eyes dragging over me.
“I gotta ask…”
He’s flashing an apologetic smile.
“Would I know anything you’ve written?”
My eyes drop to his ribcage,
where the answer’s carved,
where my words are inked across his skin.
I look away fast. “Yeah, maybe.
“But here comes the bad news:
“I can’t tell you which songs.”
His grin shatters. “Why not?”
I rock my feet against the blanket.
“Label shit. Can't really talk about it.”
“Sonny—” he says, but it sounds like mine when it leaves his mouth.
“Deadass, other than Ma and Momma P?
“You’re the closest thing I got to a best friend.”
I snort. “Your best friend?”
“Think about it,” he says, serious.
“We’ve kissed. A lot.
“I’ve touched you pretty much everywhere.
“You held my dick—”
He throws his hands up in defense.
“Just statin’ facts.”
Then he continues,
“You cried on my shoulder, I cried on yours.
“You know about my family.
“I’m lettin’ you eat my food, for fuck’s sake.”
He gestures toward the plate between us.
I roll my eyes, but my smile betrays me.
“No pressure,” he says, seeing it.
“But if you feel like talkin'... I'll listen.”
This is a territory I rarely even let Celie cross into. How could he understand without knowing everything?
“Trust me,” he reassures. “I know what it's like bein' your own back up.”
And for the first time,
I consider telling someone the truth.
Maybe ‘cause he's different,
tonight’s different.
Or maybe ‘cause I know that this'll soon end,
and I'll never see him again.
“I don’t talk about this,” I warn,
‘cause it’s true,
‘cause it makes me feel pitiful, weak.
“I’m not credited. For any of it.”
My eyes are on him,
but I’m not looking at him.
My mind’s passing through all the years of walking out of Soundwave with that sick feeling in my stomach.
“Every song I’ve ever created says it’s written by someone else.”
His brows pinch together. “Ghostwriter?”
“No. Industry politics, label interference…”
He sits up, arm over one knee,
palm open like—what the fuck?
“It’s a sore subject and a long story,” I insist,
trying exit the subject and leave it at that.
What I keep under lock and key is the part about Raymond,
about the manipulation,
the control,
the way he built a system
where he's the gatekeeper and I'm the product.
How this was never about credits,
but about ownership,
about stealing my voice,
then convincing me it was never mine to begin with. And by the time I realized what he was doing,
it was too late.
I grab the bottle and pour another glass.
Andrew’s jaw muscle flexes, watching me—
“How many don’t have your name on them?”
I set the bottle back down. “All of them.
I sip, disgusted with myself
that I ever let it happen.
“Close to three hundred now.”
His face falls with the weight of it,
eyes dimming first,