32
We ran to the door like two hunting dogs catching the scent of prey.
It was the courier.
Another envelope for Tess.
Inside—another disc.
“God, enough with these damn records,” Tess muttered, like Zane Ryder was mailing her stamp collections instead of potential musical relics.
And another letter.
The message was simple, almost bare: this was his very latest track, written in his suite at the Vellum Hotel after their meeting.
“Uh,” Tess said, tilting her head slightly as if weighing a diamond against the light. “Since he wrote this one after our encounter… I have to listen.”
She didn’t waste a second. The CD slid into the stereo with a decisive click, and a moment later the room filled with plucked strings—raw, stripped down, intimate. Just him and his guitar.
The lyrics… well, they were a riddle. Words that felt like they belonged in a secret attic diary, metaphors folding back on themselves, as if the meaning was there but only if you looked from the exact right angle.
“Room Without Windows” (lyrics by Zane Ryder)
Night poured down like black coffee, bitter in the cracks of the floor. I struck a match just to glimpse your profile, but the smoke wanted more.
You spoke in colors I had no names for, wearing shadows like a borrowed coat. I tuned my strings to your silence, every note stuck in my throat.
The air was thick with letters unsent, folded tight at the back of my mind. Some doors open into daylight, yours was the other kind.
And if the rain never ends, I’ll drown where I stand, waiting on a face that won’t fit in my hands.
“It’s cryptic,” I said, still half-dazed by the echo of the last notes.
“It’s about me,” Tess declared with the confidence of a monarch recognizing her own portrait. “Obviously.”
“And where exactly did you see yourself in there?”
“‘You spoke in colors I had no names for’—that’s me. Clearly.”
“What colors? I must’ve missed them.”
“Lev Mirov, obviously… And then: ‘I tuned my strings to your silence.’ That night, I was a temple of silence.”
“Maybe… but honestly, I don’t get it.”
“That’s normal. It’s a Mirovian lyric.”
She went on reading the letter. Then she looked up, and in her eyes I saw something I hadn’t seen in days: pure triumph.
There was an invitation. Not just any invitation: a concert in Tampa, transport by private jet. The kind of line that, when spoken out loud, makes you want to wear sunglasses at midnight.
“Fantastic!” I cried, already picturing myself striking a pose at the top of the jet’s stairway, hair whipping dramatically in the wind like in a movie montage.
“Easy, girl…” Tess lifted a finger, her tone that of a strategist about to flip the chessboard. “Now, what would you do if you wanted to send Ryder the subtle message that he doesn’t matter enough? ”
“You show up in Tampa with your roommate!” I shot back instantly. “You already told me that one.”
“Worse!” Her voice dripped honey and poison. “You show up with your roommate… and another man.”