I want to argue, but maybe she’s right. Maybe staying would feel noble now but suffocating later.
“I should go,” I say, standing. “Think about things.”
“Darian.” She catches my hand as I pass. “Whatever you decide, we’ll be okay. Lily and me. We were okay before you, we’ll be okay after.”
It’s meant to be reassuring, I think, but it feels like she’s already letting me go.
“What if I don’t want you to be okay without me?”
She squeezes my hand once, then lets go. “Then you need to figure out what you really want. Because wanting us to need, you isn’t the same as wanting to be here.”
I leave with that thought in my head. Back at my apartment, I sit in the dark, nursing a beer, trying to work through everything. The Rex Lawson opportunity is everything I thought I wanted. Recognition, credibility, a real step forward.
But when I think about three months in LA, all I can see is Rye and the life I want to build with her.
My phone buzzes. Laura again.
Rex is really excited about the possibility. This could lead to more production work. You could build a whole new career. Don’t let small-town life make you small-minded.
Small-minded. Is that what staying would be? Or is leaving the small-minded choice, running toward success instead of staying for something harder to define?
Three days to decide. Three days to figure out if I’m the kind of man who takes the sure thing or the one who stays for possibility.
rye
. . .
The Songbird sits quietthis afternoon, the lull between lunch rush and evening crowd giving me too much space to think. I wipe down the bar for the third time, reorganizing bottles that don’t need reorganizing, trying not to think about how Darian hasn’t called since our conversation about the Rex Lawson opportunity three days ago.
The door chimes and I look up, ready to tell whoever it is that we’re closed for another hour. But it’s not a customer. It’s Zara Austin, Darian’s sister, standing in my doorway looking like she stepped out of a magazine despite the Tennessee humidity.
“We’re closed,” I say automatically, even though we both know she’s not here for a drink.
“I know.” She steps inside anyway, designer boots clicking against the worn wood floor. “I’m not here as a customer.”
“Then why are you here?”
She crosses to the bar, sliding onto a stool with the kind of confidence that comes from years of commanding stages. “My brother called me last night. Drunk. Which he hasn’t done since Van destroyed our band.”
My hands still on the glass I’m polishing. “I don’t know what that has to do with me.”
“Don’t you?” She studies me with eyes that are eerily similar to Darian’s, that same ability to see through bullshit. “He told me about the job offer. About how you told him to take it.”
“It’s an incredible opportunity.”
“It’s a test and you know it.”
I set the glass down harder than necessary. “I don’t play games.”
“No, but you push people away before they can leave on their own.” She leans forward. “Trust me, I recognize the move. I did it to Levi for months before I figured out that good men don’t always leave.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know you run this venue like it’s the only thing keeping you standing. I know you have a daughter you’re protecting. I know you used to write music but stopped when someone betrayed that trust.” She ticks off each point on her fingers. “And I know my brother is in love with you even though he’s too scared to say it.”
The words hit like physical blows. “He’s not?—”
“He is. The man who called me last night? He wasn’t torn about a career opportunity. He was torn about choosing between what he thinks he should want and what he actually wants.”
