“What?”
“You’re my encore.”
She pulls back to look at me. An encore isn’t just what comes after. It’s what the audience demands when the show feels incomplete. It’s the song you save for last because it matters most.
“That’s ridiculous,” she says, but she’s smiling.
“Doesn’t make it wrong.”
She kisses me, and I taste maple syrup and coffee. When she pulls back, she stays close, our foreheads touching.
“I love you,” she says. Simple. Direct.
“I love you too.”
Lily comes back downstairs, hair wet, and finds us like that. She doesn’t comment, just grabs her guitar and starts playing something quiet. Rye shifts but doesn’t move away. I keep my arms around her.
This is love without the dramatics. Not explosive passion or desperate clinging. This is love as Saturday morning pancakes and messy jam sessions. Love as something you build.
The afternoon becomes evening. We stay in the studio, laying down tracks for Lily’s new song. Rye adds a piano line that makes Lily actually squeal. I find a bass groove that locks everything together. We work until the sun starts setting.
“We should do this more often,” Lily says, playing back what we recorded.
“Every Saturday,” Rye says.
“Every Saturday,” I echo.
It’s a promise. This family that doesn’t fit any traditional shape but works, anyway. This love that includes all of us differently. This music that only exists because we’re together.
Later, after dinner, after Lily’s gone to a friend’s house, Rye and I sit on the back porch. Her feet are in my lap. I’m rubbing them while we watch stars appear. The night is quiet except for distant traffic and dogs barking.
“Thank you,” she says.
“For what?”
“For being patient. For not pushing. For letting this happen.”
I think about all the ways I could have ruined this. Pushed too hard, demanded too much, tried to force us into something we weren’t ready for. But some things need time.
“Thank you for letting me in,” I say.
She moves to straddle my lap, hands on my face. “You were already in. I just had to stop fighting it.”
This kiss is different from this morning’s. Deeper, hungrier. But there’s no rush. We have time. We have Saturday mornings and all the small moments that build a life.
“Inside?” she suggests.
I nod, lifting her as I stand. She wraps her legs around me, laughing as I navigate the door.
“Show off.”
“You love it.”
“I love you.”
The words hang between us. Simple and true.
This is what I didn’t know I was looking for all those years on the road. Not fame or the roar of crowds. This. Her. Us. The three of us, making something out of broken pieces.
