After dinner, I slip back to the bedroom with my phone and headphones. I listen to the bounce twice at low volume and make a couple of notes for morning. The second chorus is too long by a beat. The bridge needs a thinner left hand. The last line might land better if I cut the extra “I.” I save the notes and put the phone face down.
Lou taps the door and peeks in. “You good?”
“Just checking a thing.”
She leans on the frame. “You look like you’re hiding a surprise.”
“Not hiding.” Not true, but I can’t say anything yet.
She nods. “I’m trusting you.”
“Thank you.”
She leaves me with the quiet and the chorus in my head. I lie back on the bedspread. I think about radio singles and the file with Troy’s name on it. I think about a cassette with an R that might mean nothing. I think about a song I wrote because a question wouldn’t go away. I think about a woman at a table in a hotel suite who makes me want to be careful with my voice.
Things between us are tentative by design. We said discretion out there and honesty in here. We set the job first, not the story. I like that. I like her. I like her more than I planned to. Not sure if that’s a good thing yet.
16
SALEM
The rough mix for “Locket”hits at the third bar. Houston prints the bounce, pushes play, and the room tightens the way a crowd tightens when a storm moves in. Piano dry, ribbon breath, his voice steady as a hand on the back of your neck.
Chills.
He makes it sound like air behaving. I hate how easy he makes it look. I love him for it. Both can be true. I clap once, sharp, before anyone can read my face and write the wrong song about it.
Lou’s at the table with a pencil behind her ear, head cocked, listening with her whole heart. When the bridge lands, she bites her bottom lip, her eyes wet, and she doesn’t apologize. I want to kiss her mouth for that, and I don’t, because the bounce is still rolling and I’m not the guy who steps on a take.
The last chorus holds just long enough to prove its point, then lets go. Silence after. The good kind.
“Wow. That’s the one.”
Lou wipes a thumb under one eye and pretends she’s moving her hair. I pretend I didn’t see it, then immediately watch her see me pretending. She smiles, small, private. I file it where I keep the things I don’t ruin.
Knox slowly nods. “That’s one hell of a single.”
Houston grins. “You think so?”
“It hits. Hard. You did good, man.”
I stand by the doorjamb and roll the pick between my fingers until it warms. Pride hits first, clean and bright. Then the little itch under my skin wakes up—jealousy, the useful kind if you don’t drink it.
Houston writes like he’s changing a tire on a moving car and never drops a lug nut. I play loud, break pretty, catch eyes, steal oxygen. He does algebra you can dance to. I want what he has without wanting him to have less. That’s the line. I’ve crossed it before and paid.
Not today. Today, I tune the kit to the room, let it breathe when the song needs space, and add exactly what makes the chorus feel inevitable. I can be gasoline or I can be a fuse. The trick is knowing when the fire should burn and when the light should stay steady.
Lou catches me breathing through it and tilts her head in that way that says she sees, and I take the win.
It should be a good day. This is some of Houston’s best work. But life has other plans.
A gossip site fires a push at lunch with a collage like a ransom note. A photo of Lou with me outside the diner. How anyone got that shot, I have no fucking clue… The waitress. Has to be.
One of Lou with Houston on the balcony, all snuggled up. That had to be a drone with a telephoto. We’re too high up for much else.
Then, Lou with Knox at the table, leaning over the budget doc, his hand on her ass. The headline saysCheating Scandal?in a font that can get bent. Comments are a fire ladder to the basement. Pick a brother, pick a sin, pick a slur. They don’t need details. They smell blood.
My thumb hovers over the keyboard. I want to post a scorched-earth reply that reads like a lighter held to a curtain. Four of us, one story. We handle our business. Everyone else can fuck off and hydrate. I hate cloak-and-dagger. I’d rather get sunburned in the open than rot in a closet for strangers I don’t respect.
