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,
fingers squeezing into a fist next,
trying to hold his reaction together,
but it's slipping away.
“Three hundred? Sonny, that’s...”
He knows the hurt's fresh,
even if I won't admit I'm hurting at all.
So he just sits in it with me,
looking out into the skyline,
then almost smiles.
Then he does.
I knock his shoe with my heel. “What?”
He rolls a shoulder. “Still really fuckin’ cool your music’s out there. People leanin’ on it, not even knowin’ it’s you.”
He says this, having no idea he’s wearing my words under his heart.
And I’m watching him smile, thinking?—
I’d lose my song a thousand times more,
if it means the song finding him a thousand times again.
Even if he's the only one who ever lets it in.
I’ll never tell him that, though.
“Will you ever play for me?” he asks.
“Maybe.” A lie that doesn’t taste like one yet.
“I usually only play in the studio or at home.”
