It hits me straight in the chest.
Live music always does. The swell of the orchestra, the way the sound fills every corner of the space, vibrates in your bones. I didn’t realize how much of myself I’d muted until it rushes back in all at once.
I’m not thinking about Sage here. Not about work. Not about anything.
I’m just… here.
I clap when everyone else does, laugh when the crowd laughs, let myself get pulled into the story like I’m allowed to be someone else for a few hours. Someone uncomplicated. Someone who isn’t measuring his words or bracing for impact.
When it ends, I don’t rush out.
I stand there a moment, hands resting on the back of the seat in front of me, heart still humming.
Outside, the night feels alive.
I don’t want to go back to the hotel.
I walk instead.
I end up in a dive bar that smells like beer-soaked wood and decades of spilled regrets. The kind of place with Christmas lights still hanging in September and a chalkboard sign that just saysLIVE MUSICin crooked letters.
Inside, it’s dark and loud and perfect.
There’s a guy on stage with a beat-up Stratocaster, sweat already darkening the collar of his T-shirt. He’s not flashy. He’s good. The kind of good that doesn’t need to prove it.
I grab a beer. Then another.
When the guitarist asks if anyone plays, my hand is up before my brain can stop it.
It’s been a while.
My fingers know the weight of the guitar the second it’s handed to me. Familiar. Comforting. Like muscle memory waking up after a long sleep.
I plug in.
And then I let go.
All that tension I didn’t even know I was carrying—the constant vigilance, the adrenaline, the fear of saying the wrong thing or laughing at the wrong joke or being accused of something I didn’t do—it bleeds out through my hands.
I play.
Not for anyone. Not to impress.
Just to breathe.
When I step offstage, heart pounding, beer sweating cold in my hand, it hits me how quiet my head feels.
Then—like a reflex—I check my phone.
Nothing.
No emails. No missed calls.
My relief curdles.
What if she called the company?
What if she somehow got my room number?
