She squeezed me hard. “Call when you get back to Boston.”
“I will.”
I packed both guitars.
Boston hit me fast—cold air, traffic, noise. It was Friday. I was exhausted in the way only pretending for too long can make you.
And still, there was only one thing on my mind.
Her.
The longer I’m away from her, the stronger the pull gets. Like an unresolved chord begging to be finished. Like a song I never got to play all the way through.
CHAPTER 5
ETHAN
Friday nightI went back alone.
Same bar.
Same time.
Same stupid hope.
The band was loud, covering early-2000s alt rock — guitars fuzzy, drums too hard for the tiny room — and for half a second I swore they were about to play Lit again, the same kind of song we’d danced to the first night.
The kind of song that made strangers reckless.
But she wasn’t there.
I scanned the floor twice. Patio once. Bathroom hallway like an idiot.
Nothing.
Just sweat and noise and bodies that weren’t hers.
Disappointment hit harder than it should’ve.
Mike slid me a beer.
“You look like a man who got stood up,” he said.
“Something like that,” I muttered.
That’s when I asked about gigs.
He laughed at first.
“You? Corporate Ken over here plays?”
“I’m good,” I said. “Promise.”
He squinted at me. “Tomorrow. Come early. Play me something. Don’t suck.”
“I won’t.”
Still—
