"You really mean that, don't you?" His voice was soft, almost disbelieving, like he couldn't quite trust what he was hearing, his amber eyes searching my face for any sign of deception or pity and finding none, his hands coming up to cover mine where they rested against his cheeks.
"Every word." I tugged on his hand, pulling him toward the rocking chairs. "Now. Tell me about your grandmother. Tell me about learning to play guitar on this porch. Tell me about the real Remy Thibodaux, the one who existed before he learned to hide." I settled into one of the dusty chairs, pulling my feet up and looking at him expectantly.
He stood there for a moment, looking at me like he'd never seen anything like me before. Then a real smile spread across his face—slow and sweet and so different from his usual dazzling grin that it made my heart flip.
"Her name was Odette." He said, settling into the chair beside me, close enough that our knees touched. "And she was the most stubborn woman I've ever met." His amber eyes went soft with memory, his voice warm with love. "Present company included." He added with a glance at me, a hint of his old teasing warmth returning.
"I'll take that as a compliment." I smiled, settling deeper into the chair, the old wood creaking beneath me.
"You should. She'd have liked you." He reached over and took my hand, threading his fingers through mine like it wasthe most natural thing in the world. "She always said I needed someone who could see through my bullshit." He laughed, the sound easier now, lighter. "Guess she was right about that too." He squeezed my hand gently.
We sat on that porch as the sun set, his voice painting pictures of a childhood I could almost see—fishing in the bayou with his grandmother, learning to paddle a pirogue before he could ride a bike, sitting on this very porch with a guitar too big for his hands while she taught him chords and told him stories about the old days.
"She's the one who gave me this." He pulled something from under his shirt—a small silver medal on a worn leather cord, tarnished with age. "St. Cecilia. Patron saint of musicians." He turned it over in his fingers, his expression tender. "Said it would protect me as long as I stayed true to my music." He tucked it back under his shirt, the gesture reverent.
"Have you?" I asked softly. "Stayed true to it?" I watched his profile, the way the fading light caught in his amber eyes.
"I thought I had. Playing in bars, writing songs, making people feel something." He was quiet for a moment, staring out at the water. "But somewhere along the way, I started playing what they wanted to hear instead of what I needed to say." He turned to look at me, something determined flickering in his expression. "I want to change that." He said it like a promise.
"What's stopping you?" I asked, genuinely curious, my thumb tracing patterns on the back of his hand, my body angled toward him in the rocking chair as the last light of day painted everything in shades of gold and rose.
"Fear, mostly. Fear of being vulnerable. Fear of people seeing the real stuff and deciding it's not good enough." He squeezed my hand, his jaw tight. "But tonight... talking to you..." He trailed off, shaking his head slowly. "You make me want to try." He finished, his voice rough with emotion.
"Then try." I brought our joined hands up and pressed a kiss to his knuckles, my lips lingering against his skin, tasting the salt of his earlier tears. "I'll be listening." I promised, holding his gaze with a certainty that seemed to steady something in him.
The look he gave me was so soft, so open, that it made my chest ache.
"You want to see something?" He stood abruptly, tugging me to my feet, nervous energy suddenly crackling through him like lightning before a storm, his amber eyes bright with something that looked like anticipation mixed with fear.
"Always." I let him pull me toward the cabin door, curious and charmed by the sudden shift in his energy, my sandals scuffing against the worn porch boards as I followed him into the unknown.
The inside was dusty and dim, sheets covering the furniture like ghosts. But he didn't stop there—he led me through to a back room that must have been his grandmother's music room. Instruments hung on the walls, covered in cobwebs. A piano sat in the corner, its keys yellowed with age. And leaning against the wall was a guitar case, newer than everything else, clearly something he'd brought here himself.
"I keep a guitar here." He said, releasing my hand to crouch down and open the case. "For when I need to remember why I started playing in the first place." He pulled out a beautiful acoustic guitar, its wood worn smooth from years of use, and settled onto a dusty stool, cradling it like an old friend.
"Will you play for me?" I asked, settling onto a sheet-covered loveseat across from him, pulling my knees up to my chest.
"That's the plan." He strummed a few chords, tuning by ear, his fingers finding their places with the ease of long practice. "This is, um... this is something I wrote. A long time ago. Never played it for anyone." He looked up at me, his amber eyes vulnerable. "It's about her. My grandmother. About this place."He swallowed hard, his throat working. "It's probably not very good." He added quickly, self-deprecation creeping back in.
"Remy." I said his name firmly, waiting until he met my eyes. "Play." I commanded softly.
He took a breath. Then he started to play. The song was nothing like the upbeat, crowd-pleasing music I'd heard him play at the Rusty Hook. It was quiet, melancholy, achingly beautiful. His voice, when he started to sing, was different too—rougher, rawer, stripped of all the showmanship.
He sang about a boy learning to fish in the morning mist. About a grandmother's hands on guitar strings. About a porch where the fireflies gathered at dusk. About losing the one person who ever saw him clearly, and spending years trying to find that feeling again.
By the time the last chord faded, I had tears streaming down my face.
He looked up at me, his expression terrified and hopeful all at once.
"That was..." I had to stop, had to swallow past the lump in my throat. "Remy, that was beautiful." I stood and crossed to him, kneeling in front of him so I could look up into his face. "That's the real you. That right there. That's who you should be all the time." I reached up and wiped a tear from his cheek—I hadn't even noticed he was crying too.
"You think so?" His voice was small, uncertain, nothing like his usual confident drawl, his amber eyes searching my face with a desperate hope that made my heart ache, the guitar still cradled in his lap like a shield.
"I know so." I stood and pulled him to his feet, wrapping my arms around him in a hug that he melted into, his face buried in my hair, his shoulders shaking with silent tears or silent laughter—I couldn't tell which.
"Thank you." He murmured against my hair, his arms tight around me. "For making me do this. For seeing me. For..." He pulled back, his hands coming up to frame my face. "For being you." He finished, his amber eyes bright with emotion.
This time when he kissed me, it was different from before. Confident. Certain. Like he finally knew who he was and what he wanted.
