I sigh. “There’s a history. Men, women. I didn’t fall out of the closet yesterday.”
Drew nods like he’s writing a thesis. “Rafe Ortiz, bisexual agent of chaos.”
“Sounds like a Marvel character,” Eli says.
“Sounds like our press bio,” I say dryly, and they all groan because they know I’ll put anything in a press bio if it sounds like it’ll sell three more tickets. That, and between our jumbled mix of sexualities—some labelled, some definitelynot—I think I could totally make it work.
Miles’s gaze tilts to the notebook. “Do you think he’ll end up in more than one song?”
“I think I don’t plan songs,” I say. “They happen or they don’t. This one happened.”
“Is he going to hear it?” Drew asks.
“I don’t write to get heard by one guy,” I say, then shrug because I can’t help myself. “If he does, he does.”
Eli waggles his sticks. “You’re going to go stare at a basketball in a gym, aren’t you?”
“We have a gig Saturday,” I say, because that’s true. “If I happen to walk past a scoreboard on the way to the venue, that’s called cardio.”
“Cardio?” Drew laughs. “You smoke weed every other night and complain about stairs.”
“I complain about everything,” I say. “It’s my charm.”
Miles sets his guitar aside. “Run it again.”
We do. This time I mark a second verse that digs a little deeper.
You walk like the room is a promise you made
I move like a fuse, and I’m tired of the fade
I don’t speak your language, but I hear your name
Booming off the rafters from a different kind of stage.
I keep the vowels simple, the consonants clean. I’m not hiding in poetry today. It feels good. Like the shape I’ve been trying to hold for weeks finally stopped slipping.
Eli drags the kick a hair behind the beat in the pre-chorus, and it makes the whole thing roll forward. Drew adds a small hammer-on in the verse that warms it. Miles lands the kind of bend that feels like turning your head to listen when someone finally says the thing out loud.
We stop, breathing hard in the stale room like we sprinted. Nobody schedules sprinting, but it still counts.
Eli points at me with a stick. “You’re seeing him again.”
“Why do you care?”
“Because I want the bridge,” he says. “And if he looks at you like he did in your head, the bridge will write itself.”
“That is the worst reason to involve a stranger in my art,” I say.
“It’s the most honest reason,” Miles counters.
He’s right. I hate that he’s right and I love that he’s right, because it means we still know how to tell each other the truth without flinching. Bands die when they start lying about small things. We are not dying. Not this year. Hopefully not ever.
Drew leans back against the wall and tilts his head. “What’s the title?”
I look at the notebook. The words sit there like they’re daring me to commit.
“‘Crimson High,’” I say, and everyone nods like we all heard it land.
