Blank-faced, Jem moved to the spot on the couch River had indicated. “You’re so bossy.”
Well, yes. “Slander,” River lied, hauling Jem’s feet onto the couch. “When I had this room built, I had them set the speakers so that that’s the best place to listen from. If you’re going to do something, do it right.”
Jem’s eyes caught on his, and… yeah. River realized how that sounded.
Jem flushed that pretty pink and raised his hands in surrender. “Okay. I get it. Wow me.”
For that, River would have to take his pants off, so… not today. He kept that thought to himself and dropped the needle.
River hadn’t been lying when he said he enjoyed Taylor Swift’s music. But today he hardly heard it; he was watching Jem take it in, the way the lines of his body relaxed under the mellow guitar and gentle melody.
Oh, River was in trouble if he was paying more attention to Jem than the music. But he couldn’t help it.
They didn’t talk. Jem had his eyes closed, but he wasn’t sleeping: River could see him holding his breath waiting for the bridge to drop, the quick deflation of his chest when a lyric hit a soft spot, the way he walked his fingers along his sternum like they were playing the bass line. River had made music his life, but he rarely had the chance to watch someone appreciate it like this. He wanted, with a sudden urgency, to write music that made Jem feel like this—like he had to lie down to listen, todevote his full attention, to absorb it. He wanted Jem to takehismusic into himself.
The album played for just over an hour. It felt like an eternity; it felt like ten minutes.
When it ended, Jem sat up, shaking his head, eyes bright and wild, and said, “Okay, you win.”
Obviously River won; he already had Jem in his house.
But—oh, he meant with the record player. He blinked himself out of his trance. “You’re welcome.”
Jem tilted his head. “What’s the matter?”
An impossible question. River flexed his fingers. “What do you mean?”
Now he quirked a smile. “I mean you look like my educational assistant when she was trying to quit smoking. You’re fidgety.”
River was always fidgety.
“More than usual, I mean,” Jem amended.
“Just… got the urge to write music, is all, but I don’t want to abandon you—”
“River.”
He said it gently, so River couldn’t have said why it made him shut his mouth so hard. “Yeah?”
“I’m a big boy. I can entertain myself for a few hours.”
He really had to put it like that, didn’t he? “I don’t want to be a bad host.”
“You’re not.” Jem stood up. “You’re a normal fake boyfriend hanging out at home. So go do your music thing. I’ll find some paper and do a lesson plan or raid your fridge or something. Maybe both.”
Shit, yeah, it was almost one o’clock. “But—”
“You are literally paying me to hang out with you doing the same thing I’d be doing at home. Let me make lunch.”
I would pay you to do literally nothing, River thought.I would pay you to sit beside me while I write you love songs for the rest of my life. I would pay you to fall in love with me, even though the whole time I’d worry you didn’t mean it. I would do it anyway if it meant you’d stay.
He didn’t say any of that. He just said, “Okay,” and showed Jem where the music room was in case he needed River for something.
And then he sat down with his guitar and entered a fugue state during which he composed an instrumental etude inspired by the soft curve of Jem’s neck when he lay on the couch, a patter song enumerating all the things River wanted to give him but hadn’t yet, and a protest song about people who wouldn’t just let other people like things.
“It’s after four,” Jem said, poking his head in.
River blinked. This wasn’t the first time Jem had interrupted; there was a plate on the table with crumbs on it that hadn’t been there earlier, along with two empty glasses of water, so apparently Jem had brought him lunch. River had vague memories of him asking if River needed anything while River was facedown in his guitar. He hoped Jem hadn’t come in during the third verse of the patter song.
