Right.
The piece of shit who doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as her.
“That bad, huh?”
She laughs, but it sounds hollow. “Let’s just say it’s been a challenging few days.”
Without thinking, I reach out and touch her elbow again, gently and comforting. “You eaten breakfast yet?”
She looks down at her coffee, then back up at me. “This is breakfast.”
“That’s not breakfast, Marley. That’s flavored milk with delusions of grandeur.” I nod toward an empty table by the window. “Come on. Let me buy you a muffin or something. We can catch up.”
She hesitates, weighing the time against something. Work, probably. Or maybe the strangeness of running into her Uber driver in a coffee shop and having him offer to buy her breakfast.
But then she smiles, and this time it reaches her eyes. “You know what? Fuck it! Derek can wait.”
“Damn right he can.”
We settle into the table by the window, me taking the chair that at least gives my legs some room, her sitting across from me with the morning light turning her hair into liquid copper. I flag down the barista and order two blueberry muffins and another coffee for myself that I probably won’t drink.
“So,” Marley says, wrapping her hands around her cup. “Uber driver by night, mysterious coffee shop lurker by morning?”
I laugh, grateful she’s making this easier. “Something like that. I drive at weird hours. Helps me… process things.”
“Process what?”
Life. Club business. The fact that I’m living three different identities, and none of them feels completely real.
But I can’t say any of that.
“Just shit,” I say instead. “You know how it is. Sometimes you need the road to clear your head.”
She nods as if she understands, and maybe she does. “Music does that for me. Or it used to, anyway.”
“Used to?”
Her fingers trace the rim of her coffee cup, and I notice she’s picking at her thumbnail under the table—an anxious habit. “I love listening to music. All kinds. I find it helps calm me when I am anxious, or hype me up when I am excited. That’s why when you turned on the music in the Uber, I couldn’t help but join in…” She pauses before continuing, “But Derek, my ex, he always said it was childish. That I should focus on more ‘productive’ hobbies.”
The anger that rises in my chest is immediate and hot. “That’s bullshit.” She looks up, startled. “Sorry,” I say, though I’m not. “But seriously, music isn’t childish. It’s one of the purest forms of expression there is.”
Something shifts in her expression, curiosity mixed with surprise. “You sound like you know from experience.”
I hesitate because this is dangerous territory. The flute is part of Damon Blackwell’s world, part of the identity I keep separate from everything else. But sitting here with her, with those intelligent eyes watching me as if I’m actually worth listening to, I want to give her something real.
“I play,” I admit. “Flute.”
Her eyes go wide. “You play the flute?”
“Have since I was eight.”
“That’s…” She’s staring at me like she’s recalculating everything she thought she knew. “That’s incredibly cool. Do you play professionally?”
“Nah, just for fun now. For people who need it.” I think about Queenie, about the residents at Sunset Manor, about the way music can make someone who feels invisible feel seen again. “Music’s too important to give up just because someone tells you to.”
The way she’s looking at me right now, like I’ve said something profound instead of obvious, makes my heart do that stupid hammering shit again.
“I should start listening for fun again,” she says softly. “I’ve been thinking about it since… well, since that night.”
