Our eyes tangle, charged with something unspoken. A quiet understanding, a shared pulse of possibility. There’s something in him I recognize. A flame, left dormant for too long.
I twist around, snatching up one of Tag’s acoustic guitars from where it rests against the wall. A Martin—his pride and joy, the one he scraped and saved for.
Without hesitation, I hand it to Chase.
“Seriously?” Tag bristles. “That’s my baby.”
“Your baby will be fine.”
Chase palms the neck and takes the rusty orange pick I hand him. “What’s that?” He nods at the notebook smooshed between my knees.
“It’s my book of midnights.”
He studies me for a long beat, his bangs fallen into his eyes. “What’s with the midnight theme?”
“Taylor has her midnights. So do I.”
“Taylor? Is that a guitar reference?”
I gawk at him like he’s been living in a hermitage for several centuries. “Taylor Swift. I’m always working during the day, so this is my time for hobbies and stuff that feeds the soul. My late-night musings. Tag and I started the tradition a few years back when we both realized we didn’t sleep normal human hours.”
“When do you sleep?”
“A little here and there. Lots of naps. I function well on little sleep.”
He hums under his breath. “And you want to be a lyricist?”
I pull my feet up on the couch until I’m cross-legged. “That would be cool. Right now it’s just an ununified jumbling of random words. There’s no real connection or underlying story to any of it. A lot of haikus. More poetry than anything.”
Despite my brush off, I see the light in Chase’s eyes flicker to life, his interest piqued.
“It’s nothing, really.” My skin flushes. “Everyone has their thing.”
He holds my stare, then blinks a few times, squeezing his eyes shut as he rubs at his forehead.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, just a headache. Still on a few pain meds. They’ve been messing with me.” He blows out a breath, clears his throat. “What do you want me to play?”
“What do you know?” Tag chugs down the rest of his IPA and leans forward. “Anything but ’60s doo-wop, for the love of God.”
“That’s offensive,” I grumble.
“I know a lot. ’90s rock, ’80s hair metal, some new-age folky stuff. Pearl Jam, CCR, Fleetwood Mac, the Beatles—”
“Beatles. ‘I Am the Walrus’ is gold.” Perking up, I curl my fingers around the wrinkled notebook and stretch a smile. “It’s kind of like if I pieced all my gibberish together and made a song out of it.”
“While tripping on LSD,” Tag adds.
Chase’s lips twitch—a semi-smile.
He goes quiet for several seconds, plucking at the strings, his features softening with focus, earnestness.
Then he starts to play.
I recognize the song after a few indicative chords: “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
Long fingers move with a gentle precision, his gaze engrossed in the strings, lost in the music. The melody winds through the room like blue smoke, haunting in its simplicity. My brother hums a verse under his breath, jumping in, strumming along on his backup guitar—a cheap model handed down to him from our late grandfather. The catalyst for his dreams.
