“Yeah?” He smiles softly. “Will you play it again?”
“Why?”
“I want to record it.”
I balk. “I repeat,why?”
“So I can listen to your song whenever I want,” he says, like this should be obvious. “Alone, I mean. I promise not to let anyone else hear it. Not even Zara, and especially not Maisy.”
“You’re very funny,” I grumble.
“And you’re a really good singer,” he retorts. “We play to our strengths, it seems.”
I sit with that for a minute. Obviously, Liam’s the first person to tell me I’m good at this. He’s the first person I’ve shared it with. Butstill, as self-deprecating as I acted earlier, I think part of me has known for the last year that I’ve been onto something with songwriting.
“How’d you get into this?” he asks. “Is it new, or something you’ve always loved?”
“I’ve always played,” I answer. “Piano, violin, and flute in school bands and orchestras, though we only learned the classics. But when I was a senior, we spent an entire semester in AP English developing an original poetry anthology, and that’s when I realized all my poems were set to a rhythm in my head. Once I moved to Knoxville, I started meshing the two hobbies.”
Liam hums in the back of his throat.
“Do you think we only like what we like because we’re good at it?” I ask.
He shoots me a wary look. “If I ever stop being good at baseball, I’ll let you know.”
“I think when you love something, and you just want to do it all the time—it’s because it makes you happy. Even if you aren’t going to go down in history for it.”
Liam nods, rubbing a hand underneath his chin. “That’s true. Baseball makes me happy. But I also like how happy it makes other people.”
I tilt my head. “What do you mean?”
His eyes flit over me. “The fans at a baseball game,” he starts. “I like how excited they are to be there. Not necessarily to see me, but to see the team, the game, the whole atmosphere. It’s like…” He drifts off, his lips hitching up. “I don’t know, my form of art? I can’t paint or design or write songs, but I can offer someone a slice of happiness by throwing the ball well for nine innings. And I think it makes the people in the stands feel the same way art would.”
“I love that,” I say after a minute. “It’s a very I-just-hope-both-teams-have-fun mindset.”
“I’m competitive, though,” Liam allows. “My dad was too, but in a healthy way, if you know what I mean. I got it from him.”
“What else was he like?” I ask.
His eyes dip, even though he’s still smiling, just slightly. “He was so steady. Even-keeled. Everyone in our community trusted his judgment and followed his lead. Neighbors, family, clients. He would’ve been equally happy with me being a barefoot marathoner as a pitcher. So long asIwas happy and giving it my all.”
“I have a feeling you’re giving it your all,” I say, “butareyou happy? Not just with baseball, but everything else?”
He nods softly. “More so the longer I spend here.”
Here, in this apartment? Here, in this city?
“What about if you stopped being good at baseball? What then?”
He considers, doing that same scratching motion beneath his chin. “I’d have to find something else I could be part of that makes people feel the way America’s pastime does.”
“Maybe a concert,” I suggest. “Lots of people, big open space, cheering, clapping, a performance of talent. You could figure out how to work at concerts.”
Liam smirks at me, more out of amusement than outright agreement. “Yeah,” he says, his voice indulgent. “And I bet you’d be happy there too.”
Togetheris the unsaid implication.
I glance down at the places our bodies are touching. My knee against his thigh, his shoe on the floor bumping mine, his hand behind my elbow—all leftover remnants of that last hug we never fully pulled away from.
