Zach smacks his forehead. “We’re not gettingmarried. We’re moving in together,” he explains.
“Oh!” Eric claps the table. “That’s right! We’re moving in together!”
We cheer and congratulate them.
But Eric wrinkles his brow. “Wait a minute. If we got married, there’d be cake, and I could totally go for some cake right now.”
“And maybe a gallon of water and a few aspirin,” Chris mutters. “Actually, there is that late-night bakery we walked past on the way here. Just a few doors down.”
“Let them eat cake!” Eric hollers.
“Chris, why don’t you take the drunks out for cake, and I’ll help Sabin pack up?” I suggest.
“Take your time. Eric has to sober up a little before I put him in the car. If he pukes everywhere, I’m gonna be pissed.”
Chris manages to wrangle them all outside, leaving just Sabin and me.
“So?” He sits across from me now and fidgets with a napkin on the table.
I feign confusion. “So…what?”
“Blythe! Come on.” The napkin is in shreds.
“You were amazing.”
“Yeah?”
“Outstanding. Perfect. I’ve never seen you do better.”
Suddenly, the manager rushes over with a panicked but hopeful look on his face. “Sabin? That was great, and obviously, the crowd loves you. Here’s the thing. Another guy was supposed to close out the night, and he no-showed. I try to end the nights with something kind of mellow. It helps calm the place down and all that. Fewer bar fights. Any chance you want to do a few more songs? Just twenty minutes even? It’d really help me out.”
“I don’t know,” Sabin says. “I mean, I guess.”
“Sabe, you have to!” I insist. “You’re the king of the slow song!”
He laughs lightly. “Okay. Sure.”
Sabin gets back on stage, and the applause is immediate and loud. “All right, kiddos. We’re going to bring it down a notch here, so sit back and listen to the mellow stylings of yours truly.”
It’s as though the entire room is under his command, and I’m not surprised when the room quiets down to listen to him. Sabin has a magnetism that reaches every person here, and I cannot take my eyes off of him. A few couples slow dance near the stage, and the atmosphere he creates with his music puts us all in a bubble where the outside world does not exist. We are all simply here with Sabin. He plays a few songs, and then he taps his guitar and thinks for a moment.
“So, uh…Blythe,” he says, looking directly at me, “this one is for you.”
I can’t help but smile when he starts, “When You Say Nothing at All.” It’s an older song that I adore. A little sappy, a little syrupy, but it’s one of the sweetest songs ever. I had no idea that he knew I loved this.
It’s a song about communicating without words, about being there for each other always, about deep connectedness—the way we did the other day after the turmoil following the gallery showing.
It’s a song about us. And it’s beautiful. And I love every second of it.
The only problem is that I might love it too much because I realize that I am holding back tears and not doing a particularly good job of it. So, I just let my cheeks get wet because these are happy tears that come from how much I care for this person singing to me and how much I value every part of him.
The clapping throughout the bar is the only thing that snaps me from the moment. I realize that the song is over, and he’s starting another one.
He looks away from me now. “This song is called ‘Daisy.’ I wrote it last summer, and it goes a little somethin’ like this…”
SO LONG, MY LOVE.
YOU KNOW YOU WERE THE ONE.
