Page 39 of Philippa Flynn’s Year of Panic and Piracy

“I doubt that.” He laces his fingers through mine and rests our linked hands on his thigh. His very warm, very solid thigh, which is only a resting place for our hands and also not only anything. “Go ahead. I got my dare. You get a truth now. What do you want to know?”

We hold a look as a dozen questions race through my mind. What do you know about romance, and how do you know it? Did you see me panic when you suggested I sit next to you? When did you stop being the one to put space between us? Did you feel my heart pound beneath your palm? How long did you look at me while I watched the sunrise? Do you know how long I look at you sometimes? Will I ruin everything if I tell you? Why are you holding my hand?

“Maybe we should just trade,” I say. “What’s on your most-played list?”

His brows shoot up again. “All of it? You sure? We could be here all night.”

I warm at the thought, but also, he’s right to warn me. I’m not sure I’m up for an eight-hour deep dive into the intricacies of dissonance and surprising uses of minor pentatonic scales.

“How about one song?” I suggest. “Your absolute most played.”

“That, I can do.” He releases my hand and grabs his phone from the side table by the sofa. As he keys something in and views his screen, a smile stretches across his face until he’s absolutely beaming, his eyes dancing, his dimples out in full glory. “I think you’ll like this one. Great first line. Great last line. Perfect use of an orchestral crescendo and embedded dramatic pause.” He readies the song on his phone while shielding the screen, his excitement palpable. “Lie down and close your eyes. You can’t just listen. You have to feel it. Everywhere.”

I lie down as instructed. Dylan lies next to me and sets the phone between us on his pillow. I rotate to face him. He rotates to face me. While he readies the track, I prepare to hear a song I’ve never heard before from a band I’ve never heard of. Music that’s complex and nuanced in ways I don’t really understand, with discordant violins, percussion on kitchen implements, or unintelligible vocalizing modified by technology I know nothing about. Whatever’s about to play, when Dylan questions me with a look, I nod and close my eyes.

I hear the soft sounds of shuffling as he adjusts his phone before going still.

A lone strummed guitar. Melancholy notes. Familiar notes. Really familiar.

A mandolin, maybe, joining in. Higher in tone.

A man’s voice, deep and gravelly, singing about giving up forever for one touch . . .

My eyes pop open. This is not only not obscure. It’s one of the biggest hit songs ever.

“You like the Goo Goo Dolls?” I choke out through an incredulous gasp.

Dylan places a finger over my lips. “Shh. Listen. Feel it.”

I blink at him in disbelief as the song continues, nearing the first swell of the refrain. Of all the songs he might’ve played . . . A massively popular pop-rock hit? Really?

I can’t help myself. As his finger slides from my lips, I say, “But this is—”

“A great song.”

“And you like—”

“Great songs. Indie. Popular. Doesn’t matter. What matters is how it makes you feel.”

He scolds me with a look. I purse my lips, hard. When I don’t interrupt again, he sweeps his hand down over my eyes, guiding them closed. A breath later, or less than a breath, he finds my hand resting between us and links it with his.

That’s when it hits me. The name of the song. “Iris.”

And just like that, an already beautiful, astonishing moment becomes perfect.

As Dylan and I hold hands for the second time tonight, I relax into the music, and together—together—we listen to “Iris” play on his tinny phone speaker. The strumming of the mandolin rises and falls like waves. The strings swell until they burst. John Rzeznik sings about a desperate need for human connection. And I do feel it. I feel every note. Every word. The want. The yearning. The ache. I feel it not just in the song. I feel it not just because of the song.

“Dylan?” My eyes stay closed as the last note fades out. “I really like . . . your writing.”

He gives my hand a squeeze. “I really like your writing, too.”

Then he puts the song on repeat, and we listen again.

Chapter Thirteen

I wake up alone on the mattress in the living room, snuggled under warm sheets and blankets. The fire in the fireplace is out. Pale-gray light seeps in through gaps in the curtains. The rain seems to have stopped, dripping from eaves but no longer pitter-pattering on windows. I don’t remember when I fell asleep. Maybe somewhere around midnight, after hearing “Iris” at least a dozen times and after hauling my ass up to empty buckets once more and snuff out any candles that were still burning. And after Dylan suggested I stay with him, warm by the fire, since the heat was out in the rest of the house. He was right. It was cold upstairs, but my bedroom could’ve been eighty degrees and I still would’ve slept here.

Nothing happened, if inching closer together over a matter of hours until we were completely wrapped around each other counts as nothing. I felt him get up a while ago, carefully extricating himself from my embrace and mumbling something about a hangover and clearing his head and a run. I kept my eyes closed and mumbled something back. I was half asleep and hungover myself, so I hope I said something to the effect of have a good run and not stay here forever with me. Either way, he left, and I went back to sleep, and there’s no rewinding now.