Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 92749 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92749 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
“Bishop understands that good songs take time.”
“Does he? What about when venues want to book you? When people start expecting Darian Mercer to tour again?”
He moves closer, not touching but close enough that I feel his warmth through my shirt. “Is that what this is about? You’re worried I’m going to disappear?”
“Aren’t you? Eventually? It’s what musicians do. You chase the music, the next gig, the next city.”
“I’m not any of those piece of shit musicians you’ve dated.”
His statement lingers between us, heavy with history. “I know you’re not.”
“Do you?” He sets down his wine, studying me. “Because sometimes when you look at me, I see you calculating how long before I leave.”
“Can you blame me? You know what they did. What they took.”
“Those men were thieves and cowards,” Darian says quietly. “I’m neither of those things. I think I’ve proved as much when Apex pounded on my door.”
He had.
“No, but you’re still a musician. You still have a life that exists in tour buses and green rooms and cities I’ll never see.”
“That’s my job, not my life. There’s a difference.”
“Is there? When you’re gone for months, when Lily asks where you are—”
“Then I call her. Every night if she wants. I send her postcards from every city. I come back the second the tour ends.” His voice carries certainty that makes me want to believe him. “I’m not going to take your music or your trust and disappear. When I leave for a tour, it’s for work. When I come back, it’s because this is home. You’re home. Lily’s home.”
“How can you say that? We’ve barely—”
“We’ve been dancing around this for weeks, Rye. And before you say it’s just physical, we both know it’s more than that.”
He’s right. What happened in his apartment, at the venue—that was heat and need and trying to scratch an itch. But the family dinner, teaching Lily guitar, the way he looks at me when he thinks I’m not watching—that’s something else entirely.
The timer cuts through the moment, beeping until I silence it and pull the chicken out. The smell fills the kitchen—garlic and lemon and herbs—familiar and grounding. We eat mostly quiet, the music filling gaps where words might go. But the silence carries weight, charged with everything we’re working toward.
“How are the new hires working out?” he asks, breaking the tension.
“Jessa’s good. Experienced. Cade’s enthusiastic, maybe too much so. Jovie caught him trying to alphabetize the liquor bottles by distillery yesterday.”
“Ambitious.”
“Or desperately trying to impress someone. He keeps asking when you’re playing again.”
“Kid wants to be a musician?”
“Kid wants to be you. Came to Nashville with big dreams, playing open mics, working wherever he can to pay rent.” I pause. “Sound familiar?”
“Is that why you hired him?”
“I hired him because we needed help and he was willing to work for tips plus minimum wage. But yeah, maybe I saw something familiar in him.”
We clear the table together, washing and drying with easy coordination. He rinses, I dry, our hips bumping occasionally as we work. It feels normal in a way that scares me more than passion would—this domestic rhythm that makes me imagine what it would be like if this was every night, not just stolen hours while Lily’s away.
“Dessert?” he asks, reaching for the refrigerator where he’d stored the mousse.
“Later.”
He turns back, leaning against the counter, studying me. “What are you really afraid of?”
“You want the list? You leaving. You staying and resenting it. Lily loving you. Lily losing you. Me falling for someone whose first love will always be the music. Me opening up again just to watch someone take pieces of me when they go.”
“Music isn’t my first love.”
“No?”
“Music is how I breathe. It’s how I process the world. But it’s not love. Love is messier. Love is standing in someone’s kitchen, terrified they’re going to ask you to leave. Love is writing songs you can’t record because they’re too personal, too much about one specific person with trust issues and a daughter who makes killer French toast.”
“Darian—”
“Love is being willing to have the hard conversations instead of just the easy heat.”
I move closer, pulled by something I’m tired of resisting. “Is that what this is? Love?”
“I don’t know. But I’d like to find out. If you’ll let me.”
“Even knowing what I’m afraid of?”
“Especially knowing.” His hand finds my waist, thumb brushing the strip of skin where my shirt has lifted. “I can’t promise I won’t tour. It’s my job. But I can promise to come back. To call Lily from every city. To make this my home base, my real life, not just a stop between shows.”
“How do I trust that?”
“You don’t. Not yet. Trust takes time. But maybe you could try? Maybe we could try?”
Instead of answering with words, I kiss him. Not soft or tentative, but with all the want I’ve been suppressing since that morning I ran from his apartment, since that night at the venue when we both gave in to what’s been building between us. He kisses me back like he understands the war happening inside me, like he’s willing to wait for me to sort it out.