Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99399 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 497(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99399 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 497(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Fact: the entire Marian family had been in Hawaii early last summer for Tommy’s aborted wedding.
Also fact: the Marians had friends and family in Aster Valley, and had definitely been there in recent years.
Which didn’t mean anything, necessarily. It could all be a coincidence.
But those same instincts I’d come to rely on in my work, the ones that had enabled me to track Wolfe to Colorado, were screaming at me that it wasn’t.
I quickly clicked through the #WhoIsFletcherCoe tag, where post after post speculated about the identity of the famous songwriter.
It wasn’t surprising that Fletcher Coe had so much interest. The man was fucking brilliant. He’d been around for several years, but I’d been a little late to the game, only clueing in after Jude’s casual mention of the guy last summer. Since then, “Not Mine” had become my own secret lament.
A random songwriter on the internet had somehow reached inside me and pulled out the core contradiction in my life. The man I wanted, the man I couldn’t stop thinking about, wasn’t mine and couldn’t be. Fletcher had managed to put those feelings into words and melody.
And now—
Now I was faced with the idea that Fletcher was—
I clicked on a post from a month ago. I hadn’t paid attention to the video while it played the other night, since I’d been drifting off to sleep, but I watched closely now. And there, at the edge of the man’s wrists and behind the guitar on his headless chest, was a recognizable red.
SERA red.
The kind used in our instructors’ hoodies.
Could it have been any other red hoodie? Maybe. Sure. But I had a stack of hoodies in that distinctive color at home and two with me right now on this trip.
Thankfully, the SERA logo wasn’t visible in the frame, which was the only thing keeping this post from being a massive clue that the mysterious Fletcher Coe was—
Fuck. I still couldn’t bring myself to think the words.
Just before I clicked away to look for more evidence, the sound from the video caught up to me. The melody was lovely, and Fletcher Coe’s smooth voice rolled out deep and familiar through my earbuds as the lyrics scrolled across the video post.
’Cause the pinks and oranges are calling me
Like a fire that doesn’t need a name,
And the freedom tastes like dust and honey
On the edge where I belong.
I’m letting go of who I’ve been,
Like a stone I don’t have to carry—
But even in all this open,
I’m still chasing something I can’t hold.
At the very end, the video flashed away from his hands on the guitar to a jaw-dropping photo of the Grand Canyon at sunset or sunrise.
The Grand Canyon.
The SERA hoodie.
Hawaii.
Ski Aster Valley.
I’m letting go of who I’ve been.
I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing.
Was it actually possible that Wolfe Marian—shy, sweet, manager of the Bluebell Foundation Wolfe Marian, my Wolfe Marian—was also the world’s hottest songwriter?
I would have thought I’d recognize his voice, but I could barely remember the last time I’d heard Wolfe sing. It was before he went to college, definitely. Before he’d stopped playing and singing around the rest of us. Maybe his singing voice had deepened in that time.
My heart began to thunder as my brain supplied a cascade of information about Fletcher Coe I’d picked up the other night without recognizing its importance.
Lyra Vale singing “Not Mine” at the Super Bowl—which I remembered had been on Wolfe’s birthday.
Lyra Vale accepting the Grammy on behalf of Fletcher Coe.
Looper and Mazz Aveline playing “Far Away Nights” on Saturday Night Live.
Some singer joking in an interview that his ego had taken a hit when a Fletcher Coe song had been more popular than his own songs on his newest album.
Fletcher Coe was a legend in the making. A generational talent. But he was also a shadow. A mystery people were desperate to solve because he was determined to stay out of the public eye.
That, more than anything, cemented this theory as fact in my mind.
How many people would go to the effort of crafting lyrics and melodies that could rip your heart out, then post them for the world to enjoy, but never show their face and claim the fame they’d earned?
I could think of only one.
Oh, sweetheart.
Wolfe Marian hated fame. He’d grown up around Jude’s stardom, around users and manipulators only out to befriend him for cred. Wolfe had only tried to make his own way in the music industry for about ten minutes before he’d been cruelly knocked down and forced to give it up.
Except he hadn’t stayed down. He hadn’t given it up.
And I’d missed it. I’d missed all of it.
I quickly typed in a Wikipedia search on the name and discovered his first appearance in the world was with a song called “Far Away Nights” nearly… six years ago.