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)
My phone buzzes. Bishop, sending a text about session musicians he could call, producers who might want to hear the track. The industry machine is ready to spin up, to take something fragile and personal and turn it into a product.
I don’t respond.
If Rye wants this, she’ll let me know. If she doesn’t, then the song stays what it is: a moment between two people who understood something without needing to name it. Maybe that’s worth more than any recording contract or studio time.
I pour myself coffee instead of bourbon, progress my sister would approve of if she knew. The Martin sits silent in the corner, holding space for whatever comes next. I’ve spent years charging forward, taking what I wanted and apologizing later when necessary. But this feels different. This feels like something worth doing right, even if right means slow, even if right means maybe never.
The coffee’s gone cold by the time I remember to drink it. Outside, Nashville keeps spinning, writers writing, singers singing, the machine grinding forward. But here, in this quiet space, I’m learning to wait. Learning that sometimes the best thing you can do for someone is give them room to choose, even when every instinct screams to pull them closer.
There’s a song that needs to exist, Bishop’s right about that. But more importantly, there’s a person who needs to decide for herself if she wants to be part of bringing it to life. No contracts, no pressure, no industry machinery. Just a note in a book and space to breathe.
I sit with the Martin across my lap, not to play but just to hold it. The bench still holds the impression of where she sat, or maybe I’m imagining it. Either way, I’m here, waiting without expecting, hoping without demanding.
The afternoon light shifts through the windows, marking time in ways that have nothing to do with deadlines or recording schedules. Somewhere in the city, Rye’s probably writing, or not writing, or doing whatever she does when she’s not accidentally creating magic at her venue’s piano.
I think about texting her, then don’t. Think about calling Bishop back, then don’t. Think about pouring that bourbon after all, then don’t.
Instead, I sit with the quiet, with the possibility, with the strange peace of having done something right even if it leads nowhere. The song exists now, recorded and saved in Bishop’s system. But whether it becomes more than that isn’t up to me.
It’s a different kind of power, letting go. Not the explosive kind that ends marriages and recording contracts, but the quiet kind that might, if I’m lucky, build something worth keeping.
The sun sets eventually, painting the room gold then gray then dark. I should eat something, should return those calls, should do any number of things that successful musicians do to stay successful.
I wait. Not desperately, not anxiously, just openly. The note sits in my pocket, undelivered. Maybe she’ll read it when I find a way to get it to her, maybe she won’t. But at least it’s her choice, real and uncomplicated by everything else I could have put on the table.
Bishop would say I’m an idiot. Zara would probably tell me to stop overthinking and just talk to her.
But none of them were there when Rye hummed that melody, when she turned something broken in me into something that might sing. They didn’t see the way she pulled back when things got too close, too fast. They don’t understand that some things need to be approached sideways, gently, with patience I’m still learning to have.
My phone lights up with another call. This time it’s Benny, probably checking if I need anything for the apartment. I let it go to voicemail. I’ll call him back tomorrow, thank him for pushing me to get out more.
All true, in their way.
The apartment settles into night sounds, familiar creaks and sighs that used to drive me out to bars and other people’s beds. Now they just feel like company, like the building itself is learning to be alone with me.
I finally get up from the chair, joints protesting the long sit. Tomorrow there’ll be decisions to make, calls to return, the business of being Darian Mercer to attend to. Tonight, there’s just this: a note in a book, a song in the air, and the radical act of letting someone else decide what happens next.
It’s not much. But it’s honest. And maybe, after everything, that’s the only currency that really matters.
rye
. . .
The note sits on my kitchen counter like a live grenade. Seven words that shouldn’t matter this much: It’s a good song. Let’s finish it. I’ve read them at least fifty times since finding the piece of paper tucked into my lyric book this morning. Darian's handwriting is somehow both careful and rushed, like he wrote it fast before he could change his mind.