I pull it from my pocket, hand it to her.
She takes it, her fingers brushing mine in a way that sends electricity up my arm.
"What's your passcode?" she asks.
I hesitate for just a second. "It's still the same."
She types in her birthday.
I watch her process it, watch understanding dawn in her eyes.
All these years and I never changed it. Never even thought about changing it.
She looks at me for a long moment, something unreadable in her expression, but she doesn't say anything. Just unlocks the phone, scrolls through until she finds my music, and taps something.
The opening notes of"Purple Rain"drift out into the evening air.
Slow. Aching. Beautiful. And intentional.
Because music has always been our love language.
Every song between us has meant something. Every mixtape I made her, every track she'd play when we’d go for a drive, every melody we'd hum together without thinking—it was all deliberate. A conversation happening underneath the words we couldn't say out loud.
Prince's voice fills the space between us, guitar building like a prayer, and I remember.
She had a thing for guitar riffs.
Still does, apparently.
This was one of the first songs that ever made her feel something—really feel something—beyond just liking the melody. She was fourteen, sitting on her bedroom floor with her dad's old vinyl collection spread around her like treasure. Purple Rain spinning on the turntable he'd given her for her birthday.
She told me once that when Prince's guitar solo kicked in—that soaring, desperate, perfect riff—something in her chest cracked open. Like the music reached inside and found a part of her she didn't know existed.
She'd played it, made me sit and listen to the whole thing, start to finish, watching my face to see if I felt it too.
I did.
And she knew it.
The same way she knows now that choosing this song, this particular song, isn't random.
She sets the phone down on the dock between us, then stands, brushing off her dress.
"Dance with me," she says, and it's not quite a question.
I should say no. Should remember that she's drunk and sad and vulnerable and this isn't fair to either of us. Should remember that this song is about loss and longing and wantingsomething you can't have. Should remember that dancing with her while Prince sings about never meaning to cause her pain is possibly the worst idea I've had all night.
But I've never been good at saying no to her.
Especially not when she's speaking to me in the only language we've ever been fluent in.
I take her hand, let her pull me to my feet.
She steps into me, one hand in mine, the other resting on my shoulder. I put my free hand on her waist, feeling the warmth of her skin through the thin fabric of her dress, and we start to sway. Just like we used to when we were teenagers, on this exact dock, under stars that looked the same then as they do now.
She rests her head against my chest, and her breathing, her heartbeat against mine, every point where our bodies connect like a map of everything I've been trying to forget.
"Thank you," she murmurs, so quietly I almost don't hear it over the music.
