Ren blows out a breath, hands shoved in his pockets. “He said that it’s rare a position comes up unless someone retires. Or someone brings him something really great.”
“That’s good news,” I say as we cross the street. When he stays silent, I ask, “Isn’t it?”
He tilts his head toward one shoulder, mouth twisting a little to the side. “I don’t know. No one there is anywhere near retirement, and what am I going to bring him? I don’t even have time to go to shows anymore with my hours there.”
“Um, you bring him one of theamazingbands you’re always sending me that don’t have representation,” I say, stepping up onto the curb as we reach the opposite side of the street. “You take a weekend off and go to some city where you can catch ten shows in two days, and you bring him the best of the best of the best and youshowhim how much you deserve a job not just as their sound tech, but working for the actual label.”
“I think you have a lot more faith in my taste in music than anyone else,” Ren says with a small laugh.
I stop him in the middle of the sidewalk, set a hand square on his chest so he’ll look at me. He does, throat bobbing as he pastes on a close-lipped smile. “No. I believe inyou, my best friend, and how perfect you would be for a job in A&R.”
Ren is always the one who discovers bands before anyone else knows about them, who drags us to shows in basements or hole-in-the-wall dive bars in Portland and every city we ever visit, who still makes me playlists for every occasion. There’s one called “For When Joni Doesn’t Want To Put Away Her Laundry But Already Has More Laundry To Do” that I’ve had on repeat for weeks now, and every single time it’s on in the office someone will inevitably stop in their tracks and ask me who’s singing, what the name of that song is, why haven’t they heard it yet.
Ren reaches up to squeeze my hand, lowers it back to my side, a slight smile on his face. “I know you do,” he says.
* * *
Back at the hotel, we take turns showering before flopping onto his bed and looking for something to watch. We make it halfway throughBest in Showbefore we’re both dozing.
Ren is a weird sleeper. First of all, he’s out pretty much as soon as he lies down, which has always left me to haul the blankets out from under his dead-to-the-world body when we’d camp out on the trampoline in his backyard as kids. Second, of course, is his sleep talking. For the most part, it’s just soft murmurs, but there have been nights I’ve woken up to him sitting straight up in bed, having conversations with the wall.
I’d thought he was sleeping now, eyes closed and breathing steady next to me, but as I force myself up and into my own bed, I hear him shift, his voice coming out of the half dark.
“Maybe I’ll abandon Sublimity altogether,” he says. “Move to the East Coast with you.”
Something skips in my chest, and I hug my pillow. I give myself half a minute to think about what that would look like. Picking up coffee and going to museums together on the weekends, Ren taking us to shows any night of the week. But the truth of it is, despite how much I want to see him all the time again, make a new home for ourselves, Novo has consumed more and more of my time recently, and images of reinstated Wednesday night dinners and exploring the city together are quickly replaced by my canceling because something came up at work, or not being able to meet him on a Saturday morning because I stayed at the studios too late the night before.
“I think you love Sublimity too much for that,” I say carefully.
Ren looks over at me through heavy lids, his cheek pressed to the pillow. Our beds are close enough that I can make out the splash of freckles he gets on his nose in the summer. “Like you love Novo, right?” he asks.The movie is still playing on the TV, Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara talking about their dog’shappier-to-know-ya kind of attitude.
“Right.” I love Novo in a bone-deep way. I’ve learned so much more from colleagues than I could have imagined over the past year. The work makes sense to me in a way other things often haven’t in my life: failed classes that seemed to come easily to others, an anxious brain that liked to work against me. Art calms me, makes things go quiet. It’s why I wanted to create a career out of it in the first place.
As the moment stretches between us, his eyes flick between mine, like he’s mulling something over. Finally, he sits up, grabs the remote off the table between us.
“Done with this?” he asks, pointing it toward the television. I nod, and he turns the movie off.
As he heads into the bathroom to brush his teeth, my mind wanders back to what it would be like to have Ren in New York. To be together like this again all the time. But I tuck it away before I let that daydream settle in and become something real to hope for.
chapter eleven
“There she goes,” I say the next afternoon as we float away from the shoreline, the blast of the boat’s horn notifying everyone on the banks of Lake Michigan that we are On Our Way.
“Who’sshe?” Ren asks, amusement etched on his face as he leans against the railing next to me, looking out at the still blue water, the Chicago skyline beyond it.
I glance over at him, the cool breeze ruffling his hair. It’s bearable out here, not socked in by asphalt and concrete.
“Escape,”I say dramatically.
Lydia and Isaac decided to get married on a yacht that won’t dock again until nine. It is now three o’ clock. Maybe for them six hours on a boat with your friends and entire extended family is considered a recipe for success.
We wind our way to the observation deck with everyone else, pausing to accept flutes of sparkling rosé and say hello to a few familiar faces.
“Priya and Jamie are here together,” I say, voice urgent as I grab Ren’s wrist. “Six o’clock.” He follows my coordinates. “Priya and Jamie from our writing seminar freshman year are here. Together. Priya told me she’dneverdate Jamie,” I mutter as Ren steers us toward a table across from where they’re standing, his hand on my back.
“Evidently, she changed her mind,” Ren says. He nods toward the far side of the deck, at a particularly raucous group shouting over each other in jovial tones. “Remember the parties that house used to throw?”
“Oh, Ren. How could I forget the party there where you declared ‘Mr. Brightside’your song?”
