Page 16 of Those Eyes, That Mouth

He reminded me of the sculpture guys you’d see welding in the foundry or carving stone behind the art building.

He didn't dress up for the show. He just showed up. And that made him cooler than anyone else in the room.

I felt kind of silly. Nathan and I had spent an hour on our costumes just to sit in the audience, but Grey was performing on stage in something you’d wear on laundry day.

He stepped up to the microphone, adjusted the strap on his acoustic guitar, and started playing.

His voice was nothing like his old records. That had been safe. This was something else—high and androgynous, almost like something out of a fairy tale, with a thin, haunting quality that made the hair on my arms stand up. Then it swelled, this huge range that went from a whisper to a wail, and I realized Grey wasn't hiding anymore. He wasn't fronting a band of straight guys making rock for frat parties.

He was up there with a new collective—a violinist who drew out long, mournful notes, and a drummer who kept it all sparse and tribal. But it was the bassist who grounded the whole thing—a Black girl with a focused, heavy groove, her fingers creating these melodic, liquid lines that felt like the pulse of the room. She looked utterly unfazed, like she was the one driving the song.

Grey was singing about wanting another man in a way that was unmistakable. It was blatant. Defiant.

His eyes stayed shut. His face tilted up like he was receiving a signal from somewhere above the rafters. He was completely wide open—uncomfortable to watch, like we'd stumbled into a room where he was either praying or having a total breakdown.

The lyrics weren’t graphic, but they didn’t need to be. He was singing about another man’s eyes and his mouth and the weight of his hands. About transformation. About becoming something new. With The Orchards, everything had been a metaphor—we’d spent years trying to decipher his lyrics like a secret code. But this wasn't subtext anymore. He was just being honest, and it was obvious. Grey delivered it like someone who’d finally broken free and didn't care who knew it.

The crowd was silent, totally absorbed.

There was this hard, hot ache in my throat, like a fist was closing around my windpipe and I couldn't swallow past it. I stood there, gripped by it.

This was real. Not something practiced in the mirror. It wasn't vintage wingtips and hand-rolled cigarettes and knowing about bands nobody else had heard of yet. Grey looked like he’d just rolled out of bed, but there he was, totally exposed. He wasn't trying to protect himself at all.

It made me feel small. Not because he was more famous than me, but because he was free in a way I didn't even know was allowed.

I glanced over at Nathan.

He was watching Grey with the same expression he’d had earlier this afternoon during Love’s Easy Tears—completely gone, lips parted, eyes wide. Like he was seeing something he’d never be able to put into words.

But we’d try.

Nathan felt me watching him and turned his head. He was breathless, his face flushed, and he raised his eyebrows at me with a look that was pure, stunned recognition. Whoa. Man. He just said it, didn’t he?

I looked back at him, my heart beating so hard I could see the pulse in my vision.

He grabbed the lapel of my jacket and pulled me closer. He leaned in like he was about to say something in my ear—the way you do when it's too loud to be heard—his mouth close enough I could feel his breath buzzing against my skin. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

And then the girls found us.

Kelly was already grabbing Nathan's arm, shouting something over the music.

He shifted, blinking like he was being pulled out of a deep sleep, and gave her that polite, easy smile he used when he was being a good sport. He nodded and chuckled at whatever she was saying, but I could see the way he kept his eyes on the stage.

Alex grabbed onto me, swaying and dancing. I couldn’t hear her, but I read her lips as she yelled, "So good!"

Kelly was still over there trying to talk to Nathan. He was missing the song, but he was too nice to tell her to shut up. I wanted to scream, Now’s not the time for a chat, Kelly.

He’d never be a dick to anyone.

But it felt like he was letting her take away the moment.

After the show, we spilled back out into the lobby. The lights were too bright again, everyone blinking and dazed.

Somebody came by with a camera. Not one of the professional photographers we’d seen crouched at the edge of the stage all night, just a guy we knew taking Polaroids.

"Get in, get in!" he said, waving Kelly and Nathan closer.

Nathan motioned to me, inviting me into the frame. But Kelly was already between us, her body turned sideways toward Nathan, her knee coming up across his thigh. I stayed where I was, just outside the shot. Or so I hoped.