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“Uh…you like records?” she asks.

I nod, turning to the piles of worn records. “Yeah, I do. What do you like?”

Her fingers move through the pile, flicking through the alphabetical stack. It takes a moment, but she pulls out a green album and holds it out. I take it.

“Tom T. Hall,” I say.

“Yeah, I like this one a lot. Dad used to play it all the time growing up, before Mom…left.”

Her voice strains. I want to ask, but I know she’s not ready. We barely know each other.

“My agent, Jamie, loves this album. I mean, I do too, but he really loves it. Back when we first met, he had this old car, and it only had a cassette player. One time, we road tripped across New Jersey, all the way down the coast, and the tape got stuck, so we just listened to it again and again.”

She smiles, and it’s so brilliant, I have to force myself not to openly stare.

“How many hours?” she asks.

“Like three days.”

She laughs, and I’m mesmerized by the sound; soft fingers across a windchime. Then, she goes quiet for a moment.

“You really like music,” she says finally. “I mean, obviously. But that’s the most words I’ve heard you speak since you showed up.”

I sober, contemplative.

“Yeah, I’m a big classic country and folk guy,” I say finally. “My Mom got me into a lot of it.”

She looks at me with a soft expression.

“What was her favorite?” she asks.

“The man in black.”

“A good choice.”

“The best.”

She lifts it. “You want it. Dad has a record player.”

“Oh no—”

“It’s on me.” She smiles, nose crinkling. A warm glow starts in my ribs. “But we should get back. The café is usually pretty fast, and you don’t want to eat cold eggs.”

When she looks at me like that, I feel something instead of the disjointed sensation of being in the middle, the world spinning in circles around me. It slows everything down. She’s so normal, so real. It takes me right back to the beginning, when it was just me on the porch, when it was me and Jamie in my Buick. Back when I didn’t feel a sad sense of accomplishment with every contract I put my name on. I was so excited at the beginning.

Now, I feel like a husk.

Blown here and there by the wind. On planes, trains.

Never landing.

We leave the shop after she gets the record and reappear in the café, sinking down at the table with Bill and Serena. She tucks the bag aside, which I’m grateful for, because I don’t feel like talking about it. Not with everyone here. I like Bill and Serena, but I’m more of a one-on-one kind of talker. Maybe my brain is too tired for much else.

“You like it over there?” Bill asks, stretching out. He’s already done.

I cut into my omelet. “Yeah, it’s real nice.”

“I don’t mind getting some of those guitars out of storage.”