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Unfortunately, there were so many more important but less tangible things we couldn’t teach.
Rhys frowned. “I never thought about how many things I learned from my parents that are kind of essential to being an adult in the world.”
“Yeah, most people with families don’t see how much of an advantage it is.”
It came out a little sharper than I’d intended, and a shadow crossed Rhys’s face.
“Um, what about you?”
“I’m a musician. I write music, tour with other bands, work as a studio musician. That’s what I’m doing at the moment. I’m working on Dan Colby and the Kings’ new album.”
He paused like maybe I was supposed to recognize the band, but I didn’t. I didn’t really listen to much music.
“That’s cool,” I said. “What’s it like to write a song and then hear someone play it?”
“It’s strange because I hear something in my head, and I write a melody, write lyrics. And they mean something to me. But then whoever performs it, it means something different to them, so they interpret it in their own way.”
He sounded different when he talked about music, like he’d retreated just a little ways inside himself and was speaking from a place slightly farther away from me. It made me want to lean closer.
“Plus the production style can drastically change a song. So it’s my melody, but they might change the key, or the producer might add an orchestral backing, or lay a swing beat over it, or—oh, once, I wrote this song that, in my head, had this kind of mournful longing. And the artist it was for loved it, but he already had three down-tempo songs on the album, so the producer changed the tempo and added this kind of . . . I don’t know what it was. Like a waltz rhythm? And a fiddle solo. It was virtually unrecognizable from the way I’d imagined it.”
“That’s . . . are they allowed to just do that?” I asked.
“Yep. If I sell the rights or if I contract to write the song for someone, they can do whatever they want with it.”
“How come you don’t record them yourself so you can make them sound however you want?”
Rhys shoved some fries into his mouth before answering.
“I haven’t recorded any of my own stuff yet.” He ate more fries and glanced at me. Then he shrugged. “I’ve been touring for the last zillion years with my best friend. I co-wrote a few of his songs and played on all his albums. It was . . . enough for me, for a long time. Now I—” He bit his lip. “Guess I haven’t focused as much on what I want to be doing.”
Rhys fidgeted in his chair, and I got the sense there was more to the story.
“Do you want to? Record your own stuff?”
His hypnotic gaze slid from me to the ceiling over my head.
“You know what?” he said. “I think I do.”
His brow furrowed, and he nodded, as if he’d just decided something, and leaned back in his chair. Then he gave me the warmest smile, and I felt myself smiling back, like being a part of whatever decision he’d just made for himself meant I was a part of something wonderful.
We talked for hours after that. The food went cold but we kept picking at it so we had an excuse to keep talking. I’d never talked to anyone as much as I talked to Rhys. Even with Grin, we’d mostly shot the shit, or made plans, or aired our daily grievances. We’d kept each other sane with jokes and distraction. But Rhys asked question after question, told story after story. And by the end of the night—the morning, really, by that time—I felt like I knew him. I felt like he wanted to know me.
When we were both yawning and my voice was raw from talking, we finally gathered our coats and walked outside. It had begun snowing, lazy, fat flakes drifting to the ground like they could almost resist gravity. They kissed my upturned face, and the whole world felt vertiginous.
The sun was rising, painting the eastern tips of the buildings and making the air around the snowflakes glow with the promise of a new day. The promise of something magical.
I was clumsy with exhaustion now, but my mind was racing. Things felt momentous somehow, like I was standing on the edge of something more.
Was it possible for everything to change in one night? For my life to transform into something as familiar yet unrecognizable as one of Rhys’s songs?
“Matt.” Rhys said my name softly, but his expression spoke volumes. After so many hours we were vibrating at the same frequency. He took a step toward me and I leaned back against the window of the diner. When his lips touched mine, something unspooled throughout my whole body. A bright, sweet pulse of something like possibility. Like the sun rising and driving away the shadows of night.
