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“I know, okay. Not a good place in a relationship to be trying to move things to a deeper place.” Nodding, Dez looked at him with eyes about as sad as those he’d had beside the creek the day Riley had accused them of sleeping together. “Kinda why I’m thinking of having you put them in the safe, so I don’t make a big mistake in one of the moments when he’s not making me overanalyze everything I do or don’t say to him.”
Stretching his hand out, Zakk met Dez’s gaze, waiting for him to make a decision. He wanted to kick Riley’s ass for putting that look on Dez’s face, his lead singer handing over the jewelry box, tears shimmering in his eyes. “Was probably too soon to think about asking him to be mine forever.”
“You know when you know. Do you think more time is going to make you want him less?”
“No. But it will give us a million and one chances to ruin it before we ever get that far.”
“There is that.” Zakk closed his hands around the box and left the room, putting the rings in the same safe where he kept the original copies of their songs. No one ever accessed it but him anyway. Dez was hugging his guitar when Zakk rejoined him, stroking the strings in a soft melody, the nine-note combination climbing an octave upon repeat before changing up. He was humming too, occasionally muttering words to a different song from the one they’d been working on.
But I never fear the darkness. Not that. Never that.
The notes gave a cadence to it, so Zakk sat back and listened as Dez hummed and added a few more words.
Little glowing bodies pressed so close the purple glows.
This is me not quitting you when you slam the door in my face
Your bonedagger talons gouging holes through this sacred space.
Of hearth and home and all we ever hoped to be
Never free, but someday soon the cost of loving you is gonna kill me
Break me, burn me, choke the fragile life from my wretched body
And still the shadows warm me.
And your darkness falls to blind me.
But I never fear the darkness. Not that. Never that.
It was a little on the dark side when compared with some of their material, but Zakk knew it was nowhere close to being done. Just Dez’s thoughts leaking out alongside the melody. The words would change dozens of times before it was finished, the mood too, depending on how Dez felt when he was working on it. Still, the sentiment made him wish Riley were here to listen to Dez singing about their relationship in such a volatile and potentially devastating way. Maybe then he’d ease up before he did break the talented man and himself once he’d succeeded in driving Dez away.
Sometimes Dez hummed whole riffs before he ever touched his fingers to the strings, other times, it was the words he worked out before honing a melody. Where Zakk had to at least have some music to get him started, even if it was only a series of keys strung together, Dez could create from little scraps of ideas he seemingly pulled from nowhere. It was like the cosmos were writing the songs and he was just the messenger through which they shared them.
“Wish I could work out the mystery that is Tripp as easily as I can work out a song,” Zakk muttered as he leaned in the doorway, watching Dez play while Zakk polished off his drink in a short series of gulps.
“Was sitting here thinking the same about Riley,” Dez muttered. “At least we’ve already got a name.”
“Huh?” Zakk hummed, taking his eyes off the patten of Dez’s fingers in time to see him nod his head at the guitar.
“Solving the Mystery That Is You,” Dez remarked, shrugging. “Or at least something along those lines away. Maybe justSolving the Mystery, then we can be both vague and cryptic.”
While he wasn’t sure the lyrics he’d heard so far were about solving anything, they were as good a place as any to start.
“Let me plug in my keyboard.” As Zakk moved to do so, a thought stopped him cold.
“We gonna sort this out because we need to or are we gonna spend the day playing to avoid crashing and the assholes that are making us stress?”
“After that call, do you think you’ll sleep or just toss and turn in bed.”
“Point taken.”
When his fingers danced over the warm keys, the smoothness beneath them helped ease the tightness in his shoulders and chest just a little. The ache in his neck was more pronounced and he closed his eyes, picturing them as he breathed and allowed the notes to wash over him. His fingers knew what to do before his brain, before his soul fully connected with the song, he felt what he wanted to say to Tripp. What he was sure Dez had said to Riley, only to walk away from the encounter unheard.
He strung together notes thinking about the way people listened but missed the meaning of single words, got bogged down in pointless details arguing to be right when no one ever said anyone was wrong. Preempting attacks with every syllable.
Humming he played with sounds, ideas that could become words. Having taken over the melody he realized he was playing alone, that Dez had the notepad now. Zakk knew Dez was listening to the sounds he was making, searching for the words in them, occasionally adding one of his own.
