Page 64 of Never After Us
He points a cassette at me.“You’re enjoying this too much.”
“Absolutely.”
“You don’t even know that album.”
“I don’t need to.I saw your face.”
He narrows his eyes.“You mocked Bonham, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t,” I gasp.“I said he looked sweaty.”
“He was performing.”Alec throws a hand up as if the universe personally offended him.“You try playing drums under stage lights.You’d melt.”
“Wow.Dramatic.”
“It’s not dramatic.It’s factual.”He taps his sternum a couple of times.“I’ve lived it.”
Then, he leans closer, and suddenly he’s too near, too intense, too him.“Do you want this mixtape or not?”
“Is that even a question?”
He holds it just out of reach.I lunge for it.He lifts it higher, expression infuriatingly smug.
“Alec.”
“What?I need to confirm you’re worthy.”
“I’m literally cataloguing my aunt’s vinyl collection with you.Isn’t that worthy enough?”
Something shifts across his features—quick, small, unexpected.Not quite vulnerability ...more like surprise.A note he’s not used to playing.Then—because moments like this one seems to short-circuit him—he clears his throat and thrusts the tape toward me.
“Here,” he mutters.
I take it carefully.“Does this one speak to my soul too?”
“You’re never going to let that go, are you?”
“You’re too intense,” I confess.
“Music speaks to our souls,” he insists.“It does.You just have to let it in.”
“You make me sound emotionally stunted,” I say, half teasing, half terrified he’s right.
He scoffs.Not mean—more like he can’t help it.
“Funny.”
“What’s funny?”I ask, bracing for an insult.
“I’m the one with emotional issues,” he says, “and I can let music flow through me.What’s your excuse?”
I look at the boxes.
The records.
The letters.
The grief I keep pushing to the side, like rearranging it will make it easier to carry.
