Page 60 of The Sound Between Us

I walk past it.

Pour a black coffee. Burn my tongue. Deserve it.

Sophie, the assistant engineer, appears out of nowhere. Audio witch.

“Rough day?” She tucks a pen behind her ear.

“We’ve written approximately one and a half ideas.” I hold up my fingers. “One was about breakfast foods; the other was a scream.”

She doesn’t laugh; just nods sympathetically. “Some sessions are that way.”

“Feels more some bands are that way.”

She shrugs. “Try sitting at the piano. See what happens.”

I glance at it.

I could. My hands already ache with the muscle memory of that melody; the one from the basement. The night that shouldn’t have happened; the girl who turned me into someone I don’t know how to be.

I sit, just for a heartbeat, and let my fingers brush the keys.

I play the first chord before I can stop myself. Then another; the intro that fell into place between us. Breath and rhythm. The one she adjusted mid-kiss because she said it felt a half-step off from honest.

It still kills me how right she was.

The melody hangs in the air. Quiet, private, almost raw.

I close the lid before it goes any further.

Stand.

“Nothing there,” I say, too quickly.

Sophie’s eyes flick to the keys. “Sure.”

Back in Studio A, Jamie’s passed out in the armchair and Dex is trying to record the sound of him laughing into a kazoo through a Neumann U87.

Mark doesn’t look up as I enter; just slides a protein bar across the desk. Wounded animal treatment.

“Still nothing?” he asks, and I know it’s coming from a place of kindness. He’s a good sort.

I collapse into the nearest chair and bite the bar in half.

“Nope.”

He leans back, folds his arms. “Eventually something’s going to crack.”

I nod. “Yeah. Might be me.”