I couldn’t spend one more sleepless night agonizing over Riley.
In my hotel room, the show hung over me. From the moment Riley set foot onstage, I knew she hadn’t shaken off everything she was feeling in her dressing room. When the lights went down on her last song, she still hadn’t. With the Houston night skyline drawing slanted shapes on my floor, questions persisted—had Wesley come to the show? Was she with him now, or out with someone she hoped would help her forget?
It made me wish we’d discussed our kiss when we had the chance.
Finally, instead of retreating into the crisp white sheets where I would find no rest, I decided to face the problem head-on. Not letting myself lose my nerve, I texted Riley. Nothing elaborate—I asked if she was okay and if she wanted to talk.
She replied with an address.
Which is where I am now. I step out of my Uber, grateful for the city’s warm nights. The low white complex is unassuming, the neighborhood residential, with chain-link fences surrounding grass.
While I wait outside the fence, it dawns on me where Riley has led me. It’s a recording studio. Even after two in the morning, there are lights on inside.
Eventually one of Riley’s handlers—the guys she brings out for heavy crowds—emerges from the front door, looking for me. He nods when I raise my hand in greeting. The studio’s gate rattles open.
He leads me inside, into hallways where framed photos of musicians jamming line every wall, until we reach a door where he stops. The recording light is not illuminated.
I open the door, recognizing well the gravity pulling me.
In the small, hushed room, Riley is alone. No producer or engineer is with her. She’s sitting on the floor, headphones over her ears, lost in listening to something I can’t hear. It’s funny to realize I’ve seen the same look on her face on plenty of occasions when she hasn’t had her headphones. Maybe Riley often hears music in the world the rest of us don’t.
When I walk in, her eyes fly open, landing on me. Her distraction from onstage is gone, replaced with her usual electric intensity.
Relief isn’t exactly what I feel. On one hand, I’m glad she’s looking like herself. On the other, her being here in the middle of the night, after the day she’s had—everything isn’t okay.
“You came.” She gets up, removing her headphones.
I’m unable to keep the wariness out of my voice. “What are you doing here, Riley?”
She ignores my question. Instead, she steps over to me and puts the headphones over my ears, letting her hands linger a little longer than needed.
“Listen to this,” she says.
When she presses play on the computer, the loud, immersive sound of the music startles me. It takes seconds for me to recognize what I’m hearing. Retracing our steps until we’re letting go. She’s sped the song up, given it a tempo that makes it feel like it’s racing toward something, or maybe on the verge of spinning out.
It’s not just exhilarating. It feels dangerous.
I lift my eyes to Riley’s, speaking over the music. “You’re recording ‘Heartbreak Road’? In the middle of your tour?”
At the reminder of her tour, some of the luster in her eyes fades. She takes the headphones back, holding them defensively, or like they’re defending her. I notice the shadows under the shimmer in her expression. She’s hiding exhaustion with relentless, reckless excitement.
“I have to do something. I have to turn this—tonight, everything—into something good. I’ll get my label on board and . . .” She stares past me, her gaze sharpening like she’s searching for the imagined solution to what she’s feeling. “Release it as a surprise single. Or—I don’t know.”
She sits down in front of the studio computer. With frantic movements, she reaches for the keyboard to make adjustments.
It hurts, watching her press pain into the service of music. I want to help.
I sit down on the couch near the door. “The concert was great, you know,” I say.
Riley stops, but she doesn’t face me. The room is perilously still.
I seize the silence. She deserves my every effort to get this right. “It’s like you told me—sometimes mistakes just make a live show better. They’re proof it’s live. If your fans wanted perfection, they’d listen to the recorded album.”
Framed in the widescreen monitor, Riley’s silhouette is motionless. Until finally, she lets out her breath.
“Thank you for saying that,” she replies. With reluctance, she removes her hands from the keys, returning them to her lap. She spins the chair to face me fully. Something slowly wakes up in her eyes, like she’s realizing how hungry she is for someone to listen. “It’s not just the concert. . . .” she says.
“Wesley,” I confirm. Of course. He’s who put her here, fraught with sad inspiration. However many miles we get from LA, he’s never far from her heart.
“Jealous?” she asks, no doubt hearing the dark current in my voice. She doesn’t sound snide or challenging or even flirtatious. She’s genuinely curious.
I look away, even though the emotion is painted all over my face, exposed to the “Breakup Queen,” as Spin referred to her. My gaze lands on the upright piano. I can’t lie to Riley, not here, where she’s singing straight from her heart. I can’t desecrate the altar of her music.
“Of course I’m jealous.” I say it quickly, hoping the speed lessens the sting.
When I dare to meet her face, I find her eyes wide. She nods, cataloguing my feeling. Probably coming up with a fucking song lyric about it. Even despite what Riley’s dealing with, I can’t ignore the spark of resentment the idea strikes in me.
I snuff the rogue indignation. I’m here for Riley. I focus on her.
“Don’t be jealous,” she reassures me. Her wry half smile, like she finds it ridiculous, is comforting. “I don’t have feelings for Wesley. I just . . .” She reaches for her guitar and starts strumming, like she needs the music to unlock her innermost private corners. “I sometimes feel like it’s my gift—ruining things.”
Her gaze goes vacant. It’s like she’s looking over landscapes of rubble, skylines she feels she’s leveled herself without knowing how or why.
“My show. My parents’ marriage. My own marriage,” she goes on hollowly, obviously not her first repetition of the list of casualties. “Everything I touch crumbles, because to do what I do—to reach everyone with my music—I have to pay for it. Become my own muse.”
I watch her closely. It sets in how deeply she feels this—how constantly. No matter how many miles we cover from city to shining city, stadium show to show, Riley navigates private maps in her heart. Ones with heartbreak roads spiderwebbing in every direction, connecting the desolation of places where she can never return.
“I don’t believe that. Not for a second,” I say.
Riley looks up at me, her eyes searing. Hope fights with frustration in her face. Like she can’t decide whether she wants my reassurance to convince her or she scorns my naivete.
“You left me, Max,” she says accusingly. “What we had was good, and you broke it and didn’t even look back.”
“I looked back,” I insist, not in control of the emotion in my voice. I feel my heart starting to pound, the drum in my chest coming in right on cue. “Believe me, I looked back. But you had already moved on.”
Riley laughs with vindication. “So it is my fault.” She grips the guitar’s neck, reveling in the guilt. “I guess I should’ve waited, right? For the day you would want to come with me? It only would’ve taken ten years.”
What she’s said catches the sharp edges of spite I’ve hidden even from myself. “Well, if I’d waited for you to stay, I’d be waiting forever.”
In the empty echo of our words, I remember the small studio room is soundproof. It feels like it. The long-unsaid things we’ve finally spoken have forced everything else out of the space. Never has the woman in front of me reminded me more of the Riley I used to know. She’s not the pop star ruling the charts. I’m not her rumored romantic interest. We’re just two people who fell in love only to rip each other open.
It makes my chest physically hurt, enough that I have to sigh. “Look, we can’t change the past,” I say. “But I’m here now.”
When Riley speaks, her whisper comes out desperate. “For what?”
Her chest rises and falls. No night onstage—not Madison Square Garden, not New Orleans in the wake of our kiss, nothing—matches the perilous, perilous wonder in me now.
“What do you want?” I ask.
She stares at the floor, then collects something inside herself. “Play the piano on ‘Heartbreak Road,’ ” she says calmly. “Let me record you. If . . . this falls apart like everything else, I want to have that.”
I hesitate. Not just over the implications of recording a song with superstar Riley Wynn, either. I hear everything she’s not saying, every implication. If this falls apart. Imagining the end of something means first imagining the start. It means Riley is daring to suggest some fragile new us.
It means maybe we’ll walk down Heartbreak Road together again, counting every step, hoping—just hoping—we might escape the destination.
My mind made up, I move to the piano. “What do you want it to sound like?”
“Like . . .” Riley chews the inside of her cheek, familiar starlight emerging in her expression. “Like sunrise after sleepless nights,” she finishes.
I consider the description. Placing my hands on the keys, I recall the sunrises I’ve seen in the past month over freeways from the window of the bus and from hotel rooms when I couldn’t shake the memory of spotlights shining on a wedding dress.
I start to play.
Hours pass while we record take after take. The song forms gradually, our collage of sound. We explore different flourishes for the piano melody, different styles of playing, chasing the feel Riley wants. She adds her vocals, and we adjust, mixing the instruments, finding places to stretch or to rush.
The sun is nearly rising when we finally listen through the finished cut.
I’ve never felt more awake. While Riley plays the recording, she smiles, nodding. Watching her make music, her music, our music, is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I would spend every night sleepless if they looked like this.
The final chord fades, leaving us in the quiet studio. Riley lets out her breath like a great weight has left her shoulders. I wait for the outpouring of emotion, or for the exhaustion to hit her. Instead, she giggles.
“It’s fucking good,” she declares.
Where we’re sitting on the floor, Riley collapses backward, playfully overdramatic. Lying flat on the rug, she stares up into the room.
I don’t reply. I can’t. I’m overcome by how perfect she looks, undone by her own music. Propping myself up on my elbow, I lie next to her.
One lock of hair rests on her cheek, one reckless tributary from the golden delta splayed over her shoulders. I can’t resist reaching out to trace its course. “How could you think you ruin anything?” I murmur. “Your touch is magic, Riley.”
Riley only gazes over, her eyes holding unmistakable intent.
Then she kisses me.
The kiss is long, profound, full of quiet sureness. It does not feel like recklessness, like the collateral collision of passions we can’t control. It feels like certainty. The contrast with our kiss on the piano bench in New Orleans could not feel more pronounced. This kiss is less like want, more like need.
Instantly I feel myself giving in, deepening the kiss, mind-shatteringly lost in the intoxicating heaven of my lips on hers. God, she’s perfect. Her scent is everywhere. Her body is poised, every curving contour in reach. She’s the woman of my every desperate dream, impossibly real. She’s Riley—
My Riley.
I hardly recognize the me kissing her, the depth of emotion leaving me close to crying. I want her so much it hurts. No longings I’ve dared let cross my heart have hit me like this. I haven’t let them. Now I do, hearing our chorus in my head.
I didn’t know what love is . . .
Until you . . .
Reaching forward, I cradle the soft sculpture of her neck while I kiss her. It doesn’t feel like reliving the past, picking up where we left off.
It couldn’t, because when I first loved Riley, I hadn’t yet known the deprivation of every day without her. I couldn’t feel what I feel now—every wound of losing her closing, every scar erased under the ecstatic salve of her mouth on mine, the echo of the song we made together ringing in my ears.
When we part—Riley staring into my eyes, shocked seriousness on her face—I know instantly she feels the same.
She sits up. Somehow I know she’s not going to leave.
She pulls her shirt up over her head. Who ever made music of a mild day? Mary Oliver’s words greet me under Riley’s left breast, inked on the skin I see where memory meets fantasy.
She unclasps her bra.
I feel my sigh shudder out of me. Seeing her exposed chest, physical desperation rips me down the middle.
“Touch me, Max.” It’s the wildly sexy echo of how she directed my piano performance. Don’t pause into the verse. Sustain there.
Harder. Faster.
I need no more encouragement. I crush her to me, kissing her, her neck, the tops of her breasts while she reaches her hands up, winding them into my hair.
It’s like something snaps, some filament of restraint or reverence. Suddenly we’re fervent, furious, seized in the passionate grip of a decade spent without each other. The grip of hunger is instant, and it is fierce.
I want her. I want her so fucking much.
I press her into the recording studio floor, high on the joy of consummation, soaring straight into passion—knocking the piano bench out of the way, giving ourselves room. Our breathing is shallow, hearts hammering in untraceable rhythm. Our hands grasping, everywhere, wanting, needing, hungering for every inch of each other. There’s nothing careful in our ecstasy. It’s hectic. It’s years of deprivation crashing into one heat-lightning explosion of us.
Riley closes her eyes, her breath whimpering out of her. I feel her pulse pounding, her frame curving forward to meet me.
Fingers find my belt. We push clothing aside, hands shaking, unable to wait long enough to remove it properly—I drag Riley’s underwear halfway down her perfect legs—until I can touch her under her skirt. She closes her eyes. I don’t close mine. I don’t need more than this, only to feel her here, watching her cheeks pinken while she gasps with every move I make.
Woke up with my heart under your fingers.
I don’t care how long Riley makes me wait for her. I would wait forever. Of course I would wait forever.
Her lips purse, and she stops me, groping to reach her bag by the chair.
When I see the condom she retrieves, momentary surprise flits over me, and Riley shrugs. “I know exactly what I want when I want it,” she exhales.
I nod. Honestly, any explanation would suffice. Yes, everything in me shouts. Yes. Now. Yes.
Her smolder ignites. The desire stalking us across miles and years and songs consumes her whole.
I sit up, pulling my shirt over my head, then tug her into my lap. Her legs wrap around my waist, shattering my mind. I don’t know how we got here or where it’ll lead, but I’ll give myself to her. I’ll have her. Here, in this studio, our sanctum, like our duet never ended. Like we’re playing it on each other now. Music is the soul of our love—now it’s going to be the stage for it.
She shoves me until I’m lying down, waiting for her while she trails kisses down my chest, leading lower and lower. Only with restraint do I manage not to climax into her hand, feeling the fingers she uses to coax magic from her guitar gently running the length of me.
When I can take no more, she rolls the condom on. My stomach flexes as she slides up my body, returning to capture my mouth in hers. I meet her with harried, urging kisses, running my hands down to stroke the back of her thighs.
Slowly—reverently—she sinks onto me while I hold her close for the first time in ten long, long years.
With consumed, desperate rhythm, Riley fucks me. I grip her waist, grinding her into me with hungry intensity. With every thrust, I pull her to me, my lips everywhere, her collarbone, her neck, her breast in my mouth. I worship every inch of her like I could live my life in devotion to the goddess with the voice of honeyed thunder.
I’m torn in two, wanting to see every part of her while wanting to press her heart close to mine, burying my face in her hair. Riley isn’t torn, however. She knows what she wants, just like always. She puts her hands on my chest. Her whole body shakes. One unbridled note rips from her lips when we finish together.
It feels like the return I’ve longed for. Like I’ve spent the last decade wandering in solitude, only to finally come home.
Her whole frame heaving with exhaustion, Riley eases herself off of me. On the floor, she stretches out. Resting her head on my chest, she smiles a lazy, satisfied smile.
I can’t resist kissing her head, smelling the sweetness of her sweat, savoring her. In the afterglow of our ecstasy, the silence is wondrous.
Finally, Riley speaks. “Are we going down Heartbreak Road again, Maxwell Harcourt?” Her voice is soft.
I pull back to look at her. I feel like I’m dreaming.
I feel like I’m wide awake.
I feel like I love her so much it hurts.
“Maybe. I don’t know,” I say. I don’t want this to end in heartbreak. I don’t know if I can survive it. Still—I don’t want to disappear into silence, either, instead of facing the music of us. Not yet.
She kisses my chest, her eyes meeting mine. “Even if we are,” she says, her voice full of fire, “we’ll have this. This night. This song. Would it be so bad?”
The answer is obvious. This feeling will last forever, no matter where it leads. If it’s preserved in Riley’s next hit single, if I think of holding her close on the floor of a music studio every time those opening notes come on the radio, will I be sorry?
My voice doesn’t shake. “No, it wouldn’t. Not at all.”