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I do the same.

At the turn after the first chorus, he motions for me to stop.

I press the space bar and pull out my left earpiece.

“The guitars sound muddy in the turn. The rhythm is drowning out the lead,” he says.

“Agreed. What about your vocal? A little more reverb?”

“Yeah. It’s also sounding too compressed.”

“You think? I kind of liked it.”

He shrugs with his “we can argue about it later” look, then does the finger twirl telling me to continue playing.

As I shove my earpiece back in and press the space bar, another smile forms deep in my gut. It spreads quickly, surging into my chest, up my neck, and onto my lips.

Luke doesn’t notice as he listens intently to a song he’s created, like he’s done thousands of times over the years.

Except he hasn’t.

Not like this.

Callie once told me Luke and I are both brilliant, but together we’re untouchable.

She was wrong.

No matter how good it was, our music would have always been missing something. And when Luke grins during the final chorus, I know he hears it too.

We finally found it.

The missing piece.

The anchorandthe dreamer who crashed into our lives and changed countless destinies with her stubborn light.

Her name is Callie Roland. She’s a poet. You’ve never heard of her.

But you fucking will.