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“It’s a fair question,” I retorted.

“Moleskine,” he decided and made a movement for me to scoot over, so I did.

He put his coffee and wallet beside mine on top of the Steinway.

“And I’m not that dramatic.” He sat down on the bench beside me.

Our thighs brushed together in the closeness.

Two adults on a piano bench was a tight squeeze.

From a distance he always looked so slight, but whenever he was near, it felt like he took up the entire room with his presence.

He bent toward me a little and playfully whispered, “I don’t have cooties, bird. ”

“Well, I might,” I replied with mock offense.

“Oh, what a glorious death that would be, to die of your cooties.”

“I’m not sure if I’m flattered or grossed out by that.”

He made a face and bobbed his head uncertainly. “It sounded better in my head.”

I barked a laugh, and, realizing the irony a little too late, he joined. His laugh was bright and untethered, like it surprised him just as much as it delighted.

I liked his laugh.

“I like yours, too,” he agreed. Then said aloud, “This is gonna be hard.”

I plinked out the top melody of the song in our heads. “At least we have the melody.”

“What?” He blinked then, his face pinching. “Oh, right. That, too.”

What had he meant otherwise?

I tried to listen, but he immediately shifted his thoughts to the messy way I wrote. I started to defend my handwriting when he asked, “How do you normally decide how to write a song?”

“I always know what a song’s about before I start it. I know the genre, the feel, the mood of it. But with this one …” I hesitated as I concentrated on the keys. My fingers played a few notes, chords that sang but not for this song. I honestly don’t know , I admitted.

In my head, it was always as simple as finding the perfect blend of cheeses on a charcuterie board or the right word in a sentence. But I hadn’t been able to find the right word for months now. The right feeling, really.

Any feeling at all.

“We can start with what’s popular, and build from there,” he said.

I frowned. “Then we’ll just make something that’s been done before.”

“Everything’s been done before,” he pointed out. “But the popular ones are popular for a reason, right?”

I tilted my head, thoughtful. I placed my hands on the keys and felt through the melody we had. “I guess …”

That made him huff in frustration. “You don’t agree.”

“No, I really don’t,” I replied truthfully. “That’s not how I write, anyway. I’m not saying I don’t pay attention to what’s popular, but …” I got to the end of the melody and looped it over again. “But this song doesn’t have to be good . It just has to be.”

The last part was more for myself than for him, because I was still circling the notes we already had, going around and around, without a foot forward.

But he was shaking his head. “Then what’s the point if it’s not good?”

“Because good is subjective? Because writing the song is the point?” I suggested, feeling my shoulders tense at the discussion. “We just need to write it to get it out there. The rest of it isn’t up to us.”

He pursed his lips, staring down at the keys. “And if it’s not good enough?”

I stopped playing, and the silence between us felt deafening. I don’t know.

“And if it doesn’t get out of our heads?”

I looked down at the keys. I don’t know.

But all I heard in his head was failure, over and over again, as if by not being perfect the first time, it would never be perfect at all.

It wasn’t that he was afraid, but used to it, resigned to it even.

His thoughts kept spinning about the what-ifs of never being good enough, never getting it right.

I didn’t know him well, but I felt the urge to comfort him.

“Hey, Sebastian …” I shifted on the piano bench a little to face him a bit better.

“I know”—and he looked away, as if ashamed—“I’m being ridiculous. You’re the songwriter here. I’m just … some one-hit wonder, essentially.”

That wasn’t true. Renegade had at least six Billboard Hot 100 hits, but I doubted that was what he needed to hear at the moment.

I could tell him about my burnout—but it was something that I couldn’t even tell Gigi.

Telling Sebastian Fell? I hated the idea of admitting to him that I was a well that had run dry.

“I think I’m just being difficult,” I amended. “We can look at some popular songs. Isn’t the church hymn sort of style really popular right now?”

“I don’t want you to just go along, either, especially if I’m wrong,” he replied. “I came here to figure this out with you, so we need to do this together.”

In frustration, I shoved myself off the bench. “I didn’t ask you to come.”

He set his jaw. “You’re pushing me away.”

I volleyed back, You’re getting too close.

He turned around on the bench to face me. “What are you afraid of?”

“Me? I’m not afraid of writing a song that’s not good enough,” I said, and realized only a second too late that maybe I shouldn’t have said aloud his private thoughts.

He narrowed his eyes. “Fine—at least I’m not empty,” he said, though his brain reeled at the fact that he’d actually said it aloud. I felt the shock as much as he did. But he went on anyway. “You don’t feel it anymore. You lost it, whatever it is. Am I close?”

I stared at him. “How …”

“I do pay attention, bird,” he said.

“I never told you.”

“You didn’t have to. Do you think you’re the only one who’s felt this way?” He shook his head. “What you’re feeling isn’t special.”

I sucked in a breath at that, the words like a shock of cold water. Not special. Not unique. Not important. I guess he just wanted me to get over it. Just shake it off, right? It shouldn’t be hard. “You don’t have to remind me of that, Sebastian.”

He winced. “I didn’t mean it like—”

“Like what? I know I’m not special. I worked every day of my life to get exactly where I am—my parents have worked, my family, everyone . This is my dream, my success, and all I can think is—”

Is whether it was worth it. All this time away.

A thought I couldn’t say aloud. I was too ashamed to.

“I meant that I know how you feel,” he began, but I didn’t believe him anymore.

“I’m sure you think you do, but you operate on a different set of rules.

You might know how I feel, but that’s the extent of it, yeah?

You imploded a boy band and disappeared for years, and people still want signatures and selfies with you.

You can fuck it up, and it’s not going to matter.

It hasn’t mattered. It won’t matter. You will get a thousand chances, and you’ll take every one of them for granted.

Good enough? You’ve never had to be good enough. ”

He pursed his lips. A muscle in his clenched jaw twitched.

He took a deep breath and pushed himself off the bench.

“Right. I’m just a spoiled rich kid with a famous father.

I got everything handed to me because of my dad .

” He said the word sarcastically, drawling it out.

“And you’re the only hardworking, earnest artist in the entire world. ”

“I’m not saying that—”

“Everyone takes photos of me and talks at me and gossips about me like I’m not even a person to them, but a—a story . I’m not real. My feelings aren’t real. My experiences. My burnout. My self .”

“That’s—” My mouth had gone dry. There was a stone in my stomach. “That’s not what I meant.”

I sounded like an echo of him.

“I thought she’d understand,” I heard him think.

“Sebastian—”

“I think I’ll go,” he said, his voice returning to that soft neutral that I’d first heard that night in the private box.

A tone I now realized was reserved for people he kept at arm’s length.

He took his wallet and cold coffee from the edge of the piano and left via the side exit of the Revelry, stepping out into the sharp afternoon sun.