Page 18 of One Night

"You still can't find her?" he asks.

"No. But she's in a city with eight million people, and a lot of people are named Amber."

"I don't know why you're still looking for her," Van says. "You got girls lining up to be with you. Just forget about her."

"I'm NOT looking for her," I say harshly.

"Yeah, right." Van chuckles. "Every time you're using your computer, you're doing searches for Amber."

"What the hell? Are you spying on me?"

He shrugs. "Just glancing at it when I walk by. I'm always hoping you're looking at porn so I can sneak a peek but instead it's always searches for that girl."

"She really got to you, huh?" Austin says. "That was like two months ago. Almost three. And you're still trying to find her?"

"She's gone, man," Van says. "Just let her go. But let's try the song. I have a feeling it's gonna be good." He turns to his drums, his foot tapping, ready to start.

At least they didn't ridicule me too badly. I was expecting much worse, especially from Van. He writes most of our songs and a lot of them are about the girls he's dated. I always give him shit about his love song lyrics so now is the time for him to give it back. He went easy on me just now but I'm sure I haven't heard the end of it. He'll be giving me a hard time about this for weeks.

We play the song and I make some adjustments and we play it again. And then once more just to make sure we're in sync.

"That's really good," Austin says when we're done. "I don't usually like ballads but I actually like this one. And the lyrics? Girls are gonna go crazy. They'll be coming to our shows just to hear that song."

"We're not performing it," I say, going to get my bottle of water.

Austin laughs a little. "Why wouldn't we perform it? Isn't that why you wrote it?"

"No. I wrote it because I had to. It was in my head and I had to get it out. It was a creative exercise. That's it."

"Bullshit," Van says. "You wrote it hoping she'd hear it."

Van knows me way too well. Makes sense. We've been friends forever. But sometimes the fact that he knows me so well is annoying.

"That's not why I wrote it," I lie. "How would she even hear it? She lives in New York now."

"Someone could record it and put it online," Austin says. "Our fans do that all the time."

"And she'd just happen to stumble upon it online?" I shake my head. "Not gonna happen."

Although it's not like I haven't considered that. Van is right. I wrote this song hoping I'd have the guts to perform it, and then hoping Amber might hear it. I know it's a long shot but stranger things have happened, like the night we were brought together. If two strangers can connect that fast, that powerfully, then it's possible Amber could hear my song. And if she did, maybe she'd call me or text me or reach out in some way and tell me she wants to continue where we left off. To see where this could go.

"Let's play it on Saturday," Van says.

"No," I blurt out. "It's not ready."

"Why not?" Austin asks. "It sounded good to me."

"I'm just...I'm not ready. I just wanted to hear how it sounds. I'm not ready to perform it."

Van beats on his drums. "Then let's play something else." He starts playing the intro for one of our songs. A breakup song with a heavy beat and darker sound. Austin joins in on lead guitar and I follow on bass, then vocals.

I get into the music, like I always do, but my mind keeps going back to Amber. Playing that song brought me back to that night. That's the thing about music. It makes you feel stuff. Makes you remember. Takes you back to whatever memory you associate with that song.

I wrote that song after being with Amber, and even if I never see her again it will always be our song. It will always bring me back to those few hours we shared together.

One Night. That's the name of the song.

And that may be all that Amber and I ever have.

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