Page 1 of Sounds Like Love

Love Is …

MOST SUMMER NIGHTSin the small beach town of Vienna Shores, North Carolina, there was music at the Revelry.

Everything about the old music hall was unforgettable. The sharp lights of the stage. The crackle of the stereo. The smell of stale beer and sweat that had seeped so far into the hardwood floors that nothing would ever get it out. The bathrooms were filled with signatures of people who had flushed at least once, the heavy oak tables scratched with secret love notes, the top shelves of the liquor cabinets packed with bottles full of water because no one came to the Revelry for thecocktails.

Whenever I was stuck in Los Angeles traffic and homesick in a way that ate down to my bones, I’d put on my favorite song and turn it up so loud it rattled my soul, and sometimes I could trick myself into thinking I was sitting there at the bar, my skin rosy from the hot August sun, listening to that music.

Dad had this thing where, once a band played at the Revelry,he’d take a photo and have them sign it and pin it to the wall in the lobby beside those of hundreds of other musicians who had come and played, reminding everyone that—once upon a time—they werehere.

And so was I.

Chapter1Kiss Me (in the Milky Twilight)

I WAS SECOND-GUESSINGthe heels.

The plan was to dip into the concert at the Fonda Theatre, say my hellos, and ditch before the after-party. I had an early flight home tomorrow—it was a vacation I took every summer back to the Outer Banks—but when Willa Grey offers you a VIP ticket to her Los Angeles show, you don’t say no. I hadn’t seen her since her new album took off this spring. It had changed her life—a surprise world tour, a platinum record, international fame—and it had changed my life, too, since I had written her most popular song. Now there were rumors of a VMA performance this year, a Grammy nomination—hell, even a coveted invite to theMet Gala. I’d written hit songs before, both because I was good at it and because I’d lucked into a particular subsection of popcorn pop songs at the exact right time, but nothing quite likethis. Willa had been dragged off to so many tour stops and late-night talk show appearances, we hadn’t gotten a chance to chat much since “If You Stayed”hit theBillboardtop ten, so I felt like I had to at least drop by, stay for a song or two, and remind her to call her therapist … the normal girl’s girl thing.

So here I was, sweating in a theater with broken AC, squashed between damp strangers, with my heels rubbing blisters onto my feet. (I could have taken off my shoes, I supposed, but I grew up in a music venue, so I knew what was on these floors.) People around me sang Willa Grey’s songs with their entire chests, swaying back and forth with their hearts in one hand and their cell phones in the other.

And I just wanted to go to bed.

I used to love concerts. They were my happy place—myhome. Being in the thick of the audience. Singing at the top of my lungs to my favorite songs. Being in love with the idea of existing in this moment. Or, really, being in love at all.

I’m not sure what changed—me, or the music?

Shakespeare once wrote, “If music be the food of love, play on.” And four hundred years later, a Tinder date quoted it back to me—unironically. And that wasn’t even the worst part. Clearly the man hadn’t read therestof Orsino’s soliloquy, because just after that line he laments, “Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken, and so die.” He wants to bedonewith love, the unrequited torture of it. The promise of a happy ending expounded in three cruel words.

Maybe that was it … there wasn’t magic to the music anymore. There was just my brain listening for the verse, the pre-chorus, the bridge, the rhymes with fire, desire,higher—

Needless to say, that Tinder date was a one-and-done sort of situation. My best friend, Gigi, asked if I atleasthad sex with him—he was some sort of social media celebrity, but in Los Angeles you could spit and hit one,so it wasn’tthatbig a novelty—and she seemed very disappointed that I’d left the restaurant without him.

I’m no connoisseur of love—I learned early on in this industry you couldn’t have it all, a Great Love and a Great Career, so I chose, and I never looked back.

Well, I never looked backoften.

I knew thefeelingof love. Bright and buoyant and easy. Physical and visceral, emotional and impossible. I believed that. It was why I moved out to Los Angeles in the first place, to chase my dreams of being a songwriter. You didn’t relocate to one of the most expensive cities in the world to wait tables and rub elbows with greasy music moguls if you weren’t alittlebit enchanted by the idea of it. And you certainly didn’t write hit songs about girlfriends in suede heels and endless summer nights if you werethatjaded.

And now, I was here. A thirtysomething on the main floor of the Fonda Theatre, surrounded by people fresh out of college and dunked in glitter, screaming along as Willa Grey skipped around onstage with her sequin-covered pop band, the Tuesdays, regretting my shoe choice. Willa had this new “kiss cam” thing that she paraded around, zooming in on couples as the audience shouted at them to kiss. At the moment, there were two men on the large screen behind the Tuesdays, lip-locked for everyone to see.

My worst nightmare.

I watched for a moment longer as Willa whirled her handheld camera around and started singing into it. Her face filled the screen, bedroom eyes and sparkly lashes, framed by flaming red hair, emphasized by a saccharine lyric about the one who got away.

Certifiablynotone of my songs.

Someone elbowed me in the side. Willa had told me there was a private balcony that I could sit in if I wanted to and she’d pop in to say hello after her show,but I’d bucked at the idea because I was raised in music venues. I didn’tneedto escape the masses. I was a songwriter, I wasn’tfamous. But I found myself asking the overworked barback where exactly this private balcony was, and he directed me to a set of stairs on the left side of the venue that would have been impossible to find if there wasn’t a security guy standing in front of it.

That was different. Willa didn’t say anything about having to pass security. I frowned, thinking there might be someone in the private balcony already whoneededsome muscle head to stand guard, though Willa hadn’t mentioned inviting anyone else, either.

The security guy stopped me with a beefy arm. “Sorry, that’s as far as you go,” he said, though I barely heard him over the concert.

“Oh! Right. Here,” I added, digging my VIP badge out of my too-big-but-never-big-enough purse. I had to lean in toward him and shout to be heard over the noise. “Willa said I could go up there!”

He squinted at it and shook his head. “You sure?”

I frowned. “Why … wouldn’t I be?”

He shrugged.

---