Page 29 of Songbird
I sigh and settle back against his chest. How can a man be so hard and distant but feel so warm and safe?
“I don’t need you to be interesting,” I tell him. “I need you to be real and honest. I need to talk aboutlife.” I stretch my toes beneath the sheets, comforted by the warmth generated by his body. “I made some choices today—big choices that are going to have even bigger consequences—but I’m wondering if I’ve forgotten why I got into this business in the first place. Why am I here? What am I doing?” I risk sliding a hand onto his stomach, noting the tension in his abs when I do. “I need a reminder of why music is my reason for existing.”
The air between us fills with silence, and I’m about to give up on getting an answer when Finn’s husky baritone rolls from his chest.
“I was an average kid,” he says. “Average height. Average size. Average student. Average football player. I had interests, I suppose, but I was never good enough at anything to devote my life to it.”
My disbelieving snort takes us both by surprise. “You’re not average, Finn.” I sweep my gaze over his half-naked form, painted and perfect. “I mean,lookat you.”
He chuckles lightly and his arm tightens around me. “I’m not fishing for compliments, Rosie. It is what it is, and I am who I am.”
I give him a disapproving glare. “You’re the last person I’d ever expect to have low self-esteem.”
He huffs out another laugh. This one’s dry. Maybe even a little sad.
“I’ve got a brother who’s a professional hockey legend,” he says. “Another who’s been cooking five-star food since he was tall enough to look over a kitchen counter. My older sister has a brain big enough for both of us, and my baby sister spends more time riding horses than she does on her own two feet. I grew up surrounded by talent and passion and determination, so I know what purpose looks like when I see it. They all have it, and so do you. You’re going through a rough patch right now. That’s all. It’ll pass.”
It would be so easy to let him divert me, but he’s starting to show a little of the man he is underneath the armor, and I don’t want him to stop.
“Maybe you just haven’t found your thing yet,” I say. “We don’t always know what lights us up when we’re young. Sometimes we need to spend some time looking for it.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Finn’s voice drops. “And maybe there isn’t a grand plan for everyone. No big purpose. Maybe some of us need to be satisfied with small wins when we can findthem and be grateful for any old reason to get out of bed in the morning.”
The soberness of his tone makes me want to wrap my arm around his waist the way his is looped around me. “I think that’s true for all of us at one point or another. Purpose doesn’t have to be large and sweeping. It can be quiet and slow and have the same impact or even greater. Take music, for instance. Sometimes a ballad I write in an afternoon and perform with a single instrument means more to me than a pop track I spend weeks, even months, trying to make perfect but somehow never sounds right.”
Downstairs, Dakota snuffles and steps out of her bed, claws tapping on the hardwood before we hear her lapping from her water bowl.
“Or what about Dakota?” I add. “There’s purpose in giving her a home and keeping her safe and nourished. Loved. She’d be lost without you.”
Finn answers with an affectionate smile. “Yeah. She’s a special girl.”
A companionable hush falls as we listen to Dakota return to her bed. It reminds me that it’s late, and I’m suddenly sleepy. I snuggle up against Finn, letting my dry eyes close a little.
“Maybe that’s your answer,” Finn murmurs.
I lift my lashes to look at him. “Hm?”
“The answer to your questions. Why are you here? What are you doing? Is music the thing that lights you up?” Finn turns his cognac gaze on me, and his attention is intense enough to stop my breath. “Maybe the answer is more of those ballads you write in an afternoon and perform with a single instrument and less of the songs that take weeks or months and never sound the way you want them to. Maybe your answer isn’t to be bigger and louder and faster. Perhaps it’s to go softer. Easier. Slower.”
A warm curl of wishful thinking winds its way up from my stomach and takes root inside my chest, and I smile a dreamy kind of smile. “Softer. Slower. Easier.”
“There you go,” he whispers. “All lit up.”
Finn studies me, and something tight and charged crackles between us. I’m too afraid to move because I know it’ll be gone if I do, but I can’t stop him from looking away. When he does, the tension snaps, leaving residue all around us in the unlit room.
“Maybe you’re right,” I say. “Do you know that I’ve spent the last ten years on the fast track to…? Gosh. I don’t even know what the end point was supposed to be. I’ve been running as fast as I can to make more records, more sales, more money. I never considered it might be possible to put on the brakes. Chip never would have allowed it.”
Finn grunts. “If doing what you want pisses off your asshole ex, then that’s just icing on the cake.”
I chuckle quietly and let my eyes drift closed again. “That’s true.”
“I should go before you fall asleep,” he murmurs, but he doesn’t move.
“Not yet,” I reply. “Just a few more minutes. Please?”
“Okay,” he whispers. “But just a few.”
“Good night, Finn,” I say, feeling easier and more hopeful than I have since I arrived. It’s miraculous what a good cry and good man can do.
