Page 16 of A Love Song for Dreamers

If this is your last time here, you might as well takeadvantage.

I write a note back to Tyler, then put on my bathing suit, which I’d brought over last week and hadn’t had a chance to use, and head down theelevator.

The swimming and fitness area is quiet midafternoon. As I dive in the deep end, the feel of the water on my body is heaven. I front crawl the length of the space, then back.Again.

I put in a dozen laps, then another dozen, until my muscles burn and my head isclear.

When I finally lift my head and take off my goggles, pulling myself up with my forearms to rest on the edge of the pool, a pair of shoes fills my vision. I peer up those denim-clad legs, the dress shirt, the towel under onearm.

There will never be a day when seeing Tyler Adams doesn’t make mehappy.

“Hi,” I say, smiling. “How was yourmeeting?”

“Surprising.” He drops the towel on the deck and crouchesdown.

I notice a slip of paper in his hands. “Are they kicking you out of the hotel? We knew it’d happen eventually. I can help you move your stuffhome.”

I shift forward to take the paper, my damp fingers leaving drops on itssurface.

“It’s a first-class ticket to London. Leaving tomorrow.” My brain struggles to do the math. When I put the pieces together, they leave me breathless. “He still wants you on thetour.”

Tyler grimaces. “I can’t play guitar worth shit. But he wants to capitalize on my fifteen minutes of fame after the video from Beck’s vlog as the frontman of some manufacturedband.”

“By performing music,” I emphasize. “This is a goodthing.”

He turnsaway.

I set the ticket carefully on a dry part of the deck before hoisting myself out. I wrap the towel around myself as I straighten, grabbing the ticket again. I follow him as he paces the length of thepool.

“So, you’re okay with it?” he tosses over a shoulder. “You want me to live out of busses and planes with a bunch of dudes. To flirt with women who think more about what it’d be like to fuck me than the music I’mmaking.”

Jealousy rises up, and I shove it back down. “That’s not what thisis.”

If he goes on tour, it won’t matter if he plays guitar or sings or juggles on stage with his feet. He’ll make it work. The audience will love him because his intensity, his seriousness, his capability, will shinethrough.

He pulls up, still facing away. “With a guitar in my hands, I’m better than anyone at Vanier. Better than Jax. Or I was—two weeks ago. They took it fromme.”

The rawness in his voice guts me. I move in front of him, cupping his face and forcing him to look at me with angry eyes. “No one can make you less than you are. And there are plenty of ways to make music,Tyler.”

But his cynical expression makes mesick.

Talbot’s words come back to me.Am I the one who’sdeluded?

These last two weeks have been anightmare.

His hand is healing, but the rest of him isdying.

I’ve tried everything to pull him out of it, to show him I’m here for him and we’ll get through thistogether.

He still tells me he loves me, but if he turns down this tour and moves out of the hotel, is this what our new normal will be? His bitter accusations? Me walking oneggshells?

The other night at Leo’s, the way he looked at me and at the guitar… That was not the man I love. If he doesn’t love music, I don’t know who heis.

I press the ticket against Tyler’s chest, my eyes burning. “You should doit.”

“What?”

For the first time, the anger leaves his face and he’s my Tyler again. The curious, thoughtful boy with the fast hands and the slowsmile.

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