Page 79 of Tangled Up In You

“Well—”

“Conor Quinn! I’ve got a lead! Something good. Really good.”

Conor watched Gavin make his way to them through the house, oblivious to what he was interrupting. Conor was especially glad to see his friend now.

“What is it?” Conor asked.

“It’s dead romantic like, but you’ll have to trust me.”

Gavin’s excitement was obvious. And contagious. Conor felt his blood start to pump in anticipation of new creative efforts. Efforts that had been long delayed because of Sophie. It was time to make something happen.

“Let’s get to it, then,” Conor said. He gave Sondra as apologetic of a look as he could conjure up before heading to the studio with Gavin.

“My heart,that feral bird, has found the sky in your eyes,” Gavin said.

Conor took a moment to absorb the words. They were good. Romantic, like Gavin had confessed. But also poetic.

“Whose lines are they?” he asked.

Gavin was staring at his journal. “It’s a deviation from something by a poet named Rabindranath Thakur.”

Nodding, Conor was reminded once more of Gavin’s tendency to use bits of poetry like this as a springboard to provoke and frame his own writing. It had actually become a problem in school when he was tasked with writing an essay on a given poem and he would instead turn in a paper that veered off into his own creations. Some of those poorly graded papers had found their way to the tabloids.

“And the title?” Conor asked.

“‘You’re My One.’”

A love song for Sophie, then. Conor sighed with the realization that this next album would be an ode to Gavin’s fiancée. There would be no use in fighting it. Instead, he’d have to find his own meaning in it all. And after the moment he’d had with Sophie earlier, he was suddenly confident he could not just go along for the ride in this endeavor but enhance it.

“Lads, we’re all here!” Martin said as he and Shay joined them. “What’s the craic, then?”

Conor reached for his guitar. “You two need to catch up, because we’ve got a lead on something. A fucking good one.”

Shay nodded. “Let’s get to it, then.”

They spent the rest of that day and several more days working on the song built around the premise of Gavin finding his true place with Sophie. He and Conor worked together to perfect the lyrics and melody. The first part of the song detailed the buried ache and longing Gavin had for Sophie when they were separated. Conor found the emotion in his guitar playing, perfectly mirroring Gavin’s singing. The chorus was a passionate declaration:

This thing we have, it’s fearless darlin

Because you’re my one

The tone changed near the end as Gavin pleaded, “Don’t let me chase you away, suffer the weight” before rising with release and optimism to an ecstatic close.

Gavin’s voice had a depth and richness born out of new confidence. The result was that it, combined with the heartfelt lyrics and the stirring music, created three minutes and forty-one seconds of something utterly compelling.

45

SOPHIE

The atmosphere was noticeably tense when Sophie and Celia arrived at the studio where the members of Rogue had been holed up for the last several weeks. The women had lunched together and decided on the spur of the moment to bring the boys food as well, but just about everyone seemed irritated by their unexpected presence.

Celia paid no mind to their annoyance. Instead, she walked down the hallway with bags of sandwiches, coleslaw, and brownies, chirping merrily about how exciting it was to see them at work.

“Celia, babe, you should’ve checked with me,” Martin said as he followed after her helplessly. “This isn’t a good time.”

“But it’s lunchtime, sweetheart. You need to eat, don’t you?”

Sophie waited for Gavin to come greet her and introduce her to their team of producers, engineers, and other crew who suddenly seemed inspired to take a break due to the interruption. But Gavin and Conor were sitting on wood stools in an isolation booth at the far end of the studios, working intently on the rhythm of a guitar line and oblivious to their arrival.

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