Page 60 of How NOT to Seduce a Rockstar
“Room Without Windows”
(lyrics by Zane Ryder)
Night poured down like black coffee,
bitter in the cracks of the floor.
I struck a match just to glimpse your profile,
but the smoke wanted more.
You spoke in colors I had no names for,
wearing shadows like a borrowed coat.
I tuned my strings to your silence,
every note stuck in my throat.
The air was thick with letters unsent,
folded tight at the back of my mind.
Some doors open into daylight,
yours was the other kind.
And if the rain never ends,
I’ll drown where I stand,
waiting on a face
that won’t fit in my hands.
“It’s cryptic,” I said, still half-dazed by the echoof the last notes.
“It’s about me,” Tess declared with the confidence of a monarch recognizing her own portrait. “Obviously.”
“And where exactly did you see yourself in there?”
“‘You spoke in colors I had no names for’—that’s me. Clearly.”
“What colors? I must’ve missed them.”
“Lev Mirov, obviously… And then: ‘I tuned my strings to your silence.’ That night, Iwasa temple of silence.”
“Maybe… but honestly, I don’t get it.”
“That’s normal. It’s a Mirovian lyric.”
She went on reading the letter. Then she looked up, and in her eyes I saw something I hadn’t seen in days: pure triumph.
There was an invitation. Not just any invitation: a concert in Tampa, transport by private jet. The kind of line that, when spoken out loud, makes you want to wear sunglasses at midnight.
“Fantastic!” I cried, already picturing myself striking a pose at the top of the jet’s stairway, hair whipping dramatically in the wind like in a movie montage.
“Easy, girl…” Tess lifted a finger, her tone that of a strategist about to flip the chessboard. “Now, what would you do if you wanted to send Ryder the subtle message that he doesn’t matter enough?”
