Page 158 of Paint the Town, Dove

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“I’m awake you know,” he said, eyes still closed.

I did know. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Mm, is it can I sleep with you?”

I chuckled, sinking deeper into my covers. “Dumbass.”

“This really isn’t a dream,fuck,” he groaned, pulling the pillow over his face.

Mydumbass.Myeagle.

“Why did you call it Paint the Town?”

He removed the pillow and turned to face me, resting his cheek on his hand. “The song?”

“Yeah.”

Despite the dark, I could see the smile on his face. “Paint the town red.’”

I knew where this was going. A warm heat pooled inside my heart. He told me this once before. It never had significance until now. “That saying…” I whispered.

“I started writing it after the blow up at Avenue Records, after meeting Tav, signing with Arc & Sheild.” He laughed lowly, “So many things changed but I couldn’t part with those damn lyrics, those damn memories. You and me, travelling the world, painting the town red. I really meant it, what I told you back then.”

I felt the rush of emotions coming up, the memories associated with the feelings. Our first trip to the Maldives, jumping in the water despite my thalassophobia. I hated fish, the open sea. I hated most things.

But not him.

He convinced me there was a fresh water pearl at the bottom.

I cutmy leg on a hut splinter.

He tended to me.

In Italy, we slow danced at night on a cobblestone walkway after the best penne of my life. There was a fiddler and a man playing a ukulele. Ryden came up with the song ‘Roam in Rome’ on that trip.

It was a miracle I didn’t fall in love on the spot.

But I guess, maybe… it’s because I already had.

It was never a waltz in Portugal or a shopping spree in Milan, not an F1 show in Montreal or skydiving in the Himalayans – it was a young boy, sitting by himself, picking blades of grass.

It was that boy.

And it’s always been that boy.

It will always be that boy.

“Paint the town red,” he said with a tug of his lips. “Red hair for my red Scarlett,huh.” As he turned around, I heard the whistle of his words. “Should’ve called that song Paint the Town, Dove.”

Chapter Forty-Four

Ryden

Six Years Ago

I hit platinum this year.

Two years in the studio at Avenue Records and I was rich.

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