Page 80 of Call Me Baby 2: Side B

leaving silence behind.

His eyes dig through mine,

searching for the truth.

Then—

Ding.

The elevator slides open.

But he doesn’t move right away.

Neither do I.

We stand there, eyes locked,

not knowing how to move forward.

Then something hits him,

as if the penthouse whispered my name.

He slowly turns his head

and pushes off his shoulder.

“Holy shit,” he murmurs, eyes landing everywhere as he steps out of the elevator, and right into the skyline view.

Along the back wall, melted gold pours in through floor-to-ceiling windows, the city living here too.

He pauses in the foyer, where every light’s on a dimmer, and it smells faintly of my vanilla perfume. The elevator doors whisper shut behind us.

He looks back at me,

then in front of him again,

not expecting to walk straight into the damn thing.

Nothing’s out of place.

Nothing has a soul, either.

Only a view that’s beautiful in the way cliffs are beautiful.

You could fall in love here.

Or just fall.

He pauses in the grand hall—bone-white walls smothered in framed records. Each one flipped to hide the truth. A resting place for every song I never got to claim.

I stand behind him and watch his eyes trail the turned records, the black wax like shut mouths.

His hand sinks into his pocket—my Jersey boy, standing in my vinyl graveyard, surrounded by my silent screams.

“You wrote all’a these, didn’t you?” He walks the hall slow, looking at each one. “All of 'em. Every fuckin’ one. Turned ‘em over so no one would know. Can’t even take credit in your own place.” He says it, as if it breaks his heart.

When we step into the kitchen, Ben’s in the living room, one arm hooked over the back of the couch, blanket across his lap, tub of Rocky Road cradled like he’s on his period.