It reminds me of the conversation I had with Mason last week. We were hanging out with Reggie in the garage, and somehow got talking about the music. The band.

Waylon...

“I’d kill to have his ear. The guy’s a savant, and doesn’t even give a shit.”

I guess Mason wasn’t lying.

Because as one song gives to another, I’m beginning to suspect Waylon doesn’t actually know how to play these songs. He’s just...winging it. Very well. Putting a spin on it that’s all his own once he’s got the underlying melody locked into that apparently genius fucking brain of his.

“How do you do that?” I ask when there’s a lag in between songs.

He shrugs, fingers still plucking softly at the strings. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Try?”

He gives me a considering look.

There’s a lot about Waylon that’s attractive—a lot about Waylon I find attractive—but I’m beginning to suspect that it’s his thinking face in particular that poses the most danger.

Like how he squishes up his face in this adorable frown that has me aching to smooth out the folds in his brow. Or how he will sometimes nibble on the flesh of his lip and poke out that godforsaken tongue with that godforsaken piercing. How his jaw will harden and tick like it has its own heartbeat.

It’s a face he wears a lot, I’ve come to realize over these last couple weeks, and I wonder how I could have been blind for so long. How I ever fell for that devil-may-care attitude. How anyone could. Sure, the guy’s reckless and impulsive. A wild-card with a penchant for debauched nights and questionable taste in bedfellows (see also: girls).

But it’s an illusion—a trick of the light. And just as with any illusion, the more you poke, prod, spin it and flip it, the clearer the image becomes.

Until eventually, you can no longer unsee it.

Because Waylon might be all these things—reckless and wild and impulsive—but he is by no means thoughtless. In fact, I might even be willing to bet everything he does is intentional.

Calculated.

Especially now, given what I know.

The paper of my newly lit cigarette flakes and pulses red between my fingers.

“So you know how I write?” he says. “Well, what Mason implied is kind of a lie. He and Shawn are the real song-writers here. Sure, I contribute, but it’s...different for me.”

I nod for him to go on as another song kicks on. “Lie to Me” by 12 Stone.