Riven (Riven 1)

I met Huey, and it had been kind of awkward, until Caleb got up to use the bathroom and I finally got to speak my piece. Huey’s eyes went soft when I promised him I was going to look out for Caleb. And I could have sworn they got a little misty when I thanked him for helping Caleb stay okay until he could find me.

“What did you do to Huey?” Caleb asked later, but I just smiled.

It was Caleb’s sister’s birthday not long after that, and he called her for the first time in three years. When she passed the phone to his mom, Caleb hung his head and listened to her yell at him for staying away so long. When he croaked out that he couldn’t stand to disappoint her again, whatever she said made him sob. But after he hung up the phone, there was a peace in him that hadn’t been there before.

The next day he told me that he wanted to record the songs he’d been working on, and that’s when I decided to finish the studio in my apartment. The songs were mostly finished, and he was planning to record the album next month. And, though he waved my praise away with a vaguely pleased look, it was fucking brilliant—he might not have known it yet, but it was going to blow people away.

Now, I begged Caleb, “Distract me, please.” It was 11:42 and the album dropped at midnight.

“Uh. Sure, okay. Um. What do you get from a pampered cow?”

“Omigod, is this a farm joke? I don’t know, what?”

“Spoiled milk.”

I just shook my head at him. “You’re awful.”

“Right, sorry, okay. Oh, tell me about your plan for the studio. You said you figured out what you wanted to do.”

I leaned against him on the couch.

“Yeah, okay, so tell me what you think. I want to subsidize albums—or, I dunno what you’d call it. Bankroll them, but that sounds all Daddy Warbucks or something. There are so many amazing bands and musicians, and they can’t afford studio time, or they don’t know any producers or anything. So what if I set it all up, paid people for their time or whatever, and let people record here. Then they would have the files and they could release the albums. If they made money, they could pay the studio back, if not they just wouldn’t.”

Caleb ran a hand over my hair, playing with the ends. He smiled at me.

“How would you pick the bands?”

“I dunno, I haven’t gotten that far. Maybe…well, I’d want it to only be people who really couldn’t afford to do it themselves. Maybe they could submit a song online and a little thingie about their goals and stuff? Like how people apply for grants or whatever? I could choose, or I guess I could hire someone to do it? I should ask Clarissa. Either way, I just want it to be people making great music. Stuff that’s different than what’s out there already. And also it’d be people who were interested in doing it themselves, you know, because this would be them releasing their own stuff.”

“I think it’s a great idea,” Caleb said. And this time when he leaned toward me, I kissed him, relishing the taste of him. We started to get a little carried away, when he said, “Hey, it’s time.”

“Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god. Okay.”

I reached a hand out to the laptop open on the coffee table, and pressed the button that would release my first solo album into the world.

“Fuck,” I breathed. “I can’t believe it.”

“You did it, baby,” Caleb rumbled against my ear, and ran fingers through my hair. “Whoa,” he said, looking at me. “You’re really pale. You okay?”

I nodded, unable to speak. I was okay. I was so much better than okay.

Finally, I said, “I’m just sitting here realizing that I have everything I’ve ever wanted. It…I…it’s just a lot.”

Caleb pulled me to him and held me.

“Me too,” he said. “It is a lot.”

He let me go and reached for the computer.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m downloading my boyfriend’s first solo album, duh,” he said, looking at me like I was nuts.

“I have the masters right—”

“Not the point, love.”

He clicked Download and paid for the album, then opened it. I’d done the same thing hundreds of times with hundreds of bands, but it felt entirely surreal.

When the first notes of the opening track started playing automatically upon downloading, I reached to shut it off, but Caleb caught my hand. He leaned back on the couch and pulled me to him, arm around my shoulders.

And then we just listened. He sat there with me, and listened to the whole album, and every time I moved to shut it off or get up, he just kissed my head and pulled me back to him. Even though he’d heard the songs already, he listened intently, like he was meeting them for the first time.