Break-ups are best at a rock club. The grungy backdrop with plumes of smoke, drink-covered floors, and blistering music makes a public break-up private. Scream as loud as you want; it'll never match the music's chest-thumping volume. At least I thought the crowd safely hid me.

"Are you alright?" His voice came low and painfully hoarse.

He blazed in the night, his pale skin almost translucent as it caught the distant hue of a streetlight. His dark hair matched his dimmed eyes. The smoke of his cigarette came in a tight snake from the corner of his mouth. My eyes clung to him, desperately trying to understand the familiarity of the unfamiliar face. 

"Yes," croaked from my throat from confusion. 

"You can do better," he added. 

I wasn't hidden; he had seen me in the club. "I know." I tried to choke back the laugh, but it got the best of me. "You saw us?" I should have felt alarmed by a stranger taking notice of a private moment. I didn't think Chris and I had made a scene. Chris' shock muted his emotions. We silently parted. 

"Bird's eye," he murmured as his eye apologetically fell to the ground before him. Another plume of smoke obscured his features. 

"You're in the band." My realization fell from my lips. "You were..." My words dropped as I realized how little attention I had given his performance. 

"Intruding," he finished for me. 

"I was going to say in the band," I corrected. 

"You're kind," he didn't lift his face, but I could still see the wince of a smile. 

"No." My mind was moving slower than my instincts. The word came before I realized I had an impulse to defend him, even to himself. 

"So, you're not kind." His eyes finally lifted to meet mine. They pulled me into a swirl of curiosity and shyness. The childlike pools contradicted nearly every other aspect of his being. 

"Any place to get a milkshake at this hour?" He stamped out the butt as he spoke.

"Yeah, there's a place." 

He had a soothing excitement about him; not dangerous, but not safe. Rationally, accepting an invitation from a stranger was gnawing at me, but the buzzing that erupted in my chest drew me to him. Confusion lands that way; the tangibility of rational thought wars with intangible emotions foreshadowing something with an electric current of excitement and warning. 

"Lead the way, heartbreaker."

He stood at least a foot taller than me, making it easy for him to keep my pace. A saunter from him would easily match my most determined stride. Two, four, six, eight blocks passed with no complaint. I would steal glances at him as we walked. His shoulders rolled to a slump bringing him slightly closer to my level. The erratic mane of hair that crowned his head fell into his face. Occasionally he would purse his lips as though he had the fleeting idea of speaking, but then, as his hand rose to tug his hair from his face, the thought would fail. He tugged, I noted. Many would casually brush the hair from their face, perhaps tuck it behind their ear as a semi-permanent solution. This enigma tugged. He warred with his locks, yanking on them in a mix of frustration and thanks. As much as the hair in his eyes obscured his view, it protected him and provided a privacy that fed his shyness. 

He remained silent as I turned to the brightly painted dilapidated building; he held the door for me with a bear paw hand and a slight bow of his head as I passed. 

"Billy," he murmured almost to himself as he played with a few errant Tinker Toys that mixed within other kitsch in the waiting area.

"Lily," I matched his low tone as I stuck a red flag on the top of his creation.

He tapped it gently, so it twisted a bit on its rod. "Red is my favorite color."

"Mm, I like yellow. It has more swing; it can soothe like the warm sun or agitate like a warning light," I explained.  

One side of his mouth tipped up to form a crooked smile. Talking to him was like talking to myself; nothing was off-limits or needed protecting. 

The words were scarce as we sipped our shakes; a chocolate malt for him, an egg cream for me.

"What's an egg cream?" He asked. 

We spoke like old friends, a mix of prodding and teasing.

"Chocolate milk with seltzer." I took another sip without waiting for his response.

Once my lips left the straw, he stole it from me, pulling it to his mouth and taking a long drag like it was a smoke. "Not bad; no chocolate malt, but not bad."

"So, you were in the band." It was an understatement; he was the band. "You going to play me a song?" I tempted. 

"How do you know I'm a piano man?" The humor on his face bunched in his cheeks accented by dimples, making him look too young to be playing blues songs in dive bars.

"You think I'm just giving malt tips away?" As I spoke, I noticed the flickers of green peppering his hazel eyes.

"I'm not a one-night-stand kind of guy." He sat back, surveying me, waiting to see my response.

"Good, because I hate to stand." I smiled at my joke.

He couldn't stifle his grin, clearly entertained by my audacity. I was surprised by the two dimples that dotted each cheek. 

"All right, let's go." A resolve filled his tone, feeding a malnourished whim.

He threw a crumpled twenty-dollar bill on the Formica table as he slid out of his seat. Unlike the walk over, he extended a hand to me, which I accepted, letting his guitar-calloused hand encase mine.

"Any requests?" Billy sat down on the corner of his hotel bed as he set his guitar on his lap.

I settled into the pillows. "Not just yet; you play what you want to hear."

I wanted to understand how someone could be both an open book and a mysterious riddle in one presence. Billy tuned and strummed for a bit; I watched in his eyes as songs flipped through his mind, discarded as quickly as they came. He continued to absently strum before settling on an old blues standard. I had seen him perform earlier, but I missed how the electricity exuded from him. I wished I had broken up with Chris earlier, that I had devoted my full attention to Billy's set. When he played, it was like no one was near, but everything connected to him. Even if his gaze fell on me, I wasn't there; but the slightest change in my posture or eyes rippled through him, affecting his output.

"Any requests now?" He asked after a non-stop ebb and flow of covers and what I imagined were original tunes.

"No, just don't stop." I needed his music and the charged energy that flowed straight from him into me.

We stayed up all night talking about everything in life that formed us while he strummed away and ripped butts. By sunrise, there was no one in the world I knew better than this man, and there was no one in the world that knew me better. Only when the obtrusive slice of the risen sun cut through the part in the window curtains did Billy flop down next to me. He sunk quickly into the pillows as his dark erratic, wiry hair stuck out around his moon face. Billy instinctively reached for me, pulling me to him. Our connection was already there, so the physicality of his touch didn't seem foreign or ill-fitting.

There was no pressure; just a gentle progression. I sunk into his side as his lips grazed across the crown of my head. My hand glided over his hard chest enjoying the ebb and flow of his body. The smooth pale skin of his neck plunged into his t-shirt, obscuring the path of my gaze. I tugged on the fabric in displeasure causing a flinch to soar through Billy's torso. 

A gentle finger lifted my face to meet his. Billy's eyes poured over me, scanning me for my every thought. 

"Please," I whispered. 

Billy gently brushed a tendril of my hair from my face and delicately tucked it behind my ear. Slowly, cautiously, his face dipped until our lips met. The buzz that had been living in my chest exploded through my entire body. His connection was a nourishment I had never known I had been missing. My fingertips sunk painfully into his hard torso in an effort to pull him closer. Despite my frenzy, Billy moved with tempered caution.  

"Are you sure?" His face hovered close to mine as his warm breath coursed over my face. 

"Yes," I managed as I pushed myself into the sensations. 

"I thought you didn't do one-night-stands," I teased in a sleepy voice as my cheek stuck to the skin of his chest. I didn't bother to lift my gaze to his eyes.

His fingers combed through my hair as he whispered, "who said this was one night?"