His apartment was just off the main strip, and the music and crowds raged on in the streets until at least three in the morning. She wanted to tell him she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since she’d been in Austin. “Because I’ll talk to her if you want,” he added. She heard his question but was too transfixed by the view of his naked figure walking away to process an answer. “Do you use them because of the neighbor’s dog?” Then he rolled over and got up from the bed, and headed for the bathroom. Jane laughed and fished the earplug from her other ear. “I love you too, baby,” he said, laughing. He reached and pinched her earplug and pulled it free. He motioned to his ear, as if he couldn’t hear her. When he finally pulled away, she said, “I love you.” His hair hung down over her shoulder, tickling her chest, and she shifted onto her back and brought her mouth to his. That he was her, and she was him, and together they were all that mattered in this world or any other. It was the conscious awareness deep down in her soul that they were connected in every possible way-physically, emotionally, spiritually. And it wasn’t just the primal, sexual pleasure of it, either.

She knew if she could live a thousand years, she would never tire of being woken like this. Jane kept her eyes closed and listened to her heart throbbing in her chest.

He must have dreamed of her after all, she thought. She woke to the soft touch of Caleb’s lips on the back of her neck. But she knew he needed sleep, so she prayed to the music and to the night that his dreams might be dreams of her, and then she closed her eyes to dream of him. When his lips curled into a slight smile, it was all she could do to keep herself from kissing him. The neon light filtering through the blinds painted red slats across his youthful face, and she watched as his eyelids flickered to the rhythm of some dream. The constant clamor of music coming from the street below seemed not to bother him at all, as if he had been born from the belly of a snare drum and meant for no other world than the world of song-sweet melodies instead of blood pumping through his veins. And if there was no secret to be found, she would be perfectly happy to just go on gazing at him for an eternity anyway. She was certain if she just looked long enough, she would find it there. Jane lay awake, searching for the secret of all existence in Caleb’s sleeping face.

Jane's Melody by Ryan Winfield