The script lay untouched in his lap, edges curled slightly from his restless thumb brushing over it again and again. “Love Me Tender,” it read in big block letters, though he already knew every line. Every scene. Every slow, drawn-out close-up where he was meant to look off into the middle distance like he was thinkin’ about something tragic and deep. But hell—he was thinkin’ about something deep. Just not what the studio wanted.

They’d handed him this contract the second his boots hit American soil again, like he was supposed to slide back into all the old ways before his uniform had even cooled from wear. They gave him a smile, a pen, a schedule packed tighter than the mess hall during chow. Nobody asked if he wanted to be a movie star—they just figured it was the next logical step for a boy who sang his way into hearts before he even learned how to hold a stage.

He looked out the window of his hotel room. Hollywood didn’t feel like Memphis. It didn’t feel like Tupelo either. There wasn’t dirt here. Just pavement and mirrors and fast-talking people who looked through you like they were always ten steps ahead.

But then, there was you.

Static at first—like radio tuning in too slow, just the faintest hum of something that wasn’t his thought but still sat warm and sure in the back of his mind. A woman's presence, soft and quiet like a whisper through an open screen door at night. Not a word. Not a syllable. But it was you. He knew it like he knew gospel.

Elvis had been waitin’ since he was fifteen years old. Fifteen and awkward and angry at his own mouth for saying dumb things around pretty girls. Fifteen and already singin’ with his eyes closed, hoping someone out there might be listenin’. He’d hear the stories—everyone’s got one, they’d say. Soulmate comes through when the time is right. Like a switch flipped on. Some heard 'em young, some late, some not ‘til their bones were old and their hands were worn. But everyone’s got one.

His just took her sweet time.

He leaned back in the stiff hotel chair, arms folded across his chest, the script forgotten beside him. His thumb absently rubbed over his lip. He could feel you now, not just like a presence but like a heartbeat right under his own.

“So where’ve you been, honey?”

The thought came uninvited, rising from somewhere between his chest and throat. It wasn’t angry—just tired, soft with the kind of ache that builds when you’ve been waitin’ at the station a long time, hopin’ that train’s just late and not lost.

He remembered sittin' on a cot overseas, boots unlaced, the cold seeping in through the walls like it had a grudge. Nights when the guys were out drinkin’ or bragging, and he’d just sit there, elbows on knees, staring at nothing. Wishing. Wondering. He kept thinkin’ maybe he was defective. Maybe she didn’t exist. Or maybe he was too loud to hear her.

But now she was here. Not speakin’, but there. Real.

He sat forward, elbows on his thighs, hand dragging through his dark hair. The door to his room creaked in the wind from the hallway, but he didn’t move. He stayed still, breathing slow.

“You waitin’ on somethin’, sweetheart?” he thought again, a hint of a smile teasing his lips. “Or just listenin’ in on my life before you decide to drop in?”