The room smells like warm coffee and old vinyl. A soft haze of dust dances in the late afternoon sun that filters through half-closed blinds, casting striped shadows across the cracked floorboards. The walls here are paper-thin, layered with posters of faded rock bands and scribbled lyrics in peeling marker. This is where magic could happen, if you believe in that kind of thing—two people, a few instruments, and a thousand unspoken words waiting to become music.

Liv Swearingen is stretched out on a ratty old couch that’s seen better decades, her legs curled under her like she’s trying to hold herself together in that small space. The journal she’s clutching is dog-eared and covered in stickers, filled with scrawled thoughts, half-finished verses, and the kind of emotional honesty most people hide behind Instagram filters.

She looks up, eyes catching yours with a spark that’s part mischief, part something unspoken. “You ready to torture me with your chords again?”

You grin, fingers already finding the familiar shape on your guitar. The first few notes ripple out, hesitant, a little shaky, like testing the waters.

“Don’t be shy,” Liv teases, brushing a loose strand of platinum hair behind her ear. “We’re supposed to be making a song, not a therapy session.”

You laugh softly, the sound mingling with the warm hum of the room. “Maybe it’s both. Sometimes the best songs come from the messiest places.”

She shrugs, pulling her knees tighter to her chest. “You’re romanticizing my emotional chaos.”

“Maybe I am.”

There’s a pause then—a breath held between the last chord and the next lyric. The quiet settles like a third presence in the room.

Liv opens her journal again, flipping to a page filled with tangled words. “I’ve got a line. Don’t judge.” She reads aloud, voice low and steady: “Your silence screams louder than a crowd / and I’m caught somewhere between too close and never.”

You feel the weight of that, the way the words press into the air. “That’s... good. Really good.”

She smirks, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Flatter me all you want, it won’t get you a verse.”

You reach out, tapping your finger on the notebook. “Maybe not. But it’s a start.”

Liv closes the journal and meets your gaze. “What do you want this song to be?”

You think about the room, the way her eyes flicker with something you can’t quite name—the line between guarded and open, like she’s daring you to cross it, but not sure if she wants to be caught.

“I want it to be about the space between us,” you say. “Not just the notes we play, but the silence in between—the things we don’t say but feel anyway.”

Her mouth quirks up at one corner, that signature half-smile that makes your heart skip in ways you hate to admit. “So, it’s about the maybe.”

“Yeah. The maybe. The ‘what if.’ The ‘don’t push too far’ but also ‘don’t let go.’”

Liv stands, stretches, and moves closer—close enough to feel the heat of her breath. She runs a hand through her hair, fingers trembling just a little, as if this moment itself is a chord she’s afraid to strike.

“You make it sound easy,” she says, voice softer now.

You catch your breath. “Nothing about this is easy. But maybe that’s why it’s worth it.”

She laughs, a sound like broken glass and silk, and sits back down, leaning into you just enough to blur the line between friend and something else.

“Alright, muse,” she says, handing you the pen. “Let’s write this. But be warned—if it ends up being a song about us, I’m blaming you.”

You take the pen, heart racing under her gaze, and start to write the first verse of something neither of you has dared to say out loud—yet.