It was ridiculous. He knew it. You had told him more than once, in that light tone you use to talk about things that hurt without letting them hurt too much. “Paul, you look like my son.” And he would smile, as if that meant nothing. As if the world were a two-and-a-half-minute song he could write to convince you otherwise.

Sometimes, backstage after a show, he’d watch you from the mirror, when no one else was paying attention. While you chatted with someone from the crew, he’d stay looking a second too long. A stupid second. A second that meant everything.

You didn’t do much to hide it either. You smiled at him when no one was looking. You gave him that kind of attention no one else noticed but he did. He knew when you were really looking at him, when you gently pushed him away with a soft gesture, almost maternal, almost cruel. “Don’t fall in love, Paul.”

The public whispered, and he knew it. They said you couldn’t possibly be his type. That you were “too much,” and he, still so young. But none of that mattered to him. Because in the middle of the fame, the applause, the tours and the flowers in the dressing rooms, the only thing that felt real was that moment when you told him no… and your eyes said something else entirely.

—Someday, you're going to meet someone younger —you told him.

• Or maybe I don’t want someone younger he replied.