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 because your screams are never a match for the music's chest-thumping volume. At least I thought the crowd safely hid me.

"You can do better." His voice was low and painfully hoarse.

"I know." I tried to choke back the laugh, but it got the best of me.

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 out in a tight snake from the corner of his mouth.

"You know where to get a milkshake at this hour?" He stamped out the butt as he spoke.

"Yeah, I know a place." There was a soothing excitement about him. He wasn't dangerous, but he wasn't safe.

"Lead the way, heartbreaker."

It wasn't hard for him to follow; he was at least a foot taller than me. A saunter from him would easily match my most determined stride. Two, four, six, eight blocks passed with no complaint. Not a peep came as I turned to the brightly painted dilapidated building; he held the door for me with a bear paw hand.

"Billy," he murmured almost to himself as he played with a few errant Tinker Toys that were 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. Has more swing; soothing like the warm sun or urgent like a warning light." One side of his mouth tipped up to form a crooked smile. Talking to him was like talking to myself.

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

"What is 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 was stealing it from me, pulling it to his lips and taking a long drag like it was a smoke. "Not bad; no chocolate malt, but not bad."

"You were in the band." It was an understatement; he was the band. "You gonna play me a song?"

"How do you know I'm a piano man?" There was humor to his face that bunched in his cheeks and was 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 brown 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 smile, clearly entertained by my audacity.

"Alright, let's go," there was a resolve in his tone, as though he were feeding a frequently malnourished whim.

He threw a $20 bill on the Formica table as he slid out and, unlike the walk over, 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 settled his guitar in his lap.

I was already settling into the pillows at the head of the bed. "Not just yet; you play what you want to hear."

I wanted in his head to understand how someone could be both an open book and a mysterious riddle in one presence. He 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 strum absently before settling on an old blues standard. I'd seen him perform earlier, but I missed how the electricity exuded from him. I wished that I had broken up with Chris earlier, that I'd been able to devote my full attention to his set. When he played, it was like no one was near, but he was connected to everything. Even if his gaze fell on me, I wasn't there; but the slightest change in my posture or eyes would ripple through and affect his output.

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

"Yeah, keep playing." I needed his music; the charged energy that flowed straight from him and into me was like oxygen.

We stayed up all night talking about everything in life that formed us while he strummed away and ripped butts. By the time the sun was up, I felt like 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 erratic wiry hair stuck out around his moon face. He reached for me instinctively and pulled me to him. Our connection was already there, so the physicality of his touch did not feel foreign or ill-fitting.

"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 comb through my hair as he whispered, "who said this was one night?"

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed the first adventure of Lil and Billy!

In-Between Track 1 has been expanded to a full length! You can check out On the Edge of Tomorrow!