Rob awoke to a cold bed once again. He reached his hand over to where Jane had been, feeling just the last remnants of the heat she radiated into the fabric, missing her. 

“Shit,” he muttered to himself. 

The nights had always been amazing with Jane. In every sense of the phrase. But the mornings?

He rolled over and groaned to himself, closing his eyes and trying to remember if Jane had told him something before she had left. It felt somewhat like a dream, but his mind distinctly remembered her soft timbre, echoing in his mind: “I’ll be back soon.”

Unsure of the meaning, he slipped clothes on and placed a beanie over his greasy hair, before slipping out onto the streets below the hotel.

Out here, he was a faceless man in the crowd. The anonymity of just being one amongst those marching onward, facing their separate lives enthralled him. He loved the feeling of being well and truly alone. Perhaps it was a problem, but knowing that in this moment, right now, there wasn’t a person relying on him, gave him the best sense of freedom. 

Maybe Jane and him were similar after all.

…

After a bit, Rob passed a record store and slipped inside, glad to be surrounded by the music. 

The practice was something his father called “utterly pretentious.” That in an age of instant access to music, whenever and wherever, buying a physical vinyl record was akin to idealizing a past age.

Perhaps it was. But the feeling Rob had, flipping through the different records, feeling the music in front of him as a physical, tangible item, was something irreplaceable. It wasn’t convenient, cheap, or even better, given the wrong table or pre-amp, but it certainly felt right.

“Hey,” a voice came from behind him. Turning around, Rob was faced with the kind of woman he expected to own a store like this. Her round glasses obscured her eyes, and her knitted cardigan flowed effortlessly past her body. “Are you Rob from In Bloom?”

Rob smiled. It was a bit disarming to be caught outside—especially since he had just relished in his anonymity—but it was nice, at least, to be recognized in a place such as this, at the same time. 

“Everyone say Jack first,” Rob said, “but yeah.”

“We just stocked your record,” she came, turning on her heel and sliding towards the “I” section of the store. Out of the hundreds of canned questions and responses Rob had expected from the woman, this was not one of them. She slipped out two copies of [i]Ways and Means[/i], both still wrapped and clear, and showed him from the slight distance between them. “Two sold this morning,” she said. “Mind helping out a dying industry and signing one?” 

Rob laughed. “If it supports the cause. But I’m surprised my signature doesn’t hurt the sales.”

A minute later, Rob was at the counter, signing  the record. The woman quickly slipped out another copy from behind the counter. “Actually,” she said, “if you could sign my personal copy.”

“Oh, you listen to us?” Rob said, obliging her request. “So what side are you on? Single or no?” 

“I don’t keep up that closely,” she admitted. “I just liked what I heard. And it’s not everyday an artist slips in like this.” 

Rob smiled, glad to hear at least one neutral party.

In the end, he slipped out with a [url= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onRk0sjSgFU&list=PL4FCDF2E743A1062D&ab_channel=CommunistNihilist]classic Radiohead record[/url] he had been meaning to get, along with a [url= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdFsr7I6rz4&nohtml5=False&ab_channel=JasonMills]Neil Young record.[/url] He returned to the room about five minutes before Jane did, and was laying back on his bed as she entered, hoping to get more sleep. Although, what she asked for from him, was surely better.

…

On the way to Chicago, Rob couldn’t help but let his mind run though the recent events. 

More and more present in his mind was the actions of Jane. Surely, he had learned over the past years and at many other different points in his life, that Jane was a physical person. He had known that, and god knew he wasn’t complaining about it.

It was just that, sometimes, it felt a bit disparaging to be physical with someone so soon after a conflict. They had yet to discuss what odd feelings were going on between the two of them, but sometimes it felt as if Jane’s actions were either ignoring the issue, or just coming from a place of self-gratification. Things he wanted to express or explain to them felt pushed upon the wayside with her.

And it wasn’t a matter of liking or not—Rob had never felt so incredibly drawn to a person his entire life. But the stresses of letting things drift away from them instead of tackling them head on made Rob worry that such actions would soon come back to haunt them. 

Conversations in recent times with Trent and Zoe felt the opposite. Those were people that directly spoke to him, not mincing words he may not want to hear but not holding back on the things he may need to. It was a connection he worried was one he didn’t have with Jane, or would ever. 

And he supposed it stressed him out so much not that he was being drawn away from Jane, but more so that he was resorting to other people to fulfill a need in his life. Being physically and emotionally vulnerable to Jane was difficult enough; having others peer into his own life felt even worse, even if he instigated it.

And the issue of the podcast was just a physicalization of what he was feeling; general confusion. 

On the way up, he gently rubbed Jane’s hand in his, more-so for his own comfort than hers. He knew better than openly, publicly making her do things typical for dating couples, but there was a simple pleasure in holding the hand of someone he cared about. In this van, with these friends, he felt no need to mince his actions or his words.

The band arrived immediately at the venue for the acoustic set—a Guitar Center retrofitted with a small stage in the back, and the equipment Rob would need to play already loaded. He thanked the small crew for setting up for him, and took the time to shake hands with the Spotify crew present for the recording; figuring the less he talked, the better. After all, what was played here would be recorded and listened to for god knows how long.