i gotta ask, how much do you love me?
say what, another mini!? i'm in a mood tonight 😂😂😂 also, i've always kinda lived with this idea of these two having a shared playlist where they would send each other music back and forth, so that birthed this idea.
It’s weeks of silence. Both of them looking at their phones eight, ten, twelve times a day—on a good day—to see if the other has said anything. Seeing bubbles form, only to disappear. Staring at each other’s contact information, just waiting for the other break the ice.
Except, Tommy can’t, because he was the one to break them, and he knows it was the right move. He knows he doesn’t deserve Evan, and he knows that even if he gave in and went back, he’d be setting himself up for failure. So he types and deletes. Types and deletes. Types. Deletes. Struggles to maintain his own strength in his resolve each time he sees Evan’s name on his phone.
For Evan, it’s the abandonment. What’s the point in trying when the answer will remain the same? Which just leads to staring, staring, and more staring. Waiting for a call or text that doesn’t come. Waiting on answers he’s sure he’ll never get.
Six weeks after the break-up, he’s staring at his phone in the middle of a cafe, still staring at the text thread with Tommy. He’s been on three dates in the past week, each more miserable than the last. Both of the guys he’d been out with had been decent enough, but at the end of the night… he felt nothing. And sure, he could argue that maybe it just wasn’t the right person, except for the part where he was pretty sure he’d already found the right person…but he’s not supposed to think that.
And it’s in that cafe that he hears it. The song coming through the speakers that resonates with what he’s been trying to make the point of for weeks. It sends him down a rabbit hole scroll through the text thread until he finds the Spotify link.
It was a playlist they’d started barely two weeks into their relationship. Initially, it was a way to connect on songs that they both liked that they wanted to share with the other. There was everything from eighties rock to seventies country, nineties pop/rock and current top forty. But the longer they’d been together, the more the songs on the playlist had turned into something one of them had heard that brought the other to mind, or said something they couldn’t necessarily piece into words.
Evan scrolls through the playlist. The last one added had been a joke from Tommy—Purple People Eater. He’d sent it as a pick-me-up while Evan was still waiting on the boils on his face to finally go away, and while he’d been mildly offended at the joke, he’d taken it in stride.
After googling the lyrics, he adds the song playing in the coffee house to the playlist before copying the link. Briefly, a wave of panic surges through him, wondering if Tommy even still has the link to it, let alone bothers to listen to it. He forces a breath out, swapping screens back to the text thread as he waits at the counter for his coffee order. However, as he picks up his cup and glances back down at the screen, he sees the bubble and those three grey dots. But just as always, they’re there, and then they’re gone.
He huffs as he walks to the door, shoves it open and steps outside. It can’t be a coincidence, right?
In a fit of confidence, he pastes the link to the playlist into the textbox and hits the blue arrow, sending it through. He slides his phone into his pocket before heading back to the jeep.
E: Ain’t About You - Huntergirl
Three minutes later, as he’s plugging his phone into the carplay, the bubbles reappear.
Evan stares at the screen for a moment and then huffs, shaking his head. Did Tommy even bother to listen? Does he really need it spelled out for him? Has it really been that easy for him to move on?
E: The first verse and chorus.
E: Well fuck, the second chorus too.
The bubbles appear again, and then a blue message.
It’s the link back. When Evan clicks on it, the playlist refreshes with a new song at the bottom.
T: If I Told You - Darius Rucker
T: The first verse and chorus.
Evan shakes his head, but he taps on the song anyway, and the beat starts coming through his speakers after a moment. He forces himself to sit and listen to the words—that’s the entire point to the reason this game started in the first place—but he’s barely into the chorus before he’s clicking out of the song and scrolling back into the library. He finds the next one—a song Maddie had sent him ages ago, and adds it to the list before shooting the link back in the message.
E: Lovesick Fool - The Cab
E: Second verse, second chorus
The chat stays quiet enough that he’s able to make the short drive back home, but as he’s riding the elevator back up to the loft, his phone buzzes in his hand again. He’s not sure if Tommy has actually been contemplating an answer or if he’s just been busy doing other things. Their calendars are still linked in the cloud, so he knows the other man is off, and with the rate at which he was responding, he doubts he’s flying at the moment.
Once he’s in the loft, he links his phone to the bluetooth speaker before opening the playlist and clicking the newest addition. There’s no extra message along with the link, which generally means to listen to the entire song.
He’s getting to the end of the song when messages start coming in.
T: It’ll kill me when you don’t
T: stop seeing me like I’m a lifetime
T: and I’ll just be a goodbye
T: when you get so tired of me
Evan gulps, reading the words as they play through the speakers. His heart is knotting. Somehow the words they’re sending back and forth feel like they’re saying more than whatever they managed to say to each other in the final weeks of their relationship. There’s still so much he wants to say.
He clicks back into Spotify, clicks on the artist, and picks the next song down, already having the answer.
E: Trial Run - Jenny Baker
E: I mean the whole damn song. But.
E: why does it feel like somebody died
were you moving on this whole time
while I’ve been stuck on the same side
why does it feel like somebody died
Were you moving on this whole time
I may not be the one, but you’re mine
E: You’re still mine
He waits for a response, watching for bubbles for a few minutes, and then groans when one doesn’t come through. He’s so frustrated that he wants to scream, or throw his phone, or… something. And so he ends up digging out his mixing bowls and flipping through the current baking book until he finds a recipe he hasn’t made before.
Half an hour later, he’s in the midst of spooning peanut butter chocolate chip cookies onto a baking sheet when there’s a knock at his door.
“Door’s open,” he calls out, too distracted by the need to stay focused on his task at hand. He’s still so frustrated that if he stops scooping, he’ll end up picking his phone up.
Another knock sounds, and he huffs.
“Just let yourself in,” he calls out. “Door’s open!”
There’s no movement for another few seconds longer, and he’s about to wipe his hands off and go to the door, irritated, but the door finally opens, slowly at first, and then more, and when Evan finally looks up, his eyes fall on Tommy.
He gulps at the sight of the other man standing across from him, the expression on his own face somber. His eyes are red-rimmed, and Evan opens his mouth to say something, but Tommy lifts his hand and he spots the other man’s phone in his hand. A few seconds later, the bluetooth speaker makes a noise that indicates it’s been connected to. Evan sets down his spoon and wipes his hands down the front of the apron he’s wearing as a song starts to play. It’s not one on the playlist, but he can’t help standing there and listening as Tommy skips to the point he wants to make with the song.
“you lean in vulnerable
when you’d rather walk away
but when the rubber meets the road
and life goes how it goes
and we’re not new no more
what am I in for?
if the meteor hit,
babe would you get in your car
and drive to me to cry with me
if I went insane, and didn’t know my name
would you stay this side of me, reminding me
if I gambled away my money, would you back away?
if my jokes weren’t funny, would you laugh?
how much do you love me? I gotta ask
how much do you love me?”
By the time the chorus ends, Tommy’s hands are trembling at his sides and there are silent tears coming down his face as Evan rounds the counter. He takes Tommy’s phone out of his hand and pulls the apron off over his own head before grabbing the other man’s hands and squeezing them.
“More than air, baby,” he rasps, lifting a hand to Tommy’s face and brushing away the tears with his thumb. “I’m not- there’s not an end in this for me. You’re not a stop on the way. You are the destination.”
Evan lifts his other hand to Tommy’s face and presses his forehead against the other man’s. “You’re not going to. I’m right here with you.”
Tommy gulps and nods, leaning into him. Evan tilts his head up and kisses his forehead, and then pulls him tightly into a hug, and for the first time in weeks, he feels like he can breathe again as he buries his own face into Tommy’s neck.
“I meant what I sent,” Tommy murmurs when they finally separate. “I’m broken, Evan, and there’s no easy fix. People leave, and I’ve made peace with that, but I coudn’t-…losing you, I don’t think-..”
“I’m not asking you to,” Evan counters. “Can you trust me that much? To love you enough to stay?”
“I don’t know,” Tommy admits softly, even as he leans into Evan’s hands still on his face. “But I’m trying. I’m trying to communicate, and meet you in the middle. And maybe I can get there.”
Evan nods, finally catching Tommy’s gaze again.
“Then we talk,” he replies. “A lot, and about everything. Okay?”
Tommy nods, and Evan leans into him, kissing him soft and quick before pulling him back in. The song starts to play through the speaker again, and Evan lets out a small, quiet laugh as it does, his hands rubbing up and down Tommy’s back as they stand in the middle of his kitchen.
“That damn playlist,” he murmurs softly. “Think it just got oudone by this song.”
Tommy smiles against his neck, kissing it softly, but not making any move to part. Evan turns into him after a moment, whispering into his ear.
“How much do you love me? I gotta ask, how much do you love me?”
Tommy lifts his head, just enough to brush his nose up against Evan’s.
“The world over,” he whispers. He leans back, not much more than an inch, just enough room to completely catch eachother’s gaze before Evan leans back in and kisses him, and this time it’s everything they’ve missed in the intervening weeks. Tommy pulls him in tight as Evan’s hand finds its way to his chest, fisting the fabric of Tommy’s shirt, keeping him close until they’re breathless as the song keeps playing in the background.
