When My Ex Handed My Songs to His Mistress

The studio in Burbank smelled like stale air and expensive cologne. Chase sat in the producer's chair and watched Paloma through the glass. She had the headphones on too tight. Her eyes were closed. She was singing the bridge he'd handed her three weeks ago.

The bridge Naomi wrote.

Except now the words were different. Paloma had changed "the rain that brought you to me" to "the night we found our destiny." She'd swapped "your hand in mine, a streetlight dying" for "two hearts aligned, our love undying."

It rhymed. That was something.

The track ended. Paloma pulled off the headphones and smiled at him through the glass. Bright. Eager.

"How was that?"

Chase looked at the producer. Mike. Twenty years in the business. Had worked on the first album. The one that went platinum.

Mike's face was carefully blank.

"Let's do another take," Chase said.

Paloma's smile dimmed. "Was something wrong?"

"Just want to get it perfect."

She nodded and put the headphones back on.

Mike leaned over and lowered his voice. "You want my opinion?"

Chase kept his eyes on the glass. "No."

"The bones are good. But the lyrics—"

"I said no."

Mike sat back. Said nothing.

They recorded six more takes. Each one sounded exactly like the last. Technically fine. Emotionally empty. Like a perfect replica of something real.

When they wrapped, Paloma came out of the booth glowing. "I think we got it."

"Yeah," Chase said. "We got it."

She kissed his cheek. He barely felt it.

After she left, Mike saved the session and started packing up. Chase stayed in the chair.

"You releasing this?" Mike asked.

Chase looked at the waveforms on the screen. They looked right. They sounded wrong.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm releasing it."

Mike nodded. Didn't say anything else. He'd been in the room when Naomi worked. He knew.

Chase released the single on a Friday.

By Saturday morning, it was trending on Twitter.

Not the way he wanted.

---

I woke up to seventeen texts from Simone.

I opened the thread.

*Oh my god*

*Oh my GOD*

*Have you seen Twitter*

*Please tell me you've seen Twitter*

*I'm adding EIGHTEEN new items to the list*

*This is Christmas*

I scrolled up. She'd sent screenshots. Tweets with thousands of likes. Memes. A side-by-side comparison of Chase's new single and one of his old ones—the one I'd written—with the caption: "How did we go from THIS to THIS."

Someone had made a TikTok. A dramatic reading of Paloma's lyrics set to sad violin music. It had two million views.

I set the phone down. Picked up my coffee. Took a sip.

Simone called.

I answered. "Good morning."

"Good morning?" Her voice was gleeful. "Naomi. This is the best morning of my life. He's getting destroyed. Absolutely obliterated. There's a thread with forty thousand likes just listing better rhymes than 'destiny' and 'undying.'"

I smiled into my coffee. "That's nice."

"Nice? NICE?" She laughed. "I want to frame this. I want to put it on my wall."

"You're enjoying this too much."

"I'm enjoying this the exact right amount." She paused. "How's the album coming?"

"Good. We're almost done."

"And Jude?"

"Also good."

"Naomi."

I sighed. "What?"

"You like him."

"I'm working with him."

"You LIKE him."

I didn't answer.

Simone made a satisfied noise. "I knew it. Okay. I have to go. I have twelve more screenshots to send you. This is art. This is poetry."

She hung up.

I looked at my phone. At the memes. At Chase's name trending for all the wrong reasons.

I felt nothing.

No. That wasn't true.

I felt relief.

---

Jude showed up at eight with Thai food and a grin.

"Have you seen—"

"I've seen," I said.

He set the food on the console. "I'm not going to lie. It's extremely satisfying."

"Simone said the same thing."

"I like Simone." He opened a container. "When do I get to meet her officially?"

"You met her last week."

"For thirty seconds. That doesn't count." He handed me chopsticks. "I want the full interrogation. I want to prove myself."

I looked at him. "Why?"

"Because she's important to you." He said it like it was obvious. Like there was no other possible answer.

I took the chopsticks.

We ate in silence for a while. Then Jude pulled out his phone.

"I want to play you something."

"We're supposed to be working."

"This is work." He scrolled through his voice memos. "Kind of."

He hit play.

A melody filled the studio. Just him and a guitar. Rough. Unpolished. But the bones were perfect. It climbed and opened and resolved in exactly the right place.

I set down my food.

He watched me. "I wrote it two years ago. The night I heard you talk about music at that Warner party. You said something about how the best songs feel like remembering something you never actually lived." He paused. "I went home and this came out."

I listened to it again. Then a third time.

"That's the bridge of track four," I said quietly.

He grinned. "I know."

I looked at him. At the way he was watching me. Open. Unguarded.

"You've been sitting on this for two years?"

"I was waiting for the right person to hear it."

I didn't let myself smile. Not right away.

But eventually, I did.

"Let's work," I said.

He stood. Stretched. Picked up his guitar.

And for the rest of the night, we built something that felt like remembering a future I hadn't lived yet.