The Face Under the Hood

You don't sleep again.

The voice stops at 3:41. You know because you're staring at your phone like it might explain something. After that there's only the creak of a bed on the other side of the wall, then nothing, then the first garbage truck of the morning grinding down Dorran Street like a dying dinosaur.

By seven you've built and destroyed eleven theories.

Theodore was playing a recording. Theodore has a secret Nightjar demo that he stole. Theodore is a superfan who does an incredible impression. You were dreaming. The radiator is haunted by a famous singer.

None of them explain the way the voice stopped halfway through a line, went back, and tried it again a half step lower. That's not a recording. That's someone writing.

You shower in water that's lukewarm at best and go into the kitchen in a T-shirt and sweatpants, hair wet, pretending to be a normal person.

He's there. Of course he's there.

Hood up, back to you, standing at the toaster like it owes him money. The smell of burning bread fills the whole apartment. A thin line of smoke curls toward the ceiling.

"Morning," you say.

"Morning."

So the voice works in daylight too. Low, flat, rough at the edges. Nothing like last night. Except. Except under it, if you listen, there's a little catch on the vowel. The same catch.

You pour coffee from the pot he made, because it's there and you're brave. It's terrible. You drink it anyway.

The toaster pops. Two black squares leap into the air. He catches one, hisses, drops it on a plate.

You don't plan to do it. You really don't. But your hands need something to do, and your brain has been playing that melody on loop for four hours, so you lean against the counter and you hum.

Just four notes. Fourth floor. Radiator.

The mug slips out of his hand.

It hits the tile and breaks in three clean pieces. Coffee splashes across the floor and both your bare feet.

Neither of you moves.

He's very still. You can feel him not looking at you, which is louder than looking.

"Sorry," you say. "Did I startle you? I'm a terrible hummer. My mom says I sound like a fridge."

"Slipped," he says.

He crouches and picks up the pieces with those long hands, careful, precise. When he stands, he drops them in the trash on top of the toast, grabs his jacket, and walks out without eating.

The door closes very quietly.

You look down at the coffee on your toes.

"Okay," you say to the empty kitchen. "That's not nothing."

Harriet calls you into her glass office at eleven.

It's the first time you've been inside. There are framed covers on every wall: legends, scandals, a famous rapper's mugshot she somehow got him to sign. A record player in the corner turns silently with no needle down.

"Sit," she says.

You sit.

She pulls a printout from her desk and slides it across. It's your essay. "The Voice in the Dark." Three years old and somehow still embarrassing. She's highlighted a line in yellow.

Whoever he is, he sings like he's alone in a room at 3 a.m., and he's never once been lonely in front of us.

"You understood him before anyone else did," Harriet says. "Everyone else writes about Nightjar's mystery. You wrote about his loneliness. That's how you find a man. Not by his face. By what he can't stop doing." She takes off her red glasses and points them at you. "I'm putting you on it."

"Me?" It comes out as a squeak. You clear your throat. "Me. Great. Yes."

"Asa's going to chase the money. Corvane, contracts, the label's tax filings. Fine. You chase the music." She leans back. "Where would a lonely man write those songs? Who would he trust? Who would hear him?"

You think about a wall. About plaster under your palm.

"I don't know," you say.

Your voice sounds normal. You're proud of it.

"Find out, Ethan," Harriet says. "Christmas is a lovely deadline. New Year's is the hard one."

You get home at eight. The light is on under Theodore's door, but he's in the kitchen, kneeling in front of the radiator in your room's doorway with a wrench.

"It's been banging," he says without looking up. "Halina said you'd complain."

"I wasn't going to complain."

"You were going to complain."

"I was going to complain politely."

The radiator shrieks as he turns something. Steam hisses. He jerks back from the valve, and the hood slides off his head.

And you forget, completely, what you were going to say.

He's beautiful.

Not handsome. Not cute. Beautiful the way a storm over the ocean is beautiful, the kind that makes you stop on the sidewalk. Black hair, a little too long, falling across his forehead. Cheekbones like they were drawn with a ruler. Eyes the grey of rain on a window, and lashes so dark they look smudged. A thin pale scar cuts through his left eyebrow. His mouth, which you have only seen in pieces, is the rest of the sentence, and the sentence is unfair.

He's the kind of face that makes a whole subway car go quiet. The kind that sells perfume on the side of a building.

And he lives in a hoodie in a walk-up above a laundromat.

He notices you staring. Something crosses his face, quick and closed, like a shutter slamming. He yanks the hood back up.

"Fixed," he says. "Should be quieter."

"Theodore," you say.

He stands. He's taller than you by a few inches, and close, in the narrow doorway. You can smell him: soap, burnt toast, cold air.

"Don't, Ethan," he says. Quiet. Not angry. Almost pleading.

"Don't what?"

"Look at me like that."

He brushes past you and goes into his room, and the real lock turns.

You stand there with your pulse in your throat, and you realize you've stopped thinking about Nightjar for a full minute, which has never happened before in your adult life.

You go to get water. That's all. You're not snooping.

There's a stack of mail on the counter by the door, held down by the salt shaker. Most of it is junk for previous tenants. Pizza menus. A dentist reminder for someone named Gloria.

One envelope is different. Heavy cream paper, the kind that costs money. A logo embossed in the corner, a black crow with its wings folded, and you know that logo, because you've seen it under every Nightjar song ever streamed.

Corvane Records.

It's addressed to T. Wolfe, 212 Dorran St., Apt 4B.

Across the front, in red ink, someone has stamped two words and a number.

NJ-3 MASTERS.