white noise records: your muse gives mine music recommendations
it was a harmless comment. offhanded, even. surely, when murphy mentioned that he was looking for new workout music, of any ulterior motive, it would’ve been to hint tommy to tag along with him to the gym.
no. no, of course it couldn’t be that easy. instead, tommy latched onto the most predictable part of the statement and took murphy’s phone, then and there, to start rifling through his music apps like the proverbial panty drawer, making soft little asides to himself about which bands he approved of or which he had never listened to as he started glancing at his own phone, looking the most productive and focused the other had probably ever seen him.
it makes for terrible, absolutely non-existent conversation. quite literally. tommy’s newfound fixation lasts even as they say their goodbyes for the evening, where tom is giving one-armed hugs because the other is holding his phone speaker up to his ear.
and that seems to be the end of it. the topic is not returned to for days, until tommy sends murphy a link to a playlist, titled, simply, #28. it’s the same length as murph’s regular workout sessions, and top-to-bottom with more obscure songs by some of murphy’s liked artists, more obscure artists that sound like some of murphy’s top songs, and a couple absolute left fielders hidden in the depths where the energy flow called for it.
oh; plus the remedy to his error. a text to caption the playlist that reads, ‘if we listen to the same music at the gym tg, you think i’ll get your gains too? 😝’