Chapter 2 #2
Drew rubs his hands together. “All right, what’s the show called again?”
Miles answers without hesitation. “The Late Lounge.”
Of course Miles knows. He knows everything. The man probably has our call times tattooed on his soul.
Drew whistles. “Okay, but that host is cool. He won’t do the gross personal stuff.”
“Yeah,” Eli agrees. “He’s not one of those ‘tell me your deepest trauma for laughs’ guys.”
“Thank God,” I mutter, because tonight’s set is “Velocity.”
And that song… that song is a bruise I keep pressing. It was one of our first real hits. One of the songs that put us on the map in a way that didn’t feel temporary. People chant it back at me in stadiums like it belongs to them.
They don’t know it was born from a single moment that still lives in my chest like a prayer and a wound. Ollie Marshall, in a hallway full of light, looking at me like I was someone worth seeing.
The first time I fell.
Vinny’s alarm goes off, and he jumps like he’s been shot. “Time to go,” he says.
We all start moving, grabbing coats, checking pockets, doing the ritual we’ve done a hundred times. Miles pauses near me as I stand, voice low enough that only I hear. “Just get through it,” he says.
I nod once.
Get through it.
That’s the plan.
We file out toward the cars, the late-afternoon sun bleeding gold across the street, and for a second, I let myself imagine the quiet of San Francisco. The way the air there tastes different. The way my house feels like it belongs to me.
Soon.
Just… not yet.
Not yet, I think bitterly. My life is full of those words.
And I follow my band out into the light.
The studio smells like hairspray, warm lights, and a faint electrical hum that always makes me think of stage rigs even when we’re nowhere near a stage. We’ve done so many of these over the years that my body knows the sequence before my brain catches up.
Park. Enter through the side door. Smile at the receptionist. Security check. Lanyards. A producer who talks too fast. A handler who says love you, guys like we’re friends. Green room. Mic check. Sound check. Couch. Questions. Laugh at the right places. Play the song. Leave.
Rinse. Repeat.
We’re barely through the door when a woman with a headset and a clipboard appears like she’s been summoned by our footsteps. “Steel Saints!” she chirps. “Hi—welcome. I’m Naomi.”
Naomi’s smile is bright and practiced, but her eyes are kind. She looks like she’s supercharged on coffee and has been going since dawn and somehow still has the energy to beam at us like we’re the first interesting thing she’s seen all day.
“Hi,” Miles says smoothly. “Thanks for having us.”
“No problem!” Naomi gestures down the hallway. “We’re just going to get you settled, then do a quick sound check onstage. After that, you’ll hang in the green room until we’re ready to bring you out.”
“Green room,” Vinny mutters. “Why is it never green?”
Naomi laughs like she’s heard that joke a thousand times and still enjoys it. “Ours actually is, a little.”
“That’s unsettling,” Seth says.
Naomi leads us through a maze of corridors with framed photos on the walls—celebrities frozen mid-laugh on this same set, old hosts shaking hands with politicians and actors and athletes.
The Late Lounge is basically the LA version of a cozy talk show.
Casual, funny, plenty of banter, a live audience that laughs easily.
It’s also filmed, which means whatever version of myself I put on today is going to live forever on the internet.
Lucky me.
Naomi opens a door and ushers us into a room with a couch, snacks that look expensive, and a coffee machine that probably makes drinks better than I do. Though to be fair, I still make a mean latte.
“Here you go,” she says. “Bathroom’s down the hall, two doors left. The host—Cal—will say hi before we start. He’s just finishing his rehearsal.”
Cal. Right. The presenter.
Cal Hart is… actually a good guy. He’s funny without being cruel and charming without making it about him. Which is why I agreed to this without fighting harder.
“Sound check in ten,” Naomi adds. “Just hang tight.” She disappears before anyone can complain.
Drew immediately makes a beeline for the snacks like he hasn’t eaten in a week.
“Didn’t you come straight from lunch?” I say. “How are you still hungry?”
“I have a gift,” he says, mouth already full.
Eli sits beside him, grinning. “Ignore him.”
Miles checks his phone and fiddles with a guitar pick even though we’re not onstage yet. Vinny and Seth sit close by, already looking bored as though they wish they’d gone into another profession.
And me? I head for the mini fridge, open it, and grab a can of soda.
No alcohol. Not anymore. Not because I can’t, but because I don’t want to.
After that first international tour and my… friends stepping in, drinking stopped feeling fun and started feeling like a way to avoid my own thoughts. And I’m tired of running from them.
I crack open the can, take a sip, and let the cold fizz ground me.
A few minutes later, Naomi reappears. “Okay! Let’s do sound check.”
We follow her through the hallway to the stage entrance. The set is exactly what you’d expect: warm lighting, a long couch, an armchair, a coffee table with tasteful fake books, and a backdrop that looks like a stylized city skyline at night.
Cal Hart is onstage practicing his intro, cue cards in hand, suit jacket off.
He looks up when he sees us and breaks into a grin. “There they are!”
He hops down like he’s meeting friends, not guests. “Steel Saints,” he says, shaking hands like it matters. “Thanks for being here. Seriously. I know you guys are fresh off tour.”
Miles smiles. “Happy to.”
Cal’s eyes flick to me and soften a little, like he can tell I’d rather be under a blanket at home. “Rafe,” he says warmly. “Good to see you again.”
We’ve crossed paths before—industry events, charity galas, the occasional festival. Cal has always been… normal, in a world full of people who aren’t.
“Yeah,” I say. “Good to see you.”
“We’ll keep it chill,” Cal promises. “Tour wrap, a little music talk, then you guys rip the roof off with a song and we all go home happy.”
Drew points at him. “I like this guy.”
Cal laughs. “I’m very likable. It’s my brand.”
We do the sound check. Mics clipped. Levels tested. A quick run of the opening riff for “Velocity” to make sure the audio is clean.
My fingers find the strings, muscle memory doing what it always does. And still—my chest constricts at the first chord. Because this song is a ghost, and the first time I played it in my head, I was thinking about a tall basketball player with a careful smile and too many walls.
Now I play it for crowds of thousands.
Funny how life works.
Sound check done, Naomi leads us back toward the green room. “You’re all set. We’ve got another guest arriving soon, but you’ll all be in the green room together—should be fun.”
“Who?” Vinny asks.
Naomi’s lips part as if to answer, but she’s pulled away before she gets the chance.
We file into the green room—yes, it is sort of green, in an aggressively modern way. There’s a plush couch, chairs, a table with more snacks, and a giant monitor showing the live feed of the stage while crew shuffle around like ants.
And sitting in an armchair like he belongs there is a man I recognize instantly.
Actor.
Famous.
Cool in that effortless way that makes you want to either be him or punch him, depending on your mood. He’s mid-laugh looking at his phone when we walk in, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He looks up, eyes bright.
“Holy shit,” he says. “Steel Saints.”
Miles beams. “Holy shit, you.”
The actor stands and offers his hand like a normal person. “I’m Adrian Vale.”
Adrian Vale. Movie star. Awards. Blockbusters. The kind of guy who plays charming assholes and somehow makes people love him for it.
“Rafe,” I say, shaking his hand.
His grip is firm. “Man, I saw you guys in London. You were insane.”
“Thanks,” I say.
He settles back in, and the room falls into that easy preshow chatter: tour stories, bad airport food, Cal’s sense of humor, how weird it is to be filmed in a room that’s supposed to feel like a living room.
I sip my soda and try to stay present. Try not to think about SF. About fog. About quiet. About my house up there and how safe it feels.
Try not to think about things I don’t have.
Try not to—
The door opens.
At first, I don’t pay attention. People come and go in studios constantly. Producers, assistants, makeup people. But then I see him, because my body reacts before my brain does.
Tall, broad shoulders, and a familiar posture like gravity knows him. A face I’ve seen a thousand times on screens but not in real life in almost eight years.
Oliver Marshall walks into the room.
For a second, everything slows. Sound dips out. My pulse becomes the loudest thing in existence. My fingers go cold.
He hasn’t seen me yet. He’s looking at Naomi, probably listening to her instructions, his attention angled the wrong way.
And I’m just… stuck.
I take him in like I’m starving.
He looks older. Not in a bad way. In a man way. The kind of solid maturity that comes from years of weight rooms and pressure and leadership and being watched. His hair’s a little shorter than I remember. His jaw is sharper. There’s something about him that feels… carved.
Still beautiful.
Still him.
And right alongside the longing is something hollow. A sadness so familiar it makes my throat burn, because the last time I saw him, we were us.
Now he’s…
He’s a ghost made real.
Eli is the one who breaks the moment. He stands up so fast his chair scrapes. “Holy fucking shit,” he says, loud enough for the whole room to hear. “Ollie Marshall.”
Ollie snaps his attention to Eli like he’s been slapped. His eyes go wide. His face drains of color so quickly it’s almost frightening. And then he searches. Like he’s looking for the source of a sound he’s been hearing in his sleep for years.
His gaze collides with mine, and I swear the room vibrates. Maybe it’s just my blood rushing too fast. Maybe I’m about to black out. Maybe this is what it feels like when the universe finally stops being cruel for half a second.
Ollie’s mouth opens. His voice comes out like a fracture. “Rafe.”
My name.
On his lips.
In a room full of people.
And before I can even breathe—before I can respond, before I can do anything—Naomi’s voice slices through the moment like a knife.
“Okay! Band, we’re up first—let’s go, let’s go!”
Hands are on shoulders. Movement starts. Miles grabs my elbow, guiding me toward the hallway like it’s automatic, like this is just another segment in the show.
The band is being pulled away, redirected, ushered toward the stage entrance. And Ollie is still there, frozen in the green room, watching me like he can’t decide whether to run or collapse.
My heart pounds so hard it hurts.
I look back once—just once—as they drag us away. Our eyes lock again, and then the door swings shut between us.