Chapter 8 #2
“After,” I agree, even though I’m full of shit. I can’t let her know about a divorce from a marriage she knows nothing about.
The lights dim slightly, capturing my attention. Eli steps up onto the small stage set up at the far end of the room. The chatter softens as people realize something’s happening.
He takes the microphone and clears his throat. While his smile is bright, his eyes are shiny. “Hey,” he says. “Hi. Thank you.”
A ripple of warmth runs through the room—applause, whistles, laughter.
Eli lifts a hand. “Seriously. Thank you all for being here. This… means a lot.”
He talks about the foundation. About early detection. About access. About the families who don’t have the resources Eli’s family had. He thanks donors. Volunteers. His wife, who wipes at her eyes and rolls them like shut up, you sap.
He glances toward the table where his dad is sitting. His dad lifts his chin, proud and emotional, and Eli’s voice wavers for the first time. “I didn’t know how scared I could be,” he admits. “And I didn’t know how much community could hold you up until I was drowning.”
The room is quiet now, reverent.
Then Eli smiles again, brighter. “So. Tonight is about raising money, yes. But it’s also about celebrating the fact that my dad is here, alive, and still being an absolute pain in my ass.”
Laughter breaks the tension like a wave. Eli’s dad flips him off from his table, and the whole room cracks up.
Eli points at him. “See? Proof.” He takes a breath. “Okay. Enough of me talking. You didn’t come here just for my emotional TED Talk.”
More laughter.
“You came because Steel Saints are going to play a short set for you tonight.”
The applause is immediate, loud, excited.
Eli turns, gesturing toward us. “Get up here, assholes.”
We move toward the stage, instruments waiting, stagehands adjusting mic stands. My pulse picks up, not from nerves—this part never scares me anymore—but from the fact that performance is safer than standing still.
Up here, I can hide inside the music. Up here, no one expects me to answer my phone.
Eli leans toward me as we step into position. “You good?”
I nod once. The lie tastes familiar.
The lights warm over us. The crowd settles. Phones lift, but in a respectful way—no flash, no chaos. Just people wanting to remember.
I wrap my hand around the microphone, fingers steady.
Miles glances at me, silently checking in. Rosa’s somewhere in the crowd with Luis, watching. Elliot’s near the auction table, already bidding on something ridiculous. And somewhere far away, in Minnesota, a divorce petition sits on a kitchen counter like an ending.
I inhale, and we start to play.
We’re halfway through the second song when the room shifts into that familiar rhythm—bodies swaying, laughter bubbling, people loosening their shoulders because live music does that. It pulls you out of your head and into something collective.
This one’s upbeat. One of the old crowd-pleasers. Eli’s drums are crisp, Miles is grinning like he’s actually having fun, and Drew’s locked in. Meanwhile, I do what I always do: I perform.
I let the music take the wheel. Let the chord progressions and muscle memory carry me over the parts of my mind I don’t want to touch tonight. The song ends on a tight hit, and the room cheers, loud and genuine.
I smile into the mic, breath a little quick, sweat warm at the back of my neck. “Thank you,” I say. “Seriously.”
Eli steps forward, hand raised, and the room settles again. “All right,” he says, voice bright. “We’ve got time for one more.”
Cheers.
He grins. “You want something older? Something loud? Something that’ll make you all regret the open bar later?”
A chorus of “Yes!” rises up.
I scan the crowd: familiar faces, friendly strangers, donors with soft eyes. Elliot raises his hand like he’s in class.
“Play the new one!” someone calls from near the front.
My stomach dips. They’re talking about our December release.
The one-off not yet attached to any album. The song we’ve never played live before.
It’s a song that shouldn’t exist—because we weren’t planning an album, because we weren’t in that creative cycle, because we’ve never done a random drop like that without a bigger project behind it.
But after I saw Ollie, those fragments I wrote in the car—the ugly truths, the raw lines, the things I never let myself say—grew teeth. Grew shape. Grew into something that demanded to be sung.
When I brought it to the guys, expecting them to tell me I was out of my mind, Miles had just looked at me for a long beat and said, “Get in the studio.”
So we did. One song. One release. One controlled burn.
Eli leans toward the mic, grinning. “You sure you want that one? It’s a gut-punch.”
Someone shouts, “We love pain!”
Laughter ripples, and Drew’s mouth quirks. Miles glances at me, checking. Asking without asking if I can handle it.
My voice sticks in my throat. Can I? I swallow and nod once.
“All right,” Eli says, lifting both hands. “You asked for it.”
The room quiets, anticipation humming. Eli taps his sticks together. Drew shifts his grip. Miles rolls his shoulders.
The opening riff of “My Stupid Heart” hits—killer, sharp, a build that climbs fast like a heartbeat trying to outrun itself. My fingers move on instinct, and then I sing, the lyrics wrapping around the room like smoke.
“I learned to stop waiting at midnight doors,
learned that silence can still be war.
Third headline hit and I didn’t even check—
hope’s a blade and I’m tired of bleeding for it.”
The room is still, listening in that way people do when a song feels too honest.
My voice stays steady.
“You said my name like it wasn’t a weapon,
like all these years didn’t sharpen the edge.
I built a life out of almost and never,
and you still feel like the part I can’t forget.”
The band swells behind me, the riff climbing, the build tightening. And then my gaze snags on movement at the edge of the room. A small group entering quietly, guided by staff.
At first my brain tries to ignore it. I’m mid-verse. I’m locked into the song. The song has me by the throat. But my eyes catch on the motion anyway, and my entire body goes cold.
Ollie. He’s here. Not on a screen. Not in a studio green room with handlers yanking me away. Here. In the flesh. Standing near the entrance, dressed too nice for comfort, eyes locked on me like nothing else exists.
My breath stutters.
The lyrics keep coming because they have to. Because I’m live. Because my band is beside me. Because the room is listening, and I can’t just stop and collapse.
I keep singing, but every word now feels like it’s aimed at him whether I want it to be or not.
“Broken promises dressed up as patience,
as ‘not yet’ until not yet becomes gone.
You can’t hand me goodbye like it’s mercy—
I survived you, but God, I still want what we were on.”
The build hits the crest.
Eli’s drums drive it forward. Drew’s guitar bites. Miles is watching me from the corner of his eye, awareness sharp, steadying the whole damn ship.
I ride the chorus—voice strong, throat burning.
“And my heart—my stupid heart—kept beating anyway,
kept writing you into every empty place.
If love is a ghost, then I’m haunted for life,
and you’re the name I can’t outrun, can’t erase.”
I see Ollie swallow hard. He doesn’t move. He just stands there, staring at me like he’s afraid if he blinks, I’ll vanish.
The final chorus hits, then the last sharp chord.
We end tight, and the room erupts. Applause. Cheers. People shouting. The warm rush of admiration crashing in.
We turn off the mics. Eli grins like he always does after a set. Miles nods at the crowd. Drew beams, soaking up the energy.
I can barely breathe. I turn immediately to Eli, voice low, sharp. “Did you know?”
Eli’s eyes widen. “No,” he says instantly. “Rafe—no. I swear.”
Miles steps closer, grounded. “We didn’t,” he adds. “None of us.”
My heart is still sprinting. Ollie’s still there, and suddenly the room is too small again.
People are already shifting back into gala mode—talking, laughing, heading toward their tables, lining up to speak to us. Eli’s wife is moving toward the stage with a clipboard, trying to shepherd the schedule back into place.
And then I hear it. My name. It’s not shouted or across a studio. It’s close and careful.
“Rafe.”
I freeze. Every muscle locks. I know that voice like I know my own.
I turn, and Ollie is a few feet away now, eyes wide, face tense with fear and resolve, and I have no idea what the fuck I’m going to do.
Last time I fled. Last time I couldn’t handle it. But here? Here there’s nowhere to run without making a scene. Without dragging attention to us. Without turning this moment into spectacle.
So I do the only thing I can: I face him head-on.