Chapter 9
OLLIE
“Rafe.” The name leaves my mouth like it’s been waiting behind my teeth for eight years.
He turns fully toward me—no escape routes, no Vinny shepherding him away, no studio staff pulling him behind a curtain—and for a second, the whole room narrows to his face.
Hurt, first. That familiar, hollow hurt I put there. Fear too—quick and sharp, like he’s bracing for me to swing another wrecking ball through his life.
And then something else, smaller. Softer. So faint I almost convince myself I imagined it.
Hope.
It hits me like a punch, and my lungs forget how to work.
I can’t make a scene. I can’t corner him. I can’t stand here and demand anything in front of his bandmates and my sister and Marco and half a room of people who’d love to turn this into gossip the second they get the chance.
So I grab the first safe thing I can: the song.
I swallow, forcing my voice to be steady. “I’ve… never seen you perform that one live.”
The words hang between us. They mean more than they should, and they give me away.
Rafe’s eyes flicker—surprise, then something that looks dangerously close to pain. His throat bobs as he swallows. For a heartbeat, he looks like he might not answer at all. “Yeah,” he says, voice low. “That was… the first time. Outside the studio.”
Outside the studio. Like it’s been locked away, kept contained, never let loose where it could bleed into the world.
My heart knocks against my ribs.
Of course it was the first time. Of course it was tonight, of all nights—when I bought a table that didn’t exist and flew across the country like my life depended on it and walked into this room at the exact moment the song climbed into the air.
Serendipity. That or the universe laughing in my face. There’s no doubt—none, not to anyone in our orbit—that the song is about me—us. Not after the way he looked when he sang it. Not after the way the lyrics landed like confession.
I blink slowly and force my mouth to work again. “It was… beautiful,” I manage.
His gaze holds mine. Shell-shocked. Exposed. Like he doesn’t know what to do with the compliment because it isn’t about the music. It’s about the fact that he wrote me into something permanent again.
Around us, the air feels thin.
Eli is hovering a step away, grin gone, eyes alert.
Miles stands slightly to Rafe’s side, shoulders squared in that protective way of his.
Drew has gone quiet, watching like he’s trying to read the imminence of a storm before it hits.
Vinny is a dark shadow at the edge of our circle, pretending to scan the room while actually scanning us.
Marco is behind me, close enough that I can feel his presence like a hand at my back, ready to pull me away if I do something stupid.
My sister’s on the other side, her face carefully neutral, but her eyes flicking between me and Rafe like she’s watching a magic trick and trying to figure out how it’s done.
No outsiders yet. Not really. But it won’t stay this way long.
For a charity event, it’s oddly tense at the edges.
Not inside—inside it’s contained, curated, safe—but I clock the way Vinny and Seth keep drifting, never fully settling.
The way staff are tighter than they need to be, eyes tracking doors, radios tucked behind ears.
Like the building is trying to pretend it’s just a fundraiser while the world outside remembers Steel Saints are Steel Saints.
I caught a glimpse when we arrived—fans pressed to barricades, phones up, faces bright with that hungry kind of excitement.
It’s always loud, apparently. The kind of crowd that doesn’t care what the night is for, only who’s in the room.
It makes my skin prickle now, the knowledge that “private” is a fragile word when people want something badly enough.
I force myself to shift gears. To breathe. To act like a normal person who isn’t standing two feet from the man he married in secret. I turn slightly toward Eli, letting the conversation widen. “Your dad,” I say, because it matters. “I’m glad he’s doing better.”
Eli’s expression softens immediately. Gratitude flickers through the tension. “Thanks,” he says, voice rougher than he probably wants it to be. “Yeah. He’s… he’s doing really good.”
I nod. “This is incredible,” I add, gesturing vaguely at the room. “You did a hell of a job.”
Eli huffs a laugh, quick and relieved. “My wife did a hell of a job. I just cried into a microphone on the chorus.”
“That was your brand tonight,” Drew murmurs, deadpan.
Eli flips him off without even looking.
The tiny moment of humor loosens the air just enough for me to breathe again. I glance at the tables. “We should probably sit down,” I say, forcing a smile. “Before people start thinking we’re hoarding the band.”
Miles gives me a look—half amused, half wary—but nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Go eat. Someone’s going to steal the dessert if you don’t.”
I start to turn. My body resists, instinct screaming at me to stay planted in front of Rafe until I’ve said everything I flew here to say.
But I don’t get to do that. Not here. Not like this. I know that now, so I do the next best thing. I pause, just enough to catch Rafe’s eyes again, and I say something that only the people who know the truth will hear the full weight of. “I’m… trying,” I say quietly. “To do things differently.”
Rafe’s gaze sharpens like he understands the subtext, even if he refuses to.
I swallow, heart pounding. “If you have time,” I add, voice careful, “maybe later. Or tomorrow. We could… catch up.”
The term catch up is laughably small for what I’m asking. It’s also the only way I can ask without breaking open the room.
Rafe’s jaw tenses. His eyes flick away for a split second like he’s bracing, like he’s debating whether to shut it down.
I hold my breath. Then, slowly, he nods. Just once. It’s small, but real.
My vision blurs so hard it’s almost embarrassing. Relief hits my knees like a wave. I’m suddenly aware of how close I was to passing out from sheer adrenaline and fear. “Okay,” I whisper.
Rafe doesn’t say anything. He just watches me like he’s trying to decide if I’m a mirage.
Marco’s hand lands on my elbow, gentle but firm. “Come on,” he murmurs.
I let him lead me away before I do something stupid like reach for Rafe’s hand.
We make it to our table with a few necessary detours—handshakes, quick greetings, the kind of polite small talk that makes my skin crawl when my entire nervous system is on fire.
I smile. I nod. I say the right things. The whole time, I’m aware of Rafe the way you’re aware of a storm on the horizon.
Where he is. Who he’s speaking to. Whether he’s looking at me. Because our eyes keep catching across the room. Fleeting and electric. Every time it happens, my heart stutters like it’s forgetting its job.
At the table, my sister leans in. “Are you okay?” she asks softly, voice pitched to sound casual.
I manage a small smile. “Yeah.”
She doesn’t believe me, but she doesn’t push—not yet. Not here.
Marco, bless him, starts talking about literally anything else. The food. The silent auction items. Some hilarious parenting story about Tucker refusing to wear pants in public like it’s a political stance.
I laugh at the right places. I chew without tasting, and I keep breathing through the tension like it’s a workout. Because Rafe is in the same room as me, and he nodded. Also because tomorrow is suddenly a real possibility.
And because I don’t know whether that’s hope or just another way the universe is setting me up to fall.
Dinner stretches long the way gala dinners do—courses arriving with polite efficiency, people getting tipsier, conversations growing louder as the room warms into itself.
I should be grateful for the buffer. For the time to steady myself before I try to speak to Rafe again.
Instead, every passing minute feels like I’m wading through molasses.
I keep checking the room without meaning to.
A server drifts past the band’s table for the third time, tray balanced high, movements a fraction too deliberate.
Her uniform looks right at a glance, but something about her focus is off—eyes lifting too often toward the table, toward Rafe, like she’s waiting for the exact right moment.
When Vinny’s gaze snaps briefly in her direction, she pivots away, disappearing into the flow of bodies.
I tell myself I’m imagining it. Tonight has already wired me raw.
Rafe moves like he’s on a different frequency than everyone else—smiling when required, nodding through conversations, but always with that faint tension in his shoulders, like he’s bracing for impact.
Sometimes his gaze finds mine, and sometimes it doesn’t. When it does, it’s like touching a live wire.
After dessert, people stand. The band is pulled into small clusters—donors, friends, familiar faces wanting a moment. Music shifts to something softer and upbeat. A few people begin dancing in the cleared space near the stage.
It should feel normal.
It doesn’t.
I’m halfway through a conversation with some guy Marco knows—something about youth sports funding, I think—when I catch movement near Rafe. A man slides into his space with the ease of someone who belongs there.
Elliot Hale.
Fuck. My stomach drops hard. Elliot is handsome in that polished, effortless way. Too-white teeth. Too confident. Too comfortable. He laughs and throws an arm around Rafe’s shoulders like it’s natural, like it’s habitual.
Rafe’s posture stiffens for half a beat—then he adjusts, accepting it with the practiced calm of a public-facing person who knows how to handle affection without making it a headline.