Chapter Forty-Four
Declan
Levi’s already blowing up my phone before I even hit the city limits.
“Where are you, man? Don’t bail on me. I know this is weird for you, but it’ll be good! We can leave early if it sucks.”
“I’m two minutes away.”
Which is physically true. Mentally? I’m nowhere near the arena.
He’s waiting outside when I pull up, bouncing on the balls of his feet, practically glowing under the stadium lights.
“This is going to be epic,” he says, walking ahead of me, waving his phone to get our tickets scanned.
Slowing down, I glance at the box office, my stomach clenching as a shadow passes the window.
Would there still be tickets there with my name on them?
Or would he have taken me off the list by now?
Either way, I’m too much of a coward to go and check, my heart already cracking that this is where we are.
Two strangers living in separate worlds, something we swore would never happen.
Joining the crowd, Levi shoves his phone back into his pocket. “I tried messaging him on Instagram, y’know, just in case he sees it.”
At least one of us tried to reach out.
Inside, the stadium is alive, buzzing with a restless kind of electricity; too loud, too bright, too full of him. Cooper’s face is everywhere. Plastered across giant posters, banners, screens looping old videos, fans in handmade shirts, merch stands with his name lit up like it’s a religion.
“Dude, look at all this. This is insane.”
I don’t answer. Because looking at all of this is the problem.
It’s like the universe decided to turn up the volume on every part I’ve been avoiding.
And maybe I’m pathetic for it, but standing surrounded by it feels like pressing on a bruise I’ve spent nearly six years pretending doesn’t hurt anymore.
Behind us, a group of teenage girls squeals, chanting his name when a backstage feed flickers on the giant screen. He laughs with someone off camera, slipping in an earpiece, shoulders shaking with the kind of joy that smacks into places I thought had scarred over.
“Yeah,” I say, or try to. My voice comes out thin, frayed around the edges.
We shuffle farther through the foyer, a couple catching my eye, staring at me with confusion.
“Declan?”
Holly and Seth. Of course they’re here.
She beams, weaving through the crowd. “I thought that was you. Seth, look, it’s Declan!”
“Hey.” I smile, caught off guard, turning to Levi. “You remember Seth, Cooper’s dad? And this is his mom, Holly.”
“Nice to see you again, Levi,” Seth says, shaking his hand.
“I didn’t know you were coming.” Holly glances at Cooper on the screen. “He’s going to be thrilled you’re here.”
Doubtful. But with the way her eyes soften as she reaches up and cups my cheek, I swear her words are more platitude than fact. Whatever happened between her son and me, she’s never once treated me any different.
I open my mouth, words lost and awkward, but before I can respond, she’s pressing two VIP lanyards into my hands.
“Here. You boys go. We’ve been to enough shows, so this one should be yours.”
Levi looks like he’s been handed front-row tickets to the Stanley Cup finals. “Are you serious? Thank you so much.”
“Enjoy it, sweetheart,” she says, patting my cheek. “Tell your parents we’ll call them this weekend.”
VIP is a whole different world. Private bar, padded seats, unobstructed views of the stage stretched wide below us. Levi’s vibrating beside me, phone in hand, recording everything, while I grip the railing hard enough to make my knuckles white.
Why did I come here? Sure, part of me wants to be here, but the other part feels sick.
It’s not like he’ll see me from the stage anyway; he’s too far gone into the lights and crowd for that.
But the VIP pass feels heavy around my neck, the lanyard like a noose, tightening every time I move.
A reminder that after the last chord fades, after the encore, he’ll know I’m here.
And I don’t know what to do with that. Don’t know what version of him I’m walking into after the show. Or what he’ll see when he looks back at me. Either way, both possibilities—him being happy to see me, or barely recognizing me at all—make my stomach knot in the same awful way.
“I can’t believe how close we are,” Levi says as he sends his video to his cousin.
The crowd’s roar builds into something physical, rumbling through my ribs when the lights dim.
A low note travels through the arena, building until it detonates in a wall of sound that crawls up through my boots, my heart syncing with it.
The stage lights ignite with color, and then he’s there.
Center stage, guitar slung low, scarf tied at his wrist, rings glistening on his fingers.
Every inch of him belongs up there. And the stadium erupts.
Levi screams something unintelligible beside me, but all I hear is the crack in my defenses.
“It’s good to be home,” he drawls into the mic, and the sound of his voice punches the air from my lungs.
My vision tunnels. Pride and pain tangle together so tightly in my chest that I can’t tell which is which. For the first time in years, I’m breathing him in again, and it’s almost too much.
He launches into the first song. I know the rhythm—I know them all—even if I haven’t let myself listen in years. Back then, his demos were still a messy string of half-lyrics on napkins, hummed gently under his breath when he didn’t think anyone was listening.
It’s all bigger now, louder, cleaner, thousands of people singing something that once only belonged to us.
“He’s a fucking god out there, huh?” Levi asks, awe thick in his voice before glancing at me, brow furrowed. “You okay?”
I force a nod, unable to take my eyes off Cooper, mesmerized by how fully he’s come into his own. Unstoppable. A goddamn force to be reckoned with.
He moves through the set like he was manufactured for this. Sweat glistens on his collarbones, eyeliner smudged from heat and movement, bracelets twisting together with every chord change. Every song resonates with confidence and unadulterated talent, hitting each note with unwavering intensity.
He plays “Reckless,” and the memory of his grin on FaceTime flashes through my mind, the night he finished the bridge, asking if I liked it. I did. I just never told him how much.
By the time he reaches his second to last song, my throat aches from holding it all in. Each one the ghost of something I watched him build.
“Holy shit.” He laughs, a camera panning to his face, filling the screens on either side of the stage with his breathtaking smile. “If you loved that, wait until you hear this…”
The stage goes dark, and a slow, sensual baseline spills out.
My stomach plummets through the floor. A lone figure struts onto the stage, arms held wide, basking in the noise.
The crowd loses their minds, a tidal wave of screams shaking the rafters.
Cory moves like he belongs up there, the kind of swagger that begs for attention.
And he gets it. They circle each other, weaving in and out of spotlights, the chemistry just as undeniable in person as it was in that damn music video. Too easy, too intimate.
“Shit,” Levi breathes. “I had no idea he’d bring him on stage with him. Dude. You okay?”
I don’t know if I can answer.
I don’t know if I can breathe.
All I know is how easily Cory’s touching him in front of thousands of screaming fans. How easily Cooper leans into him. Like it’s second nature. Like it’s nothing.
But it’s not nothing. Not to me.
I hate this. I fucking hate this. Watching them on stage, acting like they’re the only two here. Every memory of when that used to be me with him is now coated with the green and vile taste of envy.
Their voices melt together, sounding seamless, seductive. When Cory slides a hand up Cooper’s chest from behind him, and Cooper leans back, head tipped against his shoulder, the stadium goes feral.
For them, it’s magic.
For me, it’s a fucking knife.
The song ends, and they stay close, like they’re not ready to break the moment, grinning at each other, and I feel…empty. Or too much.
It’s hard to tell the difference anymore.
It takes nearly an hour for the crowd to thin, the fans drifting out in clusters, still buzzing, still singing. Levi’s flushed, sweaty, high on adrenaline as we file out.
“That was unreal,” he says, voice hoarse. “Seriously, unreal.”
“Yeah, it was pretty great,” I murmur, still seeing flashes of the stage each time I blink.
“Hey. If this is too much, we can head home.”
“I’m fine,” I lie, my thoughts muffled, a tangled mess I can’t make sense of.
Truth is, I don’t know what I want. Leaving feels wrong, but staying feels worse. The longer I’m here in this velvet-roped fishbowl, the more I can feel it tightening around my ribs, trying to suffocate me.
I follow, numb, barely aware as we head into a suite filled with a different kind of chaos.
Fans clutch posters, and there’s security everywhere as the post-show euphoria pulses in waves.
Levi’s attention snaps to a tall guy signing shirts near the bar, his dark hair slicked back with too much gel as he grins at a fan.
“Holy shit, that’s Nate Rowe, the guy who opened for Reign. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
His hand squeezes my shoulder, a silent you good?
before he disappears into the crowd. I stay where I am, but it’s not comfortable, more like trying to stand still on a spot that keeps shifting under my feet.
Fiddling with the lanyard, the noise ebbs and flows around me like static.
My gaze drifts over the cluster of fans, through the palpable excitement, the flashing of cameras. Over at…him.
Still in his stage clothes, hair damp, laughing at something one of his team says. The sound doesn’t reach me, but my body remembers it anyway. The way it used to make my chest tingle when he laughed too hard, the way his head would drop onto my shoulder when he couldn’t breathe from it.
He turns, and for a split second, our eyes meet. His smile falters, the room blurs—chatter muting, lights dimming—everything else falling away like it knows it’s no longer needed.
Six years collapses in a heartbeat. And just like that, I’m twenty again, standing behind the bar at The Lost Compass, watching him play his first set.
Only now, he’s a star.
And I’m just one more face in the crowd.