17. Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Seventeen
Lila
Iwasn't even in the crowd tonight.
I was backstage, trying to mind my own damn business. Or pretending to, anyway.
I was curled up on a hideously uncomfortable leather couch that had absorbed years of beer spills, sweat, and the ghost of a thousand cigarettes. Not the vibe of success. The vibe of "local band's cousin used to crash here, and no one asked questions."
My annotated setlist sat open on my lap.
The pages were soft from overhandling, notes crammed into the margins.
My fingers kept twitching over the paper, nervous energy sparking through them.
I felt like I was about to go onstage again, not just waiting out Arcadia Drive's set from a green room that felt too small for my thoughts.
My guitar leaned against the wall, half-tuned, strings slack. Mood.
Finn paced a groove into the floor with his phone in hand, tapping out texts to someone whose name he probably wouldn't remember by brunch. He'd stop, stare at the screen, type again, then pace some more, a one-man anxiety playlist in skinny jeans.
Beyond the door, the venue churned. Crew voices in the corridor, quick and clipped, the muffled thump of bass through the walls, a walkie squawk, a runner calling out a time check.
Somewhere nearby, someone laughed too loudly in the way people do when they're trying to pretend they're not exhausted.
Then I heard it.
"I'm going to play a surprise song tonight." Evan's voice crackled through the stage monitor, casual, too casual, the tone he used when he announced an encore, not when he was about to take a match to the last chair holding me up.
My spine snapped straight, cold dread slicing through me.
Finn's pacing slowed for half a beat. He looked at me, quick and assessing, then looked away like he was giving me privacy to explode.
And then the chords. That progression came through the monitor, clean and sure, and yanked me straight back to his crappy apartment at 2 a.m. on a rainy Tuesday.
Espresso on the floor. My coffee-stained notebook open across his lap.
His amp hissing in the corner, that low warning sound before something went wrong.
My lyrics. His melody. The bridge we never finished because we were too busy kissing over bad coffee and worse decisions.
He'd changed the key, rearranged the ending, sanded the jagged edges until it sounded like a song instead of a secret. He hadn't stolen it, not exactly. Somehow that made it worse. He'd taken something private and made twelve thousand strangers feel entitled to it.
For a second, my body had one clear instruction: get to the stage, cut the power, rip the cable out, smash his stupidly beautiful guitar, toss a mic stand and let the headline write itself.
I didn't move. Miracle of restraint. Someone alert the Vatican.
I trembled uncontrollably, rage biting deep moons into my palms.
"Smart move," Finn muttered, dropping onto the couch beside me. He spoke as if he were watching a tornado approach through a window. "Didn't need another viral video of you yanking out his amp cord. I mean, I'd watch it, but..."
I couldn't even snark back.
Finn angled his body toward mine, the humor fading into something careful. "You're shaking like a chihuahua on Red Bull," he said, gentler. "You okay?"
I didn't answer because there wasn't an answer that didn't sound pathetic.
It wasn't just a song. It was that song. The one where I'd poured every confession I hadn't dared to say out loud, then handed pieces of it to him because I trusted him, because I loved him, because I thought we were building something that belonged to us even if no one else knew.
Now it was echoing through the venue, dressed in his voice and stage lights. My private confession, now a crowd's chant.
I sat there with my fists clenched in my lap, trying to hold myself together, trying not to cry, trying not to do something that would land me on TikTok with a caption including the words unhinged and iconic.
Finn didn't push. He stayed beside me, an anchor made of sarcasm and loyalty, while the monitor carried Evan's voice into the room and made every inch of me want to run toward him and away from him at the same time.
Finally, the set ended.
The roar of the crowd swelled, then faded into applause and chanting. The band's practiced thank-yous, the ritual phrases, the cadence of a show winding down. Then boots in the hallway, a shuffle, a laugh.
The door handle turned.
The door swung open.
There he was. Still glowing from stage adrenaline, skin damp, hair pushed back in that messy way that looked effortless and absolutely wasn't, sweat glistening at his temples. His grin was maddening, practiced, the one he wore when he'd just owned a room and knew it.
His eyes found mine and stripped every defense I had left.
I was on my feet before my brain could file an objection. "What the hell was that?"
His grin didn't vanish. That was the problem. It shifted into something smaller and sharper, like he wanted to win the argument more than he wanted to be kind.
"What are you talking about?"
"Innocence does not suit you."
"I played a song," he said, voice easy, too easy. "One you gave me."
Finn made a low sound behind me that might have been a warning or him deciding where to stand when the wreckage started flying.
"You don't get to play that song," I said.
"Why not?" Evan stepped inside, letting the door fall shut behind him. "You play songs I wrote for you every night."
"That's different."
"How?"
"This was ours."
His expression flickered, just once, enough to prove the hit landed. Then his mouth curved again, not happy, not soft. "So you do remember."
I hated him. I wanted him. The combination was deeply inconvenient.
"Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Pretend you didn't know exactly what you were doing."
"I knew."
The admission cut through the room. Finn stopped moving. My breath went nowhere useful.
Evan looked at me like he was too tired to lie and too angry to apologize cleanly. "I knew what it was."
"And you played it anyway."
"Yeah."
The word should have made it easier to stay mad. It did not. Because he didn't sound proud. He sounded hurt, petty, a little cruel in the way people get when they've been bleeding too long and decide someone else should see the stain.
"Why?" I asked.
He moved closer, slow enough that I could step back if I wanted. I didn't. His eyes stayed locked on mine. "Because I wanted you to hear it."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only honest one I've got."
I laughed once, not cute, more like a glass cracking in a sink. "Congratulations on honesty. Terrible timing."
"You think I don't know that?"
"I think you wanted a reaction."
His mouth tightened. There it was.
"That's not fair," he said.
"No?"
"No."
"Then tell me I'm wrong."
Silence, beautiful and damning.
My hands curled at my sides. "You took something private. You put lights on it. You made it consumable."
His jaw flexed, but he didn't look away. "You left me with a lot of private things and nowhere to put them."
"That is not my fault."
"No." His voice dropped. "Not all of it."
The room went quiet in a way even Finn respected. For once.
Evan took one more step, too close now, close enough that I could see the sweat drying along his collar, close enough to smell the stage on him, heat and smoke and the faint mint he used to hide the cigarette habit he'd sworn he was quitting.
I should have stepped back. Naturally, I stood my ground like an idiot with excellent posture.
"You had no right," I said.
"You're right."
That stunned me. Then he ruined it by adding, "But you don't get to act like that song only belonged to you."
My throat burned. He was right too. It stung.
"It didn't belong to them," I said.
"No," he said. "It didn't."
His gaze dropped to my hands, still shaking. I curled them into fists.
"Then why are you shaking?"
"Because I'm mad at you."
"Mad," he said, stepping closer, "or something else?"
Finn made a sound like a man realizing he was in the splash zone.
I should have told Evan to back up. I should have told him to get out. I should have done many sensible things and possibly taken up meditation.
Instead, I grabbed his jacket and yanked him toward me.
His mouth crashed into mine, or mine crashed into his. Hard to say. The point was collision.
Behind me, Finn's voice rose. "Let's, uh, give them a minute."
"But it was just getting good," someone muttered from the hall.
Crew. Security. A random runner who had no business being invested.
I broke away, mortified and furious, and spun toward the door. "Absolutely not."
Evan's eyes were wild now. Not polished, not safe, not stage-smiling for anyone.
"Lila."
"No."
I stalked into the hallway, past a production table and a stack of cases labeled with tape and Sharpie, past a stagehand carrying a coil of cable, past a security guard who suddenly found the opposite wall fascinating.
Footsteps followed me. Of course they did.
"Say it," Evan called after me.
"Say what?"
"That you still want me."
I laughed, brittle and furious. "You're unbelievable."
"Lie if you have to."
That stopped me.
The hallway narrowed around us. The green room door was half open behind him. Somewhere down the corridor, a crew member shouted for more towels. The whole venue kept moving like my life wasn't currently trying to drive itself off a cliff.
I turned.
Evan stood a few feet away, chest rising fast, eyes fixed on me like he wanted to fight and beg and kiss me again, maybe all at once.
"You don't get to play our song in front of thousands of people and then demand honesty from me," I said.
"I'm not demanding honesty."
"You literally just said, say it."
"Fine." His mouth twisted. "I'm demanding one lie that sounds close enough."
The line hit somewhere low and mean. Because I could give him that. I could lie. I could say I wanted him, and it would be the truest lie I'd ever told.
My hands were still shaking. He saw. His gaze dropped to them, then back to my face.
"Don't," I warned when he reached toward me.
He stopped immediately. That should have helped. It didn't. The restraint made me angrier. Or softer. Or both.
I slapped his hand away anyway, even though he wasn't touching me anymore. "Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you know me."
His laugh was rough. "I do know you."
"No. You knew me."
His expression changed, pain first, then anger. "Fine," he said. "Then tell me to walk away."
I stared at him. The sensible answer stood there with a clipboard. Walk away, end scene, save dignity.
Instead, I stepped forward and kissed him.
It was not soft. Soft would have been a lie. It was teeth and anger and months of unsent texts. His hands caught my waist, then stopped there, fingers digging into fabric like he was holding himself in place more than holding me.
I kissed him like I wanted to punish him. Like I wanted to keep him. Like both impulses had always worn the same face.
He backed me into the green room door, shoulder-first. The handle rattled against the frame. A poster fluttered off the wall and slid to the floor as if it wanted no legal involvement. We broke apart just long enough to shove the door open.
Inside, empty. Thank God, or not God, whoever handled backstage privacy and bad choices.
Evan kicked the door shut behind us. The click sounded too loud. For half a second, we stared at each other. His mouth was swollen, mine felt worse, my pulse had moved into every part of my body and started a riot.
"Tell me to stop," he said, right against my mouth, low and rough and not teasing.
"Don't you dare."
That was all it took.
His mouth found mine again, and the room disappeared in pieces. My hands twisted in his jacket. His fingers slid into my hair, then down to my hips. He touched me like he was still asking, even when his mouth was telling a different story.
I answered by dragging him closer.
The couch hit the backs of my legs. We went down awkwardly, all sharp elbows and swallowed curses. It should have been ridiculous. It was ridiculous. It was also so hot I briefly forgot my own government name.
His breath broke against my neck when I tugged his shirt up, and for one flashing second I remembered hotel sheets, tour bus calls, lyrics scribbled over diner receipts. Then he kissed that memory out of me.
Clothes shifted, buttons fumbled. My jeans slid down enough to make me hiss at the cold air and the sheer stupidity of my own choices. His hands paused at my thighs. I looked at him. He looked at me, still asking, still Evan even when he was furious.
"I'm sure," I said.
His control cracked. Not all the way. Enough.
The rest of the world shrank to the couch under my back, his body against mine, the door at our side, the muffled thud of the venue through the walls. Heat and rhythm and the terrible, perfect familiarity of him.
Every movement dragged up a memory I did not have time to defend against. A diner booth at midnight. A tour bus call at 10:28. His mouth on my throat. My laugh in his ear. A song we never finished because we were too busy believing we had time.
I bit his shoulder because anger needed somewhere to go. He groaned into my neck and whispered my name like he hated how much he meant it.
That nearly ruined me. Not the sex. The way he still sounded like mine.
I came apart with my hand pressed over my mouth, because of course some rational fragment of my brain chose that moment to care about acoustics. Evan followed a minute later, forehead dropped to my shoulder, fingers tight on my waist, breath hot against my skin.
For one beat too long, neither of us moved. Then reality came back like a bucket of ice water.
I shoved at his chest. He moved immediately. No argument, no hesitation. That made it worse for some reason.
I yanked my jeans up with shaking hands. My fingers fumbled with the button like it had suddenly become advanced engineering.
"This never happened," I said.
Evan leaned back against the door, chest still rising hard. His hair was a mess, his mouth swollen, his eyes wrecked in a way that made my stomach twist.
"You keep telling yourself that, Twilight." His voice was rough enough to scrape. "Maybe one day you'll believe it."
I didn't trust myself to answer. I grabbed my jacket from the floor and opened the door.
The hallway was blessedly empty. For once, the universe kept its stupid mouth shut.
I stepped out. Behind me, I felt him watching, listening to my footsteps fade down the corridor, counting the distance like it meant something.
The worst part wasn't that he played our song. It was that, in some twisted, painful, impossible way, it still felt like ours.