Chapter 28 Joel
Joel
The crowd is alive, buzzing, pressing in from all sides. The heat, the sweat, the restless anticipation—it should be grounding me.
But it’s not.
I stand just offstage, fingers flexing and unflexing around the neck of my guitar. The house lights are low, shadows stretching across the dance floor, and the bass from the overhead speakers thrums in my chest like a second heartbeat.
I should be amped. Should be itching to step onto that stage and do the only thing that has ever made sense to me.
Instead, my skin feels too tight.
My chest is a fucking battlefield—my lungs refusing to settle, my ribs stretched like a wire pulled taut.
Because all I can think about is her.
What would she think about the tour? Would she care or tell me to get lost?
What if I stayed? Played some more shows at Nocté? Would it piss her off that I’m staying longer?
Shit, I told myself I wouldn’t let her invade my head tonight. That I’d get on stage, go through the set, finish the show, and move the fuck on if that’s what she wants.
But my head won’t shut up.
Did I push too hard? What if she just needs more time? Should I have told her—
No.
I shake it off, adjusting the strap over my shoulder. Focus, Price.
The setlist is burned into my brain. My fingers know what to do. My voice will follow.
Music is what I do.
Even when nothing else makes sense, music does.
It’ll pull me back. It always has.
Mark gives me the nod to head on stage.
I roll my shoulders, shake out my hands.
I’ve done this a thousand times. Stepped onto a stage, let the music take over, let it strip me down, pull me into something bigger than myself.
But tonight?
Tonight, I can’t get out of my fucking head.
The weight in my chest is pressing down, pressing in, pressing too goddamn much.
I adjust my guitar strap, but my fingers won’t stay steady.
My throat is already dry.
The crowd is chanting, their energy electric, but I feel like a live wire ready to snap.
I take a deep breath, try to force it down, force it away.
But something about tonight feels final.
And I don’t know if I’m ready for that.
I step forward.
The lights slam into me.
As expected, the first song is muscle memory.
I sing. I play. I move.
But something’s off.
The words come out too tight.
The rhythm is there, but it’s shaky.
I adjust the mic, try to loosen my grip, but my hands are too stiff, too tense, too goddamn tight.
Somehow, the crowd still loves it—the front row dancing and singing along.
I let the music take over, let it drown out the noise in my head, let it bury every thought that isn’t a chord progression or a lyric slipping past my lips.
The songs should pull me under, bury me in the rhythm, drag me away from my own thoughts. That’s how it works.
That’s how it’s always worked.
But tonight?
Tonight, the music isn’t enough.
I wait for the music to calm me.
It doesn’t.
The second song starts, darker, heavier.
I play it too hard.
My fingers slam into the chords with more force than necessary.
The band follows, picking up on my energy, shifting with me. Thank fuck for that.
To the crowd, I’m sure it just sounds like I’m feeling it.
They don’t know I’m trying to escape.
That I’m pushing too hard, too fast, trying to outrun my own goddamn thoughts.
It doesn’t work.
The lyrics leave my mouth, but they don’t feel real.
They’re phantom words about feelings I don’t want to feel.
I grit my teeth.
Sing harder.
Nothing.
I grip my guitar, pressing my fingers into the strings until they bite back. The band is tight, the sound is clean, the crowd is losing their minds—but I feel fucking hollow. This is nothing like the first show. This is deeper. Heavier somehow.
I thought after that kiss, after the way she grabbed me like she needed me, like she wanted more— it would be different.
But it wasn’t.
And now, I don’t know what to do with that.
I sing, I play, I pretend.
But nothing reaches me.
The lyrics leave my mouth, but they don’t feel real. They’re phantom words about feelings I’d rather not feel.
I keep my eyes forward, focused on the sea of moving bodies. I wish I could be that fucking carefree. Floating on a reality where the only thing that matters is booze and the thump of the bass.
Don’t look for her. There’s no point.
Because she’s not here.
I saw the way she hesitated in the kitchen. The total fear in her eyes. The way she couldn’t say what we both knew was the truth.
She’s not ready for this. Not for me.
So I play like this is just another show.
Like this is just another night and not the end of something.
Lie to yourself, Joel. Pretend it doesn’t hurt.
The weight in my chest shifts, pressing harder, dragging lower. I pour everything into it—frustration, regret, every fucking unspoken word.
And still, it’s not enough.
The crowd moves, sways, continues to sing back to me. But it all feels far away.
Like I’m here, but not really.
Like I’m playing into the void.
Like I could scream into this mic, put every ounce of my soul into this stage, and it still wouldn’t fix this ache under my ribs.
I don’t even realize I’m looking toward the back of the room until—
There.
A flicker of black hair being flung over a shoulder.
A shadow beside the bar.
My pulse jolts, hard and fast.
I blink, forcing my eyes to snap forward.
I won’t do this to myself again.
I’ve imagined her in places she’s never been before. Convinced myself I saw her when she was miles away.
That’s all this is.
Another trick.
Another moment of wishful thinking.
It’s not her. It’s not.
Just someone who moves like her.
Someone who stands like her.
Someone who—
My breath cuts short.
Because now I see Lily.
And London.
And then—
No. No fucking way.
My stomach free-falls.
Because it’s her.
Here.
Watching me.
The chord in my fingers goes sharp, ringing out wrong, exposing me.
I recover—barely.
Too late.
The band keeps playing, keeps covering—but I’m gone.
Everything tilts.
The lights are too bright, the air too thick, the heat crushing down on me like a tidal wave.
She wasn’t supposed to come.
She said she wouldn’t.
So why—
Why is she here?
I rip my gaze away, but it’s too fucking late.
She’s here.
And now, everything is different.
The song nearly derails because I forgot how to breathe.
I rip my gaze away. I try to shake it off, to pretend I didn’t just see the one person I was certain would never show up.
But it’s too late.
For some insane reason, she came. And I don’t know what it means.
The next song is hers.
Hell, they’re all hers.
The crowd doesn’t exist. The club doesn’t exist. The lights, the heat, the bass shaking the floor—none of it matters.
Because she’s watching me.
She’s hearing everything.
Every lyric I wrote about her—even before I realized I was doing it.
Every moment I’ve spent aching for her.
Every second I’ve waited for her to see me the way I see her.
And she’s still standing there.
Why hasn’t she left?
She should have stormed out the second she realized what this was—what this has always been.
But she doesn’t.
I don’t know what that means.
I don’t know what the hell to do with it.
The final song is coming.
I know it.
The band knows it.
The crowd sure as hell knows it.
And they start chanting for it.
“Do You See Me.”
The song that put me on the map.
The song that made me a fucking name in this industry.
But they don’t know.
They don’t know who it really belongs to.
And I can’t play it.
Won’t.
Not without her.
Not when I gave it back.
The crowd is relentless.
I hesitate for a full heartbeat too long.
Mark gives me a look. The crowd gets louder, shouting for it.
I lick my lips, my breath unsteady.
I grip the mic like it’s the only thing holding me up.
And I say, voice wrecked, heart ruined— “This last one… is about love.”
The second the first chord of Always You rings out, something in me tilts. It’s subtle at first, like a thread being tugged loose inside my chest, unraveling something I didn’t realize I’d tied so goddamn tight.
I search her out—locking eyes with her. I need her to listen, to feel this song as I fucking break for her. She ran before, but maybe… maybe this time she’ll hear me out.
I should be focusing on the song. On the lyrics I’ve nailed down for her. On the way my fingers move over the strings, steady, deliberate.
But I’m not.
Because all I see is her.
And for the first time since she walked back into my life, I don’t know what the hell I’m looking at.
Anna is still.
Not frozen. Not locked up in tension, but still.
Her hands aren’t clenched. Her shoulders aren’t tight. She’s just… standing there. Watching me with such an open expression it damn near shatters me.
Because I don’t know what that means.
I don’t know if I can trust what I’m seeing.
She’s not running.
But is she staying?
I push into the first verse, and my voice wavers just slightly, my throat raw from the weight of this moment. From all the moments before it.
And I watch her. I can’t not.
I watch the slow rise and fall of her chest.
The way her lips part, like she’s forgetting how to breathe, too.
The way her fingers twitch at her sides, like she wants to grab onto something—like maybe she’s holding herself back from reaching for me.
Or maybe that’s just what I want to believe.
I blink hard, keep singing, but fuck, my mind is playing tug-of-war with itself.
Is she just listening?
Or is this something more?
Does she feel me—this?
Does she… want this?
My pulse kicks, hard and fast.
I push into the next verse, and I swear to God, I see something shift in her.
Her shoulders drop the smallest fraction. Her fingers relax.
And fuck—her eyes.
They’ve never looked like this before.
Or maybe they have, and I was too stupid to notice.
Because there’s no fear there.
No barriers.
No walls between us.
Is this real?
I swallow hard, fingers tightening around the guitar. It doesn’t make sense.
Anna doesn’t let go this easily. She doesn’t let herself be seen.
But she’s standing here, in this room filled with people, with music, with me—
And for the first time, she’s not hiding from it.
I don’t understand.
But I want to.
God, do I want to.
I push through the chorus, let the weight of my own words sit heavy on my tongue.
And then—she exhales.
A long, slow breath, her chest rising and falling like she’s matching the rhythm of the song.
Like she’s letting herself feel it.
Like she’s letting herself truly be here.
I nearly miss the next chord.
Because fuck.
This isn’t the same Anna who walked away from me in that kitchen.
She’s still guarded—of course she is. But something’s different.
Something is so goddamn different I don’t know what to do with it.
My heart slams against my ribs.
Does she feel this too?
Does she know what this means to me?
She doesn’t move.
Doesn’t look away.
Just keeps standing there, breathing, and I feel it like a shock to my system.
I push through the next verse, my throat tight, my voice rough, and she doesn’t waver.
For the first time, I let myself believe it.
She’s here.
Really here.
And fuck, maybe—maybe she’s staying.
The final chorus comes, and I don’t know what the hell’s going to happen when this song ends.
But for the first time since I stepped on this stage, I don’t feel so goddamn heavy anymore.
And maybe—just maybe—neither does she.