Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Alyssa
This day has been long.
Too long.
This day seeps into my skin and refuses to leave—like the aftertaste of burnt coffee or the ringing that lingers after standing too close to the speakers.
And the worst part? We haven’t even touched the prep for this weekend’s events.
Not really. We’ve danced around logistics, survived auditions, but the details—the crucial, timeline-shattering details—still hang somewhere between denial and disaster.
When we finally make it home, Jules toes off her heels with a dramatic groan that could be considered for an Oscar and immediately flops onto the couch.
She grabs the remote, rewinds a VHS tape already stuffed into the VCR, and hits play on something she’s been recording for the past couple of weeks but never had the time actually to watch.
“Finally,” she mutters as the grainy opening of Second Opinion crackles on-screen.
It’s one of those overly dramatic hospital shows where the doctors, residents, and even patients look like models.
Everyone’s either dying beautifully or falling in love under fluorescent lighting. It’s ridiculous. Addictively so.
I barely look at the screen. Instead, I drag the clipboard from my tote. I flip through it—pages of notes, scribbled names, timelines half-crossed out and rescheduled twice. It’s like staring down a burning building with a firehose made of hope.
Then it hits me.
Friday. Whittmore Foundation Gala.
Love & Vinyl: TBC.
My blood runs cold.
“Shit.” The word hisses out of me before I can stop it. I flip back two pages. Then another. I scan the contracts and cross-reference the schedule.
No.
No, no, no.
I press a hand to my forehead. “We didn’t replace Love & Vinyl for Friday.”
Jules pauses the TV, slowly turning toward me like I just told her we left the baby on the roof. “What now?”
I flip through the clipboard faster, trying force the booking to change. I check the contract folder. Then the master timeline. And the backup email printouts.
No. No, no, no.
“They were supposed to headline the Whittmore Foundation Gala. The big one. Four hundred guests. Silent auction. Real champagne—actual Perrier-Jouet bottles.” My voice splinters. “We were supposed to finalize their setlist weeks ago, Jules. Weeks.”
I open my mouth, shut it, then add the part we’re both avoiding. “We don’t have a band. Not unless you can convince Josh to forgive Tommy—for one night, with divine intervention and possibly a bribe.”
That would be impossible. Think, Aly, think.
The panic keeps rising, catching in my throat like static. “We don’t have a band,” I repeat, like saying it will make it untrue. “Unless we show up with a CD player and some decent speakers, we’re screwed. No—even then, we’re done.”
Jules blinks, processing, then slowly nods. “Okay. Don’t panic.”
“I’m not panicking.”
(I absolutely am.)
“This is a gala. The gala,” I say, my voice trembling even though I’m clenching my jaw to keep it still.
“Art patrons. Philanthropists. CEOs with private jets and museum wings named after their dogs. People who drop five-figure checks on silent auctions because their Pomeranian got groomed on time for twelve straight months. If we pull this off, we’re not just booked for the year—we’re legitimized. ”
Jules glances around our tiny apartment, where the molding peels slightly at the corners and the couch has a suspicious squeak that sounds vaguely like a whimper. “Legitimized sounds nice. Maybe even . . . office space?”
“An office. A working fax line,” I mutter, staring down the clipboard like I can will it to rewrite itself. “Which is why I can’t just tell them Tommy and Josh had a blowout and Love & Vinyl imploded. People are expecting them.”
“We’ll find a solution.”
My stomach turns. “Not if we crash and burn in front of four hundred people. While someone from Northwest Society Events scribbles in her leather-bound notebook with a pen that costs more than our rent.”
Jules exhales through her nose. “You know who could save us.”
“Don’t,” I snap, already bracing for it.
She lifts both brows, smug and unbothered. “I’m just saying. You’re thinking it too.”
“I’m thinking a lot of things. Mostly that we’re absolutely fucked.”
“You’re thinking about Rafe.”
I ignore her and start flipping through the folders again, pretending I’m looking for a solution that isn’t a tall, broody problem with a vintage guitar and a face that should come with a warning label.
“This isn’t a farmer’s market,” I mutter. “We can’t just swap out the musical talent and hope nobody notices.”
“He’s more than talent,” Jules says. “He’s really good. The guy doesn’t just play the songs but makes them evolve.”
“He seems flaky,” I snap, my voice climbing.
“He showed up solo, rewrote the damn setlist without asking, looked at me like he already knew the answer to every question I hadn’t even asked—then disappeared before I could find out if he’s even legally allowed to play weddings in the state of Washington. ”
She laughs. “That’s not even a thing. Still, he’s a challenge and you love those.”
“I love a completed contract and a rehearsal dinner that doesn’t end in someone crying.”
She points toward the clipboard again. “So what’s that?”
I glance down.
Rafe—contact to get the fucking demo ASAP.
The handwriting’s mine. The fury is mine. But the whispery lyrics that are making my insides go all knotty? That’s all him.
I sigh and lean against the wall, letting my head tip back. The paint’s cool against my scalp. Somewhere in the living room, the drama show resumes, some doctor yelling, “We’re losing him,” over the hum of fake defibrillators.
But I’m still hearing him.
Rafe’s voice.
Low. Rough. Laced with something decadent—like velvet dragged across gravel. It lingers in the back of my mind, curling around every thought, every breath. A voice that settles into your spine and doesn’t leave even when you’re trying to hum the Flintstones theme song to get it out of your head.
His voice shouldn’t have done this much damage.
It was one audition. One man, a guitar, and a voice that unraveled something I didn’t even realize I’d wrapped in steel.
Now it’s all frayed nerves and heat blooming beneath my skin like an aftershock.
I should be calculating logistics, finishing the setlist, making client calls.
Instead, I’m replaying the way his eyes cut through the room like he already knew how it would end.
Like he saw something in me I’ve spent years burying beneath clipboards and carefully orchestrated timelines.
This isn’t a crush. It’s not butterflies or giddy little sparks fluttering in my stomach.
It’s pressure—low, rising, impossible to ignore.
The sort that coils beneath your ribs and makes breathing feel like work.
My body remembers every note, every glance, every quiet pause.
They still vibrate somewhere beneath my skin.
Fuck.
It’s not just the way he sang At Last. It’s how he reshaped it—like it wasn’t a cover, but something he’d lived. Something he missed.
It’s a damn wedding song every bride wants. I shouldn’t be obsessing over it like this. But now it’s stuck.
Or maybe it’s not the song.
Maybe it’s him.
The way he looked at me like I wasn’t just another client. Like he saw right through my clipboard and blazer and straight into the part of me that still secretly loves music. The part that believes the right voice can make people stay.
I pick up my pen again, then pause.
“Jules,” I say slowly, “what if he’s dangerous?”
She snorts. “Dangerous how? Like you’ll fall for him while he’s harmonizing with YMCA?”
I don’t answer.
Because that’s exactly the problem.
It’s the way he’s already in my head.
Uninvited.
Unshakable.
Every time I close my eyes, I hear him. That stripped-down version of “At Last,” the way he bent it into something new—something that found a place in my ribs and hasn’t left since.
I drag my gaze back to the clipboard in my lap, scanning the half-crumpled to-do list. Notes spiral into the margins—times, names, desperate arrows circling blank spaces. The panic is everywhere, inked into every line like it knew I’d be back here, trying to will myself into control.
This has to happen.
There’s no safety net. No backup band hiding in the wings.
I square my shoulders, shove down the nerves, and rise.
The room tilts slightly—too much caffeine, not enough food, too many problems—but I push through.
I’m a professional. I’ve built entire weddings from the ashes of cold feet and forgotten vows.
I can do this.
My bare feet slap against the hardwood as I cross to the bookshelf where my laptop lives, shoved between a box of place cards and a roll of satin ribbon I keep forgetting to reorder.
I pull it out, plug it in, and crack my knuckles.
One email. One name. One leap I’m not sure I’ll survive.