Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Dexter
The burger place on the corner isn’t anything special.
Fluorescent lights hum overhead like they’re just barely hanging on—buzzing with the kind of nervous energy I’ve carried in my shoulders since I was a teenager.
The cracked vinyl booths are patched with duct tape that doesn’t even try to match.
Napkin dispensers jam at the worst possible moment.
The ketchup bottle always has a dried ring around the cap that no one bothers to clean.
The fries are too salty. The burgers are too greasy. The milkshakes? Thick enough to break a straw. It’s nothing fancy. But it’s exactly right for days like this—when the world’s been clawing at your back and all you want is comfort to keep you upright while you catch your breath.
I’ve been coming here since long before the record deals, long before my name made headlines for all the wrong reasons—back when it was just me, a journal full of lyrics, and a secondhand Walkman that ate tapes like it was starving.
I’d sit at this exact table with my grandfather after school, splitting a burger and scribbling half-rhymed lines on the back of paper placemats while he sipped coffee and told me not everything I write needed to be good. Just to come from my soul.
This place was here before I became a headline.
It’s still here now.
Some things survive when everything else crumbles.
The booth I always claim is by the window, fogged halfway with condensation from the cold outside, warmed just enough by the old radiator groaning beneath it.
Outside, the Seattle drizzle has become fine mist, soaking through collars and slowing everything down.
The air smells like fried onions and rain-drenched pavement, and maybe that’s why I told her to meet me here.
This place is too small to pretend in. It’s just real.
I don’t even know if she’ll come.
She didn’t say yes—didn’t even flirt with the idea of a maybe—but I can only hope that Aly will let herself pause for a moment and relax.
She’s a fixer.
One of those people who carry their own bones like scaffolding for everyone else’s world. She chases perfection for strangers and calls it purpose. Probably doesn’t realize how often she forgets to breathe unless someone reminds her that she still can.
I know that type.
One of my closest friends is still fighting that same disease—perfection disguised as purpose.
He’s the one who dragged me out of the hell I’d made home, pulled me back from the edge more times than I want to admit.
These days, he calls himself a fixer in recovery.
I should probably ask him for pointers before Aly turns forty and wakes up realizing she spent her life making magic for everyone but herself.
I recognize the exhaustion in her voice. The micro-pauses between her words. The way she apologizes before she even realizes she’s done nothing wrong. She’s running toward something that’ll never stop moving.
One day she’s going to turn around, look at her life, and say, Fuck. I can’t remember a moment where I was happy.
I know because that happened to me.
My life wasn’t color palettes and event timelines—it was self-destruction dressed as devotion. A search for meaning in the middle of noise. Trying to figure out how to make people stay, even when I wasn’t worth staying for.
It started early. My father left when I was seven.
He wanted his freedom, not a family that would pull him down.
My mother followed him, not physically, but her heart did.
She drifted until she didn’t wake up one morning.
The doctors said it was an aneurysm. I knew better.
She died from loving someone who had already left her.
From trying to hold together a life that was already crumbling.
After that, I stopped believing I could be enough for anyone.
My grandparents took me in. They were good people. Grandpa tried, though. He handed me his old guitar, placed my fingers on the strings, and said, “Music doesn’t leave, kid. People do.”
I believed him.
By ten, I could play every instrument in his house.
Piano, guitar, mandolin—anything that made sound, I could bend it into something close to music.
I memorized melodies by ear. I thought if I could be exceptional enough—talented enough—my father might be proud of me.
If I followed in his footsteps and was capable of keeping up with him.
He would realize I was worth coming back for.
He never did.
By fifteen, grandpa was connecting me with bands who needed a last-minute fill-in for recordings, concerts .
. . anything. I could match anyone’s rhythm, slip into their sound like I’d always been there.
That was my gift—adapting, becoming whatever version of myself someone else needed.
I was the chameleon of other people’s dreams.
It worked too well.
I was on tour with Dreadful Souls, sometimes filling in for the occasional train wreck of a night with bands like Guns N’ Roses or The Wild Electric. Too young for the rooms I was in, too na?ve to realize how fast those rooms could eat you alive.
The rest of it blurs.
Spotlights. Crowds. Applause that felt like affection until it didn’t. People calling my name like they owned a piece of it.
Then came the noise.
The noise that doesn’t stop when the music ends.
I learned early that whiskey took the edge off better than applause ever could.
Booze, pills—whatever was within reach—they didn’t make me better.
They just made me quieter. I told myself it was part of the process, that every real artist needed a few vices to bleed something worth hearing.
I called it inspiration. Truth is, it was maintenance.
Survival. Maybe both. I wasn’t chasing greatness—I don’t even know what the fuck I was chasing.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped writing songs and started disappearing, one night, one bottle, one line at a time.
Anything that made the world quieter felt like salvation.
Until it wasn’t.
That’s not what’s happening to Aly, of course. She’s different. Her vice is control.
She doesn’t know yet that control is a myth. That even if you plan every minute, triple-check every name card, make the table linens match the centerpieces down to the thread count—shit still falls apart.
It’s the cruelest truth.
Maybe that’s why I want her to sit across from me tonight. Just for an hour. Let her eat something greasy and laugh at something dumb and forget about being flawless. Forget about the foundation gala and the band that ditched her.
Forget about how close she probably is to burning out.
Because if she doesn’t stop, even just for a second, she will end up like the rest of us who never knew when to walk away.
The door creaks open, and a gust of damp February air trails behind her like it’s trying to hold her back.
She stands there for a second, just past the threshold—rain clinging to her lashes, fingertips brushing droplets off the sleeves of her purple raincoat.
Her eyes scan the diner like it might bite.
Like she’s already planning her exit before she even sits down.
Her mouth presses into a line as if using it like armor.
At least she’s here—fuck. She’s really here.
Honestly, I wasn’t ready.
I don’t know what I expected. A polite excuse? A rain check? Radio silence? I was ninety-nine percent sure I’d be eating alone and going home smelling like fryer grease and regret.
But here she is—walking toward me like she’s daring herself with every step. Like one more wrong move might make her unravel.
I nod toward the booth bench across from me, trying to keep my face unreadable. She slides in, tugging off her coat like it’s lined with responsibility instead of fabric, folding it beside her with more care than anyone gives duct-taped vinyl and stale ketchup bottles.
“You came,” I say, because it’s all I’ve got. My throat’s too tight for anything else.
She shrugs. “Fries and a shake sounded better than the sad turkey sandwich we ordered.”
There’s a tilt to her lips like she’s trying to joke—but her voice is low, flat around the edges. Exhausted. She’s here, but her mind’s probably still chewing through timelines and vendor issues and whether or not she sent the right floral palette to the reception at the museum.
I raise my hand for the waitress.
Thankfully, she’s new—probably started this week. That’s a blessing in disguise, considering almost everyone around here knows me. Then again, now that I think about it, even Charles, the owner, didn’t blink when I walked in earlier. Just gave me a lazy wave like I was any other customer.
Maybe that’s the magic of the disguise.
It started because I lost my contacts during the whole cherry bomb incident, but the thick-rimmed glasses I’ve been wearing ever since?
They’ve somehow shifted the way people look at me.
Add a cap most days—or pull my hair back when I’m trying to appear remotely put together—and suddenly, no one clocks me as Dexter Vaughn.
It’s strange. Comforting, in a way. Like disappearing without having to run.
I guess what they say is true—people see what they want to see.
And right now, I’m just some guy in a booth, in a city where no one gives a shit unless you’re interrupting their coffee.
That still fits Ivy’s version of things: lay low, avoid headlines, don’t give the paparazzi a reason to remember I exist.
I gesture toward Aly. “Order whatever you want. They’ve got enough shake flavors to give you decision fatigue, and fries greasy enough to clog your arteries before midnight.”
She lifts a brow, the corners of her mouth twitching. “Look at you, living dangerously.”
“I try.” I glance at the menu like I don’t already know it by heart. “If the chocolate malt’s running, go for it. It’s the only one that doesn’t taste like heartbreak and freezer burn.”
She tilts her head. “What does heartbreak taste like?”
“Strawberry,” I deadpan. “Without question.”
A smile twitches at the corner of her mouth. Not a full one, not yet. But it’s there. Brief and beautiful. It doesn’t light up her face, not really, but it warms it. Like the pilot light under a too-old stove finally catching flame.
“I’ll take the chocolate malt then,” she tells the waitress. “And a cheeseburger, no onions.”
“Make it two,” I add. “Extra pickles on mine.”
The waitress nods and disappears behind the counter, and suddenly it’s just us again. Her across from me, elbows on the table, fingers lightly tapping against each other like she doesn’t quite know what to do with her hands now that she’s not holding a clipboard.
“Rough day?” I ask.
She lets out a slow groan. “Define rough.”
“That sound you just made was a good start.”
She picks up a napkin, folds it, and then refolds it, like the crisp corners might somehow coax the rest of her life into place.
“It’s just . . . a lot. Everything feels like it’s happening at once, and none of it’s going according to plan. I know I should be used to that by now, but I still want things to work. Need them to.”
“Sounds exhausting,” I say softly. “Being the one who holds the whole thing together.”
She lifts her eyes to mine, and for a moment, something tightens in her expression—pain, maybe. Frustration. A kind of quiet defeat disguised beneath lipstick and good posture.
“I don’t know how to stop,” she says quietly.
I get that. Too well.
“Stopping feels like failure,” I tell her. “Like the second you let go, everything collapses—and it’ll be your fault.”
Her eyes widen, just a fraction. “You get it.”
I nod. “More than I’d like to admit.”
The silence that follows isn’t awkward. It should be—we barely know each other, and I’m sitting here peeling back layers like it’s your typical Tuesday night. But it’s not uncomfortable. It’s something else.
Close.
Like we’re on the edge of something neither of us meant to find but don’t want to walk away from yet.
“You ever feel like you built your life for other people?” she asks. “Like every decision you made was just so someone else wouldn’t be disappointed?”
“Totally get that feeling,” I say. “I made a whole career out of it.”
She looks at me like she wants to ask. Maybe she doesn’t know how. It’s probably killing her to learn if this Rafe guy has a last name or why he had all that equipment today. I heard something about a philharmonic dropout or something.
One day soon, I have to tell her, right? Not sure when. She’ll probably . . . I don’t know what she’ll do if she finds out and maybe that’s the one thing that scares me a lot.
“Why here?” she asks instead, glancing around at the stained ceiling tiles and buzzing lights.
I shrug. “It’s comfortable. My grandfather used to bring me here a lot.”
She nods slowly. “I could use more of that. Comfort.”
Our food arrives, and for a while, we just eat.
She listens as I talk about my grandfather, who was a musician and taught me everything I know. The instruments he could play. The ones he bought just so I could learn them too.
Then she tells me about her family. About how her mother left, and she spent most of her childhood trying to keep everything from falling apart because her dad had already checked out. Probably the reason her mom disappeared in the first place.
She gets it. The abandonment.
The need to be enough for people who never told you what that looked like.
The ache of trying so hard and never knowing if you were ever close to being that person they needed.
Learning about her feels different. Like something real. Something I’ve never really done before—not like this. Not when no one’s watching. Not when no one’s asking me to perform.
It almost feels like a first date, I think.
Not that I’d know what that’s supposed to feel like.
When I was young, everything blurred together—late nights, bad decisions, faces I barely remembered.
After fame hit, any “date” I had was pre-arranged and came with press releases and photo ops, scheduled like PR appointments meant to convince the world I was a decent man.
A headline. A myth people could still root for.
But this—this isn’t that.
This is two people sharing food, pretending they’re not exhausted, trying to believe they still have something left to offer.
It’s not a date.
Just two souls who needed a peaceful meal, a little company, and the faint, reckless hope that maybe—someday—they’ll finally be enough.