Xander
FORTY-FOUR
Rain streaks across the windows of the cab as it crawls through Manhattan traffic, blurring neon signs into smeared color. Outside, horns scream into the night and people rush down sidewalks with their heads tucked against the cold.
None of it touches me.
I sit in the back seat alone, one hand drumming absently against my knee while the skyline rises around me as a memory I’ve spent years trying to outrun.
The driver glances at me once in the mirror. Smart enough not to attempt conversation.
I already know this is going to hurt.
The truth settled into my chest sometime around three in the morning back in Redemption Falls while Willow slept curled against Julian and Gabe upstairs and I sat alone in the studio listening to old demos.
I know how to fix this. Or, at least, redirect it.
The internet’s already moving on from the scandal. The podcast helped. The single announcement helped more. But what would really blow everything else apart?
The Last Rebels.
My brother.
The industry loves a trainwreck comeback story almost as much as it loves destroying people in the first place.
If Redemption Records announces Dylan Harlow and The Last Rebels are recording their comeback album at the new compound, nobody talks about Willow anymore.
They’ll talk about him. About me. About whether the Harlow brothers finally stopped trying to kill each other long enough to make music again.
The thought exhausts me, but underneath the exhaustion is something worse.
Hope.
The cab pulls up outside an old studio building in Brooklyn. I stare at it through the rain. Same cracked brick exterior. Same flickering sign.
Christ.
I recorded here before The Lonely Ones exploded. Before fame turned everything poisonous. Before Josiah died.
Back when music still felt simple.
The driver clears his throat carefully. “You want me to wait, Mr. Harlow?”
“Yes, please.”
I step out into freezing summer rain.
The cold hits, icy enough to wake every nerve ending in my body. By the time I push through the studio doors, water drips from my jacket sleeves onto old hardwood floors scarred by decades of musicians dragging equipment through the halls.
The smell hits next. Dust, coffee, cigarettes buried so deeply into the walls they’ll probably outlive civilization.
I find Dylan through the glass control room of one of the studios, sitting on top of an amp with a guitar in his lap, head bent while he picks distractedly through a melody I don’t recognize.
I just stand there watching him until he finally notices me through the glass.
His hands stop moving. Neither of us moves for a beat.
He sets the guitar aside and stands. I walk into the studio. The silence between us feels physical.
“What are you doing here?” Dylan says, finally.
“Time to speak, I think.” I try to smile, but it doesn’t really come. “Thought about bringing a hostage negotiator.”
One corner of his mouth twitches faintly. “That bad?”
“Yes.”
The almost-smile disappears.
I look around the studio instead because it’s easier than looking directly at him for too long. Half-empty coffee cups everywhere. Open notebooks. Tangled cables across the floor.
The same madness Dylan’s always existed inside.
“You look like shit,” I tell him.
He snorts softly. “Nice to see you, too.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
There’s no real bite behind it. That almost makes it worse, because anger I understand. This strange carefulness between us feels unfamiliar.
Dylan rubs a hand over the back of his neck. “You want coffee or something?”
“No.”
“You still drinking it like engine oil?”
“Yes.”
Dylan gestures toward the control room chairs. “Sit down before you pace a hole through the floor.”
“I’m not pacing.”
“You’re literally pacing.”
I glare at him.
He shrugs. “Some things don’t change.”
I sit, mostly because I’m exhausted enough not to argue.
Dylan drops into the chair opposite me, leaning forward with his forearms against his knees.
Finally, he says, “I didn’t think you’d ever come.”
“I almost didn’t.”
“That tracks.”
I stare at him. Underneath all the resentment and history, he still looks enough like me to feel unsettling. Same eyes. Same jaw. Same restless energy sitting under the skin, permanently braced for impact.
The Harlow curse.
“You scared the shit out of me showing up at the compound,” I admit.
Dylan blinks, probably surprised by the honesty. “I know.”
“I wanted to hit you.”
“I know that, too.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” Dylan exhales hard and rubs both hands over his face. “Look, I’m not good at this.”
“At what?”
His laugh is humorless. “Any of it.”
I lean back in the chair. “Try anyway.”
He nods once, and the walls come down a little.
“When Josiah died,” he says, “I lost you, too.”
The words hit like a punch straight to the ribs.
I look away. Even now, hearing Josiah’s name out loud feels dangerous.
Dylan keeps going anyway. “You shut everybody out. Me. Claire. The band. Hell, probably yourself, too.”
I stare at the soundboard lights blinking softly in the dark. I know he’s right. After Josiah died, I stopped being a person. I became machinery. Interviews. Contracts. Touring. Existing.
Anything except grief.
“I didn’t know how to help you,” Dylan admits. “And every time I tried, you looked at me like you blamed me for breathing.”
“I didn’t blame you.”
“No,” he says softly. “You blamed yourself.”
I close my eyes briefly.
Maybe I did.
Because Josiah had been unraveling for months before the accident and none of us saw it. Or maybe we did and chose not to look too hard because we were all unraveling, too.
Fame makes cowards out of people sometimes.
“You disappeared,” I tell him.
Dylan nods. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
He laughs once under his breath. Tired. Broken around the edges. “Because every time I walked into a room, you looked at me like you hated me.”
I don’t answer. Because part of me did. Not at first. At first there’d only been numbness.
Then Claire happened. And grief had somewhere to point itself.
“What happened with her?” I ask.
Dylan goes still. He looks down at his hands for a long moment before speaking. “You really want the truth?”
“Yes.”
He nods. “She came to me.”
My jaw tightens.
Dylan holds up a hand before I can speak. “I’m not saying that to avoid responsibility.”
“Good.”
“I’m serious.”
I lean back in the chair harder, arms folding across my chest.
Dylan exhales. “You were gone already, Xander.”
The words hit ugly because they’re true.
“She kept trying to reach you,” he says. “And you just… weren’t there anymore.”
My throat feels tight. I remember that time period in fragments. Claire crying in the kitchen. Voicemails I never returned. Me sleeping in the studio because silence felt unbearable.
“I never meant for it to happen,” Dylan says roughly. “And afterward I hated myself for it.”
“I bet.”
His face flinches. Guilt punches through me.
When did we get so good at hurting each other?
“I’m sorry,” he says.
The sincerity in it almost makes it worse. Because for years I told myself Dylan didn’t care, that he’d betrayed me because I meant nothing. But sitting here now, I can see the grief on him, too. The guilt, the exhaustion, the same haunted look I see in my own mirror.
“You know the worst part?” Dylan asks.
I look at him carefully.
“I spent our whole childhood thinking Mom loved you more.”
The confession blindsides me completely. I actually laugh once in disbelief. “Are you kidding?”
“No.”
“That’s insane.”
“You were the golden child.”
I stare at him. “Dad practically introduced you to people like you hung the moon.”
Dylan blinks, and both of us just sit there realizing the same horrible thing simultaneously. Our parents spent so long pitting us against each other that we both grew up convinced we were the less loved son.
No wonder everything between us turned toxic.
Dylan rubs a hand over his mouth. “We were kids.”
“Yeah.”
“And they made everything a competition.”
“Yeah.”
Grades, music, attention, affection, success, even grief somehow.
The realization settles heavy between us.
Dylan says, “I miss my brother.”
My chest tightens so hard it almost hurts. Because underneath all the rage, I miss him, too. I just never knew how to survive admitting it.
The studio goes silent except for rain against the windows.
I exhale and drag a hand through my hair. “The Last Rebels needs to stop self-destructing.”
Dylan stares at me, clearly thrown by the pivot. He snorts softly. “That’s your transition?”
“It’s a good band.”
“We’re a disaster.”
“Also true.”
A real smile almost appears this time.
I continue carefully. “The compound’s finished.”
Understanding flickers across his face.
Redemption Falls. The new label. Hope.
“All right,” Dylan says. “What are you thinking?”
I hold his gaze. “You bring The Last Rebels to Redemption Falls,” I say. “You record the new album there.”
Dylan goes completely still.
“No label suits. No city distractions. No paparazzi. Just music,” I say.
He stares at me like he genuinely can’t decide whether this is a trick. “You’d do that?”
“For the band,” I say.
His mouth twitches because he hears the lie underneath it. Not just for the band. For us.
Dylan stands and walks toward me.
Every instinct in my body braces. Old habits. Old damage. But instead of fighting, he holds out his hand.
I stare at it.
At him.
At all the years between us.
Then, before I can overthink it, I stand and take his hand.
His grip tightens hard. Mine does too. And somewhere underneath all the grief and history and wreckage, it feels a little like coming home.