Julian
FORTY-SIX
By the time we get back to the compound, I’m at least seventy percent wine and bad decisions, which is usually when I’m at my most charming.
The drive home was weirdly nice. Windows cracked just enough to let cool night air spill into the SUV, Willow curled into the corner seat beside me while Gabe drove and Xander stared out the window looking suspiciously less haunted than usual.
Progress.
The second we walk through the front doors, Gabe’s phone starts vibrating.
He groans. “If that’s another journalist, I’m legally changing my name.”
“You’d still look the same,” I tell him.
“That’s the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
Willow laughs softly beside me, slipping her boots off near the entryway while Daisy races through the house.
Xander loosens his collar as he walks farther inside. “What is it?”
Gabe checks the screen. Then snorts. “Oh no.”
I brighten. “That’s usually my line. What happened?”
He turns the phone around, and there it is. Caitlyn West’s newest article.
REDEMPTION RECORDS DESCENDS FURTHER INTO CHAOS: SMALL-TOWN WAITRESS AT CENTER OF ROCKSTAR LOVE SQUARE
“Love square?” Willow says. “That sounds geometrically incorrect.”
Xander takes the phone from him, scanning the article silently while we all crowd around.
“Oh, shit,” I choke out. “Read that part.”
Willow grabs the phone next.
Her eyes widen.
Then she reads aloud: “‘Sources close to the situation describe the atmosphere inside Hawthorne House as emotionally volatile, romantically tangled, and fueled by what appears to be an alarming amount of sexual tension.’”
I point dramatically. “Finally. Recognition for my hard work.”
She keeps reading, horrified and amused all at once. “‘Locals claim the mysterious dynamic between Willow Jameson and the Redemption Records founders has turned Redemption Falls into a real-life rockstar soap opera.’”
Xander takes the phone back. “Soap opera’s harsh.”
“You literally glared at a reporter tonight like you were about to challenge her to a duel,” I remind him.
“She was annoying.”
“That’s not illegal.”
“Yet,” Gabe mutters.
Willow’s laughing now, too. Head tipped back, eyes bright in a way I haven’t seen nearly enough lately, and my chest loosens at the sound.
Because I missed that.
The past few weeks have been hard on her.
Hard on all of us.
Everything got too loud too fast. Cameras. Rumors. Strangers turning her into a headline instead of a person.
But tonight feels different.
Lighter.
Maybe we finally stopped drowning long enough to breathe.
I snag the phone from Xander and keep reading dramatically.
“‘Witnesses report frequent displays of affection between Jameson and all three men, leading fans online to speculate whether the relationship is polyamorous, performative, or potentially a very attractive cult.’”
Willow nearly chokes laughing.
Gabe pinches the bridge of his nose. “I hate the internet.”
“I don’t know,” I say thoughtfully. “‘Very attractive cult’ has potential.”
“We’d need robes,” Willow says.
Xander’s mouth twitches.
Holy shit. That’s practically a full emotional breakdown for him.
I point accusingly. “You smiled.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did. Gabe, back me up.”
“I’m staying out of whatever this is.”
“Coward.”
Willow steals the phone again. “‘Insiders also report that Rochester appears attached.’”
I freeze theatrically.
Then place a hand over my chest.
“Well,” I say solemnly. “At least someone finally noticed.”
Her laugh hits me square in the ribs. I’d burn cities for that sound.
I grab the whiskey bottle off the kitchen counter. “Alright. Emergency drinks.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not healthy,” Willow says.
“Neither am I, yet here we are.”
Gabe takes the bottle from me long enough to pour actual glasses like a civilized person because he was basically born forty-five years old.
We drift naturally toward the lounge after that.
Music starts somewhere along the way.
Old records spill softly through the sound system, warm guitar and low vocals wrapping around the room while rain taps gently against the windows outside.
Willow curls into the corner of the giant sectional couch with Daisy sprawled across her lap.
Xander sits beside her, eventually. His hand settles behind her along the back of the couch, fingers brushing absentmindedly against her shoulder every now and then like he can’t quite stop himself.
Gabe notices, too.
I end up stretched out on the opposite couch, one sock missing because life happens fast, watching Willow argue with Gabe about whether cereal technically counts as soup.
“It has liquid,” Gabe points out reasonably.
“It also has joy,” she counters. “Soup never has joy.”
“That’s because you’ve never had good soup.”
“That sounds threatening.”
I grin into my whiskey glass.
This.
This right here.
This is the stuff nobody tells you about when you’re famous.
Nobody talks about the quiet moments you miss. The normal ones. The stupid arguments and warm rooms and people laughing so hard they snort a little and get embarrassed afterward.
I used to think the best moments of my life happened on stage.
Turns out I was wrong.
At some point, I put music on. Something old and loud and impossible not to move to.
Willow points at me. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No dancing.”
“You can’t say that before the chorus even starts.”
“I absolutely can.”
I’m already pulling her off the couch before she can protest more.
She squeals as I drag her into the middle of the lounge while the guitar kicks in through the speakers.
“There are literally no rules here,” I inform her.
“That’s obvious.”
Gabe watches us over the rim of his drink with that softer expression he gets around her now. Xander, too.
Willow eventually gives in enough to sway along with me, laughing while I spin her dramatically across the hardwood floors. “You’re ridiculous.”
“You love it.”
“I tolerate it.”
“Same thing.”
The song changes again.
Then somehow Gabe gets dragged into it.
Then Xander.
And all four of us are half dancing, half arguing in the middle of the lounge while Daisy barks, deeply concerned about our collective mental stability.
It’s chaos.
The best kind.
Eventually, we collapse back onto the couches breathless and overheated, which is when Willow makes the mistake of throwing a throw pillow at me.
I launch the pillow directly back at her face.
Madness erupts instantly.
Willow shrieks. Gabe actually laughs out loud. Xander catches a pillow one-handed.
Then, we’re all in a full-scale pillow fight. We’re deeply dysfunctional teenagers.
Feathers explode everywhere after I get overenthusiastic and accidentally rips one open.
Daisy loses her mind completely.
At one point Gabe gets hit hard enough in the face that he just stops, staring into the middle distance.
I’m laughing so hard my ribs hurt.
And maybe it’s the whiskey. Or the adrenaline. Or the fact that Willow looks happier right now than she has in weeks.
But the thought hits me so clearly I can’t ignore it anymore.
I look around the room.
At Gabe.
At Xander.
At her.
Home.
The realization lands.
Before I can overthink it, I look at Willow and say, “Move in with us.”
Willow blinks at me from across the couch, feathers stuck in her hair. “Julian—”
“I’m serious.”
Her expression softens.
I sit forward, feeling more exposed than I have in years despite the fact I’m literally holding a decorative pillow as a shield.
“You’re already here most of the time,” I say. “And when you’re not, the whole place feels…” I gesture vaguely, “wrong.”
Xander watches me carefully but doesn’t interrupt.
“You belong here, Willow.”
Her throat moves when she swallows.
“I know all this is insane,” I continue. “And messy. And probably deeply concerning from an outside perspective.”
“That’s putting it lightly,” Gabe mutters.
“But when it’s just us?” I glance around the room. “When it’s this?” My chest tightens unexpectedly, because this matters. More than I ever planned for anything to matter again. “I don’t want you leaving anymore.”
Gabe sets his drink down carefully. “Neither do I.”
Willow looks at him. Then at Xander.
He holds her gaze for a long moment before speaking.
“You already have a place here,” he says roughly. “If you want it.”
Willow laughs softly under her breath, shaking her head once. I’m sure she can’t believe this is her life now. “A few months ago,” she says, “I was yelling at you guys over coffee.”
“You still yell at us over coffee,” I point out.
“Fair.”
She looks around the room again. At all of us. At the absolute disaster of feathers and whiskey glasses and half-empty snacks covering the lounge. At Daisy asleep upside down beside the couch. At the life we somehow built accidentally.
She smiles.
“Okay,” she says softly. “I’ll move in.”
The happiness that explodes through the room after that feels louder than any crowd I’ve ever played for.