Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
LUCA
The lounge is loud—bass thumping through the floor, laughter spiking over the music, glasses clinking—but all I can hear is my own pulse hammering in my ears as I cross the room toward him.
Kai’s standing near the bar, alone now that Laney’s peeled off to hug Min-ho.
He’s in a black hoodie and dark jeans, hair still a little damp from sweat, and even in the dim light, I can see the tension in his jaw, the way his fingers flex around an empty glass as though he’s holding himself together by sheer will.
I stop a foot away. Close enough to see the way his throat moves when he swallows.
“We should talk,” I say.
His eyes lift to mine—dark and guarded, but not cold. Not anymore. There’s something else there now. Something that makes my stomach flip like I’m sixteen again, asking someone to prom and terrified they’ll laugh.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “We should.”
Relief hits first, sharp and dizzying. Then nerves—hot, electric, crawling under my skin.
My palms are damp. My heart’s beating so hard I’m sure he can hear it.
I feel turned on and terrified in equal measure, like I’m standing on the edge of something I’ve wanted for months and might still fall off.
“Somewhere quieter?” I ask.
He nods once, before setting his glass down and following me without another word.
The balcony door clicks shut behind us. The city hums below—car horns, distant sirens, the low pulse of New York that never quite sleeps—but out here, it’s quieter.
Cooler. The string lights overhead cast soft gold across Kai’s face, catching the sharp line of his jaw.
He’s close enough that I can smell him—clean soap, the slight scent of leather from his stage pants, the faint musk of exertion.
My pulse kicks up again, same way it did on stage when his hand brushed over my cock.
He leans his forearms on the railing, staring out at the skyline instead of at me. I mirror him—elbows on the metal, shoulder almost touching his.
Neither of us speaks for a long minute. The tension from the show is still crackling between us like static.
I break first, keeping my voice low and careful.
“Tonight…during ‘Starlight Ruin.’ When I put my hand under your shirt. When you—” I swallow. Shit, I’m really going to say this out loud. I breathe in a steadying breath before continuing. “When you felt how hard I was. And you touched me back, instead of pulling away…”
He goes still and doesn’t look at me. But I see the way his knuckles whiten on the railing.
“Yeah…” he trails off.
I turn my head to look at him and repeat, “You didn’t pull away, Kai.”
“No. I didn’t.”
The admission hangs there. My dick twitches in my jeans just remembering the slow drag of his fingers over the bulge, the way neither of us pulled away. I watched the Tiktoks that are flooding social media as we speak. It looks real.
I shift my weight, debating if I should reveal the next information or if it’s crossing another line. “I’ve been hard for you on stage before—more times than I want to admit—but tonight…when you pressed back into me, when you cupped me through my pants…I almost lost it right there.”
Kai exhales, his breath shaky. His eyes are still on the city, but his cheeks are flushed now. “I think I wanted you to. I wanted you to groan my name into the mic so the whole arena heard it.”
Fuck.
My cock throbs—painfully hard now, straining against denim. I have to shift again, press my hips subtly against the railing to hide it.
“Then why—” I’m not even sure what I want to ask. This isn’t all on him. Tonight definitely took two to make it happen, and we both basically ran scared the second the lights went down.
“This isn’t real, Luca. We both know that.” He finally turns to face me. “It’s supposed to be for the fans, to keep our numbers up. If we let it cross that line—if we…”
I watch him, a sinking feeling in my stomach. He’s letting me down easy. And he’s right, we can’t be more. I can’t let him finish his sentence, this conversation is not going the route I expected, and there is no way I’m going to show him my disappointment.
“Professional. We just keep it professional. Attraction is normal when you are forced into the situations we have been put in. We can’t let it get real, not off stage, but we can use it.
We can sell this attraction hard under the lights.
Or on our fake dates that Harry wants us to go on.
We can lean into it, make it look like we’re barely holding back.
But we don’t act on it anywhere else, nothing that isn’t for the cameras. ”
He exhales again and then rolls his lips between his teeth. Part of me wants him to tell me no that it isn’t what he wants. So I hold my breath waiting for his response. He nods.
“Professional,” he echoes. “Yeah, of course. Then we can’t screw it all up.”
The words taste bitter, but I force a small, crooked smile. “Yeah. Professional.”
The silence that follows isn’t comfortable. It’s heavy—full of everything we’re both refusing to say. I can feel the rejection settling in my chest like wet concrete, making it hard to breathe, hard to keep the smile from cracking.
Kai shifts his weight, glances back toward the glass doors where the party lights pulse red and gold. “I’m gonna get back to Laney.”
I nod. My throat is closing up—tight, burning, emotions I’m not willing to voice clawing their way up.
If I open my mouth right now, I might say something stupid.
Something like I don’t want professional.
I want you. I want this to be real. But I don’t.
I can’t. Not when he’s already drawing the line.
“Yeah,” I manage. “Go ahead.”
He hesitates—just a second—then turns and walks back inside. The door closes behind him with a soft click, muffling the music, leaving me alone on the balcony with the city lights and the cold night air.
I stay there.
Leaning on the railing, staring at the skyline without really seeing it. My hands grip the metal until my knuckles ache. My dick is still half-hard, a traitorous reminder of how close I came to telling him how much I still want him. I drag a hand over my face, trying to shake it off and fail.
My phone is in my pocket. I pull it out before I can talk myself out of it.
Open TikTok.
Search #Kuca.
The feed floods instantly—clips from tonight’s show.
The moment during “Starlight Ruin”: my arm around his waist, hand sliding under his shirt, dragging up his bare skin.
His head falling back against my shoulder.
His hand drifting up from my thigh, brushing over the obvious bulge in my leather pants.
The way my hips jerked forward. The crack in my voice on the line I was supposed to sing.
The comments are feral.
Kuca4life: “THE brEAK IN HIS VOICE??? HE LITERALLY MOANED KAI’S NAME ”
KaiLover: “that hand placement was NOT choreographed i’m screaming”
ForeverKuca: “they’re so gone for each other it hurts”
ThornsofaRose: “Now, kiss. Or fuck. I’d watch both.”
I close out of the comments and watch it again. And again. Each loop twists the knife deeper—because it was real. Every second of it, and he still walked away and chose to be “professional.”
I lock the phone and shove it back in my pocket. Take a long, shaky breath. Then I straighten, forcing my face into something neutral. Something that looks like I’m fine.
I push the door open and step back into the party.
The music swallows me. Lights flash. Laughter rolls over the crowd.
Michael’s in the corner with a group of the crew and some lucky fans, already loud and red-faced from whatever he’s drinking.
Min-ho’s talking to Laney—quiet and serious, the way he gets when he’s trying to figure something out.
Kai’s at the bar now, back to me, shoulders tense.
I mingle with everyone, but no one notices I’m off.
No one sees the way my smile doesn’t reach my eyes. The way my hands are shaking just a little when I grab a drink from a passing tray. The way I keep glancing at Kai even though I tell myself not to.
I laugh at something Michael yells across the room.
Nod when someone congratulates me on the show.
Pose for a quick photo with a label exec who wants to “capture the Kuca energy.” Brush off questions of if I’ll ever be as good as the legend Dax Clark.
That last one makes me take two shots from a passing waitress as I fake a laugh. Fucker.
I play the part to perfection, the way I always have. People expect a nepo-baby, and that’s what they get. When the night is finally over, Kai and Min-ho decide to go back to Laney’s apartment for the night, and I head back to the hotel with Michael.
Michael’s arm is heavy across my shoulders, his weight sagging into me with every step.
He’s trashed—three drinks past fun, two past coherent—belting out the chorus of “Midnight Nova” loud enough to wake anyone who might be sleeping.
His voice cracks on the high note, turns into a laugh that ends in a hiccup.
I half-carry him the last stretch to the hotel, ignoring the doorman’s raised eyebrow and the faint flash of a phone camera from across the street.
“Best… show… ever,” he slurs, poking my cheek with one finger. “You and Kai—fuckin’ fire, man. Crowd lost their shit.”
I force a grin. “Yeah. Crowd loved it.”
He doesn’t notice the way my smile doesn’t reach my eyes or see how my hands are still unsteady when I fish the key card out of my pocket. Inside the elevator, he slumps against the wall, head lolling. “You okay? You’re quiet. Like…quiet-quiet. Not fun-quiet.”
I hit the button for our floor. “Just tired. Long night.”
He squints at me like he’s trying to focus through the alcohol haze. “Bullshit. You’ve been weird since you were on the balcony with Kai. And it got worse when Kai left with Laney.”
I don’t answer. The elevator dings. Doors slide open on our floor, and I grab onto him to haul him out.
Michael stumbles with a laugh, leaning on me again. “You two need to fuck or fight or something. The tension’s killing me. And I’m drunk, so I get to say it.”
I laugh—short, hollow. “Noted.”
We make it to the room. I get him inside, half-drag him to his bed. He flops face-down with a groan, already snoring before I can pull his shoes off. I toss a blanket over him, dim the lights, and head for my side of the suite.
The room is dark except for the city glow through the curtains. I don’t turn on a lamp. Just strip down to boxers, sit on the edge of my bed, elbows on my knees, head in my hands.
The silence is loud.
I grab my phone off the nightstand. Open TikTok again—because apparently I hate myself.
The #Kuca tag is flooded with mixes of all of the times we’ve been on camera. Including one from that day in Vegas when I kissed him in front of that pap. And now they have new footage. Harry does actually know what sells, even if he’s a jackass most of the time.
And I have to admit, we look hot together. Yin and yang. Dark and light. His pale skin next to mine would…shit…yeah, I need to think of something else.
I lock the phone. Toss it onto the nightstand. Fall back onto the mattress, arms over my eyes.
The room is dark except for the blue glow of the city bleeding through the curtains.
Michael’s snoring is steady now from his room—deep, even, the kind that means he’s out for the night.
The AC hums low. Outside, New York keeps moving—car horns, distant sirens, the never-ending pulse of a city that doesn’t sleep.
I should be exhausted. The show was brutal—two encores, extra choreography, the crowd screaming so loud my ears are still ringing. My body feels heavy, muscles aching in that good way, but my mind won’t shut off.
I try. I really do.
I count breaths. In for four. Hold. Out for six. The technique Min-ho taught me years ago when tour anxiety used to keep me up. It works sometimes.
Not tonight.
Every time I close my eyes, I see him.
Kai on stage tonight—head thrown back, throat exposed, vines tattoo stark against pale skin as I dragged my hand up his side.
The way he arched into me. The feather light brush of his fingers over my cock through the leather.
The crack in my voice when I stumbled over the lyric.
The way the crowd lost their minds, thinking it was all part of the show.
I can still feel the heat of his palm. The way his hips rolled back against me. The way his breath hitched when I squeezed his pec, thumb grazing his nipple just enough to make it harden under my touch.
My dick twitches again—traitorous, insistent. I shift onto my stomach, press my hips into the mattress, try to will it away. It doesn’t help.
I roll onto my back again. Arms still over my eyes. Try the breathing thing one more time.
In. Hold. Out.
In. Hold. Out.
All I see is him—dark eyes locked on mine mid-choreo, pupils blown, lips parted. The memory of his mouth on mine in the gym weeks ago. The way he looked at me on the balcony tonight when he admitted he does want me, but…we are going to keep it professional.
The word still tastes like ash.
I drag my hands down my face. Stare at the ceiling. The city lights flicker across it in slow patterns.
I should sleep. Tomorrow’s another city, another show, another round of selling the same heat we’re both drowning in.
But my body won’t settle, and my mind won’t stop.
I keep seeing his hand on me. Keep feeling the way he pressed back. Keep hearing the crack in my voice when I moaned into the mic.
And the worst part is that I know he felt it, too. I know he wanted it, too. So why the fuck are we still pretending?
I roll onto my side again. Curl in. Try to force my eyes closed. They won’t stay shut. The clock on the nightstand glows at 3:47 a.m.
Tomorrow, everything will be back to normal, I tell myself. He’ll hate me. I’ll hate him. It will be perfect. But the lie tastes worse every time I repeat it. Because normal doesn’t feel like this.
Normal doesn’t leave me hard and aching and staring at the ceiling at 3:47 a.m., replaying the way Kai’s fingers felt on me, wondering if he’s lying awake at Laney’s doing the same thing.
Wondering if he’s thinking about me right now.
Wondering if he’s regretting walking away tonight as much as I’m regretting letting him.
I close my eyes again. Force them shut. But sleep doesn’t come. And the night stretches on.
The clock ticks to 3:48.
At least I won’t be coherent enough to have thoughts on the plane tomorrow.