32. Sift The Ashes
Sift The Ashes
Rafe
The studio is pungent with the amount of coffee and metal strings in this place.
Ronan is already behind the kit, tapping through a lazy warm-up, sticks flicking in time with his smirk.
Kiri is tuning the bass, head bobbing to a rhythm only he hears.
Rithy’s there too, miserable but upright, exactly like I predicted.
Sunglasses, headache, attitude, the full package.
“Morning, lads,” I mutter, dropping my guitar case by the amp.
Szklane Serce are already unpacking gear at the far end of the room, all smiles and polite energy. I greet them, shaking hands, thanking them again for making the time.
“Kasia should be here soon,” I tell them. “She’s still as fluent in your language and your humor as last night.”
That earns a few laughs.
Behind me, Ronan is tapping out a rhythm against the snare rim, watching Rithy through a grin. “How’s the head, Romeo?”
Rithy bares his teeth, a mock bite in the air. “Don’t tempt me, Ronan. I'll eat you up,” he growls.
Kiri chuckles, low and easy. “Try drinking less before a session, oun (little brother).”
“Try minding your own business, bong (big brother),” Rithy mutters, dragging his pick across the strings hard enough to make the amp hiss.
I say nothing. Just check cables, pluck a few chords, let the motion do the thinking.
The repetition helps until the door opens.
Then everything in the room flips. Kasia steps in, and the air finds structure around her.
Calm, steady, sure, the same kind of silent authority she had the first time she walked into that office and looked up, the words Mr. Ashton on her lips.
The memory makes my body respond, even when I try to will it into obedience.
Every man in the room straightens up a little, like they just remembered how to behave.
Everyone except Rithy. Even with his sunglasses on, I can feel the eyeroll. My hand curls around the neck of my guitar. A small, stupid gesture, but it’s either that or throw it.
She greets everyone in Polish first, bright, fluid, warm and Szklane Serce lights up immediately. She switches to English a moment later, bridging everyone with that same ease she always has. She doesn’t look at me, not once. I get it. I’d ignore me too.
We start working through the track, tightening translations, fitting the phrasing to the melody. She sits with the lyric sheets, pen moving quick, notes ready and confident. When she speaks, everyone listens. Even Rithy, though he pretends not to.
We run the take. The section she helped write, half Polish, half English, lands hard. Her line, soft but sure, folds perfectly into mine. When it happens, when that overlap clicks, when the sound becomes right, she looks at me.
It’s a second, maybe less. But it hits like the room loses gravity, my stomach flips.
Her eyes lock with mine and suddenly I’m back there, her breath against my jaw, the word Hades still burning in my head.
The same heat, the same pull, all of it alive again under fluorescent lights.
My pulse stumbles, she looks away first. The take ends, silence stretches for a moment before the producer grins.
“That’s the one. That’s the take.”
I exhale. Relief, exhaustion, something in between.
But Rithy shakes his head. “It’s not right.”
Ronan spins a stick between his fingers. “Come on, that was solid. Quality work.”
Rithy’s mouth curls. “Since when do we sound like a ballad? Singing to one person in the room?”
The words land heavy, pointed. My jaw tightens.
“That’s not our band,” he adds. “Not what we do.”
Kiri cuts in, voice low. “Knock it off.”
“I won’t,” Rithy snaps. “This is about the music. We don’t accept half-assed bullshit.”
Before I realize I’ve moved, I’m standing. The chair screeches against the floor.
“Why don’t you just shut the fuck up and play?”
The room freezes.
Ronan slams his sticks together—crack. “Take five, everyone,” he barks. “Before the police get involved.”
The tension lingers in the air even after everyone starts moving, the echo of it pulsing. All I can think is that somehow, last night never really ended, we're still stuck in this same hell loop that Rithy won't let go of.
After a five minute breather we get back to it. Seven, eight takes later we're all suffering, because of course Rithy demands it. He’s got that laser-focus he only ever finds when he’s punishing himself.
Kiri groans so loud it might cause structural damage. “If I have to hear that chorus one more time, I’m walking off the nearest bridge.”
Ronan rolls his shoulders, still counting the rhythm with his sticks. “You walk, I’m diving head-fucking-first. My arms are aching. You ever keep a 3/4 going this long? It’s like trying to juggle jello.”
No one knows what that means, but we all nod anyway.
Drummer logic is a religion the rest of us pretend to follow.
Rithy doesn’t even acknowledge it. Just mutters something about timing and phrasing and tells us to go again.
The guys from Szklane Serce exchange tired smiles with each other.
Still completely polite, attempting to remain game, but they’re starting to look like soldiers who are wondering if desertion is an option.
We start the next take, and everything in me wants to roll my eyes but I don’t.
I know this dance. We all do. By take ten, the air in the room changes.
The sound opens up. The rhythm clicks. Suddenly what we’ve been fighting is gone, like the tension burned off.
The chorus blooms and everything falls into place.
It’s alive. And that’s when I know, Rithy was right. He’s always right.
This is the rhythm of us. The friction, the edge, the unspoken understanding that we bleed for precision.
This is how we’ve stayed alive, how we keep making something that matters even when it hurts.
Everyone’s faces light up. Even the Szklane Serce guys look dazed and grinning, like we’ve just performed an exorcism.
Rithy leans back in his chair, arms crossed, fighting the smile clawing at his mouth.
He won’t say told you so, but it’s in the air, smug but earned.
“There it is,” he says simply. The words fall with the weight of a benediction.
The room erupts, claps on backs, someone whoops, someone else mutters “finally.” Exhaustion turns to euphoria. We did what we always do. Burn everything down and sift through the ashes until we find the spark that makes it worth it. When the laughter starts to die off, I spot her.
Kasia’s gathering her notes, neat and organized, sliding her pen behind her ear. She moves with that focus that turns heads before anyone realizes it’s happening. I cross the floor before I can talk myself out of it.
“You did great today,” I tell her. “Thank you.”
She looks up, polite smile in place. “It was… fun. I had a good time. Thanks for inviting me.”
Her tone’s professional, controlled, the exact opposite of what’s happening in my chest. She’s keeping boundaries, and I can’t blame her.
Meanwhile, every inch of me wants to lean closer, to make her see that I’m not what Rithy said I am. It’s like trying to hold back a tide with my bare hands.
“The guys are going to grab dinner,” I say, careful, conversational. “Celebrate surviving each other.”
She smiles, that faint crease at the corner of her mouth that kills me every time. “I should really get some sleep. Busy day of travel tomorrow.”
That should be it, let her go. Keep it polite, but I’m so damn tired of being polite.
The old instinct kicks in, the one I used to rely on before I learned what no restraint costs.
The voice that can bend around a lyric, soften when it needs to, reach places words alone can’t.
I let it come back, a hush along my lips that drags, that pulls her into me.
I step close enough that my breath stirs the hair near her temple and murmur, “I want you there, Kasia.” Then, right at the edge of a plea: “Please.”
For the first time all day, her composure falters. A flicker, barely a heartbeat, but it’s there. She tucks a loose strand behind her ear, that tell she has when she’s deciding whether to run or stay. Then she nods.
The smile that breaks across my face is impossible to hide, stupid and real. She answers it with one of her own before she tries to rein it in, but the spark’s already caught. My chest feels like music again.
“Great,” I say, trying not to sound like I just won something sacred. “You could come with us, I—”
Her eyes drift toward Rithy across the room, slouched on a stool pretending he’s deaf to everything. She looks back at me. “Text me the address. I’ll join you.”
“I’ve got my own ride,” I tell her, gentler but certain. “Come with me.”
The way I say it isn’t about convenience. It’s a promise: you’ll be safe, I won’t let him get near you again.
She hesitates, weighing something unspoken, then finally nods. “Okay. Lead the way.”
Relief hits like oxygen after drowning. “I just need to put a few things away. You good to wait?”
She nods again.
I don’t even remember moving. One second I’m standing there, the next I’m packing faster than I ever have in my life, cables, pedals, lyric sheets, all instincts and adrenaline. Because for the first time since the door slammed last night, it feels like maybe, just maybe, the song isn’t over.
The night air hits like a reset, warm, humid, thick with the city’s pulse.
Miami never really sleeps; it just trades rhythms. I hold the door for her as we step out of the studio, the noise inside giving way to the soft hum of parking-lot crickets and the distant bass from someone else’s party.
The sky’s bruised purple, streetlights bleeding gold over the asphalt.
The rental’s waiting under a palm, windshield fogged by the humidity.
I open her door first, some half-forgotten reflex that feels out of place in this century and toss my guitar in the back.
She slides in, crossing her legs with that calm that always manages to unnerve me.
Meanwhile, I’m trying not to look like someone whose pulse hasn’t slowed since the moment she said okay.
For a while, neither of us talks. The silence between us isn’t empty, though; it’s electric. Every red light feels like a dare to look at her. Every green feels like a warning not to.
Finally, she says, “Do you think Haima was right?”
I glance over. “About the take?”
“About all of it.”
I tighten my grip on the wheel, not sure which version of all she means.
“He’s completely wrong about what this is, for me.
” I look at her, hard enough she finally meets my gaze then looks away again.
I grip the steering wheel like it’s a buoy, keeping me from drowning.
“With music? He’s a fucking genius. Terrible delivery, though. ”
She exhales a laugh, tired, edged with disbelief. “That’s generous.”
“I’m feeling generous tonight.”
The lights drag across her face, orange, white, blue, like the shifting heartbeat of the city itself. She looks exhausted in that way that makes people honest, stripped of pretense.
“I’m still mad at you,” she says after a moment.
I don’t look at her, but the words land exactly where they should. “Yeah. I deserve that.”
Silence. Then softer: “You didn’t say it… but you didn’t disagree with him either.”
The hit sinks deep, “Yeah, that’s the part that keeps replaying.”
After a long pause, she says, “I know you were trying to fix it this morning.”
“I was trying to smooth it over,” I admit. “So you’d come to the studio. I didn’t put fixing it high on the list of possibilities.”
Her mouth curves faintly, somewhere between amusement and ache. “I could tell you were at least trying. More than Haima did.”
“Rithy doesn’t apologize,” I say. “But I do, and I’m sorry.” I pause, because it’s true and because I need her to hear the rest. “I won’t let him do that again, I promise. I won't let him hurt you, not with words or weapons.”
She turns her head toward me, sighs. “Do you really always talk this way? Like everything’s poetry?"
I grin, eyes on the road. “Here and there. Sometimes I even set it to music.”
She shakes her head, but she’s smiling now, small, reluctant.
The tension eases; the edges soften. By the time we reach the restaurant, a low-lit place tucked by the bay where the others said they’d meet, the air between us has changed.
It’s no longer brittle, it’s bright again.
I park and kill the engine, but neither of us moves.
The water reflects across the windshield, turning the car into an aquarium of color.
The silence between us grows thick, alive.
I can feel her eyes on me and I turn just enough to meet them.
There are a thousand things I want to say, that I’ve never seen her as anything less than that goddess, that I didn’t sleep, that her voice is still caught somewhere in my chest, that not touching her feels like fire carving it’s way into my fucking bones but all that comes out is:
“Thanks, for accepting the ride, for coming to dinner. You didn’t have to.”
Her voice is soft, but steady. “Well, you asked me to. Nicely.”
She looks at me for another long second, then reaches for the handle. The spell breaks with the click of the door. We walk inside together, side by side, two people caught in the fragile peace between us and whatever comes next.