61. The Last Show
The Last Show
Rafe
It’s the last show.
The last one.
I can’t keep still. Every circuit of the arena feels like caffeine straight to my bloodstream, sound checks, lighting cues, crew chatter. I’m bouncing off the walls, and Rithy’s watching me like he’s calculating the odds I’ll sprain an ankle before we even hit the stage.
“Calm the fuck down,” he mutters, half grinning. “You’ll injure yourself before the encore.”
Ronan claps me on the back hard enough to rattle something loose. “Let him be. Good to see him excited again instead of clocking in like a bored accountant. He’s been on autopilot since London.”
I grin at him, and it feels good. He’s right. The shows since London have been a blur of exhaustion, calls, and counting down the days until I could stop running. But now that we’re here, on the edge of the finish line, it’s pure adrenaline.
Kiri, on the other hand, looks like someone kicked his puppy. He’s hunched over his phone, brow furrowed, when it starts buzzing again. The PR team, judging by his expression.
“Fuck’s sake,” he murmurs, rubbing his face. “The girl I was seeing went public with a footballer. Probably had him waiting in the wings. I didn’t reply to her blackmail fast enough, so now she’s leaking a few of my—” he makes a vague motion with his hand, “—private messages.”
Rithy starts laughing so hard he nearly drops his cigarette. “You mean the moaning voice notes?”
Kiri groans and drops his head to the table. “Kill me. Please.”
Ronan’s still laughing when Kiri suddenly looks up at me. “Actually, you didn’t tell me Natalia is hot as fuck.”
I blink. “Natalia? Kasia’s sister Natalia? What the hell—how do you even know about her?”
“She messaged me ages ago,” he says, shrugging. “Told me who she was, but I was too caught up in Heather at the time.”
Rithy snorts. “Her name was Heather? No wonder, brother.”
Kiri flips him off and slides his sunglasses up to hide his embarrassment. “Yeah, well. Anyway. Natalia. Maybe next time you visit Kasia, I could, you know, come by. Say hi.”
I arch a brow. “You want to use my girlfriend’s sister as your personal rebound?”
The table erupts, Ronan laughing, Rithy choking on his drink, Kiri grinning like he just struck gold.
“Oh, don’t act surprised,” I say, raising both hands in mock surrender. “Yes, girlfriend. Whatever. My point still stands. Also, she’s twenty-two, Kiri.”
He smirks. “She’s an adult. Glad we both agree there. Also, not a rebound, just a hello.”
I narrow my eyes. “It’s me you’re talking to. There’s no such thing as ‘just hello.’ There’s ‘hello’ followed by extremely loud fucking in your hotel room. Thank God they book us away from each other now.”
All three of them nod solemnly, unified for once.
Then Rithy leans back, smirking. “Yeah, thank God. I don’t have to listen to you and Kasia whisper sweet nothings or Freja screaming to the All-Fucking-Father in Swedish.”
The silence is instant. Kiri and I stare at him, eyes wide. Ronan’s head snaps up, jaw tightening.
Rithy raises his hands like he’s innocent, sinking deeper into his chair and tugging his collar up. “What? I’m just saying, everyone’s got needs. Yes, even you Ronan.”
Ronan glares. “You’re a dead man if you bring up Freja again.”
“Moving the fuck on,” Rithy mutters quickly, already reaching for his drink.
I shake my head, laughing despite myself. “God help us all when the afterparty starts.”
Tonight it really feels like everything’s exactly how it should be, chaotic, loud, alive.
The lights hit, the crowd roars, and it feels like electricity under my skin.
This is what it’s supposed to feel like, the final night of the European tour, everything fine-tuned, every chord hitting clean.
We’re on it from the first note. Ronan’s drumming like a man possessed, Kiri’s bass rolling through the floor, Rithy’s guitar cutting through the air like fire.
I can feel the pulse of it deep in my chest. The noise, the sweat, the adrenaline, it’s a living thing.
I lean into the mic, shouting the opening of Obsidian Choir, the crowd answering like thunder. For a few minutes, I forget the exhaustion, the travel, the ache of missing her. I’m just sound and heartbeat and movement, giving everything we’ve got for the last time this tour.
And then, I see her. Front section, just beyond the barrier. That spot. The one that’s always been reserved for friends and family. People who matter, people who know what it costs to be up here. Emily.
For a second, my brain doesn’t register it.
Just a flash of dark hair, familiar tilt of the chin.
It’s her. I falter mid-line, half a beat late, the note catching in my throat.
My fingers freeze on the keys. Rithy glances at me from across the stage, eyes narrowing. He follows my gaze, then spots her too.
Without missing a beat, he slides in, his voice cutting through mine, guitar lifting to carry the next verse.
The band shifts around me instinctively, years of practice smoothing the seam where I cracked.
Ronan throws me a quick look concern with a touch of get it together. I do. Or at least, I try.
I shake it off, swallow, rejoin the chorus. Rithy’s eyebrow flicks up from across the stage: you good? I nod, forcing a smile beneath the veil. The crowd won’t notice. They never do. But my pulse is still uneven, my head racing. Why is she here? Who knew? Why didn't anyone tell me she'd be here?
By the second song, I find my rhythm again.
The band’s locked in, everything flows perfectly.
It’s the kind of night that reminds you why you started.
Paris gives everything back; the crowd sings every word.
For a moment, I even forget she’s there.
Almost. When the last note fades, when the roar swells and the lights dim, I can finally breathe again.
I bow, thank the crowd, let the noise wash over me.
Backstage, I don’t even take my earpiece out before heading straight to management.
“What the hell’s going on?” I demand. “Emily. Why is she here?”
Elise blinks, caught off guard. “She contacted us this morning. Said she had a ticket and asked if it was okay to come by. You told us to put her on the list if she ever reached out, so—”
“Got it. So you let her in, fine. But no one thought to tell me?”
“I told Olivia to text you,” she says, defensive.
“She didn’t,” I snap. “No one did.”
Before I can say anything else, I see her being ushered through by one of the security staff, VIP lanyard around her neck, that same careful smile she used to wear when she was still mine. My stomach twists.
Why now? Of all the times. Of all the nights.
Why the hell is she here?
“Rafe,” she says softly. “It’s good to see you.”
She steps in and reaches for a hug. Reflex takes over before thought does. I give her one, a small one, awkward, polite. She smells exactly the same, white musk and cotton, and it hits me with the kind of clarity I wish I didn’t still have.
When she pulls back, she studies me with that tilted-head curiosity that used to make me feel like a specimen under glass. “You look good,” she says. “Healthier. Are you free? Maybe a coffee, a catch-up? That café we used to go to near Montmartre. You remember?”
Of course I do. The chipped blue tables.
The cheap espresso that somehow tasted perfect because she was there.
Nights when I was broke and she believed in me anyway.
Her words open a floodgate I’d rather keep shut, that same window, her face reflected against the dark glass, eyes hollow when I broke her heart for the hundredth time and called it being honest to the art.
I nod slowly. “Yeah. Let me wash up first. Hoodie, jeans, something normal.”
“Still hiding?” she teases.
“Paris loves us too much,” I say, trying to sound light. “Can’t even step out for coffee without it turning into a photoshoot.”
It’s true, and it still unnerves me. Always has.
The fans waiting at airports, outside hotels, somehow knowing flight numbers and hotel names.
Some of them camp out all night. It’s not their fault, really, it’s devotion, the pure kind but it still crawls under my skin.
The idea of being watched when I’m not performing.
It used to be exciting. Now it feels like walking around without armor with someone always taking aim at something vital.
“I can come with you,” she says, breaking through my thoughts. “In the bus, I mean. I’d love to see the others. Say hi.”
I hesitate, but my brain’s too tired to find a reason to refuse. “Yeah, sure. Come on.”
The bus ride back is chaos, in the usual end-of-tour way.
Everyone’s high on adrenaline. Emily fits right back in, Rithy greets her with a loud “Holy shit, look who it is!” and pulls her in for a hug; Kiri offers her one of his terrible canned cocktails; Ronan makes a joke about deja vu.
It’s almost too easy, like a scene from another life.
They’re all talking, laughing, catching her up. And me, I’m just watching, caught somewhere between nostalgia and unease. I keep noticing flashes outside the bus windows, camera lights, people waiting, fans waving as we pass. Some of them will follow us to the hotel. They always do.
When I catch Ronan’s eye across the bus, he’s not smiling. He’s reading me. Is this smart? his look says. I shrug, leaning back, pretending at a calm I don’t feel.
What am I supposed to do? Turn away someone I thought I loved for almost five years?
He gives me that slow, silent exhale that says everything. We both know it’s not a good idea. But we also know I’ll go anyway. It's the only option that feels decent, human.
Some mistakes don’t look like mistakes until you’re already inside them.