CHAPTER eighteen
There’s Never Any Choice
Wichita, Kansas
With one last day off before Oklahoma City, we detour into Wichita. Silver beads of rain trail down the windows, catching the light of the afternoon and turning it into golden streams.
I spent a few hours up front with Elias, listening to music and reading. I never feel the need to fill the silence when I’m around him like I do most people. His presence is calming and steady.
The bus exhales as we ease into an empty parking lot, brakes hissing in protest before it settles. Elias and I step out together, ending up shoulder to shoulder near the kitchenette while the others sprawl at the small table.
“What’s the plan?” I ask Cody, who predictably has a gleam in his eye. He’s the band’s self-appointed cruise director, always hunting down a way to turn downtime into a memory.
“There was supposed to be a bomb-ass pride parade,” he says with a half-grin, tilting his head as thunder punctuates his words, “but, you know—this rain is really… raining on my parade.” He winces at his own delivery.
The sky opens wider, heavy drops hammering against the roof. I grab my phone, scrolling through nearby options, when Elias leans in close. His shoulder brushes mine—so light I almost convince myself I imagined it.
“There’s a bowling alley next door,” I offer, shrugging.
“Perfect!” Cody shoots up, already bounding for the door. Rain pelts his back as he races towards the building. Jasper and Grady follow with the umbrella, their halfhearted attempt at sharing, leaving both soaked within seconds.
I move to follow, but Elias’s hand ghosts against my arm, stopping me. He unzips his hoodie without a word and holds it open, waiting.
For a moment, I just look at him. Rain drums harder outside, a steady roar against the silence between us.
Then I slide my arms into the sleeves, his hands brushing mine as he helps me pull it on.
The hoodie smells like him: woodsmoke, rain, something undeniably masculine threaded with a comfort that makes me want to bury my face in it and never come up for air.
“What about you?” I say, clutching the fabric closer around myself.
“I’ll be fine.”
He steps closer and tugs the hood over my head with careful fingers, smoothing it so it doesn’t muss my hair. The gesture is so gentle.
That’s when I notice it. How little space there is between us. His hands linger, skimming down my arms, fingertips brushing the fabric. My body is frozen, caught in the gravity of his nearness, my pulse hammering in my throat.
At the zipper, he pauses, eyes fixed on the slow motion as he pulls it upward, the teeth of the fabric locking together inch by inch. When the hoodie is closed, his gaze finally lifts to mine. Something burns there, restrained but unmistakable.
His hand rises, toying idly with the drawstring, his thumb grazing it while his teeth catch his bottom lip. His eyes flick down to my mouth, and my heart pounds like a drumline, every beat louder than the rain outside. I wait—helpless, suspended—for whatever he might do next.
And then, just as suddenly, he’s gone. He steps back, turns, and walks straight into the downpour, rain swallowing him whole. Hands in his pockets, head unbowed, he moves like the storm can’t touch him—like it was me who unsettled him, and he had to escape before the moment progressed any further.
I watch him walk ahead, unhurried, raindrops catching in his dark hair. My heart trips against my ribs, but I take a breath and follow him out into the storm.
“Come on!” Cody yells, throwing his arms in the air before slouching dramatically. His ball thuds into the gutter again, the third time in a row.
“Hey Cody, you know you’re supposed to hit the pins, right?” I tease, a giggle slipping out.
“Fuck you, Hendrix, with your mighty sixty points,” he shoots back.
“It’s still more than you’ve got.”
He flashes a crisp middle finger and a mocking grimace before dropping into a seat. Elias steps up to the lane next, calm as ever, and of course rolls another perfect strike. Cody groans loud enough to turn heads. Elias just shrugs like it was nothing.
The speakers overhead crackle.
“Karaoke starts in five minutes in the lounge,” a bored voice announces.
Cody’s eyes light up like Christmas. “Oh, hell yes.”
A few minutes and plenty of protests later, we’re crammed into the lounge, waiting for our turn. The “stage” is a tiny corner with a scuffed mic stand and a screen that looks like it was stolen from someone’s basement.
“Come on, Elias,” Cody pushes. “You sing on stage for a living, and you won’t do one karaoke song?”
“I don’t do karaoke.” Elias’s tone is clipped, final.
“Next up is Ramona and Cody,” the DJ calls.
My eyes snap to his guilty grin.
“What did you do?”
He shoves a mic into my hand and drags me to the stage. Only three strangers sit in the room, hardly a crowd, but my stomach still flips when the opening notes of Bring Me To Life boom out of the tiny speakers.
Cody belts Amy Lee’s part in a laughably high falsetto, complete with collapsing to his knees and clutching the mic like he’s auditioning for a soap opera.
I drop my voice low and take the guy’s part, trying to match his absurd theatrics.
The room echoes with our chaos, laughter spilling out between lyrics.
Elias doesn’t take his eyes off me. His smirk says he’s amused, but there’s something else too—something heavier that makes my cheeks warm under his gaze.
The song ends in a mess of whistles and claps from Grady and Jasper. Even Elias claps, shaking his head, lips quirking at the edges.
I flop back down beside him.
“I’m sorry you had to witness that disaster.”
“I’m not.” My stomach does a funny twist.
“Your turn, Elias!” Cody hollers.
“Absolutely not,” he fires back, hands raised.
“Yeah, frontman!” Jasper adds, smirking.
“Gives the fans what they want!” Grady chimes.
I nudge Elias with my elbow.
“Come on. I think you owe me for what I just went through up there.”
His jaw tightens. He shakes his head.
I lean closer, drop my voice so only he hears and place my hand on his arm.
“Do it for me?”
His eyes narrow. I can see him waging war with himself, weighing his pride against something he clearly doesn’t want to admit out loud. I smile—soft, a little pleading—and watch him break.
With a sigh, he drops his head into his hands.
“Give me the goddamn microphone.”
We erupt in cheers, but my heart is hammering because I know—I know—he’s only doing this for me. And that does something to me.
He lingers at the DJ booth longer than necessary, saying something I can’t catch over the buzz of conversation and the faint hum of the bowling lanes. A second mic is pressed into his hand, and when he turns back toward me, he holds it out like an offering I’d be a fool to refuse.
“If I’m doing this, you’re doing it with me.” His brows lift in challenge, though the tightness in his jaw betrays him.
“But I already went!” I protest, clutching at excuses.
“Don’t care. Get your ass up here, Flowers.”
With a groan that’s more for show than anything else, I take the mic and follow him onto the stage. It’s so small we’re practically pressed shoulder to shoulder.
I’ve seen Elias in his element, commanding venues, the kind of presence that leaves people breathless and believing.
Untouchable. Magnetic. But here, under fluorescent lights and in front of maybe six people who couldn’t care less, he looks…
human. His fingers strangle the mic, shoulders rigid like he’s bracing for impact.
The screen flashes Higher by Creed in bold white letters, but neither of us needs it. I glance at him, and when his eyes flick to mine—uncertain, searching—something shifts. The tension softens, just a fraction, like I’ve reached through and steadied him.
Then he sings.
The room falls away, dissolving into the low, rich timbre of his voice.
It slices through the cheap speakers, through me, and for a moment, I forget to breathe.
I stumble through my lines, but none of it matters, because he never looks away.
Every note is tethered to me, like this isn’t just karaoke in a bowling alley lounge in the middle of nowhere.
When the final note fades, the “crowd” explodes—cheers, whistles, a couple of stomps on the sticky floor. Elias doesn’t bow, doesn’t grin. He just shakes his head, leaning toward me, his voice dropping low so no one else can hear.
“Happy now?”
I can’t stop the smile that breaks across my face.
“Very.”
That’s when it happens—the rarest thing. A small, unguarded smile blooms slowly.
And it feels like it’s just for me.
Evening has fully settled by the time we spill out of the bowling alley, the sky is an inky black and still wringing itself out over the parking lot.
The rain falls in steady sheets, drumming against the pavement and the awning above us.
We hesitate there for a moment, huddled beneath the narrow strip of shelter. Everyone except Cody.
He bolts forward into the storm, laughter already breaking from him as the rain immediately soaks through his clothes.
“Let’s dance in the rain, guys!” he shouts, spinning in a sloppy, joyful circle with his arms thrown wide, his face tipped up toward the sky like he’s trying to catch every drop.
I look between Jasper and Grady. They exchange a glance and shrug, and that’s all the encouragement I need.
I hook an arm through each of theirs and drag them with me into the downpour.
The cold rain hits my skin and steals my breath, but it’s the good kind, the kind that makes you laugh.
Our voices echo across the empty lot as we run and slip and skid across the slick pavement.
Grady and Jasper immediately turn it into a competition, stomping through the biggest puddles they can find, trying to outdo each other with towering splashes.
I’m still laughing when Cody swoops in and lifts me clean off the ground, spinning me around.
The world blurs into streaks of light and rain and noise, cool drops peppering my face and arms until I’m breathless and dizzy with it.
When he finally sets me down, still grinning, my gaze drifts past the chaos and finds Elias.
He’s standing a little apart from the rest of us, perfectly still in the middle of the rain, his head tilted back toward the sky.
His arms lift slowly, as if he’s opening himself up to it, and then his eyes close.
The rain slicks his hair and darkens his clothes, tracing paths down his face, and for a moment he looks like he’s not in the parking lot at all—like he’s gone somewhere else.
Cody joins Jasper and Grady in their puddle-stomping war, and I make my way toward Elias, stepping carefully, not wanting to break whatever fragile moment he’s in.
When I stop in front of him, he lowers his arms and looks down at me, slow and unhurried. Our eyes meet and stay there, the noise of the others fading into the background. I give him a small, tentative smile.
He returns it.
And I swear his eyes—those mesmerizing shades of amber—have never looked brighter than they do right now, even under a sky this dark.