5. Chapter Five
Chapter Five
Evan
We'd just finished running through a new track.
Lila sat with her guitar across her lap, posture loose, focus sharp enough to cut wire.
Harper slouched behind the drums with the expression of someone who could fall asleep mid-fill and still keep time.
Finn was shirtless again for no apparent reason except that Finn treated clothing as a loose suggestion.
The room still buzzed from the song. One amp hummed in the corner, stubborn and low.
A cymbal rocked on its stand from Harper's last hit, catching the weak overhead light every few seconds.
The floor was a death trap of cables, crushed water bottles, and one lonely guitar pick nobody would admit belonged to them.
It had that dangerous maybe feeling, the one that sneaks in when a song finally clicks and suddenly you can almost taste the future, sweet and sharp and just out of reach.
"You guys sound amazing," I said, dragging a stool closer. My voice came out casual, but my pulse was still riding the high of their set. "You're the next big band after Arcadia Drive."
Finn leaned over his mic, grinning like he'd been waiting for that cue his entire shirtless life. "You're just here to check out my abs, aren't you, Evan?"
I didn't look at his stomach. If I did, he'd frame the moment. "Please. I'm more of a brain guy."
Lila snorted, and for a second her gaze caught mine. It held longer than it should have, long enough to remind me that we were pretending in a room full of people who knew us too well, long enough for her cheeks to turn pink at the edges, faint enough that someone who didn't know her would miss it.
I knew her. That was my problem.
"Shut up, Finn," she said, still smiling as she set her guitar down. "No one's checking out your abs. They're barely there. They're like shy abs."
"They're in witness protection," Finn said solemnly.
Harper tapped a lazy rimshot because she believed in supporting stupidity when it had rhythm.
Lila rolled her eyes, then turned toward me. Her shoulders shifted with that careful ease she wore when she was trying to act normal. "So, I heard your new song on the radio. How does that feel, Mr. Rockstar?"
It should have felt unreal in a good way. It did, for about two seconds. Then the weight of it landed.
People out there were hearing me. People who didn't know about the bars with bad lighting or the cash that smelled like cigarettes.
People who didn't know my mom's guitar, my dad's silence, or the way a crowd could make you feel both worshipped and empty in the same hour.
They were deciding who I was based on three minutes of sound and whatever clip made the rounds online.
Fame wasn’t just attention. It was people picking you apart, building a shinier, more interesting version of you out of spare parts and wishful thinking.
I played it cool anyway, because deep down I was still the guy who once tripped off a stage in front of the prettiest girl in the room and lived to tell the tale. Barely.
"Pretty surreal, if I'm being honest." I leaned back on the stool like my entire nervous system wasn't trying to chew through its own wiring. "I never expected any of this."
Lila's smile softened. That got me. It always did.
Not the big smile she gave Finn when he said something ridiculous, not the polite one she used when people asked about her parents and pretended they weren't fishing for gossip.
This one was smaller, private, like she'd tucked it somewhere safe and decided to hand it to me anyway.
My hand twitched on my knee. Hers rested on the edge of the table, close enough that I could have reached for it without making it obvious.
I didn't. Not with Finn watching. Not with Harper pretending not to. Not when every secret between us had started feeling less like a locked door and more like a room with shrinking walls.
Finn stretched out on the battered couch, taking up as much space as physics allowed. "Maybe one day we'll be your opening act on tour."
Lila lifted an eyebrow, amused in that way that didn't need effort. "Nah. He's going to be my opening act."
I laughed and leaned in, because when she said things like that, my whole body felt lighter. The world could keep tugging at me, but this girl in a cluttered rehearsal room still saw the version of me who ate gas-station nachos after midnight and only remembered laundry when I ran out of socks.
"You'd have to let me make this public, you know," I said. "Let everyone know you're the girl I'm in love with."
Her face changed. Barely. A flicker, a hesitation she tried to hide behind one calm blink.
Then she reached under the table for my hand and squeezed. Warm palm, steady pressure. It hit me straight in the chest, that simple touch, because it carried everything she wasn't ready to say where anyone could hear it.
"You know I can't handle that while I'm still in college," she said. "Let me graduate. Then we can talk."
I told myself that was fair. Maybe it was. Or maybe I was just too relieved she’d said then instead of never to admit that waiting felt a lot like hiding.
Finn slung an arm around her shoulder and dragged her an inch closer just to be annoying. "Our girl here's got a good head on her shoulders. Wouldn't want to waste her big brain on PR nightmares and Twitter stans."
Lila elbowed him in the ribs without looking.
Finn gasped and clutched his side. "I have been wounded by academia."
"You've been wounded by your own lack of boundaries," Harper said.
"I'm allergic to boundaries."
"We know," Lila said.
I grinned anyway, because Finn wasn’t wrong. She really did have a good head on her shoulders. She kept me anchored when everything else tried to launch me into orbit. With her, the noise in my head didn’t disappear, but it faded to a manageable hum.
Back then, when we were tangled up in music and dreams and stolen moments in soundproof rooms, it felt like nothing could touch us.
Kisses muffled by bass lines. Laughter bouncing off drum kits.
Hands that found each other under tables, behind doors, in the dark corners between what we wanted and what we admitted.
Back then, I thought love was enough. Kind of embarrassing, honestly. Not because love didn’t matter, but because I should’ve known better than to think something that good could live on borrowed time and wishful thinking.
The others filtered out eventually. Harper muttered something about sleep and the cruelty of daylight, packed up her sticks with the tired efficiency drummers get after years of hauling half their life in cases, then disappeared through the side door.
Finn lingered in the doorway, looking between Lila and me with the satisfied expression of a man who lived for drama. He patted his stomach where his allegedly shy abs resided. "Try not to get arrested."
"That could be advice for either of us," Lila said.
"Exactly. I believe in equal-opportunity warnings."
"Go," she said, waving him off without heat.
Finn gave a mock salute and headed out, probably in search of protein bars or a mirror.
The door shut behind him.
The room changed, but not in any dramatic, movie-magic way. No spotlight from above, no epic soundtrack. Just the regular hush after rehearsal: amp humming, radiator ticking, Harper’s water bottle sweating a little puddle onto the floor.
Lila stayed. She sat cross-legged on the amp, fingers moving over her guitar strings in idle little patterns that weren't quite a melody. Her focus was on the instrument, but her shoulders were too still.
I stayed on the stool, not ready to break whatever the night had built around us.
She plucked one string and let it ring.
"You gonna kiss me now that we're alone," she asked, eyes still down, "or are you still playing it cool, Mr. Rockstar?"
I crossed the space in a few strides. "I'm never cool when it comes to you."
That got her to look up. Her eyes were bright, but not soft in the way people wrote songs about, sharper than that, like she knew exactly where to press and wanted to see if I'd let her.
I stopped in front of her knees, close enough to touch, not touching yet. "You sure?"
Her gaze flicked to my mouth. "About kissing my secret boyfriend in a locked rehearsal room?"
"Yeah."
"Evan."
"What?"
"If I wasn't sure, you'd already be bleeding."
Fair.
I smiled despite myself. "Consent by threat of violence. Romantic."
"I contain multitudes."
"You contain trouble."
"And yet here you are."
There I was, hopeless for her. Absolutely stupid with it.
I kissed her slowly at first, mostly because I was trying not to prove Finn right about the whole getting-arrested thing. Her fingers curled into my shirt and pulled me closer, and the guitar slipped from her lap to the floor with a dull thud neither of us cared about.
"So rude to the instrument," I said against her mouth.
"You'll live."
"I was talking about the guitar."
She laughed, and I felt it more than heard it.
The kiss deepened. Her legs hooked around my waist and my hands found her hips, thumbs just under the edge of her shirt. I didn’t move higher, not yet, not until she gave me something more than heat and bravado and that competitive way she kissed, like she was determined to win.
She broke away just enough to breathe. "You can touch me."
The words landed low in my body. Still, I checked her face. Her chin lifted, stubborn and sure.
So I did. My hands slipped under her T-shirt and found warm skin. She made a small sound into my mouth when my thumb traced the curve beneath her ribs, and I had to grip the amp behind her for half a second because she made me forget I was supposed to be good at anything.
We moved together like practice had turned into something else, not perfect, not smooth. Her elbow knocked the mic stand. My boot hit a cable. The amp creaked under her, and she laughed against my mouth when I muttered that we were absolutely going to die in the least glamorous way possible.
"Would ruin your whole mystique," she said.
"I have mystique?"
"You had some before you face-planted the night we met."
"Cruel."
"Honest."
"Cruel honesty."
"My brand."
I kissed her again because there was no argument to win there.
When we finally pulled apart, her lips were swollen, and my shirt was twisted in one of her fists. She looked pleased with herself, and worse, she looked like she knew exactly what she'd done to me.
"You're gonna ruin me," I said. The line came out rougher than I meant it to.
Her smile flickered. For one second I saw the part of her that loved hearing it and hated needing it.
Then she leaned forward, forehead almost touching mine. "Good," she said. "You'll write better songs."
I laughed because it was easier than telling her I already was.
My next single had her all over it. Not her name, never that. But her fingerprints were everywhere. The chord change she'd liked. The line she'd teased me for rewriting six times. The rhythm of her laugh tucked where nobody else would know to listen.
One day, I wanted everyone to know. I wanted to stand under the lights and point right to her, say this one, she's the reason.
But that night she kissed me again before I could say something too honest, and I let her. I let her keep me secret. I let myself call it patience.