Page 18 of Mending Hearts
Cal recovers with a grin that feels slightly more careful. “Well,” he says, voice warm, “on that note—Steel Saints, take it away.”
The band stands, the stagehands move fast, and the couch clears as they head toward the performance area.
I hold my breath as Rafe passes behind the couch, moving with that familiar grace. For a split second, he’s close enough that I catch the faintest trace of him—soap, smoke, something uniquely Rafe—and my whole body goes stiff.
Then they’re positioned, guitars in hand, lights shifting, the audience clapping. And the first chord rings out—sharp, clean, unmistakable.
“Velocity.”
Fuck, my lungs forget how to work, and the world tilts again.
4
RAFE
The audience roarsas we step into the performance space, lights swinging down to paint us in a heat I know better than my own heartbeat. There’s a countdown in my head. Eli taps his sticks. Drew nods once.
And I do what I always do. I become the version of myself that can survive this. I lift my chin, lean into the mic, and let the melody take me by the throat and drag me forward.
No thinking.
No spiraling.
Just music.
Just the line of notes I wrote when I was still young enough to believe love could be pure and uncomplicated and safe. When I was still stupid enough to fall.
The first verse comes out smooth and controlled. My voice wraps around the words and makes them sound like something meant for the crowd, something meant for the world. Not something meant for one man.
I keep my eyes forward. I keep them trained on the middle distance, on the studio lights, on the camera that swings in a slow arc like it’s hunting for emotion.
Don’t look.
Don’t look at him.
Because he’s here. I can feel him like heat against my skin even from across the studio. Like the air knows his name and keeps whispering it.
Oliver Marshall. Almost eight years, and he’s here. In the same room—breathing, watching me.
The band launches into the pre-chorus, the build that always makes the crowd lean in, makes the air feel electric. My chest constricts, and I focus on the mechanics—breath control, diaphragm, placement, pitch. I let the technical part of my brain take over, because if I let the human part in, I’ll shatter.
And then I hit the line I always hit—the one that always tastes like ash if I let myself think about why it exists. A flicker of something passes through me, the memory of a hallway, a laugh, a glance and a blush that rewired my gravity in one stupid heartbeat.
And my gaze slips. Just once. Not even on purpose. It’s more of a reflex. My eyes catch on the couch. On the space where Ollie is sitting next to Adrian, his posture too still, his face too carefully arranged into something neutral, polite, composed—like he’s attending a press conference and not a fucking cosmic collision.
His eyes are on me.
There’s no hiding it now. Not in the dark, not from behind a screen, not through years of distance. It hits like a punch. All the air in my lungs vanishes. The studio lights blur. My mouth dries so fast my next breath stutters.
For a split second, I don’t know if my voice will hold. Then Drew’s guitar fills the gap, Eli drives the rhythm forward with the drums, and my body remembers itself. The chorus hits, the crowd surges, and I claw my focus back like it’s a lifeline.
Do not fall apart. Not here. Not on camera. Not in front of him.
The chorus rises—familiar words, familiar ache. My voice does what it’s trained to do: It carries. It climbs. It pretends the pain is art instead of a wound, and all I can think about is the charity. The way Ollie’s voice sounded when he talked about it. The way his face didn’t look like he was performing. It looked like he meant it.
Immigrant families. Legal resources. Kids terrified their parents would disappear.
He said it like he’d been holding it for a while, like he’d been wanting to say it and didn’t know where to put it until now.
