“See you around,” he mutters, voice lower now, like it costs him something.
I nod back. “Count on it.”
He turns and strides back to his team, captain mask sliding neatly into place. But I saw it—the flush, the shift, the way my words unsettled him. And I know I’ll be writing about it before the night’s over.
I leave the gym with my pulse still wired and my head full of the look on Ollie Marshall’s face when I dropped the wordinspiration. I’ve seen people flustered before. Hell, I’ve caused it on purpose. But this? A guy who probably has girls throwing themselves at him like confetti, blushing red from his ears down to his collar? That’s something else.
The sun’s low, smearing everything in gold, just enough to throw my shades on. My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out and seeRosaflashing across the screen. My little sister doesn’t call unless it’s important. She prefers blowing up my texts with memes or sending me photos of the dog in ridiculous outfits.
“Hey, kid,” I answer.
“Rafael,” she says, full-name serious, which means she’s about to ask me for something.
“Uh-oh,” I say. “What did you break?”
“Nothing! Well, not yet.” There’s a pause, followed by muffled sounds like she’s moving through the house. “Okay, so Mamá wants to know if you’re coming home for Christmas.”
I groan. “You’re the messenger?”
“Always,” she says with a sigh. “Because you’re her favorite. Don’t deny it.”
“She loves you more. You’re still under her roof.”
“Exactly. Which means I get the chores list while she waxes poetic about your scholarship.” She makes her voice high and dramatic: “Our Rafe, the musician, so talented, so blessed….”
I laugh, shaking my head. “Don’t make me sound like a Hallmark movie.”
“You don’t need help with that,” she fires back. Then, softer, she adds, “So? Are you?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’ll figure out the flights. Can’t promise I’ll be sober for every mass and family dinner, but I’ll show up.”
“That’s all she wants.” There’s a smile in her voice now. “That and maybe for you to wear a button-up that isn’t missing half its buttons.”
“Tell her I’ll think about it.”
“Translation: No.”
“Correct.”
We banter a little more—she updates me on school, the dog, some neighborhood drama—and then we hang up. I slide the phone back into my pocket, chest lighter. Family has that effect, even when they’re pestering.
By the time I reach the apartment, the sun’s nearly gone, the sky a bruising purple. The place is on the edge of campus housing, technically “off campus” but close enough that students cycle past at all hours. The building’s old, stucco cracking, but the rent’s barely affordable split four ways.
Inside, it smells like weed. Not the fresh kind, the lingering, baked-into-the-couch kind. Drew must’ve had friends over again. But surprisingly, the living room’s tidy. Empty beer bottles stacked neatly in the recycling bin, guitar cables coiled instead of strangling the coffee table. Our furniture is all secondhand—couches sagging in the middle, mismatched chairs, a coffee table carved with initials that aren’t ours—but it works. We’ve played gigs in worse spaces.
Miles is on the couch with headphones, scribbling in his notebook, humming under his breath. He glances up, nods, then goes back to his work. That’s Miles. Rhythms, beats, and arrangements over words, music in his head twenty-four seven.
“Anyone else home?” I ask.
“Eli and Drew are at work,” he says without looking up.
“Good.” I kick off my boots, drop my bag, and flop into the armchair by the window. Pulling out my own notebook, I flip to the half-filled page from earlier at the gym. The words itch. They’ve been itching since Monday, but now they’re burning.
I let the pen run.
You saw me, I saw you, in a room full of noise
Your cheeks gave you away when you didn’t have a choice
