I should look away. I don’t.
My gaze snags on the captain.
Ollie Marshall. I’ve seen him around—posters plastered in the union, highlight reels on the TV in the cafeteria, his name in the campus paper. Up close he’s taller than I realized, shoulders squared under his jacket, stride clean like he was built for it. His hair is dark, cropped close, his face sharp with focus. He doesn’t joke as much as the others. Doesn’t shout. And from what I’ve noticed, when he talks, people shut up.
I’ve heard his voice once—low, steady, not the cocky bark you expect from a jock. It stuck.
And now his eyes catch mine.
It should be nothing. A glance in a crowded space. But it isn’t. His gaze holds for a beat too long, a string pulled taut between us. His cheeks flush, sudden and bright, the color blooming high on his skin—crimson, almost luminous under the harsh hallway light, like a lyric I didn’t know I was reaching for.
It fucking stops me.
He looks away first, back at his teammates. They laugh about something, voices echoing, sneakers squeaking against the tile. But I’m not hearing them. I’m tracking him. The way he moves, controlled but not stiff. The way his hands flex against the strap of his bag.
It’s the first time I’vereallypaid attention to him. Definitely the first time he’s ever seen me. And yet something about that flush, that startled look—it sticks.
I lean against the wall, watching until they disappear around the corner. My pulse is faster than it should be. My fingers itch, not for the strings this time, but for a pen. For the notebook waiting back in the practice room.
Dark, serious eyes. The red flush of cheeks. A face that’s supposed to be carved out of confidence, caught off guard instead.
My muse walks away in a letterman jacket, and fuck if I don’t follow his every step.
I push off the wall and head back to the practice room before the feeling fades. The corridor smells like floor cleaner and someone’s cheap body spray. A trombone squeals from a room down the hall, then dies. My boots thud a steady pace that matches the new pulse in my head.
Inside, Eli’s doing a stick trick with the kind of concentration that should be illegal. Drew is flat on his back, phone hovering above his face, scrolling with the slack-fingered stare of a man forgetting he has a future. Miles is perched on an amp with his guitar silent in his lap, eyes half lidded like he’s meditating. He isn’t. He’s composing in his head. He always is.
“Break’s over,” I say, closing the door with my heel.
Eli drops the stick, snatches it before it hits the floor, and points it at me. “Well? Did the air give you a chorus?”
“Maybe.” I grab the notebook off the carpet and squat by the amp. The paper is freckled with old coffee stains and ripped corners. It looks like it’s been in a fight. It has. “Shut up for a minute.”
“Oh, Rafe the Artist is here.” Drew lifts the phone just enough to smirk, then goes back to whatever hole he’s doom-scrolling down.
“Give him sixty seconds,” Miles says, voice calm as a lake. “When his jaw is clenched like that, it means something stuck.”
I don’t argue. I anchor the notebook with my palm and let the pen touch down. The first line lands easy, like it’s been waiting.
Eyes like a locked door, I miss the handle twice
Captain with the quiet voice, steady as advice
Crimson catching high and hot, proof you feel it too?—
I wasn’t looking, I swear I wasn’t. Then I saw you.
I stop and look at the words. Too on-the-nose? Maybe. But there’s a charge in my fingers I’ve been chasing for weeks, and now it’s here, steady and warm. I keep going.
You don’t talk loud, you don’t take up the space
But every hallway turns and looks to follow your face
I’m not a fan of your game, don’t know one rule
But I changed my day because you walked past school.
I scratch that last line, rewrite it cleaner.
