He sits, careful, like even on this sad excuse for furniture he’s taking up too much space. I grab my guitar and settle across from him on the bed. For a moment, it’s quiet except for the creak of strings as we tune, the air thick with things neither of us says.
I strum first, something loose and easy. He follows, fingers finding chords, and before I know it, we’re sliding into a song we both know. Old-school, something fun, the kind of thing you can play without thinking. The tension drains out of me with each measure, replaced by the buzz of sound weaving between us.
“Not bad, Captain,” I say when we finish.
He rolls his eyes, but his smile lingers. “You weren’t too bad yourself.”
We play another. Then another. Conversation slides in between songs, casual at first—classes, professors, the garbage food at the cafeteria. And then, slowly, the dialogue starts to stretch.
“Do you ever take a break?” I ask after we finish a riff, leaning back on my palms.
“Not really.” He wipes a hand across his forehead, even though we’re not exactly sweating. “Season’s brutal. Practice, lifts, film, games. It doesn’t leave much time.”
“But you made time today.” The words are out before I can stop them.
He glances at me, startled, like he didn’t expect me to notice. His mouth opens, then shuts, and he settles on a shrug. “Guess I did.”
It’s a small admission, but it feels like a goddamn earthquake in the quiet of my room.
I shift and pick at a string, trying to tamp down the way my chest is buzzing. “Your teammates say you’re straight,” I blurt, then immediately want to slam my head into the wall.
His head snaps toward me, eyes wide. “What?”
“I mean—fuck, forget I said that.” My face burns.
Smooth, Rafe. Real smooth.
He watches me for a long beat, his expression unreadable, then shakes his head. “People talk too much.”
It’s not a yes. It’s not a no. And that ambiguity? That’s enough to keep me wired.
“Anyway,” he says, steering us back. “What about you? You’re juggling classes, a band, a job….”
“Job keeps me alive, band keeps me sane, classes keep my parents off my ass,” I say with a grin. “Pretty balanced, if you ask me.”
He huffs a laugh. “You make it sound easy.”
“It’s not,” I admit. “But nothing worth it ever is.”
For a moment, the only sound is the hum of strings fading into silence. His gaze is on me again, steady and searching, and it’s like he’s peeling back layers I didn’t know I had.
We fall back into music, the conversation weaving through it like a second melody. And somewhere in the spaces between, I start to believe I’m seeing him—not Captain Marshall, not the face on posters, not the perfect son with perfect answers. Just Ollie.
And fuck if that isn’t more dangerous than anything else.
The next song starts without planning. I roll into a riff, and he picks it up as though we’d rehearsed. His fingers are cleanon the frets, quick in ways that surprise me. This guy’s supposed to be the basketball machine, all body and discipline, but he plays like someone who actually listens—to music, to the notes between notes.
“You’ve done this before,” I say, breaking the rhythm long enough to smirk at him.
His mouth quirks. “Couple of times.”
“Couple?”
He shrugs, eyes still on the strings. “Guitar was the one instrument my parents didn’t force on me. Guitar…” He trails off, shoulders loosening as his hand slides into the next chord. “It felt like mine.” It pretty much mirrors what he told me at the music shop, but I listen like it’s the first time.
The way he says it makes me stop. It’s quiet, almost hidden, like he’s admitting something he’s never told anyone.
“That’s the thing,” I say, softer now. “The ones that feel like yours? They’re the ones that stay.”
