I’ve never had a type beyond “interesting.” People who make the air feel different. I didn’t think a campus captain would do that for me. But he did. It hit fast. It hit true. It made my hand move on a page like someone turned the lights on.
I won’t say a word to anyone who doesn’t need to know. I won’t chase something that isn’t mine. But I will write the hell out of what it did to me. I will put it in a room with bad lighting and dirty carpet and see if strangers feel the jolt I felt.
We cut across the quad. A girl with purple hair strums a guitar by the fountain and butchers a chord. I fight the urge to correct her. There’s a time for teaching. This isn’t it. This is for taking what just woke up and giving it a name.
“Crimson High,” I say under my breath, testing the shape of it again.
“What?” Eli asks.
“Nothing.” We step onto the street.
The air outside carries a bite it didn’t have at noon. Somewhere downtown, a siren threads through traffic. A busker bangs a drum near the corner store and sings off-key about rent. The city sounds like a rehearsal. We’re ready for the show.
I give a shit about three things: my family, my band, the music we’re making. Tonight, a fourth thing tapped me on the shoulder and turned red under bad lights. I won’t pretend it didn’t happen. I won’t pretend it’s more than what it is either.
I am bi. I am out. I am not stupid.
But I am curious. And curiosity is a good way to make a song better.
We head toward the bar that lets undergrads play for free if they promise not to break anything. I walk faster than usual. My fingers itch for the strings and the pen in equal measure. I’m not a fan of basketball. I don’t plan to be. I plan to write. I plan to sing. I plan to take whatever the hell today was and turn it into something worth shouting over a room.
If a captain with quiet eyes walks past the door while we’re doing it, that’ll be a bonus. If he doesn’t, I still have a chorus. Either way, we’re going to make someone look up from their cheap beer and feel something again.
That’s the job. That’s the only job that’s ever made sense.
CHAPTER
TWO
I’ve donea lot of dumb shit for inspiration. Played a half-busted bass until my fingers bled, sat through open mics that smelled like old fries and desperation, once even tried meditating because Miles swore it would “clear the channels.” (Spoiler: All it did was make me want tacos.) But nothing compares to walking into the student gym on a Thursday afternoon like I belong here.
Ido notbelong here.
The air smells like sweat, sanitizer, and overcompensation. Treadmills line one wall, their belts squeaking in imperfect rhythm, while weights clank in staccato bursts. Big windows let in slanted winter sunlight, the kind that makes the chrome shine and turns every drop of sweat into a glint.
I sling my backpack over one shoulder and pause, scanning the place.
There he is.
Ollie Marshall.
Captain, poster boy, golden boy. The guy I promised myself I wasn’t going to think about after Monday. The one I then immediately googled the second I got back to my apartment. And then googled again the next day. And the next.
What did I find? Too much, yet not enough. Madison, Wisconsin. Conservative parents—dad runs a big manufacturing company, mom runs a charity that looks good on brochures. The governor’s name shows up a lot, always standing next to his mom at fundraisers. That explains the way he walks: rigid, controlled, like every move is being watched. Which it probably is.
The kid’s practically a brand. Clean interviews, no scandals, always talking about discipline, team, focus. No slipups. No cracks. Except for one: that eye contact in the hallway and the red bloom on his cheeks when he realized I was looking back.
It probably meant nothing. But fuck, it lit something. My pen hasn’t stopped moving since. Lyrics spill out faster than I can catch them, half of them trash, some of them electric. “Crimson High” keeps looping in my head like it’s daring me to share it with the world.
But online articles and box scores don’t cut it. Neither do highlight reels on YouTube. I’ve been asking around, casually—what classes he takes, when he’s on the court, when he hits the gym. Nothing creepy, just… curiosity with better scheduling. Right. And now here I am, standing in the doorway of a place I’ve avoided for over three years, lungs tightening like I walked into enemy territory.
I’m not out of shape. I’ve got a couple of dumbbells shoved in the corner of my bedroom, and I run three mornings a week because my lungs are my instrument. But this? This is a cathedral for bodies. Big guys, loud guys, women with ponytails whipping as they pound the treadmills, dudes spotting each other with shouts of “Push! Push! You got it, bro!” This is not my scene.
I slide my hoodie sleeves up, tattoos exposed, and feel the eyes. A couple of preppy kids near the dumbbell rack pause mid-rep. Their hair is the kind of tidy that costs money, expensive,branded training shirts into shorts, socks pulled high. They glance at my ink, the ring through my eyebrow, the rips in my jeans, and whisper behind their water bottles.
I grin at them, sharp enough to make one flinch.Yeah, I see you. Stare all you want.I’ve been stared at my whole life. First for being the Mexican kid in a mostly white suburb, then for being the loud one with a bass, then for kissing whoever I wanted without apology. I don’t scare easily.
“Yo, Rafe.”
