For a heartbeat, I forget to breathe.
My chest tightens. I don’t miss a note, but Ifeelevery one differently now.
Because he’s here.
And somehow, knowing that—seeinghim—turns everything up. Louder. Brighter. Meaner.
The next chorus rips out of me raw. Eli shoots me a look likeWhat the hell’s gotten into you?Drew just grins, feeding off it.
I hit the final chord and lean into the mic, chest heaving. “You still with me, Vegas?”
The crowd screams.
Ollie doesn’t move. But I swear his fingers flex on the rail like he’s holding himself still.
“Good,” I say, voice lower now, almost a growl. “Because this next one’s new.”
Miles meets my eyes, a silent check. I nod.
“We wrote this a while back,” I tell the crowd. “Never played it live before. It’s called ‘Velocity.’” And fuck if Ollie being here to listen to this doesn’t shoot a bolt of lightning straight to my chest.
A ripple of anticipation moves through the room.
I step back, nod once. The lights drop to a slow pulse—red, dim, like the inside of a heartbeat. Eli starts soft—just kick and snare, patient; Drew lays a shimmering line over it; Miles twists a low bend out of his guitar, a single sustained note that slices through the dark and hangs there, trembling with promise.
I close my eyes and start to sing.
“You move like a rumor that learned how to breathe,
I blink and the floor disappears under me.
I’ve sung for strangers, ghosts, and smoke,
But you’re the line I never wrote.”
My voice catches at first, then evens out. The crowd quiets—really quiets. You canfeelthe shift. The stillness that only comes when a room decides to listen.
I open my eyes.
Ollie’s still here.
“Every chord I hit just feeds the ache,
Every crowd blurs, every rule breaks?—
Tell me, do you feel it too,
that pull that burns right through?”
The lights wash red over the crowd. Faces blur again, but not his. He’s sharp in the dark, like the song’s orbiting around him.
Every lyric lands heavier now—every word I wrote about him, now sungtohim, in front of everyone.
My chest feels raw. My voice climbs higher on the chorus.
“Velocity—
You’re the rush that rewired my gravity.
