She leans against the wall beside me. Not touching. Close enough to matter. “How does that make you feel?” The question lands heavy.
“Like it never ends,” I admit. “Like the second you choose something real, you’re punished for it.”
She looks at me then, not with pity or fear, but in understanding. “You don’t have to do that,” she says.
“Do what?”
“Choose the image.”
I stare at the concrete floor. “I’ve already done it once.”
“And it cost you,” she reminds me gently.
Yeah. It did. I take another drink, then screw the cap back on and set the bottle aside. “I’m not doing it again.”
Her breath hitches. It’s not dramatic. Just real.
“I don’t want to lose something good because someone else is scared of it,” I continue. “I don’t want to wake up ten years from now realizing I protected everything except the thing that mattered.”
She turns toward me fully now. “Dean…”
“I’m not promising you forever,” I say, meeting her eyes. “But I am promising you I won’t hide. I won’t make you feel like you’re something I have to manage.”
The quiet stretches. Then she nods. Once. Solid. “Okay. I like knowing that.”
Something in my chest clicks into place. I stand, offering her my hand and she takes it. We don’t kiss. We don’t rush. We just stand there together in the low hum of the building, and for the first time all day, my head goes quiet.
That’s when I know.
Not because it feels easy.
But because it feels right.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sadie
Are You Ready For It
Taylor Swift
Charlotte greets us with damp heat that feels like someone forgot to turn the oven off. The sky is the color of old lemon rind, and the air sticks to my skin the second I step off Luc and Lily’s bus.
I hitch my camera bag higher on my shoulder and force myself to focus on work. It’s the one thing in my life that doesn’t fail me, forget me, or fall apart under pressure.
Inside the venue, the crew is already moving in their synchronized chaos. Cherry is standing on a crate barking load-in orders. Mikey whizzes past like a Labrador chasing a ball. Hayden calmly fixes a cable that’s being strangled by a coil.
And then, there’s Dean. Always floating into my orbit, tilting me off course. He’s in a white tee, guitar case in one hand, hair a little too messy to be an accident. He sees me the second I walk in, his gaze locking onto me. It hits me dead-center, like someone slapped a tuning fork against my spine.
He looks tired. Not physically, but more like, soul-tired. Like the last twenty-four hours stripped him down and left him standing there without the armor he swears is welded on. I should look away but this time I don’t.
His eyes narrow, just slightly, but it’s enough to tell me he noticed that I noticed. My heart tries to climb out of my throat, but I turn on my heel and head toward the side stage. Stay cool, Sadie, stay cool.
I busy myself with work while they do soundcheck. I take photos. Adjust lenses. Check settings I’ve checked a thousand times. His presence pulls at the edges of my awareness like a chord buzzing slightly out of tune. I can feel him watching me between songs. It shouldn’t matter, but of course it does.
When the band breaks for a breath, I slip behind a stack of amp cases, letting the wall press against my back. I exhale slowly, palms flat against the cool metal. This was supposed to be the smart thing. Us taking things slow. Not rushing. But slow is turning out to be hard too.
“You hiding from me?” His voice is low and rough, and definitely too close.
