His expression flattened. “You’re despicable.”
I cackled, leaning in again—at a respectable distance this time—with the concealer. “Look up.”
He obeyed, eyes lifting to the ceiling as I dabbed the product beneath them with my fingertip.
Silence settled again, still not heavy, but weighted in a different way. Familiar. Intimate. Painting his face like this tugged me back to the Willow. To our weekly art therapy sessions where he’d sit quietly while I experimented with designs, shapes, and colours. Where he let me turn his face into whatever my imagination conjured, trusting me to create something beautiful.
And now here we were again, same closeness, same quiet, same unspoken thing between us.
“Do you ever miss it?” The quiet question slipped out before I could stop it.
Bodhi’s gaze flicked to mine, then back to the ceiling. “Rehab?”
I hummed in confirmation and swapped the yellow concealer for one that matched his skin tone. I added a thin layer under his eye before blending it out with a sponge.
“Sometimes,” he murmured. “I miss the safety, I think. The easiness of it all.”
I froze, sponge pressed against his cheekbone. He didn’t usually speak in paragraphs, and I was scared that if I breathed too loudly, moved too quickly, he’d retreat back into his shell.
“In rehab, there were no temptations,” he said. “I didn’t have to worry about what I’d do if someone offered me a drink. Or whether I’d even want to say no if someone passed round a joint.” His chest sagged with a sigh, and the heaviness of his words settled somewhere deep in me. Too familiar. Too close.
“Out here, it’s different,” he went on. “I’m worried about what people will think if they find out I’m a recovering addict—what thefanswill think. And... am I the boring one now? Because I can’t drink or party without risking everything again? And what about the band? Are they supposed to stop having fun because of me?”
His hand curled into a fist in his lap.
“It’s just hard, you know? In rehab, none of that mattered. We had counsellors on the bad days. We had structure, distractions...” His voice hitched. “And I had?—”
He bit down on the rest, stopping himself.
But I knew exactly what he meant to say. God, I knew.
I had you.
I reached out, carefully, like I was approaching a skittish animal, and placed my hand over his. Bodhi’s fingers immediately curled around mine. He didn’t lift his gaze, but the way his grip tightened told me everything. He needed the contact. Needed something solid while the storm churned inside his head.
“You’re not boring,” I whispered, squeezing his hand. “And these guys obviously adore you. They’d move mountains to keep you healthy.Safe.”
He let out a low noise, halfway between disbelief and resignation. I didn’t let it stop me.
“I’m not a therapist,” I went on. “Hell, six months ago my best advice would’ve been to crack open some wine, pop a pill, and fuck the pain away.”
Bodhi snorted, quiet, genuine, and finally looked at me.
“I know how you’re feeling, Just Bodhi,” I said softly. “And maybe it’s not convenient that I’m here, but I’m glad fate shoved us back together. When shit gets hard, I’m glad I’ve still got you.” His mouth pulled into the widest grin I’d seen on him in ages, something bright and startling.
“Thanks, Iggy Pop,” he said, using the nickname he’d teased me with back at the Willow. Hearing it again made something warm swell up inside me. I wanted to pull him into a hug, kiss his cheek, tell him he wasn’t alone.
But that would’ve been too much. Too intimate for two people who were supposed to barely know each other. Too revealing. And I wasn’t ready to give the game away yet.
So I settled for flashing him a wry smile and my middle finger.
Then I went back to painting his face like nothing had changed, while somehow, everything had.
When everyone’s makeup was finally done, I helped them with their hair if they needed it, straightening collars, fixing a few stubborn curls, and making sure each of them looked stage ready. There was a lot of black. A lot of leather. But when they stood together in the green room under the fluorescent lights, I understood exactly why they had the following they did.
Individually, they were hot. As a group? They were aweapon. A cohesive wall of sex, swagger, and attitude ready to storm a stage and own it.
I’d be lying if I said Bodhi wasn’t attractive on a normal day. Anyone with functioning eyes would notice that. But in his stage gear? Fuck. Shadow daddies could never. His hair was clipped short on the sides, longer on top, slicked back with pomade except for a few rebellious strands that fell forward to brush that razor-sharp jaw. The dark makeup around his eyes added the perfect amount of drama, making him look like the kind of unreal, too-beautiful model Pinterest kept trying to convince me wasn’t AI generated.
