With her, I could forget that I was ever thatotherDixon.
The Dixon that hurt people he loved, who broke Tray’s damn ribs. The guy who put our band in jeopardy by losing it with fans. The feral idiot who punched walls.
Rationally, I knew the past couldn’t be erased. But it can be… repainted. The scars can be hidden beneath fresh layers. That’s what was happening, and had been happening since the moment Tessa walked into our lives wearing that ethereal fucking dress which made her seem like an untouchable goddess.
Painting over the pain?I rethought.No, that wasn’t exactly it.
What was that show Mac had been watching the other day? The one about the Japanese art of fixing things with gold… Kintsugi. That was Tessa.
Not paint covering the fractures.
She was a permanent repair.
Tess Fortune, our Omega, had come into our lives and seen all the cracks.
Then she’d filled them with visible, remarkable, golden beauty.
53
RYDER
MONTHS LATER…
There arenights when the world doesn’t simply spin on its axis…
It detonates.
Tonight was one of those nights.
The impressive stadium, bursting with billion-dollar screens and a retractable roof, pulsed with both music and the energy of fifty thousand fans, each of whom had shelled out a fortune to scream themselves hoarse at us.
This was our show. Our music.
Our hands played our instruments. Guitars. Bass. Drums. Keyboard.
My voice sang our lyrics. Every now and then, Dixon’s deeper tone would resonate, threading beneath my lead vocals.
This was fucking amazing.
I felt the way I once had, back when we started out. The rush of singing for anyone, anywhere. Busking on streets. Booking shitty jobs. Doing covers of popular songs at weddings because no one wanted to hear our original stuff yet. We’d once played a goddamn pizza party for a kid’s birthday. They’d wanted us to repeat the same song, and nothing else. One fucking song for two fucking hours. Even that, now, was a memory that brought joy. That made me laugh.
Somehow along the line of healing, I’d found my love for the industry again. Not the warped, twisted version as I tried to feel alive while fighting ferality. This was the real, unadulterated passion for music. For every part of it. Sometimes, I even found myself forgetting that the roar of the crowd, the screams, the handmade signs hoisted by over-eager groupies was for us… for Oblivion Haze. It all felt fresh again.
Truly, for a heartbeat, I forgot we were famous.
But what I never forgot, not for a microsecond, was thatshewas watching.
“Rip it apart, my aching heart. Bleed my guilt upon the ground. Let this crimson be my death shroud. Penance for the way I treated you. I’m torn in two. This is how my soul breaks.” I pressed my mouth into the mic, pitching my vocals low as I sang that last line. With practice, I’d gotten an audible, grief-laced crack to form as I sang the wordbreaks.
I caught sight of Tessa from the corner of my eye as my fingers shimmied over the neck of my tour-worn, scratched Fender. Looking at her was so natural, though staring too long put me at risk of messing up chords. It didn’t take much for my entire focus to shift to watching her, wanting her, wishing I was with her.
Fuck, I’d stared at her for too long.She took me over, and I never could fight it. Never wanted to fight it.
My sight narrowed down until her face was all I saw. The scream of the fans faded until it was a gentle current carrying me to her. Tessa Fortune. Our Omega. The girl who’d never given up. Who’d clawed at survival while homeless. Who’d saved her cat through sheer grit and stubbornness.
Right now, though, she hugged a wall backstage. Obviously nervous.
I didn’t like to see her that way, as if she was counting down the seconds until doom struck.
