Outside of the gym, outside of the court, my world is filtered through a screen.
Rafe’s face shows up everywhere.
Clips from shows. Photos from backstage. Interviews. Fans screaming lyrics. The band’s name in headlines that would’ve sounded like fiction a year ago. He looks unreal in the way people always say about celebrities—too bright, too alive, too much.
Eyeliner heavier now. Shirts torn open. Sweat on his throat, hair damp, veins standing out on his forearms as he grips the mic. There are crowds chanting words he wrote in a bedroom I once slept in.
Sometimes I watch the clips like homework. Like I’m studying for a test in being his husband. I pause on his smile. I rewind when the camera catches him turning his head likehe’s looking for someone. I tell myself it’s just stage work, just instinct, just him connecting with the crowd.
But my stomach always twists anyway.
It isn’t jealousy exactly. It’s worse. It’s the fear that the world is getting a version of him I no longer know how to hold.
We finally sync a call on a night that feels like a small miracle.
It’s late for me, early for him. Or maybe it’s late for him and early for me. The time zones blur. All I know is that I’m sitting on the edge of my hotel bed on the road, suitcase half-open, ice pack melting on my bruised knuckles from practice, and when his face appears on my screen, my chest aches like I’ve been hit.
He looks tired. Not stage-tired. Bone-tired. His words come a little slower than usual, softened at the edges—not slurred, just… loosened. Like he’s using something to make the loneliness go down easier. His hair is damp, cheeks flushed, eyeliner smudged in a way that makes him look both gorgeous and wrecked. The background is a generic hotel room—lamp, curtain, bland art. He’s probably been in seventy identical rooms already.
“Hey,” he says softly.
“Hey,” I reply.
For a second, we just look at each other, like we’re both trying to remember what it feels like to exist in the same space.
“How was your game yesterday?” he asks.
“Good,” I say automatically, then correct, because I don’t want to be empty. “We won.”
Rafe smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah? How’d you play?”
“Fine,” I say, then sigh. “Better. Coach didn’t yell at me.”
“That’s huge,” Rafe says, and there’s a flicker of genuine pride in his voice. It hits me in the chest.
“How was the show?” I ask.
He blows out a breath. “Insane. Loud. The kind of loud where you can feel it in your teeth.”
“I saw a clip,” I admit.
His eyebrows lift. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. You looked…” I hesitate, because the words feel dangerous. “Happy.”
Something crosses his face. Not anger. Not even hurt. Just… exhaustion.
“I am happy,” he says carefully. “I’m also tired. And—” He stops, like he’s choosing whether to keep going.
My pulse spikes. “And what?”
Rafe’s gaze holds mine. “It’s weird,” he says quietly. “You feel… far.”
The words land soft, but they hit hard. “I’m right here,” I say immediately.
His expression doesn’t change. “No,” he says, “you’re not.”
A cold, slow dread sinks through me. “I’m literally on the phone with you,” I try, forcing a half joke, because jokes are safer than pain.
