Soon.
The backstage area is a different kind of loud.
The show’s over, but the energy hasn’t drained. If anything, it’s more chaotic now—less controlled. Crew members dart around with clipboards and cables. Someone yells for a towel, then yells again. The air smells like sweat, smoke, spilled beer, and something metallic from the lights. It’s messy and human and alive in a way the stage isn’t allowed to be.
Rafe is still vibrating like the electricity hasn’t left his skin.
His curls are damp and wild. Eyeliner smudged like he’s been kissed by the night itself. His chest rises and falls too quickly, breaths sharp, eyes still bright with that post-performance high that never fails to make him look like he could set fire to the world if he wanted.
People keep reaching for him.
Hands on his shoulders. Hugs that linger a second too long. Words thrown at him like offerings.
“You killed it, man.”
“That new song—holy shit.”
“Rafe, the crowd was losing their minds.”
And Rafe takes it all, grinning, nodding, throwing gratitude back like it costs him nothing. He takes a drink between congratulations—small, quick, like he needs it more than he enjoys it.
And when he swallows, his shoulders drop like something unclenches inside him. He’s always been good at that part. Generous. Present.
I’ve never been jealous of the crowd, but backstage is harder. Here, they’re close enough to touch him, and I have to stand here smiling like I’m just another guy in his orbit. It’s a strange kind of torture, made bearable only by the fact that he keeps looking for me.
Not obviously. Not in a way that anyone could clock.
But he does it. Again and again. Like he’s checking that I’m still here. Like the show wasn’t real until he sees me holding steady in the shadows.
The guys pull him back into their orbit—sweaty, buzzing, still half-lit from the crowd. Eli presses a cold bottle into Rafe’s hand like it’s ceremonial. Drew claps him on the back hard enough to make him stumble. Miles leans in to say something I can’t hear, but whatever it is makes Rafe bark out a laugh, loud and unguarded, the kind that only comes when the pressure’s finally off.
They’re glowing. All of them.
Eli’s grin shifts toward me, eyes bright, cheeks flushed. “So?” he asks, voice pitched over the noise backstage. “What did you think?”
I don’t hesitate. “You killed it.”
Drew nods approvingly. “Told you.”
Rafe snorts. “You always say that.”
“Because you always do,” I reply.
Eli laughs. “He’s been vibrating since sound check.”
“That’s a lie,” Rafe says, but there’s no heat in it.
Miles raises an eyebrow. “You paced a hole into the concrete.”
“I was warming up,” Rafe argues.
“For four hours,” Drew deadpans.
Eli grins wider. “He nearly lost it earlier because the dressing room mirror was ‘emotionally hostile.’”
“It was,” Rafe insists. “I looked like a haunted Victorian child.”
“You looked like yourself,” I say, without thinking. “Just louder.”
