“Schedules. No assumptions.”
“I understand.”
I study him for a long beat. He’s not pushing. Not negotiating. Just… listening.
Good.
“This is still slow,” I remind him quietly.
“I know,” he says. “I swear.”
We finish our coffee standing here, talking about flights, about timing, about who’s landing when and where—about logistics that feel almost absurdly ordinary consideringeverything that’s cracked open between us. But the ordinariness matters.
For the first time in years, the future doesn’t feel like a wall. It feels like a shared coordinate. And maybe—if we don’t rush, if we don’t lie—a place we can both stand without losing ourselves.
I’ve rarely been elaborate.Well, not so much over the past few years.
I’m decisive. I’m practical. I make choices and live with them. That’s always been my strength—onstage, in contracts, in rehab, in the way I rebuilt my life piece by piece when everything went to hell.
Chartering a plane for a basketball star, his sister, her husband, and their kid is… not that. But the news is everywhere. By midmorning, it’s not just whispers or blurry photos. It’s speculation dressed up as certainty. Headlines hedging their bets. Social feeds doing what they always do—turning a moment into a thousand narratives before lunch.
Oliver Marshall kisses Steel Saints frontman.
Secret romance?
Friends? Former collaborators?
And threaded through all of it: the attack. The knife. The danger.
I watch Ollie read the headlines over my shoulder, his jaw set, his expression calm in a way I’m starting to recognize as deliberate. That alone is enough to make the decision for me.
By the time we’re at the private terminal, the flight is arranged, security doubled, routes adjusted. Vinny moves like this is a chessboard he’s memorized. Seth is already in San Francisco coordinating ground transport.
Ollie doesn’t argue.
He thanks me once, quietly, like he knows this isn’t about luxury—it’s about containment. About buying space and about getting out of a city that’s already circling.
The jet hums beneath us as we taxi. It’s smaller than a commercial flight and absurdly comfortable. Ollie’s sister, Lindy, settles in with the practiced efficiency of someone used to moving children through chaos. Her husband—Phil—buckles in and immediately starts rummaging through a bag for snacks.
Amelia, Ollie’s niece, is wedged between them, feet swinging, eyes wide as she takes in everything. “This is your plane?” she asks, voice full of awe.
I glance at Ollie. He’s watching her with a softness that catches me off guard.
“It’s not really mine,” I say. “It’s borrowed.”
She considers that seriously. “You borrow planes?”
“Only when I’m in trouble,” I reply.
Her eyes light up. “Cool.”
Ollie laughs under his breath, and something in my chest loosens.
We’re in the air not long after. The city falls away beneath us, Los Angeles shrinking into a grid of light and concrete. I don’t feel relief exactly, but the tension eases, just a notch, like loosening a grip you didn’t realize was strangling you.
The cabin settles into a quiet rhythm. Amelia gets bored within ten minutes and crawls halfway onto Ollie’s lap, demanding to see pictures on his phone. “Uncle Ollie,” she says, like it’s an accusation. “Why is your house so ugly?”
He chokes on a laugh. “It’s not ugly. It’s… unfinished.”
