“Onlyfor emergencies” I insist, firmly. Boundaries, professionalism, the rules I’ve lived by for years. He nods, but the grin on his face looks like he thinks he's won some sort of tug-of-war.
I take the card from his hand, noting how he holds it with a little resistance so I have to pull it and I can't help but feel he did that on purpose. My hand moves before I can stop it, scribbling digits into the margin of the card. When I hold it out for him to take again, our fingers brush.
It’s nothing, just skin, just contact, but it jolts through me, shocked and unprepared. He closes his hand around the card like it’s something fragile, and I realize too late that in the space of a single exam, every line I thought I could hold has already blurred. I walk him out, chart tucked under my arm, coat still buttoned tight like it can keep me sane, and hand him over to the tech to get his next appointment booked.
My hands move on their own, slipping the buttons loose. I shrug the coat off my shoulders slow, like a trance, hang it up, grab my bag, and try desperately to escape before he leaves. But somehow we end up reaching the door at the same time. He pauses, holds it open. “Ladies first.” I nod, duck out.
The tour bus looms outside, black and gleaming with its painted sigils. All the band members must be in there. The realization hits and my stomach flips. I feel suddenly nervous, observed. I keep my head down, walking so fast to my car that my breath actually snags.
I slide behind the wheel and force my face blank, watching him step into the bus before I drive away in a haze, a total mess. I feel completely shattered now that I’m alone. Every nerve in me sparks, replaying every second, his eyes on mine, his skin under my gloves, the way he said he’d see me in two weeks. I keep my hands on the wheel, eyes on the road, holding myself together by sheer will. But the second I’m through my own front door, it breaks.
Itouchedhim. I had my hands on hisface, hiseyes, hisarms,everywhere. I don’t know what to do with myself. I collapse onto the couch, laughter and tears tangling, every cell vibrating. A string of Polish spills from me, panic, disbelief, adrenaline coursing through my body, the mother tongue taking over now that words in English feel impossible.
Obelus… No,Rafe Ashtonwas in my chair andI can't tell a soul.
Chapter 11
Glitter & Stardust
Rafe
The cold air hits me first, then the scent of wet cement from the parking lot and a too-bright morning after a gig. All I feel is her. It’s her I’m still breathing in. My pupils are the size of planets, throbbing, the whole world smeared at the edges. But somehow her face remains burned into the center of my vision. Every other light bleeds, every other shape dissolves but she stays in focus. She had to tilt my face toward hers to get those drops in and I swear something in me forgot how to hold my body upright.
I step onto the bus, hand fumbling on the rail because my balance is gone. My head was pounding from the fall. Now it’s pounding from something else entirely. Her voice. That soothing register she used like she’d been trained to pull chaos apart stitch by stitch. No gushing or asking for selfies. No fanfare, just: Are you hurt? Are you seeing stars? Don’t move, nowlook at me.
Look at me?Right.As if I could look anywhere else. I press the heel of my hand to my forehead. It’s useless, she’s everywhere. The trace of her accent curling around my name when she read the chart. The way she corrected my attempt at Sawadzka, almost embarrassed, like she thought she’d offended me. She had no idea she could’ve said itbackwards and I’d have called it gospel. I can’t get a proper breath in and my chest won’t unclench.
The door shuts behind me and the noise of the bus rushes in, the ancient refrigerator, the driver’s shoes thudding in the bathroom, Rithy singing off-key in the kitchenette, but it feels far away, like I’m underwater.
“Ashton,” Kiri calls from the sofa. “You blind? Did the floor break your eyes too?”
I try to answer but my throat’s sandpaper, voice gone. Heart hammering like I’ve just sprinted on stage for an encore. I toss myself into the seat opposite him, missing the armrest by an embarrassing margin. Whatever this is has fully murdered my depth perception. Great. Brilliant. Perfect timing. But that’s not what’s got me off kilter.
“Fuck, you lookutterlydestroyed,” Rithy says, poking my knee with his socked foot. “Did they give you pain meds or did the pretty doctor fry your circuits?” He nods in the direction of her car outside the window.
Pretty doesn’t even come close. She looked… real. Real in a way that knocked the breath out of me. Glitter smudged from dancing, eyeliner crooked from sleep. Scrubs slightly wrinkled, her hair in a bun that kept trying to escape and those eyes, dark, full of stardust, focused, locking on mine like I was just another man in her chair. Not Obelus or a celebrity. Not anything larger than the two feet of examination space between us.
She didn’t blink when she met my stare. That’s what did it, that tiny thing. She didn’t look away, she stared right into me. Not the myth or the noise. Me.
“She’sdefinitelyhot,” Ronan adds, flipping a drumstick between his fingers. “Did you flirt? Or did the fall ruin whatever charm you thinkyou possess?”
I shake my head, but it’s pointless. They can smell it on me, the way dogs smell rain.
“I didn’tflirt,” I mumble, rubbing my temple. “I… couldn’t.”
Because what I felt wasn’t flirtation. It was something terrifyingly close tointimacy, which soundsinsaneeven to me. Maybe the concussion has rewired me from the ground up and I’ve completely lost the plot.
Kiri squints.“Why do your eyes look so big? Did she drug you?”
“That’s the, uh, dilation, I think she called it?” I mutter. “To check for tears or something.”
“Well,somethingis torn,” Rithy mutters. “Your composure seems rather ripped at the seams, Rafferty.”
“Shut up,” I say, but it has no heat. How could it? I’m still caught somewhere miles behind, her voice anchoring me while she pressed an instrument to my bloody eye. She’d said,you’re not being difficult if you want to stop, in such a soft and human way, not impressed or intimidated, just... kind. No one speaks to me like that anymore.
Her hands had brushed my face, the gloves were cold, her fingers warm underneath and I swear the whole world went silent except for her breath. She leaned so close I could see that tiny fleck of glitter refusing to leave her cheekbone. It killed me, the thought of her at our gig last night, sweating, shouting, maybe caught in the lights, not knowing I’d be in her chair five hours later. But somehow she looked at me like shehadn’twatched me last night. Not a performer or the shadow-drenched creature she saw on stage. Just… a man in pain.
My pulse spikes again. I swear it’s audible.
