Her tone’s professional, controlled, the exact opposite of what’s happening in my chest. She’s keeping boundaries, and I can’t blame her.
Meanwhile, every inch of me wants to lean closer, to make her see that I’m not what Rithy said I am. It’s like trying to hold back a tide with my bare hands.
“The guys are going to grab dinner,” I say, careful, conversational. “Celebrate surviving each other.”
She smiles, that faint crease at the corner of her mouth that kills me every time. “I should really get some sleep. Busy day of travel tomorrow.”
That should be it, let her go. Keep it polite, but I’m so damn tired of being polite. The old instinct kicks in, the one I used to rely on before I learned what no restraint costs. The voice that can bend around a lyric, soften when it needs to, reach places words alone can’t. I let it come back, a hush along my lips that drags, thatpulls her into me.
I step close enough that my breath stirs the hair near her temple and murmur, “I want you there, Kasia.” Then, right at the edge of a plea: “Please.”
For the first time all day, her composure falters. A flicker, barely a heartbeat, but it’s there. She tucks a loose strand behind her ear, that tell she has when she’s deciding whether to run or stay. Then she nods.
The smile that breaks across my face is impossible to hide, stupid and real. She answers it with one of her own before she tries to rein it in, but the spark’s already caught. My chest feels like music again.
“Great,” I say, trying not to sound like I just won something sacred. “You could come with us, I—”
Her eyes drift toward Rithy across the room, slouched on a stool pretending he’s deaf to everything. She looks back at me. “Text me the address. I’ll join you.”
“I’ve got my own ride,” I tell her, gentler but certain. “Come with me.”
The way I say it isn’t about convenience. It’s a promise:you’ll be safe, I won’t let him get near you again.
She hesitates, weighing something unspoken, then finally nods. “Okay. Lead the way.”
Relief hits like oxygen after drowning. “I just need to put a few things away. You good to wait?”
She nods again.
I don’t even remember moving. One second I’m standing there, the next I’m packing faster than I ever have in my life, cables, pedals, lyric sheets, all instincts and adrenaline. Because for the first time since the door slammed last night, it feels like maybe, just maybe, the song isn’t over.
The night air hits like a reset, warm, humid, thick with the city’s pulse. Miami never really sleeps; it just trades rhythms. I hold the door for her as we step out of the studio, the noise inside giving way to the soft hum of parking-lot crickets and the distant bass from someone else’s party. The sky’s bruised purple, streetlights bleeding gold over the asphalt.
The rental’s waiting under a palm, windshield fogged by the humidity. I open her door first, some half-forgotten reflex that feels out of place in this century and toss my guitar in the back. She slides in, crossing her legs with that calm that always manages to unnerve me. Meanwhile, I’m trying not to look like someone whose pulse hasn’t slowed since the moment she saidokay.
For a while, neither of us talks. The silence between us isn’t empty, though; it’s electric. Every red light feels like a dare to look at her. Every green feels like a warning not to.
Finally, she says, “Do you think Haima was right?”
I glance over. “About the take?”
“About all of it.”
I tighten my grip on the wheel, not sure which version ofallshe means. “He’s completely wrong about whatthis is, for me.” I look at her, hard enough she finally meets my gaze then looks away again. I grip the steering wheel like it’s a buoy, keeping me from drowning. “With music? He’s afucking genius. Terrible delivery, though.”
She exhales a laugh, tired, edged with disbelief. “That’s generous.”
“I’m feeling generous tonight.”
The lights drag across her face, orange, white, blue, like the shifting heartbeat of the city itself. She looks exhausted in that way that makes people honest, stripped of pretense.
“I’m still mad at you,” she says after a moment.
I don’t look at her, but the words land exactly where they should. “Yeah. I deserve that.”
Silence. Then softer: “You didn’t say it… but you didn’tdisagreewith him either.”
The hit sinks deep, “Yeah, that’s the part that keeps replaying.”
