Reykjavík, Iceland
 

The windows were cracked open just enough to let in the hush of the Icelandic evening—cool, clean air brushing against the gauzy curtains like breath against skin. Outside, the snowmelt whispered in the gutters, and the muted rustle of early spring carried in from the moss-covered rooftops.

Inside the hotel room, it was soft. Soft lighting, soft music earlier (now off), soft silence settling between them like ash.

Willa sat cross-legged on the edge of the bed, sleeves pushed up past her elbows, notebook in her lap, pen cap between her teeth. Blake was across the room, sunk deep into the worn leather armchair like a shadow stitched into the upholstery. His fingers moved across his phone screen, not texting—composing.

They hadn't spoken in twenty minutes. That was the rule. Thirty minutes. One word each. One jingle. Winner buys pastries tomorrow.

Willa had rolled her eyes at the word he gave her—“hymn.”

Too obvious, she’d said. Too him.
Too church-burny, she’d thought.
But he’d just smirked and handed it over, like always.

Now she was staring at her half-filled page, chewing the cap until it clicked annoyingly against her teeth.

Hymn.
Not a ballad. Not a poem. A jingle.
It needed bounce. Wit. Something short and sharp, with teeth hiding behind the glitter.

She looked out the window. Reykjavik looked like it had been scrubbed clean after winter, all pale skies and black rooftops and crooked charm.

The thing about hymns, she thought, is that they’re just propaganda with prettier chords.

Willa scratched out her third rhyme in a row and started fresh.

“When you're cracked, when you're tired, when the voices get loud—
Try Heaven’s Blend: faith, in decaf grounds.”

She snorted softly to herself. Too ironic. Too on-the-nose.

She tried again.

“Missing your glow-up to God again?
Resurrect your skin with Hallowed Hen—soap for the sin-prone."

Better.
Terrible.
Ridiculous.

She smiled. That was the point.

Blake hummed once, low and distracted. She didn’t look at him, didn’t need to. She could picture the little crease in his forehead, the way he always worked with his mouth slightly open like he was halfway to biting the air.

Their music had always been the heavy kind—emotional tectonic plates grinding together until something broke. But this? This was stupid. Playful. And exactly what she needed.

She tapped her pen against her leg, rereading her final attempt, liking the swing of the last line more than she wanted to admit. She even scribbled in a fake logo beside it, some gothic cross with bubble letters.

Then, his phone chimed. Low and final.

Willa looked up slowly, grinning like someone who knew she was about to win.
She raised her eyebrows, paper still in hand, and finally broke the silence.

“Hope you're ready to get your ass kicked by a holy moisturizer commercial, Maddox.”

Blake didn’t look up right away.

He heard her—of course he did. That particular brand of smugness laced in amusement, like she was already halfway to the punchline. Like she knew she’d won and was giving him the grace of pretending he still had a shot.

He let the silence breathe for another second. Two. Then dragged a thumb across his bottom lip, slow and deliberate, like he could wipe the smirk off before it formed.

“Let me guess,” he murmured, voice low and grainy from disuse, “something about holy water and exfoliation.”

He didn’t wait for confirmation—didn’t need it. Just pushed himself upright, spine cracking in protest, and stood with the lazy stretch of a man who knew he was about to lose but refused to do it quietly.

His notebook—more scrawl than script—was still flipped open on the arm of the chair. He glanced down, then up at her.

“I hope you’re proud of yourself,” he said, walking over. “You’ve just single-handedly resurrected religious satire jingles. God’s weeping.”

He paused at the edge of the bed, notebook in hand, raising a brow like he was contemplating divine vengeance and pastry flavors in the same breath.

“And for the record,” he added, tapping the cover of her notebook with two fingers, “if Hallowed Hen becomes a real thing, I want royalties. And naming rights for the cinnamon scent.”

Then he sat beside her with a quiet thump, shoulders brushing, gaze flicking toward her scribbled fake logo. His mouth twitched.

“…You even drew the damn branding. I’m so screwed.”

Willa didn’t say anything, not yet—but he felt the ripple of her satisfaction through the bedframe like heat rising off sunburnt metal.

Blake leaned over slightly, elbow resting against his knee, hand dragging through his hair in a slow rake that left it even messier than before. The curtain shifted behind her in the breeze, and for a second, everything felt cinematic. Bleached and quiet and strangely holy.

He glanced down at her notebook again, then let out a breath that might’ve been a laugh, if not for how soft it landed.

“You know the worst part?” he said, voice threaded with reluctant admiration. “It actually slaps. Like, I’d hum this shit in the shower and hate myself after.”

He stretched out his legs, slouching deep into the mattress like surrender. His fingers idly tapped a beat on his thigh—off-rhythm and absentminded, the way they always moved when his brain was still writing even if he wasn’t.

Blake turned his head slightly toward her, not fully, just enough to see the side of her face—pen tucked behind one ear now, the corners of her mouth still fighting to stay smug.

“I wrote a whole goddamn bridge about demon stubble and razor burn from hell,” he muttered. “Thought I was being clever.”

He tilted his head back, staring at the ceiling with a smirk that was all exasperation and no real regret.

“You win. Pastries are on me. But I swear to God, if you make me order something called a ‘Holy Roll’ tomorrow, I’m walking straight into the sea.”

He paused. Beat. Then added, quieter this time:

“…Still worth it.”

The silence that followed was warmer. Less of a challenge. More of a truce. He didn’t need to look at her to feel it—the way the room softened around them, stitched together by nonsense and neon ink and the comfort of being seen.

“Next round,” he murmured, eyes still on the ceiling. “Same rules. New word. And I’m choosing vengeance.”

Willa didn’t answer right away. She didn’t need to.

She just shifted the notebook onto her lap, legs crossed beneath her like some smug little prophet basking in her own sermon. Blake’s words—half growl, half grin—had already given her everything she needed. Not a fight. Not even a protest. Just a smirk and that lazy British surrender he wore so well these days.

He did let her win more often lately. She wasn’t stupid. But he still gave just enough resistance to make it fun.

Except at video games. No mercy there. She’d called him a pixel fascist last week and he’d just laughed and wiped the floor with her again.

But this—this was different. This was a slow dance in sarcasm and scratchy pens, a love letter written sideways.

She reached for the pen behind her ear, flipping it once between her fingers before pressing the tip of it lightly against his thigh.

“You are clever,” she said, finally, eyes still on her notebook. “Stupid clever. Clever enough to write a bridge about demon stubble and make it sound like an existential crisis.”

She tapped her pen once against the paper. Then twice. And then, just as he started to lift his head to look at her—

She recited, sing-song soft:

"Vengeance is holy ‘til it’s served on a plate,
With eyeliner, glitter, and four types of hate—
I baptize you, baby, in drama and cake.”

She looked at him.

Paused.

Then leaned in and—without warning—booped his nose. A quick, gentle tap with her fingertip, no apology in sight.

“There. That’s your penance,” she said. “You’re absolved.”

Outside, the breeze caught the curtain again, and somewhere in the distance, a gull cried out over the rooftops—sharp and lonely and perfect.

She dropped her pen onto the nightstand with a little clink, then let herself fall backward across the bed, hair fanning over the pillow, arms sprawled out like she was trying to claim the whole mattress by sheer will alone.

Her head turned toward him, cheek pressed into the comforter. “Alright. I’m officially out of jingle genius and religious puns. What now?”

Her voice was lighter than it had been in weeks—teasing, but touched with something softer. She didn’t know what she wanted to do next, but she liked the feeling of not knowing. Of waiting. Of being here, with him, in the lull between thunderclaps.

Blake didn’t answer right away.

Not because he didn’t have something to say—he always did. A quip, a curse, a half-baked idea delivered like gospel. But in that moment, as her words hung in the space between them like incense—sweet, irreverent, intoxicating—he just let it settle. Let her settle.

That rhyme. That stupid-perfect rhyme.

He huffed out a laugh, shaking his head like it might clear the flicker of pride curling warm in his chest. Like it might help him not fall even harder for the way she weaponized wit and tenderness in the same breath.

His thumb brushed over the spot where her pen had tapped his thigh. A faint pressure, barely there. He swore he could still feel it.

“I hate how good that was,” he said finally, dragging the words through a smile he didn’t try to hide. “Drama and cake. I should’ve seen that coming. It’s literally your entire brand.”

He leaned back on his hands, spine arched, letting his head tilt toward the ceiling again—half-dazed, half-amused, completely undone by a goddamn nose boop and a hymn about eyeliner.

A breath later, he turned to look at her.

Willa, sprawled out like a martyr on linen, hair fanned like fire, lips parted in that soft, post-victory grin that always made him want to write something reckless.

He shifted, scooted closer without thinking, knees brushing her shin, one arm folded beneath him now as he hovered just above her like a prayer he hadn’t finished saying.

“What now?” he repeated, voice lower. Rougher.

Then he let the silence sit a beat longer. Let her feel him looking.

His gaze dipped to her collarbone, up to her mouth, then back to her eyes.

“…Now I tell you that you’re the best thing I’ve never been able to out-write,” he said, quieter this time.

And then—just barely, just briefly—he kissed her.

It wasn’t urgent. Wasn’t dramatic. Wasn’t even meant to lead anywhere.

Just a soft, reverent thing. The kind you give someone after they’ve reminded you who you are.

When he pulled back, his forehead hovered against hers.

“I lied, by the way,” he whispered. “I’m never ordering pastries again. You’re dangerous with sugar and a deadline.”

Willa didn’t move—not right away.

She just lay there, breath shallow, eyes half-lidded like the kiss had knocked something loose in her ribcage. It wasn’t the kind of kiss that demanded anything. It didn’t lead with hunger. It just landed—quiet and certain, like a bookmark slipped between chapters.

Blake stayed where he was, hovering just above her, forehead still brushing hers. He could feel the warmth of her skin through the thin hum of the moment, feel her pulse in the air between them. Everything about her—her laugh, her rhythm, her ruin—always felt like an invitation he hadn’t earned, but never stopped accepting.

He closed his eyes for a second. Just long enough to ground himself.

Then he shifted, easing down beside her, shoulder to shoulder, arm folded behind his head like they hadn’t just turned a jingle war into something cathedral-soft. His other hand found hers without thinking—fingers grazing hers like they’d been doing it forever.

“I ever tell you,” he murmured, staring at the ceiling, “that I started writing again ‘cause of you?”

He didn’t wait for a reply. Didn’t need one. She’d hear it the way she always did—beneath the words, between the pauses.

“Not for the band. Not for anyone else. Just… one night I couldn’t sleep and you were in my head, laughing about some garbage coffee ad you made up in your dream. And I opened my phone, and I wrote six verses about fucking divine judgment in a gas station. And I liked it. I liked it.”

He tilted his head toward her now, not quite smiling.

“You broke the silence,” he said simply. “That’s not nothing.”

Outside, the gull called again, farther away now. The sky through the cracked window had deepened to a slate blue, streaked with lavender. The curtains moved like breath.

Blake’s thumb slid over her knuckles, slow and thoughtful.

“You don’t have to know what comes next,” he added, voice nearly a whisper now. “We can stay right here. You, me, and the dumbest fake ad campaign in history.”

And then—soft, conspiratorial:

“…Though I am putting ‘soap for the sin-prone’ on a T-shirt. Just saying.”

Willa didn’t respond right away—not because she didn’t know what to say, but because the kiss had turned her brain into something slow and sacred.

That was the thing about Blake. His mouth didn’t just kiss. It quieted.
No sadness. No static. No rapid-fire spiral of thoughts she couldn’t outrun.

Just stillness.

Just him.

The way her mind shut off in those moments was something she’d never be able to explain to anyone else. It felt like being unplugged from the storm without having to give up the electricity.

And maybe that was one of the biggest differences this time.
Last time had been noise. Wanting too much, too soon. They’d both been younger, louder, angrier.
They’d burned out on chaos and pride and too many unsaid things.
Now…

Now the silence was warm.
Now they let each other be quiet.
Now they didn’t have to prove anything to know it was real.

She turned her head toward him, lashes brushing her cheekbone as she looked down at the fingers laced with hers. That stupid thumb of his was still tracing little shapes into her knuckle like he didn’t know it was making her chest ache.

She smiled without showing her teeth.

“You helped me too, you know,” she murmured, her voice low and rough around the edges. “That night in Germany. Your album. I was unraveling and didn’t even realize how bad it’d gotten until I heard those songs and remembered what it felt like to want again.”

Her eyes softened.

“I started writing again because of you.”

A beat.

“I know you already know that,” she added, a hint of amusement tugging at her mouth. “But sometimes it’s good to hear it out loud.”

She rolled onto her side to face him more fully, tucking a hand beneath her cheek and watching the way the last of the daylight haloed the sharp edges of his profile. God, he looked exhausted. Beautiful. Real.

Her free hand moved to his chest, fingers splaying over the faded graphic of his new tour shirt. It was slightly too big on him—probably intentional—but she already had plans.

“I’m gonna start wearing this, by the way,” she said softly, tracing a line just below the logo. “Like, constantly. Even when it doesn’t match. People’ll think I’m promoting the album and I’m really just promoting stealing your stuff.”

She let her hand stay there, not for drama—just because it felt right. Felt true.

And then, lighter now, but no less certain:

“I want to go with you.”

Another beat. She let the weight of it settle.

“On tour,” she clarified. “Not for the whole thing. Not as a guest artist. Just… as me. As your person. I want to be there.”

She glanced toward the ceiling, then back at him.

“I can be quiet on the bus. Or loud. Or moral support. I’ll even keep my fake jingles to a minimum unless we hit a creative block and need divine intervention.”

She paused. Looked at him. Her smile was small, and real, and a little brave.

“I want the stillness to keep following us. Wherever we go.”

Then—just to break the weight of it, because that was what she did—she leaned in and booped his nose again, a little more smug this time.

“Also,” she added, “if you don’t put ‘soap for the sin-prone’ on a T-shirt, I’m starting a rival merch line and calling it ‘Blessed & Bitter.’”

She kissed his shoulder, soft and slow.

And for a moment, the darkness wasn’t chasing either of them.

Blake didn’t speak at first.

He just watched her—the rise and fall of her voice, the way her eyes moved like they were memorizing the air between them. He didn’t need to fill the silence. Not with her. Not now.

His thumb kept tracing those slow, looping shapes into her knuckle, even after she stopped talking. Even after she kissed his shoulder. He wasn’t ready to let go of that softness yet. Wouldn’t be for a long time.

Then, finally—low and rough like gravel softened by rain—he exhaled a quiet laugh.

“Blessed & Bitter,” he repeated. “Jesus. You’d outsell me in a week.”

His smile was lazy but full, tugging at the corner of his mouth like it didn’t want to stay small. He looked over at her, really looked, like he was trying to memorize the exact geometry of her bravery.

Because that’s what it was, wasn’t it?
Wanting again. Saying it out loud. Choosing him.

“You sure?” he asked, softer now. Not doubting her—just giving her room. “Tour’s not all poetry and slow kisses. It’s chaos and noise and no clean socks.”

He paused.

Then added, gentler still, “But if you’re there… it’s different. It’s home.”

He reached up, hand cupping her jaw with the kind of reverence he usually saved for microphones and prayer-like verses. His thumb brushed the edge of her cheekbone, and he shook his head slightly like she’d done something completely ridiculous and completely perfect all at once.

“I want that too. You. There. Not for a feature. Not for a photo op. Just…” He swallowed. “Just you. In my world.”

He kissed her forehead—slow, centered.

And then, like it had just occurred to him, he added with a tired grin:

“…You are gonna wear that shirt, aren’t you? Gonna show up at venues lookin’ cooler than the headliner. Make the crew fall in love with you again.”

He rolled onto his back, pulling her gently with him until her head rested against his chest, his arm wrapping around her like instinct.

“You’re dangerous, Willa,” he murmured into her hair.

Then, a beat later, almost like a promise:

“And if the stillness keeps following us… I’ll make sure we never lose it.”

Willa let herself be pulled, let her cheek rest against the worn cotton stretched over his chest, where the beat of his heart was steady and low like the opening of a song she already knew by memory.

The room was quiet again, but this time it didn’t feel fragile. It felt settled. Like breath caught mid-laughter, like steam rising from a tea kettle that never whistles. Warm. Whole.

She smiled into the fabric of his shirt—the one she had already claimed. It smelled like his cologne and her victory and something else she couldn’t name yet. Something that felt like a start.

His words echoed in her chest louder than they did in her ears.

Just you. In my world.

She remembered the first time she went on tour. Cramped vans. Greasy drive-thrus. Playing shows with eyeliner still smudged from the night before. Sleeping half-curled on gear cases with a denim jacket for a pillow. The thrill of it. The ache. The absolute, intoxicating freedom of having nothing figured out but everything still burning.

She remembered loving it.

And she remembered hating parts of it, too.

But she’d survived it. Thrived in it, once.

And Blake’s world? Sure, it might be louder. Grittier. Bigger stages, darker venues, longer nights. But she wasn’t afraid of that.

She wasn’t that delicate. Not anymore.

“You think I don’t know what tour chaos looks like?” she murmured, lips brushing the edge of the shirt as she spoke. “Babe, I once had to play a set in a gas station parking lot with a busted mic stand, two broken strings, and what I hope was beer spilled down my boots.”

She laughed under her breath. “No clean socks doesn’t scare me.”

Her fingers curled lightly against his side, slow and content. “And I’m not showing up to play support act for your ego either, Maddox. I’m showing up to be there. With you. Because I can. Because I want to.”

Then, quieter—less of a declaration, more of a truth spoken in lowercase:

“I think that’s the difference this time. I’m not running away from anything. I’m running with someone.”

She tilted her head slightly, enough to see his face in the low light.

“And yeah, I’m gonna wear this shirt until it’s see-through,” she added, mouth curving. “You’ll get it back when I retire. Maybe.”

Willa closed her eyes and let herself breathe. The curtain shifted again. The Icelandic air was colder now, but Blake was warm beside her.

Stillness didn’t have to mean stopping.

Sometimes, it just meant knowing where you were meant to stand when the noise hit.

And right now?
She was exactly where she wanted to be.

Blake didn’t move.

Didn’t need to.

He just let her settle there against him, her voice moving through his shirt like the last verse of a song he hadn’t realized he’d been waiting for. Every word curved around something that might’ve broken him once—now, it held him together.

The laugh she let slip made something in his chest ache. The kind of ache that was soft around the edges. The kind you welcomed.

He tilted his head slightly, pressing his lips to her temple, not kissing—just staying. Letting her know he was still listening. Still here.

“God,” he muttered into her hair, smiling despite himself. “Of course it was a gas station parking lot. Of course there was mystery beer.”

His hand drifted from her fingers to her back, dragging slow over the hem of her shirt—his shirt—before resting there, grounded and gentle.

“You were always better at surviving chaos than me,” he said after a moment. “I used to think I had to burn everything down just to feel like I was moving. But you… you just walked through it. Boots and busted strings and all.”

He looked down at her then, the weight of her against him feeling less like gravity and more like gravity’s answer.

“That’s the difference,” he echoed, voice low, steady. “I’m not chasing the fire anymore. I’m chasing the thing that stays after.”

She shifted slightly, and he tightened his arm around her instinctively, like the thought of losing this quiet was enough to make the world tilt.

“And for the record,” he added, eyes half-closed, “you wearing that shirt until it’s see-through is the most emotionally complicated thing anyone’s ever threatened me with.”

A beat.

Then, soft—half-laugh, half-confession:

“…I hope you never give it back.”

The room fell still again. No tension. No ticking clock. Just her breathing, his heartbeat, and the knowledge that for once, the tour wouldn’t feel like a countdown.

Because she was coming with him.

And that changed everything.

Willa didn’t respond right away.
She couldn’t.

Not because there was nothing to say—because there was too much.

She lay there against his chest, her fingers absently tracing the hem of the shirt she’d already claimed, and let the quiet hold her. Let it stitch something small and necessary back together.

Because the truth—the ugly, unlit truth—was that she hadn’t always walked through the chaos as easily as it looked.

She made it look effortless.
That was the trick.
That was the show.

She lit up the rooms that held people, and broke down in the ones that didn’t. She'd always thought that was the kindest version of her—containing the storm so it didn’t spill onto anyone else.
Even him.

Especially him.

She swallowed hard, staring at a point on his shirt like it might give her the words she was afraid to shape.

“It wasn’t easy,” she said, finally. “It never really is.”

Her voice was soft. Flat around the edges. She didn’t lift her head.

“You said I walked through it, like I knew where I was going. But Blake… I didn’t.”
A pause.
“I just got good at walking like I wasn’t hurting.”

Her thumb swept over his ribs in a small, rhythmic motion. Soothing herself more than him.

“There were days I didn’t get out of bed until three. Days I only ate because someone else was watching. Nights I couldn’t sleep unless I cried first. And I didn’t tell you, because I didn’t want to ruin what we had with the worst parts of me.”

Her throat tightened.

“I used to think love meant protecting people from me. Hiding the dark stuff. The sticky stuff. The weight.”

She blinked up at the ceiling, letting the Icelandic air kiss the heat on her face.

“But when you said you were leaving for tour again, even if it was temporary, I felt it—how much harder it would be to keep the dark out without you around. And that scared the hell out of me.”

She paused. Let the silence breathe.

“I don’t want to be someone who needs another person to stay steady… but God, having you near makes it easier.”

Finally, she looked at him—really looked at him.

“And that’s why I want to go. Not to run from it, not to lean on you like a crutch, but because being near you makes me feel like I’m allowed to be all of it. The bright parts and the busted ones.”

Her mouth curved, barely.

“And because I want to see your face the next time I win Mario Kart in front of your entire crew.”

She leaned in, pressing a kiss to the underside of his jaw, soft and sure.

“I’m not trying to outshine you, Maddox,” she added. “I’m just tired of hiding my shadow from the one person who’s never been afraid of it.”

Her head returned to its place on his chest, hand resting over his heart.

And for the first time in a long time, she felt like maybe—just maybe—she didn’t have to carry all of it alone anymore.

Blake’s breath caught in his throat.

Not loud. Not sharp. Just a pause—barely there—but enough to feel the shift.

Willa’s words hit like poetry read in reverse: beautiful, brutal, and truer than anything she’d ever sung into a mic.

He didn’t interrupt.

Didn’t soothe. Didn’t fix.

He just listened—really listened—the way you only do when you know someone is showing you their bones.

His hand, still resting along her spine, flexed once, then settled again. Not gripping. Not pulling. Just… there. Present. Steady. The way she’d never asked him to be out loud, but always deserved.

“I wish I’d known,” he said quietly, after a while.

It wasn’t a rebuke. It wasn’t regret. Just a thread of grief for all the silence they’d both called survival.

“I don’t mean that like—like you owed me anything. You didn’t. You still don’t.”

His voice cracked a little on the last word. He cleared his throat.

“I just hate that you were in it alone. That anyone ever made you think you had to compartmentalize just to be loved.”

His fingers moved slowly again, brushing the curve of her back like tracing lyrics he couldn’t quite write yet.

“I used to think love meant shielding someone too,” he murmured. “From my worst. From the mess. But all that ever did was turn me into a highlight reel no one could touch.”

He exhaled, long and slow.

“But you? You didn’t fall in love with my best. You fell in love with the part of me that still shakes sometimes. The part that doesn’t perform.”

A beat passed. The curtain fluttered. The room stayed soft.

“And that thing you said?” he added, voice lower now. “About not trying to outshine me?”

He smiled—small and reverent, like it came with a bow.

“Good. Because I was always more interested in the girl who burned with me than the one who dimmed herself just to make room.”

His lips found her hairline—gentle, sure, not trying to fix anything. Just anchoring.

“You don’t have to hide your shadow from me, Willa. I’ve got one too. Maybe they’ll learn to dance.”

Then—more playful, because she’d need that after everything:

“…and for the record, you are not beating me at Mario Kart. I’m mainlining espresso before the rematch. I’m bringing backup soundtracks. I’m sabotaging your controller.”

A pause.

“And if all that fails, I’ll just kiss you until you forfeit.”

His hand rose to cover hers, right over his heart.

And just like that—without fanfare, without performance—he let her feel it. The steady rhythm beneath her palm.

The proof that he was still here. Still beating.

For her.