Bleep

Willa had seen the haircut already.

That was the annoying part.

She had seen it in photos, in videos, in blurry backstage clips fans had posted before he’d even had the chance to send her anything decent himself. She had seen it over FaceTime from three different angles while he complained about hotel lighting and made her rate it like she was judging a competition he had not technically entered. She had seen it beneath stage lights, under a hood, half-hidden behind his hand, damp after a shower, grainy from bad reception somewhere between one festival and the next.

So it should not have done anything to her when she saw him in person at the airport in Prague.

It should not have stopped her for half a second in the middle of arrivals with her suitcase dragging behind her, sunglasses pushed up into her hair, coffee going cold in her hand, and her heart behaving like a stupid teenage thing.

But there he was.

Bleached nearly white, buzzed close to his skull, charcoal jacket hanging open over washed-black layers, tattoos climbing out from his collar and over his hands like they had been waiting for the contrast. He looked different. Not less like himself exactly, but more exposed somehow. Like someone had taken away the dark, messy frame she was used to and left all his sharpness visible.

He saw the moment it hit her too, because of course he did.

Blake’s mouth curved like he was trying not to be smug.

Willa pointed at him with her coffee cup before he could enjoy himself too much.

“Don’t.”

He lifted both hands, innocent and useless, wedding ring catching in the airport light.

She reached him before either of them could pretend to be normal about it.

The hug was awkward at first because of the luggage between them, her tote sliding down her arm, his backpack knocking against her hip, the hard shell of her suitcase trying to roll away like it had somewhere better to be. Then Blake got one arm around her properly and pulled her in, and all the airport noise went cottony at the edges.

For three seconds, maybe four, she let herself close her eyes.

He smelled like travel and clean laundry and the smoky-sweet cologne he used when he wanted to pretend he had not packed in seven minutes. His hand settled at the back of her blazer. Her cheek pressed against the worn black fabric of his hoodie. The bleached hair brushed briefly against her temple when he ducked his head, and God, she was going to be insufferable about it. Quietly. Privately. With dignity.

Probably.

By the time they got outside, Prague had that pale spring brightness that looked warmer than it was. The sky was washed blue behind slow-moving clouds, and the air had a damp green bite to it, like rain had passed through earlier and left the city polished. Their driver held open the door while Blake wrestled their luggage into the back with the kind of focused competence that made Willa want to either kiss him or tell him he was being dramatic.

She did both, more or less. She kissed his cheek as he straightened, then told him he looked like airport security had personally wronged him.

He only smiled, slung an arm around her shoulders, and guided her into the car.

The hotel was tucked onto a narrow street near Old Town, all cream stone, black iron balconies, and tall windows that reflected the city in soft, distorted gold. It looked like the sort of place where people drank expensive wine and had long, devastating affairs in silk robes. Willa decided immediately that she approved, which meant she pretended to be skeptical.

Blake got her suitcase before she could reach for it.

She watched him from the curb while he pulled both bags from the trunk, his bleached head bowed, tattoos flexing over his hands as he caught the handles. Her own reflection stared back at her from the hotel glass: pale hair messy around her face, gray blazer a little creased from travel, lipstick mostly gone, eyeliner softened under her eyes. She looked like a woman who had crossed a border to spend forty-eight hours with her husband and was trying very hard not to think about how ridiculous that sentence was.

Inside, the lobby smelled like lilies, old wood, and something expensive burning in a candle. There were velvet chairs in a dark plum color, brass lamps with warm shades, a marble desk veined gray and rose, and a huge arrangement of white tulips opening beneath a chandelier.

Willa leaned toward Blake as they walked in.

“This is suspiciously romantic.”

His mouth twitched, but he said nothing.

At the desk, everything was very polite and very smooth and very clearly already arranged.

The receptionist greeted them by name, congratulated them with the careful brightness of someone who had been warned not to make it weird, and then explained that their original booking had been changed. Not by accident. Not by the hotel. Their reservation had been quietly upgraded at the request of Willa’s manager and several members of Blake’s band, who had apparently decided that two touring newlyweds with conflicting European schedules deserved something better than a standard room and a minibar Toblerone.

There was mention of their limited time, of a small surprise, of privacy being arranged, of breakfast whenever they wanted it, of a side entrance they could use if the front became too visible.

Willa did not say a word during any of it.

This was rare enough that Blake looked down at her.

She stared at the receptionist with a fixed smile, then at the two black key cards being slid across the counter in a little cream envelope, then at Blake, then at the ceiling as if the chandelier might explain why everyone in their lives had suddenly become emotionally coordinated.

By the time they were moving toward the elevators, luggage wheels whispering over the polished floor, Willa had recovered enough for both of them.

“I knew something was wrong. I said it in the car. I said the hotel looked too romantic. That was my first clue. Nobody gives us this much velvet without an agenda. And your bandmates being involved is worse, actually, because now I have to wonder what their definition of romantic is, and I don’t trust that at all. I love them, obviously, in a threatening extended-family sort of way, but I do not trust men who think a six-hour drive is a bonding activity and who have willingly eaten gas station sushi.”

Blake pressed the elevator button.

Still silent.

Still smiling.

Willa pointed at him.

“And you. You knew something.”

He shook his head once.

“No, don’t do that. Don’t do the face. The face doesn’t work when you’ve got criminally bleached hair and look like you’re about to either start a cult or apologize beautifully. I know your face. That’s my legal right now. I married into face knowledge.”

The elevator doors opened.

Blake gestured for her to go first.

She swept in with as much dignity as someone dragging a suitcase with a stuck wheel could manage.

“And another thing,” she continued as he stepped in beside her, “if this room has rose petals, I’m leaving. Not really leaving, because I’m tired and these boots are not emotionally prepared for cobblestones, but spiritually I’ll leave. I’ll stand in the corner and judge everyone involved. Quietly. Maybe not quietly. Depends on the petals.”

Blake leaned back against the elevator wall, one hand on the handle of his suitcase, the other tucked into the pocket of his jacket. His eyes stayed on her, soft with amusement, softer with something else.

The elevator climbed.

Willa glanced at his hair again.

She tried not to.

Failed.

“Also, for the record, it’s very annoying that the haircut works in person. I had a whole speech prepared about humility and consequences, and now I can’t use it because you look—” She stopped herself, narrowed her eyes, and corrected course. “You look like trouble with better lighting.”

The doors opened onto the top floor.

Their hallway was quiet, carpeted in deep green, with brass sconces glowing along cream walls. There were framed black-and-white photographs of Prague in spring: wet bridges, open windows, flower carts, musicians in doorways. Somewhere behind one of the doors, faint piano music played, or maybe it was only drifting up from the lobby.

Willa kept talking because if she stopped, the feeling in her chest would have too much room.

“This is insane. This is actually insane. We are adults. Technically. We have jobs. Loud jobs, but jobs. We should be capable of booking one normal hotel room and taking one normal nap without an entire conspiracy forming around us. But no. Apparently we looked too married and pathetic, so now everyone’s like, poor little rock stars, they never got a honeymoon, give them a suite and possibly some emotionally manipulative champagne.”

Blake found their room at the end of the hall.

Double doors.

Of course.

Willa stared at them.

“Oh, that’s obnoxious.”

He slid the key card against the lock.

The light turned green.

The doors opened.

And Willa forgot every single word she had been collecting.

The suite was enormous, but not in a cold way. It opened into a warm, golden sitting room with herringbone floors, tall arched windows, and sheer curtains moving faintly in the spring air from a cracked balcony door. Beyond the glass, Prague unfolded in soft evening light: red rooftops, church spires, the dark ribbon of the river, the city glowing as if someone had turned the saturation down just enough to make it ache.

There were flowers everywhere, but not rose petals.

Tulips. Wild-looking white and yellow tulips in heavy glass vases. Branches of cherry blossom leaning over the mantel. Tiny spring flowers scattered in ceramic bowls, not on the bed, thank God, but arranged with such care that Willa immediately knew someone had asked what she would actually like.

A bottle of champagne waited in a silver bucket beside two glasses. There was a small cake under a glass dome on the table, white icing, messy black ribbon around the base, two silver forks laid beside it. A record player sat near the window with a small stack of vinyl. The bedroom beyond was visible through open French doors: a huge bed with rumpled linen instead of stiff hotel perfection, more flowers on the nightstands, a freestanding bathtub near another window, and a folded note propped against a bowl of strawberries.

It was ridiculous.

It was beautiful.

It was not Vegas. It was not a chapel sidewalk at midnight or a dress hacked shorter with bad scissors or neon caught in wet pavement.

But somehow, it felt like the same reckless promise, translated into spring.

Blake stood beside her without moving.

Their suitcases sat abandoned behind them.

For once, he had no smirk ready.

For once, Willa had no immediate defense either.

Her throat tightened so quickly it annoyed her.

She looked at the flowers, the cake, the champagne, the view, the bed, then finally at him — at the bleached hair, the quiet face, the wedding ring on his hand.

“Well,” she said softly, “I guess this is our honeymoon.”

Blake felt the words land before he had any chance to answer them.

I guess this is our honeymoon.

For a second he just stood there beside her, shoulder almost brushing hers, staring out at the city spread beyond those tall windows. The room was absurd. Beautiful, yes, but also absurd. The flowers. The champagne. The cake. The fact that somewhere behind them their suitcases were still sitting exactly where they’d abandoned them because neither of them had been prepared for this.

Then he looked at her.

Really looked.

At the creased blazer she’d traveled in. The coffee stain near the cuff she’d probably forgotten about hours ago. The way her lipstick had faded until only traces remained. The pale hair falling loose around her face from a day spent crossing borders and airports and cities just to find him.

And God.

His chest tightened so hard it almost hurt.

Because she’d spent the entire afternoon talking.

About his hair.

About his bandmates.

About suspiciously romantic hotels.

About gas station sushi and rose petals and emotionally manipulative champagne.

Talking because that was what Willa did when she was overwhelmed. When something got too close to the center of her.

And now she was quiet.

That hit him harder than the room ever could.

A slow breath left him as his eyes moved back over the suite. The tulips. The balcony. The river cutting through Prague beyond the rooftops. The note sitting untouched beside the strawberries.

Then back to her again.

His wife.

Not Vegas-wife.

Not backstage-wife.

Not airport-wife.

Just… wife.

The word still felt unreal some days. Like he’d stolen it from somebody luckier and was waiting for the universe to notice.

His hand found hers automatically.

Not dramatic.

Not intentional.

Just instinct.

His thumb brushed across her knuckles once as he looked down at their joined hands, both wedding rings catching the late afternoon light.

A laugh escaped him then. Quiet. Disbelieving.

“Do you realize,” he said, voice rough from travel and emotion and everything he wasn’t particularly interested in hiding from her, “that we got married in Vegas, spent half the night terrorizing the Strip, and somehow ended up here?”

His eyes lifted back to hers.

The flowers.

The city.

The suite.

None of it compared.

Not really.

Because the thing making his chest feel too full wasn’t the room.

It was her standing in it.

“I think this might be the first time in history anybody’s honeymoon has been organized by a manager and a group of idiots who think gas station sushi builds character.”

The corner of his mouth lifted.

A little smile.

A familiar one.

But softer than the ones she’d been accusing him of wearing all day.

Then he squeezed her hand and stepped closer until there wasn’t any space left between them at all.

The city glowed beyond the windows.

The flowers scented the air.

Somewhere below them Prague kept moving.

But Blake couldn’t seem to look anywhere except her.

“Good thing, too,” he said quietly, reaching up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Because if we’d planned it ourselves, we’d probably be eating vending machine chips in a train station right now.”

His fingers lingered against her cheek.

And there it was again.

That feeling.

Not the rush.

Not the fire.

Something steadier.

Something that kept catching him off guard.

The simple, impossible fact that after all the airports and tours and missed flights and different time zones and almosts, she was actually here.

With him.

For forty-eight hours.

In Prague.

In a suite full of tulips.

On a honeymoon neither of them had expected.

And Blake suddenly found himself smiling like an idiot.

A completely helpless one.

“Come here,” he murmured, already pulling her gently toward him. “Before one of us starts crying and ruins the cool rock-star image we’ve worked very hard to cultivate.”