Blah blah blah

The heels still pinched.

Not because they didn’t fit—they were custom, gold-strapped, and made to look effortless—but because she'd been smiling in them too long. Posing. Clinging to someone else’s arm like she belonged there. Like any of it was real.

Imogen stepped through the lobby doors of the Aurum Residences, her presence met with a polite nod from the concierge and a glimmer of recognition from the doorman who held the gold-trimmed glass open for her. She didn’t need to give her name. She never did here.

“Evening, Miss Porter,” the doorman said, eyes flicking to the satin clutch in her hand, the train of her designer gown gathered loosely in the other. “Mr. Khan hasn’t returned yet, but you’re welcome to wait inside. You know the routine.”

She gave a small, grateful smile—more tired than charming—but didn’t correct him. She didn’t know the routine. Not lately. Not since the last time she left here without bothering to shut the door softly behind her.

Still, she stepped inside.

The lobby was dim and hushed, all warm marble and cool jazz, designed to soothe the wealthy into thinking they lived above it all. She sank into a sleek velvet armchair near the low glass coffee table, the kind that held perfectly arranged magazines no one read. Her reflection shimmered in the mirrored elevator doors across the room—highlight still dewy, lashes still curled, hair pinned into soft waves like she hadn’t spent the last three hours pretending.

It wasn’t that she minded Devon. Her PR boyfriend was good company, easy to laugh with, generous with his compliments and careful not to cross any lines. He made their staged kisses look convincing and whispered inside jokes just loud enough for the cameras to catch. They were friends, and that made it easier.

But it didn’t make it real.

And it sure as hell didn’t stop her from watching Avan across the room as the flashbulbs went off. He hadn’t said a word—hadn’t needed to. She saw it in the flicker of his jaw, in the way he wouldn’t quite look at her until Devon’s hand slid from her back.

She could still feel the weight of that look now, hours later, like it had soaked into her skin beneath the foundation.

Imogen pulled her phone from her clutch, checked it—nothing.

No missed calls.
No “you looked good tonight.”
No “you didn’t have to.”
No “I hated it.”

She sighed, long and quiet, and leaned her head back against the chair. The lobby lighting cast soft gold along the arch of her throat, caught in the glitter dusting her collarbones. Everything about her still looked camera-ready. But she felt used up. Over-lit. Hollow in the way that only came after faking closeness in a room full of people who would sell your heartbreak for headlines.

He’d come home eventually.
She didn’t know what she was going to say when he did.
Maybe nothing.
Maybe everything.

But she was still here.

And that had to mean something.

He lingered in the car long after the engine cut, the soft hum of the city bleeding faintly through the concrete of the underground garage. He could still see the flashes—those bloody flashes—every time he blinked. Her laughter in some reporter’s microphone, Devon’s hand ghosting the small of her back. All of it looped, grainy and out of focus, but sharp where it hurt most.

When he finally took the lift up, the mirrored walls threw his reflection back at him: black shirt undone at the collar, jaw locked too tight, eyes that hadn’t quite decided whether to soften or burn.

And then there she was.

Gold. Always gold. She sat in the lobby like an echo of every night they’d tried not to repeat—barefoot, posture immaculate, exhaustion painted over with polish. Her phone lay face down beside her clutch. No movement, no words, just the low hum of the jazz overhead and the sound of his pulse in his ears.

He hesitated in the doorway, one hand in his pocket, the other turning his keys over between his fingers. “You shouldn’t have waited,” he said finally, voice quiet, low, carrying the rasp of too many unsaid things. “You know I’d have come up eventually.”

No answer. Just that slow lift of her chin, the smallest tilt of her head that told him she’d heard him and wasn’t ready to make it easy.

He crossed the marble floor, the soles of his boots dull against the sound. “You look…” He stopped himself, the word that followed catching somewhere in his throat. Beautiful always felt wrong when she was tired. “…like you need a drink,” he settled on, a dry little twist of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

He sat opposite her, elbows on his knees, studying her in the same way he studied a mix—searching for what felt off, what still ached. The dress shimmered under the lobby lights, hair pinned, eyes too calm. “It’s louder when you’re not there,” he said after a moment, a confession disguised as a throwaway line.

She didn’t respond, but her fingers brushed the fabric at her thigh—nervous habit, small tell. He noticed; he always did.

Avan leaned back, gaze flicking up toward the chandelier. “Didn’t plan on staying long tonight,” he murmured. “But then I saw you on his arm and thought—fuck it—might as well drown in it properly.”

The silence between them thickened, old and familiar. He looked at her again, softer now. “You can stop playing the part when you’re here, you know. You don’t have to keep the smile on for me.”

He reached forward, fingertips barely grazing the hem of her gown, careful not to touch her skin. “Come on. Let’s go up.”

It wasn’t an order. It was weary, tender, laced with that quiet Birmingham drawl that only came out when he’d stopped pretending to be the calm one.

He stood, waiting, eyes never leaving hers. “I’ll put the kettle on,” he said, and for all the noise between them, it sounded like the most honest thing he’d said in months.

The marble beneath her bare feet was cold — grounding in a way nothing else had been all night.
She’d been sitting there long enough for the lobby’s jazz playlist to loop twice, for the last champagne buzz to fade from her bloodstream, for her reflection in the mirrored elevator doors to stop looking like her.

Imogen Porter, pop phenomenon, red carpet darling, latest muse of the moment — she was somewhere back in the flashbulbs, hanging on Devon’s arm with a smile curated by a publicist and perfected by years of survival.

Here, she was just tired.

The soft ding of the elevator broke through the hush before she saw him. The doors slid open with a metallic sigh, and there he was — Avan, all quiet shadow and exhaustion, shirt half-unbuttoned, jaw tight. The kind of beautiful that never tried to be.

Her pulse betrayed her.

He hesitated in the threshold, eyes skimming over her like a chord he didn’t mean to strike. “You shouldn’t have waited,” he said, voice low, rough from smoke and distance. “You know I’d have come up eventually.”

She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Her throat locked around the hundred versions of I didn’t want to be seen leaving with him that would’ve sounded too much like I didn’t want to miss you.

Instead, she slid her phone into her clutch, careful not to smudge the shimmer dusted across her knuckles. The movement gave her something to do with her hands — something that wasn’t reaching for him.

When she bent to pick up her heels, the silk of her gown brushed the floor, pooling for a second like liquid gold. The straps caught against her ankle; she exhaled sharply and snapped them closed. Both shoes back on. Mask reattached.

She stood, composure sculpted into place, every movement deliberate — the kind of control that came from fear disguised as poise.

Avan watched her like he always did — quietly, deeply, as if cataloguing every shift of breath, every little tell. He said something about a drink. About her looking like she needed one. It wasn’t quite a joke. It wasn’t quite mercy either.

She only met his eyes when he stood, motioning toward the elevator. “Come on,” he’d said. “Let’s go up.”

So she did.

The sound of her heels echoed softly across the lobby’s marble floor, marking the distance between them — a rhythm only he could read. The doorman looked up briefly as they passed, his face politely blank, and Imogen’s stomach twisted with old paranoia.
No cameras. No phones. Just memory. And yet the fear was still there, that someone would see what wasn’t meant to be seen.

The elevator doors opened with another quiet sigh. She stepped in first, the scent of jasmine and champagne following her like a ghost. He joined her, silent.

The doors slid closed — and the world fell away.

Only then did her shoulders drop, the tension loosening like a pulled thread. Her reflection flickered in the mirrored wall: lips painted perfect, eyes no longer pretending.

“I didn’t go up,” she said finally, voice soft, almost thoughtful. “Felt too easy.”

The silence between them stretched, humming with everything unspoken. She turned toward him slowly, the faintest glint of the city’s glow catching in her hair.

“It’s strange,” she murmured. “I can walk into a room full of cameras and smile like it’s nothing. But the second I step into your building, I start thinking about every angle. Every shadow. Wondering if someone’s watching. If they’ll twist it. Sell it.”

Her laugh was quiet, humorless. “It’s exhausting—pretending I don’t care who sees me with you.”

She looked up at him then, eyes sharp with something fragile beneath. “Because I do care, Avan. Not about them—about what it makes you look like. My producer. My mentor. The guy who’s supposed to be untouchable while I—”

She stopped herself, the words cutting off with a tiny shake of her head.

Her next breath was slower, steadier. “They’d say I’m sleeping my way through my own songs.”

The admission landed soft and heavy, like confession.

The elevator hummed higher. Somewhere far below, the city blurred to light and noise. Inside, it was only the two of them — mirror, silence, pulse.

Her voice dropped to almost nothing. “Sometimes I think the only safe place left is the one that ruins us both.”

She didn’t look at him again. Just kept her gaze on their reflection in the glass — two silhouettes standing too close, trying to look like anything but what they were.

And for once, she didn’t fix her posture or her lipstick or the image of herself the world demanded.
She just breathed. Quiet. Uneasy. Human.

He listened.

There were a hundred things he could have said in answer to that cascade of honesty—things that would have deflected or teased or numbed it into something safer—but her voice had the tremor of someone already braced for being misunderstood.

So he stayed quiet for a moment, watching her in the reflection: the line of her jaw, the set of her shoulders, the gold fabric catching the light with every breath. She wasn’t posing now; this was what she looked like when the world wasn’t looking back.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low, almost careful.
“You don’t have to protect me from the way it looks,” he said. “If they want to write stories, they will. They always have. And none of them ever sound like us anyway.”

He stepped closer, enough that he could see the small tremor in her throat where she swallowed. His tone softened.
“You’ve spent years learning how to turn yourself into something they can sell. It’s a bloody miracle you’ve still got anything real left to hide.”

Her confession about the rumours hung between them. He shook his head once, slow, deliberate. “You don’t owe anyone an explanation for where your talent comes from. Every note you’ve ever sung, you built yourself. All I did was make room for you to breathe.”

The lift’s light flickered, catching the faint shimmer along her collarbone. He hesitated, then reached out, two fingers brushing a loose strand of hair back from her shoulder. It was a simple gesture, one he’d done a hundred times in quieter rooms, but tonight it felt like something sacred.

“People talk,” he went on, his accent quieter now, softer around the edges. “It’s what they do when they can’t feel what you’ve made them feel. Let them chatter. I’d rather have one song that costs me my name than a hundred that mean nothing.”

He exhaled slowly, looking past their reflections to the numbers creeping higher. “And as for safe places…” A faint smile touched the corner of his mouth. “I stopped believing in them a long time ago. Doesn’t mean I’d trade this one for anything.”

The doors gave a soft chime. He glanced at her, the light catching the blue in her eyes, and stepped aside like he always did, holding his arm out for her to pass. “Come on, love,” he murmured, warmth threading through the quiet. “You’ve done enough pretending for one night.”

He waited until she moved, keeping his hand at the door so it wouldn’t close too quickly, the simple courtesy of someone who still believed that gentleness was a kind of respect.

The hallway stretched ahead in clean lines and soft light — all polished concrete and quiet luxury.
Her heels clicked against the floor, steady but not sure, the rhythm of someone walking into something they already knew they shouldn’t.

She wished it could be as simple as he made it sound.

Maybe it was, for him.

Because this was still a man’s world — all glass towers and quiet rooms built by men who never had to prove what they were worth, only what they could control. And Avan, for all his gentleness and integrity, was still allowed to exist inside that system without it swallowing him whole.

She didn’t hold that against him.
He’d never used it to his advantage.
If anything, he’d spent years softening what the world made of men like him — choosing grace over ego, silence over spectacle.

But she’d learned early that women like her didn’t get that kind of mercy.

Every glance meant something. Every rumor stuck. Every photograph became evidence of something she’d never done.

She trailed a step behind him, watching the subtle shift of his shoulders beneath the black shirt as he walked — loose now, but still tense in that way he got when he was overthinking. Her gaze dropped to his hands, the way his thumb brushed the keys in his palm. The same hands that shaped entire worlds out of sound. The same hands that had steadied her when everything else was noise.

He reached his door and paused, turning slightly toward her. The corridor lighting caught the gold sheen of her gown, the stray glitter clinging to her wrist from the night. For a second, she thought about what they must look like: the producer and his muse. Every stereotype she’d ever tried to avoid, standing right here.

The tabloids would eat it alive.

She exhaled through her nose, quiet, measured. “You make it sound easy,” she murmured, finally breaking the silence between them. Her voice wasn’t sharp — just tired, worn from too much pretending.

“It probably is, for you,” she added, eyes flicking up to meet his. “You get to walk into a room and be seen as talented, not… lucky. No one wonders who you had to touch to get there.”

Her words weren’t cruel — just matter-of-fact, wrapped in a kind of sadness that felt older than either of them.

She leaned her shoulder lightly against the wall as he unlocked the door, the movement unintentional but intimate in its ease. “And before you say it, I know you’re not like them. You’ve never treated me that way. That’s half the problem.”

A small smile ghosted her lips — soft, almost fond. “You make it hard to be cynical.”

The lock clicked open, low and final.

Avan stepped aside immediately, holding the door open for her. His gaze lingered just long enough to make her pulse skip before he looked away, wordlessly granting her the kind of respect that always disarmed her — the space to choose.

She hesitated for half a breath, then moved past him into the condo.

Inside, the lights came up slowly — floor-to-ceiling windows spilling the city’s glow across the minimalist sprawl of black leather, dark wood, and warm amber lamps. It was beautiful in that careful, quiet way that felt like him: nothing loud, nothing wasted.

She stepped further in, the door closing with a hush behind her.

The air shifted — heavier now, charged in the stillness. She set her clutch on the counter, fingers brushing the cool marble, her voice softer when she spoke again.

“I know you mean what you said back there,” she admitted, not quite meeting his gaze. “That you don’t care what they think. That you’d trade your name for one honest song.”

Her throat tightened. “But it’s different for me. It always has been. I don’t just lose my name — I lose everything they think I didn’t earn.”

The confession came out quieter than she meant it to, like an apology for a truth that wouldn’t stop being true.

She turned then, finally meeting his eyes — the kind of look that said don’t fix this, just understand it.

“I wish it didn’t scare me,” she said softly. “Wanting something that costs this much.”

For a long moment, she didn’t move — just stood there in the golden half-light, the city behind her and him in front of her, suspended between everything they couldn’t say and everything they already knew.

He watched her cross the threshold, that quiet kind of grace she carried even when she was unraveling. The city’s reflection curved along the windows, gold spilling across her gown like it couldn’t quite let go of her.

He closed the door softly, the lock settling into place with a sound that felt heavier than it should have.

“You think I’ve got it easier,” he said, voice low but steady. “Maybe you’re right. But I’ve spent half my life proving I deserve to be in the rooms I built.” He leaned a shoulder against the wall, eyes never leaving hers. “Every meeting, every mix — someone’s waiting for me to slip. Doesn’t matter what I’ve made; they’ll still see the wrong kind of name first.”

He ran a hand over his jaw, thumb dragging slowly against the line of stubble. “I’m not saying it’s the same. It isn’t. You bleed for it differently. The world looks at you and decides what you’ve taken before you’ve even opened your mouth. I get to choose silence. You never could.”

He stepped forward, just enough that the faint hum of her perfume brushed against him. “You’ve spent years surviving in a game that eats women alive and calls it glamour. You’re still here. That’s not luck, Imogen. That’s power.”

Her words about what it cost her — about fear and wanting — hit him square in the chest. He didn’t look away. “You’re not wrong to be scared,” he said quietly. “The moment you stop being scared, you start giving it away.”

He reached out, not to touch her but to rest his hand flat against the counter beside hers — close enough to feel her warmth through the air. “But don’t ever think what you want makes you smaller,” he added, tone soft, deliberate. “It makes you human. Makes you dangerous in the right ways.”

His gaze dropped to her hands — the glitter still clinging to her skin like proof of the night she’d survived. “They’ll write whatever story sells,” he murmured. “Let them. You’ll outlive every headline.”

Then, after a long pause: “I can’t promise this won’t cost us. I just know I’d rather pay it with you than pretend it isn’t there.”

He straightened a little, watching her in the half-light — the faint rise of her shoulders, the tremor of hesitation still running through her. “You don’t have to be cynical tonight,” he said softly. “You don’t have to be anything you’re not.”

He nodded toward the city beyond the window, the skyline flickering like a pulse. “Let them have the noise. We’ll keep the quiet.”

For a moment, she just looked at him.
At the man who somehow managed to speak like he was untangling her from herself.

Avan didn’t flinch when he said hard things — never sugarcoated the ugliness, never tried to make the world smaller than it was. That was what she admired most about him. What she hated, too. Because he was right, in every way that hurt to admit.

She understood the kind of rooms he meant. The ones that made him justify his presence before he’d even spoken. The way his name, his face, his background were all filters people looked through before they ever listened. She’d seen it. She’d watched it happen to him.

And still —

Her throat tightened.

As much as she understood, she also knew he would never fully feel what it was like to be her.
To live in a world that turned your body into both currency and collateral. To have your talent weighed against your desirability, your worth defined by how quietly you endured it.
He could recognize the pattern, but he’d never been the one caught inside it.

And she didn’t resent him for that.
He’d never been one of the ones holding the match.

If anything, he was the one who’d taught her she didn’t have to keep burning.

Imogen’s fingers traced an invisible pattern on the counter, the cool stone grounding her. The edge of his voice still lingered in the air — soft, steady, sincere — and for the first time all night, she let herself believe it.

Her gaze drifted toward the window, the city lights spilling through like molten gold, blurring her reflection into something softer. “I know you’ve fought for every inch of this,” she said finally, her voice low. “And I know the world’s made you prove yourself in ways it never should’ve had to.”

She turned back to him, eyes steady. “But it’s different for me, Avan. It always will be.”

Her tone wasn’t defensive, just real — tired but honest, a kind of truth that had lived under her skin for years. “You can survive this industry by being brilliant. I have to survive it by being bulletproof.”

The words lingered like smoke. Then she exhaled and shook her head, a small, almost weary laugh slipping out. “God, listen to me. I sound like a headline waiting to write itself.”

Her hands pressed against the counter as if she could push the heaviness out of her body. “I don’t want to be that girl tonight. The cynical one. The one who sees the worst before anything good can happen.”

She glanced up, met his eyes, and something in her softened — the kind of surrender that wasn’t defeat, just relief. “You said we could keep the quiet,” she murmured. “So let’s do that.”

Imogen straightened, pulling the pins from her hair one by one until it fell loose against her shoulders, her movements slow and deliberate — like shedding a costume. Each pin hit the counter with a small metallic sound, the softest percussion to her decision.

She reached for the champagne-colored clutch she’d set down, opened it, and slid her phone inside before snapping it shut. Then, with a quiet finality, she turned it face down.

“There,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. “No noise.”

When she looked back at him, her smile was faint but real — something rare and unguarded. “You were right,” she said softly. “You always are. I’ve spent years learning how to survive the chaos. But the quiet…” She paused, eyes flicking toward him. “That’s harder. I’m still learning how to stay in it.”

The city shimmered beyond the glass, casting fractured light across the both of them. She stepped closer, slow, steady, until she could feel the warmth of his body where the air between them ended.

“Teach me,” she whispered.

It wasn’t a plea.
It was a promise.

And for the first time that night, she wasn’t thinking about cameras or headlines or cost — only about how rare it was to be seen this clearly, and how, for once, she didn’t want to hide from it.

Avan didn’t answer straight away. He never did when something mattered.

He stood there, hands resting against the edge of the counter, letting her words settle into the silence like dust after impact. Every instinct told him not to break it too quickly, not to dilute the truth she’d just given him.

When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet—measured, low, carrying that calm weight that always grounded her.
“You don’t sound like a headline,” he said. “You sound like someone who’s still standing after the fire. There’s a difference.”

He pushed his sleeves higher on his forearms, the faint trace of ink catching the warm light. “You’re right. It is different for you. The world doesn’t let you exist without turning you into a story first.” His tone shifted then, softer, roughened by honesty. “But I see you before they do. That’s the part they’ll never understand.”

She’d set her phone face-down between them, a small act that meant more than anything she could have said. He caught the gesture, the deliberate stillness of it, and nodded once—just a quiet acknowledgment.

“You don’t have to be bulletproof in here,” he said. “Not with me.”

When she let her hair down, he watched the strands fall against her bare shoulders, slow and unhurried, each pin landing like a punctuation mark in the quiet. Something inside him softened with it.

He came around the counter then, moving carefully, the way he always did when the air between them felt fragile. The city’s glow bent across his face, the amber light catching on his jaw and the silver ring he turned idly with his thumb.

“You think I’ve got some secret,” he murmured. “Some way of making the noise stop. But I don’t. I just learned how to build something louder underneath it. You don’t silence chaos—you drown it in something that means more.”

He was close now—close enough that the air shifted, close enough that he could see the pulse at her throat and the faint glitter still clinging to her collarbone. “If you want quiet,” he said, “you start by letting yourself stop performing for it.”

His hand came up, slow and careful, fingers brushing a strand of hair away from her face. The touch wasn’t possessive, just deliberate—reverent. “You don’t have to earn calm, Imogen. You just have to stop apologising for needing it.”

He paused, the silence stretching again, softer this time. “You want me to teach you?” A faint half-smile ghosted his lips, more tenderness than humour. “Then you start by listening to yourself breathe. That’s it. That’s the lesson.”

He stepped back an inch—not retreating, just giving her space to decide how close she wanted him to be. “And if you forget,” he added, his voice dipping even lower, “I’ll remind you. Every time.”

The city flickered behind them, light bending off the windows like a pulse. For once, he didn’t look away.

“Stay here,” he said quietly, motioning toward the couch by the window. “I’ll make tea. You can watch the world keep spinning while we don’t.”

He turned toward the kitchen, but his voice found her again before he’d taken a step. “You don’t need the noise tonight,” he said. “You’ve already out-sung it.”

She didn’t move at first.

Just watched him.

The way the light from the city caught the edge of his jaw, the dark curl of his hair, the soft burn of focus in his eyes when he looked at her like that—like he was still trying to memorize something he’d already spent years knowing by heart.

Avan Khan was an ache and a balm all at once. The kind of beautiful that didn’t shout about itself—born from patience, from sharpness, from quiet self-possession. He had that rare kind of magnetism that wasn’t just seen, it was felt—like the way a song could pull you back into yourself before you even realized it was playing.

It wasn’t just how handsome he was—though God, he was.
It was the way he existed.
The way he stood there, sleeves rolled up, silver ring glinting under warm light, veins faintly raised along his forearms. Calm. Controlled. Always deliberate, even when she was chaos beside him.

He never filled the silence just to fill it.
He let things breathe.
He let her breathe.

And that, more than anything, terrified her.

Because every man before him had taught her that stillness was danger—that quiet meant judgment, that attention meant expectation. But with Avan, quiet felt like safety.
She didn’t know what to do with that kind of safety.

Her chest rose and fell in time with the low hum of the refrigerator, the distant whir of the city outside. The sound of his voice still lingered in the air—steady, warm, low enough to find its way through the cracks in her armor.

You don’t have to earn calm.
You just have to stop apologising for needing it.

The words sat heavy in her chest. The kind of weight that didn’t suffocate, but anchored.

She drew in a slow breath, exhaled through her nose, and finally—finally—let herself move.

The couch by the window was wide and low, draped in soft gray linen. She crossed the room toward it, the hem of her gown whispering across the floor. Each step felt like letting go—of the noise, of the cameras, of the act.

She sank into the corner of the couch, curling one leg beneath her. The city stretched out before her in endless light, all glitter and motion, a heartbeat she could finally listen to from the outside.

Her reflection shimmered faintly against the glass, half-shadow, half-gold. For the first time all night, she didn’t adjust her posture or her expression. She just… was.

Behind her, she heard the soft clink of porcelain, the kettle beginning its low rumble. The sound grounded her—ordinary and intimate in a way that red carpets and studio lights never could be.

She tilted her head toward the window, the glow catching the curve of her cheek. The noise of the world carried on beyond the glass: sirens, laughter, a car horn somewhere far below.

She let it all fade.

Because right now, she was here—barefoot in borrowed quiet, makeup still perfect, heart still too loud, but here.

And for once, that felt like enough.

When she finally spoke, her voice was soft—half to him, half to herself.

“Do you ever think about what you’d be doing if you hadn’t chosen this?” she asked, her eyes still on the skyline. “If the music hadn’t found you first?”

The question slipped out like a whisper through candlelight, fragile and sincere. “Sometimes I wonder who I’d be without all of it. Without the noise, the cameras, the pretending.”

She smiled faintly, but there was something wistful behind it. “I don’t even know if I’d recognize her anymore.”

The kettle clicked off behind her. The sound was soft, simple, final.
And in the silence that followed, her words seemed to hang between them like a note still ringing, waiting for him to answer.