Corny?

Yeah.

Right on the nose?

Probably.

But perfect?

God, yes.

Willa stared at him, her heart full to the point of ache, that stupid little grin still clinging to his face like he didn’t just punch her soul in the chest with the gentlest song she’d ever heard.

It didn’t matter that it was raw. Or that the chords still slipped under his fingers like they weren’t sure if they wanted to stay. Or that the lyrics weren’t polished, weren’t flawless.

Because Blake Maddox—her chaos god—had just handed her a piece of his heart in a melody.

And that?

That was everything.

She leaned over, hands still curled around the neck of her guitar, and kissed him.

Slow.
Certain.
A thank you without the words.

Then she pulled back just enough to press their foreheads together, her voice a soft murmur over his lips.

“You’re so stupidly good at this, it hurts.”

She nudged his nose with hers and then, with a smirk tugging at her mouth, added, “I’m still putting ‘chaos god’ on a throw pillow. Just so we’re clear.”

She settled back in beside him and shifted the guitar into her lap, her fingers finding their place on the fretboard like second nature. She let the amp hum underneath her, that steady little buzz of potential.

And then?

She strummed.

A few gentle chords. Loose. Lazy. Nothing dramatic.

Just enough to feel it.

To find it.

She watched his eyes as she played, felt the warmth of the room settle like a second skin, then started murmuring softly—half-singing, half-thinking aloud. She didn’t look at the notebook yet. Didn’t need to. Some of this was already inside her.

“Everyone’s damaged…”
Her fingers moved automatically, finding a rhythm that caught and held.

“A little depressed…”
She glanced at him—soft smile, raised brows—and he knew. Knew exactly what she was pulling from.

“Every now and then, we get that feeling in our chest…”

She let the line trail, then kept playing, letting the melody fill the gaps.

“Some days I’m a loser,” she added, quieter now. “Brush my teeth in the dark…”

She didn’t bother pretending it wasn’t real.

“Head above water… in a swimming pool of sharks.”

She didn’t flinch.

Didn’t try to soften the honesty.

Because that’s what this was—what they were.

Willa’s voice dropped even softer, the lyrics still forming as she played, like she was pulling them from somewhere deep:

“Ooh, it’s hard to get up out of bed
When everything is on its head
And nothing seems to make any sense…”

She faltered slightly—just enough to glance over at him. Her lip quirked.

“Okay, I’m definitely stealing from your chaos page here.”

She flipped open the notebook anyway and ran a hand over the scribbles, scanning his half-written verses like they were sacred text.

“Like a Band-Aid on a bleeding heart,” she murmured, fingers still ghosting the strings.

“I fake a smile… and fall apart…”

Then she looked up.

Voice quieter. Truer.

“And no one ever knows I’m a wreck.”

She let the last chord ring out—soft, unassuming, but there—before setting the guitar against the edge of the couch, her fingers still buzzing.

Then she reached for his hand again.

Because they weren’t finished.

Not yet.

But they were building something.
Together.

Blake didn’t say anything at first.

Just stared at her with that stupid, soul-punched grin still tugging at the corners of his mouth like he couldn’t quite believe she was real.

His fingers were still tangled in hers, calloused pads brushing her knuckles as if grounding himself with her touch. And God, she was grounding. All wide eyes and quiet fire, the kind of girl who could harmonize with heartbreak and still make it sound like hope.

He let out a breath—half a laugh, half a prayer—and leaned in until their foreheads touched again.

“You just Willa’d my song,” he murmured, low and warm. “I come in here with my half-mangled lyrics and an existential guitar loop, and you turn it into something that could resurrect the dead. Or at least mildly inconvenience a sad poet.”

He grinned again. Bigger this time.

“I mean, Jesus. ‘Like a Band-Aid on a bleeding heart’? Where the hell were you when I was trying to rhyme paralyzed with compromised?”

He kissed the back of her hand, reverent and soft, then looked at her like she’d hung every star that had ever dared to burn.

“We should record it,” he added, voice quieter now. “Not to release. Not for anyone else. Just… us. For the days when it gets loud again.”

His thumb brushed over hers, still slow.

“You in?”

And of course she was.

She always was.

Willa smiled—not the sharp, sarcastic kind she used when she was trying to protect herself, but the real one. The kind that lived in her ribs. The kind that cracked wide when something mattered.

She tightened her fingers around his, held his gaze for a beat longer than necessary, then shook her head gently—not in dismissal, but in quiet correction.

“I didn’t Willa your song,” she said, voice low and even. “I just… put part of me in it.”

She glanced down at their hands, their guitars, the half-open notebook scattered with scribbles and smudged ink. The ghosts of bad days living in every line.

“This thing’s both of us now. Which means it’s real.”

A pause.

Then, soft—almost shy:

“I’m definitely in. I want this recorded. For you. For me. For whatever the hell version of us forgets how to say I need you out loud.”

She reached for the notebook, brushing her thumb over a page he hadn’t read aloud yet but that she’d already memorized.

“Everything’s backwards and I’m hanging on…”
Her voice dropped slightly, almost spoken. “No matter how hard I try I always come undone.”

Her eyes flicked to his, something fierce and fragile lighting behind them.

“Backed in a corner… uncomfortably numb…”
She strummed a chord beneath her breath. “Watching myself become a shadow of someone.”

Her thumb dragged over a margin note he’d scribbled—this part’s messy. maybe too much?—and she smiled gently, shaking her head.

“Not too much,” she whispered. “Never too much.”

She kept reading, voice warming into melody again, lines bending into something slow and aching:

“Oh, it’s hard to find a place to hide
When you’re running from what’s inside…
No matter where you go—”

Her hand drifted back to the strings.

“There you are.”

Then she paused. Let the silence settle between them for a moment. Let it breathe. Let it hold.

“So tonight I’ll go to war with me…”

Her voice caught just slightly—like the weight of it hit all over again—and then she said it, softer:

“'Cause I’m my own worst enemy… and I don’t wanna fight anymore.”

She looked at him again, eyes shining, but clear.

“We don’t have to finish it tonight,” she said. “But this? This is ours.”

She leaned over, pressed her lips to his cheek—slow, tender.

“And when the voices get loud again,” she added, “we’ll press play. And remember we made it through.”

Blake didn’t breathe for a moment.

Couldn’t.

Not when Willa was looking at him like that. Not when her voice had wrapped itself around his lyrics like a balm, like a lifeline. Not when every word she’d sung made his own bones feel like they were humming.

God, she wrecked him.

The brush of her thumb over that margin note—this part’s messy. maybe too much?—had hit harder than he expected. Because he remembered writing it. At two in the morning. Half-drunk on exhaustion and fear and wondering if she’d hear it and think this is too dark, too much, too broken.

But she hadn’t.

She’d said never too much.

And that—that undid something in him he didn’t know was still clinging on.

He turned his head just slightly when she pressed her lips to his cheek, catching the tail end of her kiss, holding the weight of it like something sacred.

His voice, when it came, was quiet. Reverent. Worn soft at the edges.

“I don’t think anyone’s ever heard me like you do.”

He wasn’t just talking about the music.

He shifted the guitar off his lap and set it gently beside hers, then reached for her hand again. Not fast. Not urgent. Just sure. Like his body had already decided this is where I want to rest.

His thumb grazed her knuckles once. Twice.

“I’ve written a lot of songs, Wills,” he murmured. “Some for stages. Some for ghosts. Some I never let anyone hear. But this one…”

He looked at her, eyes steady and wrecked and open.

“This one’s for when it’s three a.m. and I can’t find the version of me that knows how to get back to you. This is the map.”

His smile flickered—wry and crooked and so full of heart it almost hurt.

“Also, you made it better. Which is infuriating and attractive and I’m pretty sure illegal in three countries.”

He leaned in, bumping his forehead to hers gently.

“And yeah,” he added, softer now, “we don’t have to finish it tonight.”

He paused, let the words hang between them.

“But we are finishing it. Because when the world goes sideways again, I want this. Us. A song that sounds like surviving.”

Blake turned and plucked the notebook gently from where it had fallen against her knee. Held it in his palm for a beat, then laid it down between them like a pact.

“I’m in,” he said simply. “All the way.”

Then he grinned, full and crooked and boyish again.

“But next time we write something this heavy, I’m insisting on snacks. And at least one chorus about how hot you look in my hoodie.”

He kissed her temple—quick, firm, fond—and let the silence settle in again.

This wasn’t just music.

It was memory. Anchor. Oxygen.

And with Willa’s voice braided into it now?

It was home.

Willa didn’t say anything right away.

Didn’t need to.

She just looked at him—really looked—and for a second, her entire chest tightened like it was trying to hold in all the love and grief and wonder she felt for this man who still somehow didn’t realize how extraordinary he was.

He was sitting here, saying things like this is the map and this is the version of me that knows how to get back to you like he hadn’t just rewritten the rules for what love was supposed to sound like. Like he hadn’t just carved a soft, steady place for them both to land inside a song that was still bleeding at the edges.

She wanted to tell him it was already finished in all the ways that mattered.

That it didn’t need a bridge or polished production.

It had heart.

And Blake’s heart was the loudest, clearest thing in the room.

But instead, she curled her fingers between his again, slow and deliberate, and leaned her head on his shoulder—nose brushing the curve of his collarbone like it was always meant to fit there.

Her voice, when it came, was the kind that stayed low so it wouldn’t startle the magic.

“Snacks are non-negotiable,” she murmured. “But if you make me rhyme ‘hoodie’ with ‘broody,’ I’m walking straight out that door.”

She felt his quiet laugh in his chest before she heard it.

Then, softer:
“I’m in too.”

A pause. Just breath and heartbeat and the weight of everything unsaid settling gently around them.

“I want this,” she whispered. “Not just the song. All of it. The unfinished, the bad days, the way we keep finding each other even when we forget how to ask.”

She tilted her face up, just slightly, and pressed a kiss beneath his jaw.

A thank you.
A promise.
A homecoming.

Then she reached for the notebook between them, flipped back a few pages, and tapped her finger lightly against one of his scribbled lines.

“This part still needs a melody,” she said, a little smile forming. “Let’s figure it out tomorrow.”

She leaned into him again, eyes fluttering shut for just a second.

“I don’t want to fix it tonight. I just want to be here. With you. With this.”

The notebook stayed between them, open and waiting.
So did the guitars.
So did the future.

But for now?

She let the quiet hold them—two voices, one breath, resting in the promise of a song that sounded like surviving.

Fade to black.
The amp hums softly. The notebook waits. Their fingers stay laced.
The bad day is over. The life goes on.