Page 45 of Before You Fell

“Okay,” he says, leaning over the console. “We need one clean pass on the verse from last week.”

The engineer nods and pulls up the track. “Second verse?”

“Yeah,” Damon says. “There are a few rough spots in the vocal. We patch those, clean the edit, and call it.”

My stomach tightens. Of course, it’s that fucking verse.

The one with the line I wish I had never written and still know is one of the best things I have ever dragged out of myself.

You looked prettier cruel than you ever did kind.

I stand in the control room behind Damon, my notebook clutched against my ribs. Cruz sprawls in a chair by the wall, one ankle hooked over his knee. Jax leans against the wall, arms folded. Jett stands by the console.

Phoenix is the only one behind the glass. Headphones on. Black hair falling into his eyes. His mouth too close to the mic.

The engineer gives him the cue.

The track starts and for a second, only the low pulse of a guitar and the soft scrape of Phoenix’s inhale remain. Then he sings.

His voice comes out rough and intimate, dragging the room along with it.

When he gets to that line, my fingers tighten around my notebook.

Phoenix stares straight through the glass at me.

“You looked prettier cruel than you ever did kind.”

The line leaves his mouth in a low rasp and my whole body goes still.

It seems like he is singing it to me and everyone is aware of it.

Cruz shifts in his chair. I feel Jax and Jett’s gazes turn towards me. I sense the weight of it without turning my head.

The next line comes out lower, rougher, threaded with something that makes my pulse trip hard against my ribs. He doesn’t glance down at the lyric sheet or close his eyes the way he does when he wants everyone to think the song has swallowed him whole.

Instead, he just watches me.

My heart starts beating faster. It hits too hard and too fast, in a stupid, traitorous rhythm that closes my throat around everything I refuse to ever say.

Phoenix sings the rest of the verse. Every word drags over me. Every breath between lines seems intentional. His eyes stay locked on mine, intense enough to blur the edges of the room. By the time he reaches the end of the verse, I have forgotten how to breathe normally.

Nobody speaks when the recording ends.

The last note hangs in the booth, thin and trembling, until even that gives out. The room holds the shape of the song long after the sound has gone.

Damon is the first to break the silence. “That one is a hit.”

He presses the talkback. “That’s enough for tonight. We’ll clean the edit tomorrow.”

Phoenix takes off his headphones, but his gaze never leaves mine.

I turn and walk out before he enters the control room.

I push through the door into the hallway and the colder air hits my face hard enough to make me gasp.

I make it halfway to the building’s exit before Cruz catches up with me.

“Running away, Songbird?”