We take the elevator down in silence.
Phoenix shoves his hands into his jacket pockets when we make it outside into the perpetual mist and picks a direction at random. I fall into step beside him. Our strides match automatically. They always have, something about being in a rhythm section together for years. Your body learns another person's tempo whether you want it to or not.
We walk two blocks without talking.
Three.
Four.
Phoenix breaks first. "We should probably talk about it."
"About what?" I mutter, even though I know exactly what.
He gives me a look. Those blue eyes, warm and slightly exasperated, like he can see right through my bullshit deflection and is choosing to be patient about it anyway.
"About—" He gestures vaguely at the space between us. "Whateverthisis."
"Right." I kick a pebble off the sidewalk. It skitters into the gutter. "That."
"That."
We turn down a side street that runs behind a row of old brick warehouses. The kind of neighborhood where artists used to squat before tech money ate Seattle alive. Graffiti on the walls, dumpsters, fire escapes. Nobody around.
Good. I don't want an audience for this either.
"Carmine's going to have us doing press," I say, because starting with logistics feels safer than starting with feelings. "Interviews.Photo ops. Social media shit. If there's... ifwe're..." I trail off. Fuck. Words. Why are words so hard? "We need to know what this is before someone with a camera asks us."
Phoenix nods slowly. "Yeah. That's fair."
"So." I stop walking and turn to face him. "Was the hotel a one-time thing?"
Phoenix's jaw works. His eyes search my face, doing that thing he does where he feels everything at full volume and takes a second to sort through the noise.
"With Bells?" he asks carefully.
"With any of it."
He knows what I mean. The hotel room. The heat bleeding through the walls. What we did to each other to take the edge off. His cock in my mouth, my hand in his hair, the way neither of us said a word afterward exceptwe should talk about thisand then didn't.
His throat bobs. "I don't want it to be."
My chest feels like it's going to rip itself apart and I stare off into the distance, chewing on that. And chewing the inside of my cheek at the same time.
"Say something," Phoenix grits out.
"Okay," I mutter.
"Okay?"
"I'm processing. Give me a second."
Phoenix's mouth twitches. "Take your time."
"Fuck off."
He laughs. It's that big, genuine sound that fills whatever space it's in, and I realize I've been starving for it. For the easy version of us. The version that existed before shit got complicated, before I started noticing things about him I shouldn't have been noticing.
The way his forearms flex when he drums. The way his hair falls like a mane. The way he looked at Nash, and the way he's started looking at me the same way, and the way that should terrify me but mostly just makes me want to?—