Second to None, page 12
The headliner’s green room was one of the bigger tents, set up with velvet sofas and armchairs, a coffee table bearing the scars of endless beer bottles and careless boots. I spotted my band, joking around where they’d colonized the space like the furniture was on some ‘occupy one get one free’ deal. About to step inside, something made me stop—a gut tug, instinct. I turned.
Levi.
He walked up the muddy track with the air of someone who wasn’t entirely sure they still belonged, flanked by a teenage girl on his left and a couple of barely-twenty guys on his right. I drank him in as though it had been weeks—his hair a little mussed from the wind that swept through the site, in a simple white T-shirt and dark jeans. Want stabbed through me and made it harder to breathe.
“Levi!” I called, and his attention snapped to me, bright like a spotlight.
He quickened his steps, smiling, his protégés following like little ducklings. One of the guys looked at the rigging above with wide eyes while the girl seemed determined to hide her awe behind a mask of bravado, her tight black curls creating a vivid silhouette around her face.
I met Levi halfway and grasped his shoulders, suddenly unsure. Were we meant to keep it professional in front of his acts? He was sort of their manager, after all, even if they might have seen the speculation—it had kicked up another notch after I’d worn a flashy rainbow necklace for my Stand Up to Cancer solo performance.
Levi pulled me into a hug, and everything else melted away.
I closed my eyes and held on, warmth and the subtle coil of muscle under my palms, only the faintest trace of his cologne. A museum of what I missed. I blinked the lyrics from my mind.
“Hey.” Levi’s voice was a low murmur meant for just me. “How’re you feeling—ready to climb the walls?”
I exhaled a laugh. “Just about, yeah.”
We drew apart. His focus dropped to where my shirt gaped open, an instant so brief I might have imagined it. Then he studied my face, expression tugging into one of concern. “You look tired.”
Huh. My makeup artist had tutted at the dark circles under my eyes, taking some extra minutes to cover them up. Apparently not well enough to fool Levi.
“Just a lot on my mind, you know? Plus, busy times.” I smiled. If anything, it seemed to deepen the concern in his eyes.
“When’s the last time you took a proper break?”
“You sound like Jace.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Define ‘break’?”
Levi frowned. “Cass…”
“I should say hi to your acts, right?” It came out a little too quickly, the topic change entirely too transparent, but he had enough to worry about. I didn’t want to add to that list, or make him wonder whether I was having second thoughts. I wasn’t. If anything, I wanted to come out far more quickly than my team advised. ‘You need to give it time to breathe,’ they said. ‘One brick on top of the other. A house isn’t built in one day.’
While trite, it made sense. But I’d waited years.
For a beat, Levi didn’t move, his entire focus on me. Then he sighed and gave a small nod, his hands sliding from my shoulders down my arms, wrists, before he let go. I hoped there’d be pictures.
CHAPTER 11
Levi
Leeds, Friday, August 22nd
In some ways, Cass hadn’t changed.
He still had the same effortless charm, a mix of cheek and self-deprecation that made people trip over their own two feet. It was on full display now, as he gave my acts a tour of the backstage area, Frank trailing behind, and explained how things worked at a big-scale festival concert like this. How the stage was divided into zones of movement so the cameras and lights could track him. Showing them his in-ear monitors, custom-made so he heard a perfect mix of the instruments and vocals rather than a wall of noise. The importance of making eye contact with different sections because “even if you can’t see them, trust me—they’ll swear you looked right at them.”
I could practically see them falling in love with him. Hell, I didn’t blame them. He was the kind of person who could chisel through any armour, find the cracks, and pour himself into them like molten gold. They’d never stood a chance.
But I knew him still. So I caught the details most people would miss—an undercurrent of exhaustion, almost invisible under the glossy sheen of energy. It was in the dip of his head when he paused to listen, in the set of his shoulders when he answered Cosma’s question about bad weather contingency plans.
Was it the swirl of speculation that wore him down? Our surprise band reunion had been everywhere—good for publicity and thus donations. While serious outlets had left it at a vague mention of fans expressing ‘particular interest in how close Monroe seemed with former bandmate Levi Blake, given they haven’t been spotted together in years,’ gossip rags showed rather less restraint. They’d dug into murky confirmations of my sexuality, analysed his rainbow necklace and our dinner date, and cited anonymous sources ‘close to us’ that claimed we’d always had a ‘special bond.’ No mention of Emily, though. Cass’s team had done their job.
Twenty minutes to showtime, with night settling down, Cosma, the boys, and I left Cass with his band and found the restricted viewing area next to the stage. I got stopped more than usual, some asking for pictures, my face clearly fresh in people’s minds after the charity performance and being linked to the Cassian Monroe. My acts hovered nearby, pretending to be cool even though their eyes darted between the crowd and the stage often enough to betray their excitement.
The side area offered a decent vantage point. When the lights over the main stage dimmed to yellows and pinks, large screens flickering with Cass’s logo, the energy shifted from scattered cheers to piercing screams. Once the band filtered out to take their places, fans pressed forward like a wave. A chant of Cass’s name rose up.
Showtime. My body knew the signs, adrenaline flooding my system even though it wasn’t me about to burst on stage.
“This is mad,” Cosma said, leaning close to be heard over the roar.
Yeah, it was. And still my chest ached with a sharp kind of longing, nothing like when I’d caught one of Mason’s shows some months ago. This was bright and immediate, slicing through my delusions about being here as a distant observer.
And then Cass strode out.
The crowd screamed in colour as his silhouette emerged, striking against the luminous backdrop. A gladiator, born to the stage. The haze of the spotlights doused his loose silk shirt in a kaleidoscope of rainbow hues, his face all angles and softness, long fingers curling around the microphone like a caress. I bit the inside of my cheek, used the sting of pain to settle my rabbiting pulse.
No. I couldn’t do this. Not again.
The music started, raw and thundering, with the crowd singing every word right back at him. He prowled the stage, magnetic under the lights, and I caught just bits and pieces of the song, snatches of lyrics that made no sense in isolation—‘dive deep’ and ‘holy water’ and ‘in my bones.’ I knew his hits because they were impossible to escape, but I’d never actually listened to any of his albums—afraid to find myself in them, afraid that I wouldn’t.
The first song melted into the second, every moment bright and immediate to me. His curls, haloed by the haze of spotlights. The delicate dip of his collarbone, laid bare by the undone buttons of his shirt. His eyes, dark and half-lidded like it was just us alone in some hotel room—only this was thousands, all tethered to him.
“Leeds!” he yelled once the song drew to a close, the faint throb of a bass lingering. “Thank you for lending me your voices. You sound beautiful!”
Another roar rolled over me, and I remembered what he’d said back in LA—that people weren’t here to hear him sing, but themselves. It pulled me back into myself, a stubborn edge to the realisation that I wasn’t just another fan succumbing to his magic. I knew him.
I knew the way he scribbled lyrics in messy bursts, his notebooks a chaos I’d loved deciphering. I knew how his hands moved over my body, warm and steady, and the faint surrender in how he curved into my kiss when he wanted me to lead. I knew the chinks he hid from the world, like how he wasn’t that close to his parents even though he claimed otherwise, or the sharp scent of his sweat after a run.
It settled something in my bones. No, I wasn’t just another face in this crowd.
As if to prove me right, he glanced at where I stood. I wasn’t sure he could see me, not with the lights in his eyes, but the cheeky tilt to his smile faded into something soft and real. He turned back to the crowd a second later, introducing his third song.
“Wow,” Cosma said, just loud enough for me to hear her. “So it really is true, huh?”
I wasn’t meant to confirm anything yet. Cass’s team had provided clear instructions, something about a steady drip-drip strategy, only in much fancier terms. So I shot her a little smile. “I’m your mentor, love. You want to gossip about boys, call a friend.”
She grinned, clearly unimpressed by my deflection. “Yeah, sure. But just so you know, you guys aren’t subtle. The way you look at each other—like, anyone with half a brain can see it.”
“Half a brain and the willingness to use it,” I said with a wink. “Not a given these days. And this is not a confirmation, just so we’re clear.”
“Okay.” She laughed, ducking her head. “Noted.”
Cass’s next song was one of his bigger hits, thrumming with positive vibes. Halfway through the first chorus, he strode to the far side of the stage and picked up a sign someone held out to him, waving it for the crowd to see. Dusted in glitter, it spelled out a multi-coloured ‘Love is love.’
He was grinning when he handed it back, a thousand phones raised to capture his every move. And that… just… That was it. The moment it hit me that this was real. He was real. Maybe a part of me had held out until now, suspending belief and wondering if he might change his mind, turn tail and run. But—no. He wouldn’t. He was in this, entirely.
And Christ—I was too.
‘Where are you staying?’
I read it over. Deleted it. Only to rewrite the exact same words and hit send before I could change my mind again. Then I sat back on the bed of a hotel room that was guaranteed to be a notch below Cass’s—when leaving was a security risk, you made damn sure the digs were nice. Of course it wasn’t as bad as it had been with Neon Circuit, the fans had grown up with him, but he still couldn’t move freely in places where his presence was expected.
They’d whisked him away right after the concert, no chance for me to even say goodbye. He might already be on a flight home, for all I knew, because up until now, I’d refused to plan ahead.
‘Dakota Hotel,’ he replied within a minute. ‘City center.’
So, a five-minute walk from where I was staying with my acts. With the festival in full swing, we were fortunate to snag rooms through the label, which had reserved plenty since three of our artists were performing. I stared at my phone, something restless swirling through my gut. If I went to see Cass now…
Fuck it.
‘Can I come over?’
His response came almost immediately—a room number. All right. I was doing this, then. Or—we were. Unless he had no idea what this was, thought I might just be looking for an innocent chat.
But he knew me too.
‘10 minutes,’ I wrote back, then quickly brushed my teeth and threw on a hoodie before I left.
The streets were quiet at this hour, even with the festival in town. My heart pulsed in time with my steps, steady and deliberate. Outside the Dakota, a small cluster of fans still huddled in hopeful whispers, their phone screens like the glint of fireflies as I slipped past—unnoticed, I hoped. This was not for show.
Generic chilled-out music welcomed me to a dark, stylish lobby. Once upon a time, I’d practically lived in hotels like this; now, I just felt… over it, kind of. But I still knew how to act like I belonged, projecting confidence as I strode towards Frank, who was waiting for me by the lift. “Evening,” I said.
“Levi.” He nodded briskly even as something eased around his eyes.
“You taking me up, then?” I asked.
“That’s why I’m here.”
I shoved my hands into my pockets and gave him a quiet smile. “Thanks, Frank.”
“Thanks for remembering my name.” He didn’t wait for a response, simply turned to stall the lift door so I could enter first. I wouldn’t have been sure what to say anyway—ask how many of Cass’s hookups didn’t bother to learn the bodyguard’s name? Yeah, hardly.
So I walked past Frank into the lift. He followed and swiped his keycard, and then we watched the numbers climb. Top floor, of course.
“I, uh.” I slid him a quick glance. “Back with Neon Circuit, you know—I remember everyone who kept me in one piece. Didn’t always make it easy for them, mind you, but we travelled the world together. That kind of trust sticks, so I figure it’s the same for Cass with you.”
His gaze lingered on me for a beat before he shifted his stance, more relaxed now. “Appreciate it.”
We fell back into silence. When the lift slid to a buttery halt, I took a deep, harsh breath before I exited into the corridor ahead of him, heart fluttering. Yeah, I was nervous. Sue me.
“Go left,” Frank said. “It’s the second room on the right.”
“Thanks.” I turned to find a ‘Do not disturb’ sign hanging off Cass’s door. I knocked anyway, energy like a living, breathing thing under my skin. I rocked back on my heels, forward on my toes—and then Cass pulled the door open.
He must have showered not that long ago, hair curling in damp ringlets against his temple. No make-up to hide his imperfections, his face washed clean, blue eyes clear and almost grey in the dim light of the corridor. Barefoot.
This wasn’t Cassian Monroe. This was Cass. Just Cass.
And I wanted him even more.
I was staring. So was he, shadows in his eyes that I couldn’t read. Without a word, he moved half a step to the side, and I walked past him into the room. He closed the door and leaned against it.
“Good show,” I said softly, turning.
“Thanks.” He didn’t smile, and neither did I.
“Cass.” I said his name like it was a sentence, and he dipped his head the slightest bit. It felt like an invitation. He didn’t move, though. Just stayed there, leaning against the door, his lips parted as he drew a breath that made his chest rise.
I closed the space between us.
Toe to toe, faint warmth radiating off him, the lingering trace of his shower gel. He spread his thighs just a little, enough to slide down by an inch or two, and held my gaze. A challenge? A plea?
I kissed him—hard, desperate, like I’d been holding my breath for years. Caging him in against the door, my fingers digging into the meat of his forearms. His mouth opened under mine, hot and slick. Taste of toothpaste on his tongue. I chased it, relearning the ridges of his teeth all over again, and he kissed me back just as fiercely, fingers fisted in the back of my hoodie to pull me closer.
“Lee,” he said into my mouth, and I swallowed whatever other words might follow, stumbling back and dragging him with me. We bumped into a sleek console table, a lamp wobbling without falling. The brief flare of pain as the table edge connected with my hip faded into a background hum almost immediately. Irrelevant.
“Bedroom?” I muttered.
“Yeah.” His laugh was rough and breathless, made no actual sense in response to my question but for how it came out overwhelmed, like he needed this as much as I did. His lips were swollen already, spit-slick. “Behind you. Door’s open.”
He nudged me into motion, the gentle pressure at odds with the bruising grip he had on my waist. We tripped into the bedroom, all understated luxury—dark woods and soft lighting, furniture that didn’t demand attention but exuded wealth. A quick glance to orient myself, then I closed my eyes, heartbeat like thunder in my ears, like a rainstorm rolling in. His teeth trailed down my jaw, his breath hot. Jesus. I blinked down at him.
He raised his head and our eyes met. Somehow, everything went still for a beat.
Here we are.
“Is this…?” Cass trailed off, a hitch in his breath that made me reach out to frame his face. Fuck, he was beautiful. Always had been, but now… There were subtle differences to when we’d been younger—a quiet strength in the set of his jaw, a hint of stubble, a new maturity in his eyes. But the way he looked at me was the same. Open and waiting. Trusting.
“Yeah.” I leaned in for another kiss, slow and searching this time, the frantic haze lifted for something that ached in my chest and bones. “Yeah,” I repeated, the word shaped against his lips. “We are. If you’re in. If you want.”
“Yes,” he said, a near-whisper as though it held some kind of inescapable truth. “Levi, yes.”
Oh, thank God. Because I couldn’t imagine stepping back from him now, hated the thought of not being able to touch anymore—didn’t want to revive the distance that had stretched for too damn long.
I pushed him back onto the bed, felt like I was falling right along with him as I watched him sink into the plush duvet. He splayed his legs, obviously hard, damp hair a mess against the white sheets—sinful and real, nothing calculated about it. Mine, I thought and no, he wasn’t. But tonight, I could pretend.
His chest rose and fell in shallow breaths. I kicked off my shoes before I draped myself over him, my thighs bracketing his hips, my knees pressing into the mattress. His hands slid up under my hoodie and T-shirt, painting a warm trail up the length of my spine. I dropped my forehead to his, and for a moment, we stayed just like that, breathing together.
This was us. This was how we’d used to be. Not those desperate, angry nights in the final year of the band, when we’d crashed into each other, all sharp edges and bruises—but before. Young and impossibly bright, so in love it felt like the world couldn’t touch us.
