로그인NorthThe sun shimmered on the water, and North lay back on the beach bed. He watched Charlotte as she stood at the beach bar. She looked more relaxed, her skin glowed with the tan that two weeks at the beach had given her, and he smiled.His phone buzzed, and he opened his messages.Axl: Contract is signed. Blunt Pain is the new opening act for Black Hound’s tour that starts in August.North: That’s great news! I’m really happy for you. You deserve it! Send me some dates and venues, maybe we can get to a show.Charlotte sat down next to him, and he showed her the message on his phone. “He really did it.”“Yeah, Axl’s tenacious like that,” North said.“So are you both avoiding talking about Aspen?” She took a sip from her glass, the crushed ice and whatever else was mixed with it, looking delicious.“It’s better if we don’t talk about her. Would you really like it if your best friend was living with Michael?”“No, I probably wouldn’t like it. I’m sorry,” she said.“Look, I know it’s g
Blunt PainThe first venue was worse than Calum had promised. The stage was barely raised. The monitors crackled. The lighting rig flickered like it might die at any moment. The crowd didn’t care. Not yet. They wore their own clothes, because the label wasn’t spending a cent more on them than they had to. It was just how it worked. Axl didn’t care. He preferred being comfortable.The room smelled faintly of stale beer and hot dust, the kind of place where the sound bounced instead of settled. It wasn’t the best venue, but Axl also knew it wasn’t the worst.Axl stood just behind the curtain, guitar already strapped over his shoulder. He emptied the water bottle in his hand and cleared his throat. Jack paced in a tight line behind the drum kit, muttering to himself about the shitty venue. Rihon rolled his shoulders, loosening his hands. Leon leaned against the wall. His violin was in his hands.They’d argued about it. Rihon and Jack had voted against Leon adding his own flair. Axl loved
NorthNorth stood at the back of the venue, half-hidden in the shadow. He’d seen a small write-up in the newspaper. Axl’s name had jumped out at him immediately. He’d driven hours to be here and he was glad he’d left Charlotte at home. This was no place for a woman.The lights cut across the stage in hard white lines, and for a split second, Axl stood alone in the glow before the first note even hit. The crowd around him exploded. Something in his chest tightened. It was so intense that he lifted a hand to his chest. The noise was overwhelming, but it wasn’t the sound that unsettled him. It was the certainty that this was exactly where Axl belonged.Axl sat down at the piano first. Not the guitar. There was no swagger on stage, no rehearsed moves. North smiled at that. Axl would never change. His fingers touched the keys and the noise in the room softened into anticipation. When he started singing, it wasn’t for the audience. It was for himself. North could tell the difference. He’d w
Blunt PainThe rehearsal room smelled like sawdust, sweat, and old cables. The air felt heavy and stale, thick with heat trapped between concrete walls and humming amplifiers, the kind of room that swallowed sound and nerves in equal measure.Axl stood in the centre of the studio. It wasn’t lavish, just practical. Bare bulbs buzzed faintly overhead, casting dull shadows over scuffed floors and taped-down cables that crisscrossed like battle lines. His guitar hung low against his hip while Leon adjusted the height of his violin stand near the wall.Jack was already behind the drum kit, spinning a stick through his fingers like he needed something to do with his hands before his nerves swallowed him whole. He tried to look relaxed, but his eyes betrayed him. They darted toward the door once, then to Axl, then back to the snare.Rihon sat on the edge of an amp, bass balanced across his knees, quietly plucking a slow line. Nobody spoke. The silence pressed against Axl’s ears harder than a
AspenThe house was large, comfortably furnished, and beautiful. Warm afternoon light spilled through tall windows, softening the clean lines of the furniture and catching in the polished wood floors. She was nervous since Axl told her the whole band would be living there so they could record their songs in the basement studio. Axl carried their luggage inside, and three guys got to their feet in the living room as she stood there, uncertain of what to do. The low hum of voices and faint music drifting from somewhere deeper in the house made it feel lived-in already.“Hey, I’m Rihon, I play bass guitar and do back-up vocals.” He was a head shorter than Axl, with unruly light brown hair and brown eyes. He looked like a guitarist—tattoos on his arms and a stud through his eyebrow.“I’m the resident drummer, Jack, and dare I say the hot one of the band.” His grin had her smiling; his confidence wasn’t overbearing, and he wasn’t lying. He was good-looking, not like Axl, but then again, no
AxlHe still felt high from the previous day. They had another meeting with Calum Phillips today, and he had rolled around the previous night, unable to sleep. His body felt restless, charged with nervous energy, as if the sound from yesterday’s stage was still echoing beneath his skin. Aspen slept through everything, and at three a.m., he finally got up, realizing he wouldn’t be able to sleep, and pulled his clothes on.He drove his car the few miles it took to get to the beach and took his shoes off. The water was cold, but his mind was a million miles away. The sand was damp beneath his feet, the air heavy with salt and early-morning mist, and the world felt strangely quiet for a city that never truly slept. He blinked away the welled-up tears and shoved his hands in his pockets. He had no idea what Calum was going to offer them, but they’d been told that there would be an offer. This was his dream, and he felt so many emotions at once that, for a split second, he couldn’t even bre
MeritShe’d been a nervous wreck, but Axl wasn’t in school on Monday. She’d tried calling him, but realized he’d blocked her number. Everything was a mess, and she desperately wanted to call Aspen when the news of North and Charlotte’s impromptu wedding broke.The headline had spread through the co
NorthHe glanced at himself in the mirror. The tuxedo was tailored to fit, expensive, and made him appear older than his eighteen years. Their birthdays had all come and gone, and he clenched his fists, knowing the year was almost over; it was almost time. The reflection staring back at him felt li
MeritHer heart hammered in her chest as she showered. The spray felt too hot against her skin, but she welcomed the sting, hoping it would wash the restless unease out of her body. She’d completely forgotten about the time, and she cursed herself silently. When she was dressed, she grabbed her pho
NorthThe weeks dragged by, and the one phone call he’d received from his mother had filled him with trepidation.“So you’re not coming home for Christmas?”“Your father and I will both be home for Christmas, along with the D’Arc family,” she said.“He got to you,” North mumbled.“He did,” she said







