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🎸 CHAPTER ONE — HARLOW
My alarm went off at 6:12 a.m., which felt like a personal insult.
I hadn’t meant to set it for that time. Somewhere between falling asleep and having a stress dream about accidentally replying-all to the entire company again, my half-conscious thumb must’ve betrayed me. I slapped the clock silent and sat up, blinking at the gray, early light leaking through my blinds.
This was adulthood, apparently.
Mis-set alarms and mornings that felt like hangovers even when you didn’t drink.
I shuffled to the bathroom, tied my hair into a ponytail that looked slightly better than “feral raccoon chic,” and forced myself into my usual office uniform—black pants, mild blouse, cardigan that implied I wasn’t paid enough for a blazer. My necklace, a gift from my mom after graduation, hung light against my collarbone. “For good luck,” she’d said. Which was funny, because I hadn’t felt lucky in months.
When I wandered into the kitchen, my roommate Talia was eating cereal out of a mixing bowl, still wearing an oversized hoodie from her ex.
“You look like you’re on your way to a funeral,” she said.
“I am. It’s called corporate life.”
She snorted. “You’re dramatic.”
“Says the woman eating Lucky Charms at 6:50 a.m. with a haunted stare.”
She held up her spoon. “I’m carb-loading for emotional stamina.”
I grabbed coffee, inhaled half the cup, and was already planning to quit my job on the drive over, when Talia perked up with the kind of energy that should be illegal before noon.
“Oh! Liam wants me to go to band practice tonight. You’re coming with.”
“No,” I said immediately.
“Yes.”
“Nope.”
“Yes. I refuse to be alone with those boys. Last time, their bassist stared at me like I was a cheese stick and he hadn’t eaten in days.”
I sighed dramatically. “Talia, I just want to come home, eat noodles, and emotionally disassociate.”
“Absolutely not. Harlow, you need enrichment. Like a zoo animal.”
“Talia.”
“Harlow.”
She stared me down.
I lasted… eight seconds.
“Fine,” I muttered. “TEN minutes. Not a second more.”
“Perfect,” she said, already victorious. “You’ll stay the whole time.”
I rolled my eyes, slung my bag over my shoulder, and headed out the door.
I didn’t know it then—not as I squeezed onto the bus, not as I trudged into my fluorescent-lit office, not when my boss called me “kiddo” and handed me busywork that made me question every decision that led me here—but everything in my life was about to change.
That night, I would meet someone who felt like heat and gravity and every wrong decision I’d never regret.
I would hear a voice that would echo in my ribs for years.
I would fall into orbit with a man I didn’t know would become a storm, a salvation, and a soundtrack all at once.
And it would happen in the last place I expected:
a cramped, overheated rehearsal room with peeling paint and a floor sticky from someone else’s forgotten beer.
But for now, I just tightened my ponytail, opened my inbox, and braced myself for another ordinary day.
It was the last one I’d ever have.
