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But I don’t know what that decision is.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this.

And that thought, right there, is enough to make me want to cry.

BLAISE

It’s been three days since we’ve seen her and enough is enough. It’s Friday, she has our numbers and she’s not reached out, and I’m done.

I may be playing it cool with my bandmates, but internally, I’m climbing the fucking walls. My alpha has me nearly out of my mind with the need to return to Evie, and I fucking hate it.

I don’twantan omega. We don’tneedan omega. It’s literally the last thing we need right now. If I’m to have any hope of fixing my fuck-up with the band, we need to focus on the music. If history has taught us anything, it’s that women don’t belong between us.

But that doesn’t stop the restless energy from crawling under my skin, doesn’t stop my fingers from twitching like they needsomething to hold something to keep me grounded. My bass used to do that for me, but even that’s not working right now.

I force myself to stay still, pressing my hands flat to my thighs as I sit in the studio, watching Xar and Dane bicker over a chord progression.

“Just play it how I wrote it,” Xar snaps, slouched on the couch with his guitar resting on his thigh. His fingers drag lazily over the strings, playing the same three bars over and over again, like repetition alone will make Dane agree.

Dane’s standing, arms crossed, jaw tight. “It sounds like shit.”

“It sounds like me,” Xar fires back.

I roll my shoulders, breathing through the tension knotting in my chest. I don’t give a fuck how the song sounds right now. Every part of me is wired too tight, coiled like a spring, waiting for an excuse to snap. I’ve been trying to push through it, to focus, to force myself to care more about the music than the girl I left behind. But it’s not fucking working.

I dig my nails into my palms, the sharp sting enough to focus me, and let out a slow breath. “Can we just get through one fucking song without you two acting like pricks?”

Both their heads snap toward me. Dane’s brows lift. Xar scowls. “Look who’s talking.”

I glare at him. “You wanna get this album done or not?”

Dane shrugs, but it’s Xar who answers. “Yeah. But maybe you should tell yourself that. You’ve been acting like someone shoved a stick up your arse since we left that farmhouse.”

I clench my jaw. “I’m not the one dragging this out.”

“No, you’re just acting like an even bigger dick than usual,” Xar snaps.

My fists curl again. I force them to loosen. They’re not wrong. I’ve been short-tempered and cold as fuck since we left Evie behind, because it’s the only way I know how to handle this…whateverthisis. If I let myself think about her too much – about the way she looked at me, the way she didn’t back down even when she was clearly out of her depth – I’m going to do something fucking stupid.

Like go back.

Like let her in.

And if we let her in, she’ll tear us apart.

Just like the last time I let someone in.

Dane and Xar keep arguing, their words like background noise against the pounding in my skull. I don’t even know what they’re saying anymore. Something about tempo. About tone. About what the song is supposed to feel like.

I don’t fucking feel anything.

I pick up my bass out of habit more than anything, my fingers moving automatically over the frets. The riff comes out clean, sharp. It’s technically perfect. But it’s hollow. Just like everything else I’ve played in the last few months.

Xar cuts in with the next part, Dane picks up the beat, and we go through the motions of making music, but I know they can hear it too. The fire isn’t there. The edge. The thing that makes it ours. The last two days were amazing, we finally came together and made somethinggood,something that sounds like us. At least like the old us before I fucked up and blew everything apart. But today the magic’s gone.

Why was it so short-lived?

Dane stops first, slamming his drumsticks against the rim of the snare in a sharp crack, killing the momentum. “This is fucking pointless.”