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Xar sighs, tossing his pick onto the coffee table. “Yeah. No offence, Blaise, but you sound dead inside.”

I feel dead inside. I am dead inside. Except for…when I was around her.

I exhale through my nose, adjusting the strap of my bass like that’ll somehow fix whatever’s missing. “I’m playing it the same as I always do.”

“No, you’re not.” Dane’s voice is sharp. “You’re just…there.”

I meet his stare, trying to summon up some kind of reaction, but I’ve got nothing.

Because they’re right.

I’m playing. I’m showing up. I’m here. Physically at least. But I might as well be a fucking ghost. My head isn’t in the music. My chest isn’t thrumming with it the way it should.

Because all I can think about is her.

I shift my grip on the bass, fingers pressing hard into the strings. “Let’s just keep going.”

Xar raises an eyebrow but doesn’t argue. He starts up again, fingers moving over the fretboard, and I follow instinctively, falling into the rhythm. Dane joins in, his sticks tapping out a steady beat, and we slip back into the song, playing like a machine – well-oiled, rehearsed, precise.

But music isn’t supposed to be precise. It’s supposed to bleed. To crack and burn and fucking ache. Like love does.

And right now, I’ve got nothing.

The notes come out clean, the rhythm is tight, but there’s nofeelingin it. No weight behind it. We make it through the whole song, start to finish, and when the last note fades, the silence that follows is louder than anything we just played.

Dane tosses his sticks onto the snare. “That was shit.”

Xar leans back, running a hand through his long, messy hair. “Becausehe’sshit.”

I shoot him a glare. “Fuck off.”

Xar doesn’t back down. “You’ve been like this since?—”

“I’ve been like this since before that,” I snap.

He scoffs. “Yeah, but at least before, you gave a shit about the music.”

I grind my teeth. I do care. I should care. This band, thispack, is my entire fucking life. Fixing things with them, getting this album right, is the only thing that matters.

So why the fuck does it feel like I left a part of myself behind with some stubborn little omega on a goddamn country-bumpkin farm?

“We should go back.”

Xar’s voice cuts through the quiet, breaking the uneasy stillness that settled after we gave up on rehearsing for the time being. We’re back in the main part of the cottage, and he’s sprawled across the couch, one arm draped over the back, watching me with that sharp, knowing look that makes my skin itch.

Dane, perched on the edge of the uncomfortable looking armchair, snorts. “Of course you think that.”

Xar shrugs. “We all do. Even Blaise does.”

I don’t look up from my phone. “I fucking don’t.”

Lie.

“Bullshit.”

I exhale through my nose, scrolling aimlessly through my feed, barely absorbing anything. Xar isn’t wrong. But that doesn’t mean I’m giving in.

We need to stay focused.