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It’s beautiful and exhausting and chaos. Immense, glorious chaos.

And underneath it all, I’m barely keeping it together.

My clipboard is digging into my side, and the pen tucked behind my ear keeps stabbing my temple every time I glance down to check who still hasn’t signed the safety waiver.

But none of that matters.

Because every time Malachi walks past me—commanding and silent and so effortlessly dominant he might as well trail thunder in his wake—my stomach does this low, traitorous clench. And every time, it gets worse.

He doesn’t even have to touch me. Not this time.

All it takes is the smell of him in the air—sandalwood and something musky, dark, and rich. All it takes is the memory of his low growl, the one that rumbled from his chest as he?—

Nope.

No. This is a workplace. I am a professional. I have one job here and it’s not to relive the goddamn best night of my life like a horny teenager under a weighted blanket.

It was just one time.

One night.

Oneoh my god yesnight.

Done. Dust it off. Refile it under “What Was I Thinking?”—which in my brain is its own section.

He doesn't know it was my first. And he never will.

That little tidbit is going to the grave with me. Probably nestled next to my dignity, which limped off somewhere around the moment he looked me dead in the eye and said, “Now I’m going to fuck you,” like he was making a sacred vow and tearing my soul apart with his voice alone.

A shout from the tech balcony snaps me out of the spiral spiraling way too low.

“Spot three’s dead again!” Perry bellows, his frustration ricocheting through the rafters.

“I know!” I call back, too exhausted to add the silent scream of “and so is my will to live.”

I scribble it down in my ever-growing list of problems that will inevitably age me five years before opening night. I’ve already accepted that I’ll walk into curtain call looking like I’ve been on a four-month hike through Narnia.

I don't have time for the aftermath of a night with a moody vampire.

I’ve got too much to juggle—too many things that need fixing yesterday.

And yet, no matter how neat my call sheets, no matter how firmly I lock the steamer trunks and costume bins and emotional compartments of my brain…

Malachi still lingers like smoke under my skin.

Get over it, lady.

He probably doesn’t even remember what color your eyes are.

Penny, drenched in sweat and glowing with post-routine pride, gives me a wave as she crosses the rehearsal floor to the costume rack. I wave back—and nearly drop my clipboard when I see Perry jogging toward me, brows slightly raised and a small box in hand.

It’s the size of a vintage handkerchief kit, wrapped in a velvet ribbon the color of stormy dusk. Elegant. Purposeful. Too much for backstage chaos.

“Hey,” he calls. “Front of house got this for you. No return label. No receipt. Just your name on the card.”

Just ‘Blake.’ That’s it. No title. No last name.

My stomach turns.