Page 58 of Seven Lost Summers (Broken Oasis #3)

Quinn

T

he

door

swings

open,

and I trail after the guys, stepping into the house.

My camera bag is on my shoulder, the strap digging deep into a muscle already tender from the weight of the day. The ache is a brand now, proof of the hours that have passed. Proof that I stood there for every second of it.

It’s the third day of recording the album, and I had no fucking clue how much work went into making one until now.

Not the kind people see, anyway. Not the sweat and grind that lives behind the music.

I’ve watched them push themselves until there was nothing left, and push again because almost perfect wasn’t good enough.

I spent the day on the other side of the glass, because I couldn’t step inside while the red light was on. The shutter of my camera would bleed into the sound and ruin the take. So I stood there silent, my lens pressed to the glass, watching them work together in a rhythm that was its own language.

Ace sat at the soundboard for hours, his hands a blur over buttons and dials, adjusting, layering, chasing some invisible edge only he could hear.

When it was finally his turn to play alongside Nate and Theo, Xander took over his spot at the board, his eyes locked on the three of them as they lost themselves in the music.

By the end of it, the guys looked like they’d run a marathon in a rainstorm.

Sweat plastered their shirts to their backs, strands of hair sticking to damp skin, hands flexing as if they still felt the instruments in their grip.

They work fucking hard. Harder than anyone out there with a ticket in their hand will ever know.

No one sees this part. No one sees what it costs them.

During the breaks, they let me in.

For a few minutes at a time, long enough for me to steal the kind of shots their fans would kill for.

Sweat-slick, eyes glassy with focus, their edges softened by exhaustion until they looked almost dreamlike.

The kind of shots that would have panties dropping and thighs pressing together in bedrooms all over the world.

The smell hits me first. Not pure sweat, though there’s enough of it to cling to the air. It’s Theo, close enough that a trace of his cologne brushes over me, that same earthy scent he’s always worn. It’s him, stripped down to the core.

The house is quiet. The kind of hush that settles when there’s nothing left to give. Outside, the last rays of sunlight sink into the trees. Inside, shadows take their place.

Nate drags his shirt over his head, the fabric clinging before it finally gives.

His back shifts, muscles pulling tight, the sheen of sweat catching what little light is left.

The day’s stamped on him. The flush along his neck, the faint slump in his shoulders from hours bent over his drum kit, driving every beat to perfection.

“I’m gonna hit the shower,” Nate says, voice rough, worn down. He walks off without looking back, disappearing into the dark at the end of the hall.

I set my camera bag on the kitchen bench, the strap slipping from my shoulder with a dull thud. My hands feel empty without it. I move to the fridge.

“Do you want a water?” I ask Theo, pulling the door open. The cold air instantly chills my skin.

Theo’s head tilts enough to show he heard me, but he doesn’t turn.

“Nah,” he says, voice flat, before walking toward the hallway.

It’s been three days since I fucked Nate. Since I let my body answer questions, my heart’s still too much of a coward to touch.

And Theo hasn’t been the same since. Not in ways most people would notice. He still throws out those cheeky one-liners in that Theo way. Still laughs with the others when someone fucks up a take. Still hums under his breath when he thinks no one’s listening. But he’s quieter.

The spark that usually lights him up?

Gone.

Like someone reached in and yanked the plug.

Even Ace noticed. Earlier today, from behind the soundboard, he looked at Theo and said, “You’ve got the spark of a guy whose favourite hand just broke up with him.”

It got a few snorts from the guys, but Theo didn’t fire back. No smirk. No comeback. He kept playing. And all I could hear was the truth under it—something’s up with him.

Last night I pulled Nate aside, hoping for answers, but all he gave me was, “He’s going through something. That’s all.”

Which, coming from Nate, means it’s the kind of shit buried too deep for me to touch. The kind that closes doors and keeps me on the wrong side of them.

I stand there for a second, a cold bottle of water sweating in my hand, the fridge door still hanging open. My eyes stay fixed on the empty space where Theo disappeared. My feet don’t move, even though something in my chest is already halfway down that hallway, pulling hard.

I don’t know if this is the right move. If I’m about to step into something I’ve got no business touching.

But I go anyway.

I move down the hallway, passing the room I’ve been staying in.

When I reach the bathroom, the steady splash of water against tile fills the air.

Steam drifts from the gap beneath the door.

Nate is in there naked under the spray, water running over hard muscle and the kind of body built to fuck for hours.

For a second, I picture his hands braced against the wall, head tipped back, water sliding over his cock.

I stop in front of Theo’s door and lift my hand. I knock once.

“It’s open,” he says.

I push the door open gently, and the first thing I see is him, sitting on the edge of the bed, head buried in his hands. His shirt is gone, lying crumpled on the floor. His chest rises and falls in slow, uneven breaths that look heavier than they should.

Outside, the last of the daylight bleeds into the room through the window, casting faint, fractured shadows over the tattoo that spreads across his chest. Those wings that sent me spiralling, bolting out of the room when my fingers traced them.

The guilt still comes, at the thought of what I’ve done with Bianca’s boys.

But I shove it down. In less than a week, I’ll be gone.

They’ll go back to their usual lives, back to being the untouchable rockstars everyone else sees, and I’ll be nothing more than a memory of someone they used to know.

Much like before, when they left the first time.

So I might as well take what’s here now.

Every benefit.

Every stolen second. Live out the fantasy while I can, before it fades into something that used to be. Two weeks of my life tangled up with two rockstars who were once my friends.

Theo’s head lifts when I step inside. And fuck.

There’s something about him at this moment that steals the air from my lungs.

There are no walls. No jokes or smirks to hide behind.

Theo, unguarded, the fight gone from his eyes.

He looks like someone who’s been carrying too much for too long, and it’s dragging him under.

I can see he’s in his fucking head again, turning over whatever’s been eating at him until it’s worn him down.

I want to ask and tear it out of him, if only to hold it for a while, so he doesn’t have to.

But I know better. Push him and he’ll retreat.

I’ve watched that happen. Bianca and I used to talk about how he’d make himself small when things got bad, curling in on himself until there was nothing left for anyone to grab onto.

Back then, Nate was the one who could cut through all that mess, drag him back into the light.

And standing here now, I know I’m not Nate. All I can do is watch him fold in on himself and pretend it doesn’t break something in me.

I cross the room, the carpet soft under my feet.

Guitars lean against the wall, some in stands, others resting where they’ve been left after a late-night play.

A laptop sits open on the desk beside a scattering of guitar picks, empty coffee cups, and a mess of crumpled set lists.

There’s a hoodie draped over the back of the chair, a phone charger coiled on the floor, and a pile of clothes kicked half under the bed.

When I sit beside him, our thighs brush. Neither of us says anything at first.

He only watches me. My eyes flicker to his, and it fucking breaks something in me to see him like this, stripped of the spark that usually lives there.

I hold the water bottle out to him. He takes it without a word, but doesn’t drink.

Instead, he tosses it onto the bed beside him as if it weighs too much to bother with.

My eyes drift around the room, catching on details I never noticed before. When I was in this bed with both of them, I wasn’t looking. I was too busy being touched, coming apart under two mouths, two cocks, two bodies that knew exactly how to tear orgasms out of me.

On his dresser sits a small ball, the kind he used to throw against the wall or squeeze in his hand when his anxiety got the better of him. This one is a different color, but it proves that some things never change, no matter how many arenas you sell out.

Beside it, a gold photo frame pulls my attention. I rise from the bed and cross the room.

It’s the four of us. Nate. Theo. Bianca. And me.

We look stupid-happy, all sun-drenched smiles and bare, golden skin. The kind of photo that makes your chest ache with everything it holds and everything it reminds you of.

It isn’t one I took, which makes it unfamiliar, almost foreign, yet still loaded. The background looks like Nate and Theo’s old room with rumpled sheets, posters curling at the edges, the faint chaos that was always theirs.

I reach for it, lifting it carefully into my hands. My fingers trace the cool metal, brushing over the fine layer of dust along the frame, proof it has been sitting here a long time, waiting to be noticed.

“Who took this?” I ask without turning.

“Scarlet, I think.”

His voice comes from right behind me. Closer than I realized. Close enough that I can sense the faint heat of him at my back.

I don’t move.