Page 11 of The Sound Between Us (Vinyl Hearts #1)

if you stay

Harrison

“I should probably go to bed. I’ve got work in a few hours...” Her voice trails off, but she doesn’t move from the piano bench.

I nod, even though everything in me—every muscle, every bone, every reckless part—is screaming don’t . “I should probably ring Henry.”

But neither of us moves.

The flat’s gone quiet, just the hum of London outside and the ghost of our song still hanging in the air. We’re surrounded by wreckage—scribbled lyrics, voice notes, cold mugs of tea. Her phone’s still recording nothing but silence. We sit in the eye of it, dumbstruck by the aftermath.

I reach out without thinking. Tug a strand of her hair between my fingers. It’s soft and floral and her, and suddenly I want to lose myself in it—wrap both hands in the mess and drag her toward wreckage we both probably shouldn’t want.

The silence between us pulses. A held breath; a heartbeat. The moment just before a car crash.

“Seren.” It sounds desperate. Don’t go. Stay. Save me.

She turns. And fuck me, the look in her eyes—drowning and thinking about letting it happen .

“Harrison...”

“Harry.” Because I need her to call me that.

She breathes it out. “Harry.” And it knocks the air straight out of my lungs.

And then she’s kissing me, or I’m kissing her, or maybe we both crash into it at once, and it’s not sweet this time. Not careful or considered. It’s frantic; heated. Hungry. She tastes of sugar and late-night regret; of tea and temptation and the exact kind of mistake you make on purpose.

My hands are in her hair, and she makes this sound—low and aching—and it undoes me. I fist her shirt; she fists mine. We’re clinging, afraid we’ll fly apart if we let go.

“Fuck.” Against her mouth.

“Yeah.” She pants, pulling me closer, lips messy, desperate, determined.

We stumble toward the bedroom, crashing through the doorframe. I press her against the wall, and she arches into me, her fingers dragging down my spine, making my brain short-circuit.

“Are you sure?” Even as my hands find the hem of her T-shirt.

“Shut up.” She tugs me back into her mouth.

She peels off her shirt, and fuck me, she’s beautiful. Wreckage and perfection all at once; freckled skin, soft dips and curves I want to spend the rest of my life tracing with my mouth.

“Jesus, Seren.”

She blushes, full body. “Don’t look at me that way.”

“What way?”

“As though I’m unreal.”

I shake my head. “I can’t not.”

She pulls my shirt over my head, and her fingers brush the scar just above my hip.

“We match.” Quietly, almost surprised .

And it shouldn’t hit me the way it does, but it lands hard.

I lift her and she wraps her legs around me, tangling us into this desperate knot of what could be and probably shouldn’t, and I carry her to the bed. She weighs nothing and everything all at once.

“I haven’t...” she starts as I drop her gently onto white sheets, but then stops. Her voice cracks.

“Haven’t what?” Gentler now.

“It’s been a while. Since I... with anyone.”

Heat carves deep in my chest. Not pity, not relief, just possession, guttural and selfish and mine.

“We can go slow.”

“I don’t want slow.” Breathless, urgent. “I want you.”

I kiss her then. With everything I have. The only thing I’ll ever get to say.

Every place I touch her feels revelatory. She moves carefully—arched neck, gasping breath, fingers curled in the sheets, holding on for dear life.

When I take her jeans off, she kicks them away, desperate to be rid of them. When she helps with mine, her fingers skim my cock and I have to grit my teeth to stop from coming undone.

“Seren...”

“Please.” It’s wrecking me.

I sink down between her thighs, the only place in the world I want to be, and worship her until she’s trembling, undone, whispering my name. A broken hymn. And when she falls apart beneath me, it’s not pretty—it’s glorious.

“Harry, I need…” Her head drops to the side, gasped breath ragged between us.

“I know.” I press kisses up her body, hands slow now. Reverent. “I know.”

I fumble a condom from my wallet, and when she watches me roll it on with those wide, ruinous eyes, I nearly lose it .

“You sure?” One last out.

Instead of answering, she pulls me down and kisses me. The answer’s obvious.

And when I finally push into her, we both gasp.

She’s so fucking tight, so hot and real and here, and I have to pause to breathe, to not fall apart instantly.

I look down at her—wild hair fanned across the pillow, flushed skin, lips swollen—and think: this is it. This is the point of no return; the place I was always heading.

And if I’m going to ruin anything, my heart, her quiet life, the very last scraps of who I used to be, I want it to be for this. For her.

“Okay?” Throat raw, heart louder than it should be.

“More than okay.” The way her hips roll against mine nearly undoes me all over again.

We find a rhythm, tentative at first, slow and curious and new. Learning each other through movement, not words, making a language all our own. Her legs lock around my waist and she pulls me deeper, and I swear the stars rearrange themselves just for us.

“Fuck, Seren. You feel... you feel—” I don’t finish because she kisses me hard enough to drown the rest of it, and her nails carve crescents into my shoulders, trying to tether me to the earth.

We lose ourselves in it; each thrust a gasp, each flicker of skin against skin a kind of worship. When she falls apart again, it’s with a shuddering cry, her body arching, clutching me so tight I forget who I am. And I follow, helpless, wrecked, groaning her name.

Afterwards, we collapse into the hush. Breathing hard; limbs tangled. Her head pillowed against my chest. We didn’t just burn down the whole goddamn room.

The sky outside is softening—London rising in gold and grey—and the sheets are a mess of heat and skin and afterglow .

And then comes the come-down.

The quiet slide back into reality. Cold; ruthless. Familiar.

“Should I...” I start, not even sure how the words are forming. “Should I leave?”

She’s silent for a beat too long. I brace for rejection; for the sensible dismissal we both know is coming.

But then—she shifts. Presses her face into my shoulder; wraps one arm around my waist as though it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“Just one night.” Voice cotton-soft.

I kiss the crown of her head, eyes fluttering shut. “Just one night.”

But it’s a lie. We both know it. One night won’t be enough; not when she’s the first person who’s made me feel Harry in years. Not when being with her feels like remembering lost pieces of myself.

Still—truth seeps in, slow and heavy.

I have to go back.

To LA. To the band. To the machine. To the press and the deadlines and the pop-star persona that chews through men and spits out merch.

Henry’s probably combusting. The label’s already drafting polite threats. And I’m meant to show up; be Harrison Carter. Smile for the cameras; make it all look easy.

And Seren?

She’s the girl who’s been broken open by fame. The one who knows exactly how this story ends, because she’s lived the cautionary tale in real time.

She’ll never walk willingly into the spotlight.

And I’d never ask her to.

So this—this one night—is all we get.

Still, she’s here. Warm; soft. Breathing slow against my chest. She belongs there.

And for a moment, I let myself pretend.

Pretend there’s a version of this where I stay; where we keep writing. Keep touching; keep waking up next to each other as though it’s no big deal.

A version where I never boarded that plane; where Harrison Carter doesn’t exist and Harry is enough.

It’s a fantasy. A cruel one; beautiful in the way all impossibilities are.

But I hold onto it anyway.

Just until morning. Just until she stirs and the dream crumbles; just until the world comes knocking.

Just one night.

The bed’s cold beside me.

For a second, I think I’ve dreamt her—Seren, bare-legged and blushing, whispering my name as though it meant everything.

But her scent still lingers—wild honeysuckle and heartbreaking clean—and my hand reaches, idiotically, for a shape that’s already gone.

It lands in empty sheets. Cold; unforgiving.

I sit up slowly, everything too bright and too loud. The gold of dawn has curdled into grey—London back to its usual indifference.

I find my jeans in a tangle by the bed and pull them on, pad barefoot out into the flat. My heart’s doing ridiculous things in my chest; hopeful, stupid things.

She’s in the kitchen.

Back to me, hair wild, jumper swallowing her whole. She looks small in the morning light; still. Too still. Her profile carved in ice.

“Hey.” Voice low.

She doesn’t turn. “Your phone’s been ringing. Thought it might actually combust. ”

I glance at the counter. My phone’s lit up; thirty-seven missed calls. All Henry. Jesus.

I cross the kitchen, dread crawling up my back.

She says nothing; just sips her tea as though I’m already gone.

I hit redial.

The call connects on the first ring.

“Harrison fucking Carter. Where the hell have you been?”

“Good morning to you too.”

“I’ve been fielding journalists, panicked assistants, and two borderline heart attacks from the label. You missed the flight. Do you have any idea how bad this looks?”

I exhale, rubbing the back of my neck. “I just needed one night, alright? A break; space.”

“You had one night, and it was stupid. I’ve sent a car.”

“No, wait?—”

“No, you wait. Get in the car and I’ll sort the rest. What the fuck is wrong with you at the moment? And who the fuck do you know in Belgravia?”

How the hell does he know where I am? The fight drains out of me.

The back of my neck prickles with heat. “I know.” I sigh. “I know. It was stupid.”

Behind me, the ceramic clink of her mug hitting the counter is deafening.

The shift in the room is instant.

I swear the steam stops rising from her tea.

Her back goes straighter, spine a steel rod.

I’m barely listening to Henry’s stream of instructions.

I hang up and turn. She’s holding out my jacket as though it’s radioactive; as though she doesn’t want to be touching it, or me, or any of this.

“So.” Her voice is light. Barely. “That was fun.”

It knocks the breath from my lungs. “You’re throwing me out? ”

She shrugs. But it’s calculated; not careless—controlled. Measured. “Well, I wouldn’t want you to do anything else stupid.”

I blink. “Seren?—”

“No breakfast?” she cuts in, voice sharp as glass. “Or are you on a tight timeline to get back to your ecosystem?”

I wince. “You know that’s not what I?—”

“It’s fine. Truly; I get it. You came, you conquered, you remembered what it feels to write a sad little ballad.”

“That’s not fair.”

She just looks at me. Walls, steel-reinforced. “Isn’t it?”

I pull on my jacket. The space between us now wide and echoing. “I didn’t mean it that way. What Henry said?—”

“But you didn’t correct him. You agreed with him. You said it was stupid.”

Her voice doesn’t break. That’s what makes it worse.

I move toward her, desperate now. “Last night meant everything.”

She steps back. “Yeah. It meant I let someone in who doesn’t live here; who doesn’t stay.”

Silence thickens.

Then, finally, I lean in. Press a kiss to her cheek. She doesn’t move; doesn’t soften. Just lets me do it as though she’s indulging a child.

“Remember me.” Quietly, pathetically.

Her eyes meet mine. “You’re not that easy to forget.”

And for a second—just a second—I swear there’s something there. Something cracking. But then?—

“Oh.” She calls after me as I reach for the door, voice winter-sharp. “If you’re looking for lyric inspiration next time, maybe try not fucking the girl first. Keeps it a bit more believable.”

I turn.

But she’s already gone.

Back to her tea; her silence. Her self-preservation .

And that’s how I get thrown out of a girl’s flat for the first time in years. Not because I fucked up the sex—but because I fucked up the morning after.

I step outside.

And, of course, it’s raining.