Page 38 of The Sound Between Us (Vinyl Hearts #1)

false summit

Seren

My hands are still shaking.

My stomach settled the moment I stepped onto the stage and saw fifty thousand faces looking back at me with something that might have been expectation but felt more invitation. Now it’s just adrenaline with nowhere to go, making my fingers flutter against my phone.

The backstage area buzzes—crew members darting between equipment racks, industry types clustering around anyone wearing lanyards, voices layered over the distant roar of the crowd. Someone drops a flight case with a metallic crash. A woman in headphones barks orders into her radio.

“Seren!” The sound engineer who mixed my set appears at my elbow, grinning wide enough to show his back teeth. “That was fucking brilliant. You had them in the palm of your hand.”

“Thank you,” I manage.

My phone has been buzzing insistently in my pocket, and I finally fish it out to find seven missed calls from Dad and approximately fifteen text messages that I don’t have the mental capacity to read yet. Instead, I hit callback and wait.

“SEREN!” His voice booms through the phone so loudly that I have to hold it away from my ear. “I saw the livestream! You magnificent, brilliant, absolutely fucking gorgeous girl!”

I find myself grinning despite myself. “Dad, please tell me you’re not drunk-crying.”

“I’m not drunk! Well, not very drunk. Kimba, come here! Tell our daughter she’s magnificent!”

“I’m crying!” Kimba’s voice comes from somewhere in the background, slightly muffled. “Happy tears! Tell her I’m crying happy tears!”

“She’s crying happy tears,” Dad reports dutifully.

“I heard.”

“Seren, love, I am so bloody proud of you I might actually burst. Do you know what you just did? You held fifty thousand people in complete silence. Do you understand how rare that is?”

My knees go weak. I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the floor, phone pressed to my ear.

“Thanks, Dad.”

“And that boy of yours,” he continues, “declaring his love in front of half of Tokyo. Very romantic. Very public. Very?—”

“Very mortifying,” I interrupt, though I’m still smiling.

“Very brave,” he corrects. “Both of you. Taking risks, putting yourselves out there. Your mother would be so proud.”

The mention of Mum makes my throat tight, but it’s good tight, warm tight.

“I should go,” I say, watching Harrison move across the stage. “They’re still performing.”

“Right, right. Love you, treasure.”

“Love you too.”

The hotel suite’s white walls seem warmer now, the massive windows reflecting our movements back at us. Harrison kicks off his shoes and immediately starts peeling off his stage clothes, tugging his shirt over his head without a glance toward the bathroom.

“What happens tomorrow?” I ask, settling on the enormous bed and watching him move around the room.

“London, baby,” he says, grinning as he pulls on a t-shirt that makes him look younger and less famous. “I’ve got vinyl to sell.”

The simplicity of it makes me laugh. “You’re going to work in my shop?”

“I’m going to reorganise your entire filing system. Simon’s method is chaos masquerading as organisation.”

“Simon’s method is perfectly functional.”

“Simon’s method is why you can never find anything.” He settles beside me on the bed, his arm automatically circling my waist. “Besides, I need a job now that I’m unemployed.”

“You’re not unemployed. You’re... transitioning.”

“I’m a thirty-year-old former pop star with no practical skills and questionable taste in literature.”

“You have excellent taste in literature. And you make a decent cup of tea.”

“See? Employable.”

He’s yawning as he says it, his chin dropping toward his chest. I should be exhausted too, but my pulse still skips every few beats, my skin still humming.

My phone pings with a text message, and I glance at the screen to see Flick’s name.

You’re trending, it says, followed by approximately fifteen flame emojis and a link to what appears to be a Twitter thread.

“What is it?” Harrison asks, his voice already thick with approaching sleep.

“Flick says I’m trending.” I click on the link and find myself staring at video after video of tonight’s performance—my songs, Harrison’s declaration, the kiss that followed. The comments are scrolling by too fast to read properly, but the ones I catch are overwhelmingly positive.

“Who is this girl and why have I never heard of her before?”

“Her voice is incredible. Actually incredible.”

“Harrison Carter’s girlfriend can SING. This isn’t just industry nepotism.”

“Forget Elementary, I want a Seren Rogers album.”

I scroll through more videos, more comments, more evidence that something significant happened tonight. My thumb keeps moving, clicking from one clip to another. I don’t close the app. I don’t switch off the phone.

“Good trending or bad trending?” Harrison mumbles against my shoulder.

“Good, I think. Very good.”

“Mmm. Told you they’d love you.”

He’s asleep within minutes, his breathing evening out into the rhythm I’ve become familiar with over the past few weeks. I should sleep too, but my eyes stay open, fixed on the Tokyo skyline through floor-to-ceiling windows.

My chest feels different. Loose, something that’s been clenched tight has finally let go. My shoulders sit lower. The knot at the base of my skull has unwound completely.

Tonight, I stood on a stage in front of fifty thousand people and my voice didn’t shake. Tonight, Harrison told the world he loves me and I kissed him back in front of cameras. Tonight, my father called me magnificent and I believed him.

My breathing is steady, deep. In, out. No catch, no hitch.

My phone buzzes again, and I glance at the screen, expecting another message from Flick or maybe Simon wanting to know if I’ve lost my mind. Instead, it’s an unknown number.

We need to talk - Henry

My thumb hovers over the screen. Then I delete the text and put my phone face-down on the bedside table.

Tomorrow can wait. Tonight, I want to stay here—in this bed, in Harrison’s arms, in this feeling of being exactly where I’m supposed to be.

Outside, Tokyo glitters, and I close my eyes and let my breathing match Harrison’s. Slow. Even. Unafraid.

Sightseeing the Harrison Carter way isn’t sightseeing at all—it’s kissing in as many locations as possible and signing autographs.

Now we’re in a rooftop restaurant overlooking half of Tokyo, a glittering circuit board of light and life stretching endlessly in every direction.

Rain drums against the glass panels above us, turning the city below into an impressionist painting of neon and shadow.

Empty tables surround us, chairs pushed in, no other voices but ours.

“This is completely mental.” I gesture around the empty restaurant. “How did you even...”

“Called ahead. Mentioned I was Harry Carter and would they mind terribly if we had the place to ourselves for a few hours.” He grins, attempting to navigate his chopsticks with all the grace of a toddler learning to walk. “Turns out they didn’t mind.”

“Just that?”

“Money talks. Fame talks louder.”

The ramen is incredible—rich, complex, the kind of comfort food that feels warming from the inside. I watch Harrison struggle with his noodles, creating small disasters with every attempt, and can’t stop laughing.

“You’re hopeless.”

“I’m charmingly incompetent. There’s a difference.”

“Is there?”

“Absolutely. One’s endearing, the other’s just sad. ”

I steal a piece of his pork with my chopsticks, executing the manoeuvre with practised precision. “Show-off,” he mutters.

“University. Lot of cheap noodle shops near campus.”

The rain intensifies, creating a cocoon of sound around us. Through the glass, Tokyo glitters.

“Are you going to tell me what Henry was so furious about the other night?” I ask it lightly, and Harrison’s chopsticks still against his bowl.

“Henry’s a bastard. Always has been.”

“Well, I guess he’s been looking after you all a long time.”

Harrison sets down his chopsticks and reaches across the small table for my hand. “He’s been managing us for ten years, Seren. But he stopped caring about looking after us a long time ago. He thinks he knows me, what I’m thinking, what’s real…”

“And he thinks this isn’t?”

“This?” He gestures between us, at the empty restaurant, at the intimacy we’ve carved out of chaos. “This is the first real thing I’ve ever done.”

My breath catches. “He seemed so sure.”

“He’s invested in me staying the same. In me needing him.” Harrison’s thumb traces circles across my knuckles. “But I don’t need him anymore. I need you.”

“That’s terrifying.”

“Why?”

“Because I need you too. And I’ve spent my entire adult life avoiding needing anyone.”

Harrison lifts our joined hands to his mouth, pressing a kiss to my palm. “Maybe we can be terrified together.”

Outside, the rain pounds harder against the glass, turning the world blurred.

“What do you want?” I ask suddenly. “After all this. After Elementary, after the tours and the cameras and Henry’s poison. What do you actually want? ”

He’s quiet for a moment, considering. “I want to wake up in the same bed every morning. I want to write songs that mean something. I want to watch you become the artist you’re supposed to be and know I get to be part of that story.”

“That sounds domestic.”

“Domestically blissful.”

“What about the fame? The adoration? All those people screaming your name?”

“I’ve had that. It’s not real.” He squeezes my hand. “This is real. You’re real. Everything else is just noise.”

My throat goes tight. “You realise I’m going to be insufferable when I’m famous, right? Demanding green M&Ms and refusing to travel anywhere without my own pillow?”

“I’ll be your roadie. Carry your guitar, tune your strings, make sure your dressing room has the right biscuits.”

“My kept man.”

“Happily.”

I can picture it suddenly—not the grand gestures or the public declarations, but the quiet moments. Morning coffee and shared newspapers. Writing songs together at a piano that belongs to us instead of a record label. Fighting about whose turn it is to take out the bins.

“I love you.” The words slip out easier than breathing.

“There it is.” His smile is soft, wondering. “Finally.”

“Finally?”

“I’ve been waiting for you to say it without a stadium full of witnesses.”

The rain chooses that moment to shift, driving harder against the windows. Harrison looks up at the glass ceiling, his eyes brightening.

“Come on.” He stands abruptly, pulling me with him.

“Where are we going?”

“Trust me.”

He leads me up a narrow staircase to the building’s actual rooftop, pushing open a heavy door that immediately lets in the sound and fury of the storm. Tokyo spreads below us, vast and gleaming and alive, whilst rain soaks through our clothes within seconds.

“You’re completely mental!” I shout over the storm, but I’m laughing as I say it.

“Completely!” He pulls me against him, both of us already drenched, water running down our faces. “But look at this!”

And I do look. At the city lights blurred by rain and tears of laughter. At Harrison, hair plastered to his skull, expensive shirt turned transparent, grinning. At the impossible beauty of being completely, utterly alive in the middle of a storm.

When he kisses me, I taste rain and possibility. His hands find the hem of my soaked dress, and I don’t protest when he pulls it over my head and tosses it aside. My bra follows, then his shirt, our clothes scattered across wet concrete.

The rain is cold against my skin, but his hands are warm as they map every inch of me. When he lifts me against the rooftop wall, I wrap my legs around his waist and feel him hard and ready against me.

“Here?” I gasp, though I’m already pulling him closer.

“Here.” His voice comes out rough, gravelly, and it speaks to a primal part of my being. “I need you. Right now.”

When he enters me, slow and deep, I bite down on his shoulder to keep from crying out.

We move together, fast and hungry, my back pressed against cold concrete whilst he drives into me with increasing intensity.

Every thrust sends rainwater cascading between us, and I can taste it on his lips when he kisses me—salt and city and pure need.

His hands grip my hips, holding me steady as he takes me harder, faster, and I can feel myself climbing toward something that feels explosive. The city lights blur through the rain, and when I come apart in his arms, it’s with his name torn from my throat .

He follows me over with a groan that gets lost in the storm, and we collapse together against the wall, both of us breathing hard, hearts hammering against each other’s chests.

When we’re finished, we lie tangled on the wet concrete, rain still falling around us.

“Henry’s wrong.” I say it into the storm, into the night, into the space between us.

“Completely wrong.” Harrison agrees, pulling me closer.

“This isn’t going anywhere.”

“Nowhere but forward.”

The rain keeps falling, and below us, Tokyo keeps glittering, and for this moment we’re invincible.