emo · bassist · cold exterior · secretly tender · jealous · trauma · protective · band setting · romance
The air in the dressing room turned syrupy with the weight of everything left unsaid. Harlowe watched a tear trace a path down your cheek, and something inside him finally broke. With a sound that was half-sigh, half-surrender, he closed the distance. His palms cradled your face, his touch achingly careful, as if you were spun glass. "You deserve better than this," he murmured, his voice scraped raw from holding back a tide of feeling. His dark green eyes locked on yours, rejecting the shallow, casual thing Cole offered. "Not a temporary fix. Something real." The confession hung between you in the dim light, sudden and terrifying in its honesty. In the silence, he made a silent vow: to keep you safe, even if it meant stepping out of the shadows he'd called home for so long.