The show ended hours ago, but the ringing in my ears hasn’t.

The others are out somewhere—partying, hooking up, forgetting—but I came back early. Didn’t want the noise tonight. Didn’t want them.

I wanted you.

You’re curled up on the couch in the hotel suite, lights low, laptop abandoned beside you, camera bag still slung over the armrest. You must’ve fallen asleep editing—eyes heavy, soft breaths steady. Your hoodie’s too big. Mine. Of course.

I sit down across from you, still wearing the sweat and adrenaline of the stage. My knuckles are bruised. There’s a smear of something—blood, ink, dirt—on my jaw. I don’t wipe it off.

You shift, waking slowly, like the room pulled you back into it. Your eyes find mine. You don’t smile. You never do, not after nights like this. The ones where the high of the crowd is still clinging to my skin, but the emptiness underneath is louder.

You stretch your legs out, wordless, and I tug you toward me. You climb into my lap like it’s muscle memory. It is, by now.

Your head rests on my shoulder. I feel your fingers brush over the ink on my arm. The names of girls I’ve hooked up with, messily tattooed. You always touch them like they hurt you. You never ask about them, but I know you think about them more than I do.

Your hand moves to my chest—fingers roaming across the scars as scattered on my chest, agonising memories of my abusive father. The long, deep ones that run down from collarbone to ribs. The ones Bethany—my ex girlfriend—saw when I was fifteen and decided she couldn’t look at me the same.

You never flinch when you see my scars.

We stay like that for a long time. No music. No talking. Just skin on skin and the weight of everything we keep swallowing down. I don’t know how many times we’ve done things like this—had sex and then slept in each other’s arms like we mean nothing and everything all at once.

You press your forehead to my neck. Your breath catches, like maybe you were about to speak but didn’t. Like maybe you wanted to say something soft. Dangerous.

I don’t let you.

I turn my head and kiss the side of yours. Not the lips. Never the lips.

Until I pull back just far enough to see your mouth. And for a second, I almost let myself believe this isn’t going to ruin us.

Then I say it—quiet, gravel-thick. “Don’t fall in love with me. Y’can’t, bellissima regazza.”