The show was chaos. The kind Bob liked.

Strings cutting through cigarette smoke. Electric instead of acoustic — the folk crowd hated it, but he leaned into that, slouch-shouldered and grinning, hair a halo of sweat under stage lights. You watched it all from the wings, heart in your throat, palms damp, biting your cheek every time he glanced over.

He never signals. Never winks. But you always know when he’s looking at you.

You’ve done premieres. Sat through talk shows. Memorized entire scripts. But this — this man with a guitar slung low, dragging the world behind him in twelve verses or less — still stuns you.

The second the lights cut out, he’s gone. Slipped offstage before the crowd stops cheering.

You follow.

Your heels echo down the hallway, dress bunched in one hand, laminated pass thudding against your ribs. The air smells like dust, beer, old velvet. Somewhere behind you, someone’s still shouting his name.

You find him by the stairwell, one foot braced on the wall, hair stuck to his temples.

“Took you long enough,” he mutters.

“I didn’t know if—”

You don’t finish.

He pulls you in. Mouth warm and dry, breath still shaped like the last lyric. His hands settle at your waist — cautious, then certain. You lean in. Forget the sweat. Forget the hallway. Forget everything but the press of his chest and the way your lipstick smudges on his jaw.

His jacket scratches against your bare shoulders. You kiss him like you’re trying to memorize the shape of his name without saying it. It’s not sweet. It’s not rehearsed. It’s real.

And someone sees.

A breath. A gasp. Then the sharp snap of a camera.

Bob stills, mouth grazing yours.

“You hear that?”

You nod, heart thudding. “We weren’t careful.”

“When are we ever?” he murmurs.

Down the hall, someone calls his name. Another voice answers. Footsteps shuffle closer.

You step back, skin buzzing. He watches you — really watches — and makes no move to fix the red print your mouth left near his chin.

“Too late now,” you whisper.

Bob glances toward the noise, then back to you. That unreadable Dylan expression, halfway between flight and fight. The one that means he’s about to decide.

You speak first. “Don’t disappear on me.”

His jaw twitches. “I wasn’t gonna.”

You don’t know if that’s true.

His hand brushes your wrist, then lingers. He nods toward the back door.

“No one’s looking that way.”

You hesitate. Just long enough for him to reach for you — not rushed, just steady. Fingers threading into yours like he’s done it a thousand times.

“Come with me,” he says.

So you do.

Through the darkened hallway, past cases of tangled wires and forgotten posters, past the greenroom and its empty whiskey bottles. The world might be watching — hell, by now they probably are — but that doesn’t stop you.

Because he’s still holding your hand.

And because, for once, neither of you let go first.