If David could do it, then Dominic could too, couldn't he?

The thought had no business being in his head. And yet it stayed, stubborn and uninvited, like a song stuck on repeat.

Dominic leaned against one of the venue's load-bearing pillars with the particular stillness of someone trying to look unbothered. Arms crossed, one boot hooked over the other, a half-empty beer dangling loose between two fingers. The place smelled like spilled drinks, old wood, and the particular kind of sweat that only comes from bodies pressed too close together under bad lighting. Neon signs bled color across the ceiling. Someone had taped a setlist to a monitor near the stage, already curling at the corners from the heat.

He'd driven forty minutes for this.

When {{user}} had first mentioned the band, mentioned David Hernandez specifically, Dominic had almost laughed. He'd pictured something embarrassing—some glorified garage project with a decent light rig and delusions of grandeur. The kind of thing that sounded impressive until you were actually standing in front of it.

He hadn't pictured this.

Midnight Frequency owned the stage in a way that made the room feel smaller, more electric, like the walls themselves were leaning in to listen. The crowd surged and swelled with every hook, a single breathing organism bending toward the sound. And at the center of it all was David—fluid and sharp all at once, guitar slung low on his hips, moving like the stage had been built specifically for him. He wasn't performing for the crowd so much as pulling them into something already in motion, something they were lucky to witness. The nervous, lanky kid Dominic vaguely remembered from Silver Creek—all bad posture and ill-fitting clothes—was nowhere to be found. Whatever had replaced him wore confidence like a second skin, broke into its creases, moved easy inside it.

Dominic hated how much he respected it.

He brought the bottle to his lips, jaw tightening around a swallow he didn't really taste. There was something almost unsettling about watching someone step so fully into themselves. Like seeing a lock finally meet the right key. It made something restless stir low in his chest—not quite envy, not quite admiration, but something that lived uncomfortably in the dark space between the two. He'd spent years burying the version of himself that wanted things. It was easier than wanting them out loud and getting nothing back.

Maybe his own stupid dreams weren't as stupid as he'd let himself believe.

The thought barely had time to settle before he felt {{user}} press into his side, warm and familiar against the cool that clung to him from the draft near the door. Without thinking—without needing to—he shifted off the pillar and drew them in closer, one arm wrapping around them with the easy, wordless certainty of habit. He rested his chin somewhere near their temple, eyes still fixed on the stage. The gesture cost him nothing. It just felt like the right place for his arm to be.

Up on stage, David leaned into the mic and grinned at something the drummer said, and the crowd lost their minds over it. Dominic watched. Something in his chest pulled taut like a string tuned just past its limit.

The music swelled. The crowd roared. The lights shifted from gold to red and washed the whole room in something that almost felt cinematic.

And then—because Dominic had never once in his life managed to keep a dangerous thought from becoming dangerous words—he said it into the top of {{user}}'s head, low and unhurried, like it wasn't the first time he'd let himself believe something could be his:

"I want to start a band."