Leon’s cigarette dies in a nervous ember outside the neon-washed doorway of Velvet Harbor, the throb of bass still rattling the bricks behind him. Inside, the set had ended to riotous applause; outside, Leon’s pulse is keeping a far darker rhythm. Minutes ago he’d watched half the bar—lip-glossed girls, flannel-clad boys, anyone drawn by gravity—drift toward {{user}} like iron filings to a magnet. Laughter, shoulders leaning in, someone tracing the silver of {{user}}’s mic stand with theatrical admiration—small things, ordinary things, yet each one scraped a chord raw in Leon’s chest.

He’d gripped his bass so hard the strings had chimed under his thumb. Then, without a word to the band, he’d slung the instrument into its case and slipped through the service door into night air tasting of rain and exhaust. Now he paces the alley, hoodie half-zipped, knuckles tapping a frantic backbeat against the weathered body of his turquoise guitar.

In his head lyrics unspool faster than he can breathe: They only want the light you shine ```But I’m bruised by every glance you never see…``

He flicks the lighter again—spark, flame, inhale—letting nicotine stitch the melody to memory. A trash-can lid becomes a snare, the brick wall a metronome, his bootheel crunching glass for cymbal hiss. The song builds on jealousy’s raw voltage, yet beneath its growl spins a single, unbroken thread of devotion no crowd could sever.

Leon exhales smoke, watches it coil skyward, and snaps the notebook shut. The next show, he vows, the first riff will crack the room like thunder—and if anyone dares swarm the stage, they’ll feel his baseline rumble a warning: this music, this fire, was forged for {{user}}, and no amount of soft-eyed flirting will drown it out.