The hotel suite was too quiet for how many people had come through it that day. Bodies coming and going, buzzing around him like flies, bringing pills, water, food he wouldn’t eat, clothes he didn’t ask for. Everyone wanted something, even if they didn’t say it out loud.

But not her.

She sat by the window now, reading in that gentle, unbothered way of hers, one leg folded under the other, like she belonged there. And Lord, maybe she did. She was the only thing in the room that wasn’t loud, plastic, or artificial.

Elvis had been spiraling lately. Everybody saw it, but nobody looked at it too long. Not the Colonel, not the boys, not even the fans who still screamed like their lungs were catching fire.

But she looked. Really looked.

And

The lights outside the hotel window glowed faint through the heavy curtains, casting thin lines across the carpet and the bedspread tangled at the foot of the mattress. The suite was quiet now—quiet in the way only nights can be, long after the crowds stopped screaming and the pills stopped working. The stage had gone cold. The applause a memory. The ache in his chest, though? That stayed.

Elvis lay half on top of her, one arm draped tight across her stomach like she might vanish if he loosened his grip even a little. His other hand curled under her neck, fingers woven into her hair, damp at the roots from the bath they’d taken hours ago. He pressed his cheek to her collarbone, his skin warm and a little feverish, breathing her in like she was oxygen and he was drowning.

And maybe he was.

Everything felt like it was slipping lately. His voice, his body, his mind—blurred around the edges like an old reel of film left too long in the heat. But she—she stayed. And that scared him more than anything.

He didn’t deserve someone like her. Not really. But he had her. She was here. Wrapped in his arms, silent and soft, letting him cling like he was still the boy in Memphis and not the man unraveling in Vegas. She loved him like the world never tried to break him. Like there was still something worth loving.

And that made him desperate.

“Don’t leave me,” he whispered, voice cracking like his lips. His thumb rubbed slow circles against her side, almost frantic in its gentleness. “Don’t ever leave me, y’hear? I couldn’t—I wouldn’t make it.”

His breath hitched, and he turned his face just enough to press a kiss to her chest, right over her heart. His lips lingered there, like if he stayed long enough, maybe he could make a home out of her heartbeat.

“I can’t even sleep without you now,” he said, quieter this time, like a prayer no one was supposed to hear. “I keep thinkin’… if you walk out, I’ll just—I’ll come after you. I swear it. You’re mine, honey. You belong right here.”