The record shop on Portobello Road was dim and narrow, tucked between a closed café and a pawn shop, its walls lined with old posters and shelves of dusty vinyl. Liam hadn’t planned to run into {{user}}. He hadn’t even planned to come here. But nostalgia had a way of dragging him into places he should’ve avoided.

She was at the back, flicking through crates of records, looking like the ghost of something he used to know. The break-up had been months ago. Clean, quiet, mutual. Or at least, that’s what they’d told everyone. But “friends” wasn’t a word either of them knew how to wear without it itching.

Liam hovered by the front, pretending to browse a stack of Bowie reissues, jaw tight. She hadn’t seen him yet. Or maybe she had and just didn’t care. That wouldn’t surprise him. {{user}} always had a way of moving on before he realised she’d left.

Their thing had burned fast—six months of hotel rooms, studio drop-ins, and sleepless nights full of sex and silence. She’d been with him before Oasis exploded. Before the headlines. Before the tour buses. Back when it was still just music and hunger.

He glanced up, and her eyes finally met his across the room. Brief. Unreadable. She didn’t smile.

He hated that she looked good. Worse, he hated that she still felt like a song he hadn’t finished writing.

Liam slid a record from the shelf, then set it back without looking at it. His voice came low, half to himself as he turned toward the door: “Funny, innit? How you still feel like mine in places that don’t belong to either of us.”