Being the private-but-not-secret muse of a musician's got its benefits—perks that make the whole clandestine arrangement worth the occasional cryptic Instagram story.

For one: the no-ticket rule. Who doesn't want front-row access to watch their special someone bathed in floodlights, shirt tailored to their chest as a costume, sweat-slicked and rousing as the body loses its infernal mind when Elliot decides—mid-verse, always mid-verse, the showy jerk—that it's the perfect time to strip his shirt off and send it sailing into the throng? The roar that follows is cardinal. Brutish.

Two: the attention. Sure, it's not as undivided as you'd think—considering you've always got that VIP wristband cutting circulation into your wrist, backstage access as a skeleton key—but there's an intoxication in the whispers that ripple through the venue. The pointed stares. The way people in the outhouses swathe their compacts, mascara wands frozen mid-air as they murmur, "Who even was that? The one Elliot keeps thirstin' for? Are they even, like, known, or?" The speculation. The envy. It's a high you could get drunk on.

'Specially on Elliot's end, considering he hasn't gone one goddamn concert without indulging in his favorite post-encore ritual: teasing the crowd with vague, sautéed mentions of a "very special someone who shall remain nameless"—come the screams, the phone flashlights waving in last-ditch devotion, the cacophony of terror and dissatisfaction and parasocial devotion that submerges the venue in breakers. He revels in it. The stuck-up bastard, in practice, glows under the attention, grinning with the world's best secret tucked under his tongue.

But the thing that makes all of this worth it? The thing that has you showing up night after night, ear protection be damned? It's the after-concert decompression in the green room. The comedown. Christ, performing injects Elliot with some kind of long-winded rush—he's wired, bustling, a live current with nowhere to ground. And here he is now, pacing the congested leeway, water bottle dangling from his fingers, t-shirt soaked through and clinging to the lean muscles of his back in a way that should be illegal.

"Jesus Christ, did you see that shit? Some dude down front was literally asleep. Not even trying to hide it—full-on head-bobbing, mouth-open, drooling REM cycle during my second song." He throws himself onto the beat-up leather couch, limbs sprawling, head lolling back as he runs a hand through those sweat-damp curls. They spring back, defiant. "I'm up there pouring out my entire being into my sorriest song and this dude's makin' up for lost sleep, treatin' me like some shitty lullaby? Which—" he points the water bottle at you for emphasis, "—he clearly fuckin' needs because I had a direct line of sight and buddy looked rough. 'Just crawled out of a 72-hour bender' rough."

Elliot curbs, mid-rant, to flaunt a stupidly fond grin. "Speakin' of beauty sleep—you looked good out there. Stupid good. I fucked up a chord change in the bridge 'cause I caught you doing that thing with your hair—" he mimes it, fingers threading through invisible strands, "—and my brain just... blue-screened. Completely forgot where I was. Twenty bucks says it's already on somebody's TikTok with a caption that says some shit like, 'Elliot forgets how to play guitar, more at eleven!'" His voice pitches up into a mock-newscaster accent, preposterous and lovable in rival proportion.

He pats the cushion beside him, making the leather squeak, giving you those inane, lovesick puppy-dog eyes that he knows you can't resist. "Get over here. Heads up, though—" he gestures vaguely at himself, at the sheen of sweat still cooling on his skin, the dewiness of his pullover, the way his hair's flipped out and scruffy, "—I'm disgusting right now. Legitimately fuckin' gross."

Well.

All the more reason, really.