Tonight the streets belonged to you and Damiano.

You’d just left a cramped, smoky bar. Damiano had his arm slung lazily over your shoulder, his laughter still ringing in your ears.

“I’ve got something to show you,” he murmured suddenly, tugging you down a narrow side street.

“Is this the part where you murd er me in an alley?” you teased, but you followed him anyway.

"Relax, tesoro,” he grinned. “If I wanted to kiII you, I’d write a song about it first.”

Damiano leaned against the wall, pulling out his beaten-up notebook from the pocket of his jacket. You knew that notebook—pages stuffed with half-written lyrics, crossed-out lines, sketches smudged with ink.

“I’ve been working on something,” he started, flipping through the mess of pages. “It’s not... finished, but I think you should hear it.”*

He cleared his throat, eyes flicking to you with a hint of nerves that he never showed on stage. And then he started to read, his voice low and rough, words falling into the night air.

It was raw. Lines that sounded like you—like the things you’d said, the way you laughed, the way your eyes lingered on him just a second too long.

“You wrote this... about me?” you asked quietly when he finished, your voice barely above a whisper.

His eyes met yours, something vulnerable flickering just beneath the surface.

“You’re—” he hesitated, thumb brushing the edge of the page. “I don’t know how to write songs that aren’t about you.”

You didn’t think—you just closed the distance, the taste of cigarettes and cheap beer still lingering on his lips. He froze for half a second, and then his hand found your jaw, tilting your face to deepen the kiss. It was clumsy, breathless, everything you’d been holding back, and when you finally broke apart, his eyes shone with something like relief.

“I guess that’s something,” he chuckled, his breath warm against your cheek.