Page 10 of Holding Hope

“Did you know this time of night is called the witching hour?” Clarke asked, seemingly eager to make conversation even if it was a bit random. “If you were a witch, what would you be doing right now?”

“Probably casting a spell to get rid of the male species,” I snorted. “Especially that paparazzi guy who got me six months of community service.”

“Why did you punch him?” she asked softly.

I told her. She listened. Really listened.

“I care, Avalon,” she said.

Three words. Simple. But they hit like a punch to the ribs.

No one cared. Not really. Not except Aunt Brie. But Clarke did. The elevator dinged. We walked to her room in comfortable silence.

Inside, she kicked off her boots and disappeared into the bathroom. I ordered room service and sat on the bed, staring at her stuffed bunny.

When she came out—hair in a bun, sleep mask under her eyes—she looked impossibly soft.

“We can start with the words from the booth,” she said, flopping onto the bed. I repeated them. She wrote. I watched her hand glide across the page, looping elegant cursive like she was born doing it.

She handed me the notebook. “Your turn.”

I wrote. Raw. Honest. Me.

Clarke read it, eyes widening. “Avalon, this is really fucking good.”

We worked for hours—demos, lyrics, guitar riffs, coffee. By 3 a.m., we had the skeleton of a song.

Clarke reached for her laptop. I leaned over her shoulder, noticing a small heart-shaped birthmark on her skin.

I kissed it before I could think.

“Or,” I murmured, “you could come back to L.A. with me. We could work on it together.” She turned, eyes wide. “Avalon Kennedy! Are you inviting me home?”

I kissed her shoulder again. “Didn’t your parents ever tell you not to let a stranger do what you let me do in that photo booth?”

Her jaw dropped. Her cheeks flushed.

“You have to promise never to talk about that,” she said. “I don’t need some raunchy headline about my sex life.”

“I won’t,” I said. And I meant it. Not that I had any interest in telling anyone about that part of tonight. Or that I really had anyone to tell.

We worked until dawn, surrounded by notebook pages, empty coffee cups, and the quiet hum of something new forming between us—something fragile, something dangerous, something I wasn’t ready to name.

“I think we’ve really got something here,” I said when Avalon and I finally called it a night. Or morning. Whatever three-something a.m. counted as.

Avalon nodded, sleepy and soft, her lashes brushing her cheeks. “I think so too.” She looked at me—really looked—and something in her expression made my chest ache. “Thank you,” she whispered. “For doing this with me. It means a lot.”

I laced our fingers together and kissed her knuckles. “I had fun. More than I expected. Stepping out of my comfort zone… I didn’t know I needed it.”

She smiled, nose scrunching adorably. “Who knew?”

She yawned and wrapped her arms around me, tucking her head under my chin. I held her, breathing her in, letting the warmth of her settle into my bones.

I fell asleep to the sound of our breaths mingling.

Sometime between four and six, she slipped out of bed, pulled on her jacket, and disappeared. Quiet as a cat. Gone without a trace.

When my alarm went off at six-thirty, I reached for her only to find cold sheets where she had been only hours before.