The idol's secret

Chapter 3 Cherry

Cecilion's POV

I didn't sleep well. I never do, the night before a shoot — too many run-throughs in my head, too many versions of how the day could go wrong. So I was up before my alarm, and by the time I reached the school hallway, the lights still had that early-morning buzz to them, like even the building hadn't fully woken up yet.

Then I saw him.

Rafayel, leaned against the lockers like he owned them, basketball tucked under one arm, hair a mess in the way that somehow still worked in his favor. He had that look on his face — half-awake, half-somewhere-else — and I felt my own tiredness lift a little, just from seeing him there.

"Morning," I said, and my voice came out softer than I meant it to.

He didn't answer right away. He was staring. I felt it land on me like warmth through fabric, and it made me self-conscious in a way I didn't want to examine too closely.

I turned to my locker so I wouldn't have to hold his eyes, pulled out my lip balm, and used it out of habit more than need — mouth dry from nerves, from the long day ahead of me. Cherry. My mother started buying it for me back when I was a kid getting stage fright, and it stuck. A small, dumb comfort.

"Wha—" I caught him staring again, harder this time. "Why are you staring?"

"You've got a smudge," he said. His voice was rough, like he'd swallowed sand.

I reached up, rubbing at my cheek, feeling stupid. "Here?"

"No. It's gone now." He cleared his throat and changed the subject so fast I almost got whiplash. "My mom mentioned your group's shooting this afternoon."

"Oh. Yes," I said, and I felt my whole face brighten just thinking about it, nerves and excitement tangled together the way they always were before something big. "I have to be at the studio by ten. It's a long day. Why?"

He didn't answer that either. Instead: "I'll drive you."

It came out fast, almost like it surprised him too. I blinked.

"Oh, no, Raf. I can take the bus. It's out of your way."

"The Porsche needs a run," he said, already walking, already deciding for both of us. "And the bus is a furnace this time of day. Come on."

I told myself I followed him because arguing would take longer than just getting in the car. That was the story I told myself, anyway.

---

The leather seats were warm from sitting in the sun, and I sank into the passenger side carefully, running my hand over the seat before I could stop myself — it still felt strange, being let this close to something that was so clearly *his*. Rafayel closed my door like it was something fragile, which didn't match the rest of him at all, and I watched him round the hood through the windshield, unable to look away.

He got in, and the engine woke up under us with a low growl.

"Anything from the coffee stand on the way?" he asked, drumming his fingers against the wheel. "I'm grabbing an iced latte."

"Iced latte sounds good," I said, and I meant to say more, but his arm brushed my shoulder as he shifted lanes and every thought in my head just — stopped. It was nothing. A graze. But I felt it settle somewhere under my ribs and stay there.

"Extra sugar, right?" he said, not looking at me. "Remembered you saying you liked it sweet last time we grabbed drinks here."

He remembered that. Something small and stupid lit up in my chest. "You remembered that. Yes, please." I could feel my face heating and hated that I couldn't stop it.

At the window he leaned across me to pay before I could even get my wallet out, close enough that I could smell him — clean, a little like the ocean, like something I didn't have words for yet. I held very still. When he passed me my drink our fingers touched, just barely, and I pulled my hand back on reflex, murmuring a quiet "thanks" that came out smaller than I intended.

He didn't say anything. Neither did I. The radio filled the space instead, and I was almost grateful for it.

---

He killed the engine in the studio lot, and for a second neither of us moved.

"You're going on tour," he said, eyes on the wheel instead of on me.

"Next month. Just a small circuit. The coast, mostly."

"People are going to be all over you." His voice had an edge to it I didn't understand, something dark under the words. I felt myself flinch, just slightly, and I saw him notice — saw something in his face crack a little at that, like he regretted it the moment it left his mouth.

"It's part of the job, I suppose," I said carefully, trying to smooth it over.

He finally turned to look at me. The light was doing something to his face, softening the sharp parts of him, and for a second I forgot what we'd even been talking about.

"Don't let them," he said.

"Let them what?"

"Anything. Don't let them get close. People — they say things. They think they own what they see on a stage." Something passed over his expression, quick and gone. "Just be careful."

His hand moved — toward my face, I thought, or hoped, or imagined — before he caught himself and reached for the door handle instead. I felt the loss of it more than I wanted to admit.

"Text me when you're done. I'll pick you up."

"Raf, you have practice—"

"I'll be here, Cecilion. Just text me."

I unbuckled my seatbelt slowly, gathering my bag, giving myself an extra second before I had to leave the warmth of the car — and of him. When I finally made myself walk toward the glass doors, I didn't look back, because I was fairly sure that if I did, I wouldn't be able to make myself keep walking.

---

I didn't realize my lip balm was missing until hours later, mid-shoot, reaching into my jacket pocket out of habit and finding nothing there. I excused myself for a break and texted him before I could talk myself out of it.

Me: I think I forgot my lip balm in your car

I stared at my phone longer than the message deserved. When it buzzed back, something in my chest loosened.

Rafayel: I'll bring it up to you. Got nothing better to do anyway.

I told myself the small, warm feeling that spread through me was just relief. I didn't quite believe it.

---

I found a quiet spot by the back entrance to wait, leaning against the brick, still in my stage makeup, my hair still holding its shape from the styling chair. When he came around the corner I felt my pulse do something embarrassing.

"Figured you couldn't go the whole day without it," he said, pulling the little cherry tube from his hoodie pocket. "Here."

My hand closed around it, and for just a second his fingers brushed mine again. "Thank you," I said. "I'm glad it was with you." I paused. "I thought it was gone."

Something shifted in his expression — softer, almost unguarded. "Lucky I noticed it before I drove off." A beat. "Can't have you losing your favorite thing, right?"

I looked up at him. The afternoon light was doing that thing again, catching on him in a way that made it hard to think straight, and for one long moment I almost said something. I don't even know what. Something true, maybe, that I'd been carrying around and hadn't found the nerve to put into words.

I didn't.

He didn't either.

We just stood there, the quiet stretching out between us, full of everything neither of us was saying. I thought about the drive. About his hand hovering near my face in the car. About how easy it would have been to close that last inch of distance myself.

I didn't do that either.

"See you around," he said, and turned to go.

I watched him walk away, the cherry balm still warm in my palm from his pocket, and told myself — again — that the way my chest ached had nothing to do with him.

I didn't believe that one either.