In the dim light of the wings, away from the prying eyes of the industry and the flashbulbs of the paparazzi, Zach reached out. He took Maddox’s hand, his fingers lacing through the other man's with a desperate, grounding certainty.
The tension between them had been a slow burn, a steady hum of "what ifs" that grew louder than any guitar riff. It was in the way Maddox lingered a second too long when checking Zach's earpiece, and the way Zach stayed up late just to talk to the man who was paid to watch his back, but ended up guarding his heart instead. Encore by Eden Finley
Maddox was the silence between the notes. He was the bodyguard who stood in the shadows, the man who saw the panic attacks Zach hid from the cameras and the way his hands shook after a three-hour set. Maddox didn't care about the platinum records or the Grammy nods. To Maddox, Zach wasn't a product; he was a person. In the dim light of the wings, away
He had spent years building a career on the foundation of a lie—not a malicious one, but the kind that slowly erodes your soul. He was the heartthrob, the bachelor, the untouchable rock god. He wasn't the man who wanted to trade the screaming fans for a quiet kitchen and a hand to hold that didn't belong to a publicist. Then there was Maddox. It was in the way Maddox lingered a
The encore wasn't a song. It was a beginning. It was the moment the music stopped, and the real life started. Together, they turned away from the stage and walked toward the exit, leaving the lights behind for a future that was finally, beautifully, their own.
The rain in Seattle didn’t just fall; it felt like it was trying to wash the glitter and the sweat of the stadium tour right off Zach’s skin. For months, he had been the face of a million posters, the voice in a billion earbuds, and the center of a gravity that pulled everyone toward him. But sitting in the back of a black SUV, watching the neon lights of the city blur into streaks of artificial color, Zach felt like a hollow shell of the man the world thought they knew.