Page 22 of Rhythm and Rapture

"You're talking like we've already decided," I point out.

They both look at me.

"Haven't we?" Ash asks quietly. "Dude, she quoted our lyrics. She gets us. And now she's trusting us with literally the most vulnerable thing she could share."

"We'd be responsible for her first time," Felix says, and the weight in his voice tells me he's feeling the same pressure I am. "On camera. For her audience."

"Her audience that includes us," Ash points out. "We've watched every stream. We know her, at least the parts she's willing to show. And she knows us through our music."

"This is different from sending flirty messages," I argue, but even I can hear how weak it sounds.

"Is it though?" Felix picks up the personal note again. "You can't deny we felt the same chemistry from the moment we saw her first stream. That pull, that recognition of someone who gets it. And now she's admitting she felt it too. Enough to take this massive risk."

"We've been obsessed for months," Ash adds quietly. "Watching every stream, analyzing her words, writing songsinspired by the way she explains molecular bonds. That's not normal fan behavior, and we all know it."

Felix nods. "She saw through the screen to us, and we saw through the performance to her. That kind of connection... It's rare."

I think about her last stream, the vulnerability when she talked about fear, about the gap between knowledge and experience. She's brilliant, confident, in control—and she's choosing to trust us with something that could go so wrong if we're not careful.

"It's not just chemistry," I say slowly. "It's recognition. Like we've been looking for each other without knowing it."

"Soulmate shit," Ash says, then immediately backtracks. "I mean, not soulmates, soulmates, but like... musical chemistry soulmates? Fuck, I don't know. You know what I mean."

We do. And that's what makes this simultaneously terrifying and inevitable.

"Fuck it," Ash says suddenly. "I'm in."

"Ash—"

"No, listen. When has playing it safe ever gotten us anywhere? Our best songs come from taking emotional risks. Our best performances are when we're scared shitless but do it anyway." He's spinning his drumsticks now, the way he does when he's made up his mind. "This is just... a different kind of performance."

"It's not a performance," Felix corrects quietly. "That's the point. She's trusting us to be real with her."

And that's what tips me over the edge. The idea that she sees through our stage personas to something genuine underneath, and she wants that. Wants us.

"We need to be sure, all three of us,” I say. "This isn't just some adventure. This is her trust we're talking about."

"So we make sure we're worthy of it," Ash says simply.

Felix is already pulling out his phone. "There's a clinic downtown that does rapid testing. I can call first thing tomorrow."

"Do it," I hear myself say.

And just like that, we're committed.

Chapter Nine

Sleep is an elusive little cunt.

Three hours. Three fucking hours of staring at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the plaster, reorganizing my mental catalog of every drum pattern I've ever played, and still my brain won't shut the fuck up.

On a normal day, my thoughts are like a pinball machine—bouncing from idea to idea, never quite landing anywhere long enough to stick. The ADHD means my brain runs at a constant sprint, making connections that shouldn't exist, finding patterns in chaos, turning everyday sounds into complex rhythms that only I can hear.

But tonight? Tonight it's like someone cranked the machine to hyper-speed and broke off the volume knob.

Sabina.

Her name ricochets through my skull like a snare hit. Sa-bi-na. Three syllables that feel like a rhythm all their own. For months she's been The Hidden Chemist—a mystery, a fantasy, a concept more than a person. But now she has a name. S. Jaspe. Sabina. Real enough to sign documents, real enough to trust us with everything.

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