Page 84 of Siren

“I’ve loved you my whole life. Even when I was too young and dumb to admit it. Even when I was too scared to claim it. Even when I thought I didn’t deserve you.”

Her breath hitched. Mine did too.

“But I’m done wasting time. I’m done running from what I’ve always known. You—us—it was always supposed to be this way.”

Tears slipped down her cheeks, each one catching the candlelight.

“I want forever with you. I want mornings and nights, laughter and love, fights and making up. I want to be yours in every way that matters.”

He flipped open the box. The ring caught every shimmer in the sky—radiant-cut, platinum, timeless.

“Say yes, baby. Say yes to us. Say yes to forever.”

She whispered, her voice trembling through tears, “Yes. Yes, Amir. Forever.”

And just like that, the rooftop exploded—cheers, claps, someone crying in the corner. Champagne corks. Laughter.

But I barely heard any of it.

Sienna’s fingers gripped mine tighter.

“That was ours,” she whispered, her gaze still fixed on the last lingering note.

“Yeah,” I said. “We gave them a love note.”

She turned her face toward me, light from the lanterns catching her cheekbone.

“And what about ours?”

I could’ve joked. Could’ve played it safe. But I didn’t want safe.

I wanted her.

I reached for her wrist, brushed the soft skin there. “We’re still writing it,” I murmured.

But even as I said the words, something inside me twisted.

She was leaving soon. The tour was set—eight weeks, coast to coast, then overseas. She’d told me one morning, just after rehearsal, when we were both sipping coffee and ignoring the clock. Said it so casually, like it wasn’t going to split the sky in half.

I never expected to care. When I got into music, all I wanted was to create something that could live beyond me. I never planned for love to sneak its way into the lyrics.

But she had.

Now she was in every beat, every bridge, every breath.

And I didn’t know how to sing the last note if it meant she wouldn’t be there to hear it.

We didn’t go straight backto the hotel.

Dre caught my eye the moment we reached the car, and I gave the nod. His voice low in the earpiece, he murmured something to the second guard, then took the wheel himself.

Sienna looked over. “Where we going?”

“Somewhere I go when I need to feel the whole city and none of it at the same time,” I said.

She tilted her head, curious but trusting.

The city blurred by, tinted windows shielding us from the world. It was late. Quiet. But Pittsburgh still breathed—bridges lit like veins, the three rivers gleaming in the dark like they were waiting for something to be whispered across them.

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