Rhett didn't know her name was still stuck beneath his fingernails until he sat down with his guitar.
It was the third morning after the show. He'd slept, technically, but the kind of sleep that doesn't rest you—just presses pause. His phone had blown up with congratulations on finishing the tour, interview requests, a nudge from his manager about studio deadlines. He ignored them all.
Something else was calling.
Not a voice. Not even a thought.
Just a feeling.
He sat on the wooden floor of his hotel suite, sunlight cutting sharp lines through the blinds. His guitar rested in his lap like it knew something he didn't. His notebook lay open beside him, scrawled with incomplete lyrics and loose phrases he'd jotted down in the blur of post-tour haze.
He strummed three soft chords, barely brushing the strings.
The melody came first—slow, searching. Almost shy.
Then, a lyric broke through like breath:
"I saw you once, but it felt like remembering."
He blinked.
He hadn't meant to write about her. He'd tried, sure—after the show, after the letter, after the silence that somehow echoed her voice louder than any crowd. But those attempts felt forced. Self-conscious. He was trying to write about June.
This wasn't that.
This was different.
His fingers moved without asking. The music found him, not the other way around.
"You didn't look at me like the world does.
You looked at me like the world could wait."
He paused, pen in hand. The next lines spilled onto the page before he could filter them.
"You weren't starstruck.
You were steady.
Like a lighthouse.
Like a question I wanted to answer slowly."
He played the chord progression again, this time with the lyrics murmured beneath his breath.
And there she was.
In the melody.
In the spaces between.
Rhett didn't call it "June." That felt too obvious, too close. He labeled the file "Untitled – 3AM Chords." It was a lie, but a safe one. Safer than admitting that something as simple as a five-minute backstage encounter had rooted itself in the core of his songwriting.
He didn't mean to write her into the music. But he didn't stop either.
He played the song again that night, letting it unravel slowly. Each line seemed to know its place before he even spoke it.
"You didn't ask for promises
Or stories dipped in gold.
You just asked if I remembered
What silence used to hold."
His voice trembled when he sang that verse.
He couldn't remember the last time that had happened. Music had been performance for so long—reliable, precise. But this was raw. Unpolished.
Like her.
The next day, Rhett's producer called.
"Got your last demo," Clay said, voice crackling through the speaker. "Good bones. Who's it about?"
Rhett hesitated. "No one."
Clay laughed. "Bull. That's not a 'no one' song. That's a her song."
Rhett shifted in his chair, his hotel room now feeling too bright, too revealed. "It's not what you think. Just... something that came out."
"Something always comes out when you're haunted," Clay said. "You should chase that. Whatever it is."
Haunted.
That was the right word.
Not in a dark or frightening way—but in the way something beautiful won't leave you alone. The way a scent lingers. The way a single moment carves itself into the edges of your memory and refuses to dull.
Rhett played the song again that night, barefoot and quiet. Each time, it felt more alive.
He didn't realize until the fourth or fifth replay that he'd added a new lyric.
"You were not the crowd.
You were the quiet.
And I never wanted loud again."
He froze.
Because that was the truth, wasn't it?
He'd built a life around applause, noise, admiration. And yet, what stuck with him most wasn't a stadium singing his lyrics back—it was the way June looked at him like he was just Rhett.
Not the singer. Not the myth.
Just... him.
He recorded a rough demo. No edits. No double takes.
Just voice and strings, soft as breath.
He didn't send it to anyone.
Not even Clay.
Instead, he saved it to a folder on his laptop labeled Other. It sat there beside unreleased songs, abandoned ideas, and poems he'd never dared call poems.
He listened back once.
At the end of the track, he'd forgotten to stop the recording. There was a quiet moment—just a rustle, the creak of the chair, and then his voice, soft and amused:
"Guess that one's yours, June."
He hadn't realized he said it out loud.
But hearing it back—that one line—hit something tender.
He didn't delete it.
The next week, Rhett flew home.
L.A. felt hollow in a different way—too many mirrors, not enough meaning. His house was untouched, pristine in its silence. He unpacked, made coffee, fed the cat his assistant had cared for.
He kept thinking about her.
Not in a romantic fantasy sort of way.
Just… in fragments.
The way she tucked her hair behind her ear before asking her question.
The way she didn't reach for him. Didn't expect anything.
The way she wrote her heart like it wasn't trying to be impressive—just true.
He opened his laptop and played the demo again.
This time, it made him ache.
Not because he missed her—he didn't even know her.
But because she reminded him of who he used to be. Before the stages. Before the handlers and the image consultants and the isolation that came from always being watched.
June was a mirror. One he hadn't asked for, but now couldn't look away from.
He strummed the opening chords again. Whispered the chorus.
"If I could live inside that minute,
I wouldn't ask for more.
Just five seconds with your honesty
On a dressing room floor."
He didn't know if she'd ever hear the song.
Part of him wanted to keep it sacred. Just for himself.
Another part wondered if he did release it—would she know?
Would she recognize herself in the lyrics?
Would she hear what he didn't know how to say in person?
But for now, it didn't matter.
Because Rhett Calloway, for the first time in years, had written a song that made him feel again.
And without knowing it, June Marlowe had become the muse that reached inside his guarded heart and strummed the chords that still worked.
Even if it was just for one song.
Even if it was just for her.