Sometimes, it isn’t what someone says that is meaningful. It is how they say it. And in that despairing utterance, I believe I heard the first true sentiment come from Magnus since our unusual first encounter hours prior. It was raw, it was unyielding, and it was awful.

No part of me failed to believe that this man believed exactly what he had just said. That I would not want to know him.

I responded the only way I knew how.

Awkwardly.

“Are you kiddin’ me?” I managed what I hoped was a mood-lightening nervous smirk. “I know I’ve been a bit of a hardass tonight, but why’d you think I went sneaking off to the stage door tonight anyway? I’m a huge fan. Of course I wanna know you.”

At this, Magnus’ bottom lip jutted out a touch, and he turned to glance out of the window at the far end of the room, though I was quite sure he could see nothing of the building opposite in the dark of the morning.

“I fucking told the staff not to let fans to the stage doors…” he grumbled, though a smile tore up his face’s attempt at irritation. He gave me a sideward glance then. “Still, wouldn’t such a fan have deleted an unflattering photo if I asked nicely?”

“I’m a fan,” I repeated, resting my arm over the back of the chair and bending it at the elbow to prop my tired head up against a balled fist. “But I’m not a puppet. Or an angel. I hate being told what to do, especially by a guy who thinks fluttering his eyelashes is all it takes to get a woman to do as she’s told…”

“I didn’t—”

The rest of his sentence was cleaved in twain by my sharply arched eyebrow. He recoiled, almost earning a chuckle from me. “—Well, maybe I was hoping it would be that easy,” Magnus admitted.

The singer sighed, his shoulders drooping for a second and revealing the unnamed weight he carried on them. “I panicked. That photo…you could show it to the world in a heartbeat. I’d have to answer a million questions from a million people…”

His face twisted, caught somewhere between sick and terrified. For a moment, all I wanted to do was grab my phone and delete that stupid rat-chomping moment caught on camera. I shifted and squirmed in my chair, unable to face him for the moment.

“Well, how about just one question from one person?” I offered, shrugging the question to him with one sharp jerk of my shoulder. “What was with the rat-eating, wound-healing, eye-glowing…thing?”

“If I tell you, you could just tell a million people yourself. I’d lose control of who knows what about me,” Magnus pointed out, looking a touch paler and a whole lot more tired. “You have to understand—I haven’t told anyone about…me.” The way he referred to this unspoken issue as himself did not seem to fit right with him, as though the word were a euphemism for something else entirely. It sparked my curiosity even as he continued to lament: “My friends, my family, the band…no one knows.”

I huffed a sigh through my nostrils, leaning forward and resting my elbows on my thighs. My eyelids felt tight and heavy, and a vigorous rubbing did little to stave off the exhaustion of this long, long night. For the moment, tiredness trumped curiosity.

Standing up and pulling my phone out of my back pocket, I switched the device off then threw it over to Magnus. The startled man caught it after jostling it a few times in his flailing hands.

“We both need some sleep, and I’m guessing from the fact you’ve stayed that your healing-thingy isn’t so super that you can skip away after being stabbed…so you can keep hold of that for now.” I shuffled over to the bed and grabbing one of the pillows from next to Magnus. “I can’t post that photo without my phone, and you can’t delete it without my passcode. We’re in a happy stalemate and can sleep soundly. We’ll figure out the rest in the morning.”

I chucked the over-plump pillow on the floor at the side of the bed then pulled my hoodie off to fashion the world’s most pitiful blanket.

“I could break the phone,” Magnus’ voice sounded from the bed as I sat myself down on the floor and busied myself with untying my shoes. “Drop it in a glass of water. Snap the memory card.”

“Suppose you could,” I mumbled, kicking my shoes to the side. “And I could have posted the photo way before you reached the hotel to beg me to get rid of it.”

“Good point. Why didn’t you?”

“Didn’t want to hurt you.”

The words fell out of my mouth too fast, unfiltered and unguarded by my exhaustion, taking both me and Magnus by surprise. “Just…wanted to figure out what the fuck I saw,” I added, suddenly very interested in the art of taking my socks off and not looking at Magnus. “Never occurred to me to sell it to the press or ruin your career. Never even occurred to me as a possibility until you asked me to delete it. I just wanted to understand what had happened, I guess.”

Face prickling with embarrassment and my pretend ‘hardass’ mask thoroughly shattered, I flung myself back onto my makeshift bed. My head sunk into the fluffy pillow and my shoulder struck the hard, rough-carpeted floor.

Bedsprings creaked above me, and I tried to focus on not burning redder in the knowledge that Magnus was looking down at me.

“You’re…sleeping on the floor of your own hotel room?”

“You’re injured,” I huffed, rolling over to face the wall. “Healing-crap or not. Still looks sore. You get the bed tonight.”

“Thought you said you weren’t an angel?” I could smell the honey on his words, sweet and sickly with gentle mockery. Turning around had been my first good decision of the night.

“I reiterate: never meet your heroes.”

***