The whiskey burned as it slid down Elliot Grey's throat, but the familiar sting was grounding. He watched Harper over the rim of his glass, her sharp features illuminated by the soft, golden light of the bar. She sat with an air of self-assuredness, her posture perfect, her expression controlled.
But her eyes—they told a different story.
"So, lawyer, huh?" Elliot asked, breaking the silence.
"How did you know that?" Harper blinked, caught off guard.
"You had a stack of legal briefs with you this morning," he said, tilting his glass toward her. "Didn't seem like light reading."
"You noticed that?" she asked, a flicker of surprise crossing her face.
Elliot shrugged. "I'm a songwriter. I notice things."
She smiled faintly, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "Yeah, I'm a lawyer. Corporate litigation, mostly."
"Sounds… thrilling," he said, his tone wry.
"It pays the bills." Harper took a sip of her drink, the coolness of her response masking the exhaustion that came with her profession.
Elliot leaned back in his chair, studying her. "Let me guess. Long hours, high stress, little time for anything else?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Is this your idea of small talk, or are you psychoanalyzing me?"
"Call it observation," he said, smirking.
Harper rolled her eyes but found herself smirking back. "And what about you? Struggling musician—classic trope. What's your story?"
Elliot's smile faded, and he glanced down at his glass. "It's not much of a story," he said, his voice quieter now. "I play music. Sometimes people listen. Sometimes they don't."
"That song you played tonight," Harper said, leaning forward slightly. "It wasn't just good. It was… honest. Raw."
Her words seemed to catch him off guard. He looked up, his green eyes meeting hers. "Thanks," he said, the word carrying more weight than she expected.
For a moment, neither of them spoke, the hum of the bar filling the silence. Harper felt a strange pull to know more about this man—why his songs carried so much emotion, why he seemed so guarded.
"Why do you do it?" she asked softly.
"Do what?"
"Play music. Write songs."
Elliot hesitated, swirling the liquid in his glass. "Because it's the only thing that's ever made sense to me. When everything else feels like a mess, music… it just fits. It's the one thing I can control."
Harper nodded, understanding more than she expected to. "It's like that for me and my work," she admitted. "I've spent my whole life chasing control. Success. Stability."
"And? Did you catch them?"
She laughed bitterly. "Depends on how you define 'success.'"
Elliot raised an eyebrow. "Fancy job, expensive shoes, perfect posture—you're telling me you're not exactly where you want to be?"
She hesitated, caught off guard by how easily he'd read her. "Sometimes, I wonder if I'm climbing the wrong ladder," she said finally. "But it's hard to stop when you've already invested so much."
Elliot nodded, his gaze distant. "Yeah. I get that."
Their conversation hung in the air like a delicate thread, connecting two people who had more in common than they realized.
"So," Harper said, changing the subject, "what's the deal with your songs? Are they all like the one you played tonight?"
He chuckled, the sound low and rough. "Not all of them. Some are happier. Some are angry. But the ones I care about… they're honest."
She tilted her head. "And tonight's? What was that about?"
Elliot hesitated, then met her gaze. "That one's about feeling lost. About trying to find a way forward when everything feels… twisted."
The words settled heavily between them. Harper recognized the weight behind them, the kind of pain that came from carrying too much for too long.
"Sounds like you've had your fair share of crossroads," she said softly.
He smirked, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Haven't we all?"
Harper wanted to ask more, to unravel the story behind his guarded demeanor, but something in his expression told her to leave it for now.
Instead, she raised her glass. "To twisted paths," she said, her tone light but her eyes serious.
Elliot's lips twitched into a small smile as he clinked his glass against hers. "To finding a way forward," he replied.
And as their glasses met, Harper couldn't help but feel that this night—this man—was the beginning of something she couldn't yet define.
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