The O'Connells' front door clicked shut behind them, and the charged stillness of the living room gave way to the open breath of the California night. The three of them stepped into a world that felt unchanged—same streetlamp buzz, same whisper of wind through dry hedges—but everything was different now.
They didn't speak at first. They just sat on the curb like they had so many times before—after late-night jam sessions, after long talks about nothing and everything. But tonight, the silence wasn't casual. It was loaded. A pact hung between them, not yet spoken aloud, but already taking shape in the space where their shadows pooled beneath the streetlight.
Alex stared at the cracked pavement beneath his shoes, heart still drumming too hard in his chest. He had laid it all out—the ghost's plan, the structure, the mission—and now the world felt terrifyingly still, as if waiting to see if it would all collapse or take flight.
Finneas was the first to break the silence. He let out a low, breathless laugh, somewhere between disbelief and wonder.
"A record label," he said, as if tasting the words for the first time. He shook his head, blinking at Alex with something new in his eyes—not just admiration, but something closer to awe. "We're actually talking about starting a real label. This is crazy."
He ran a hand through his hair, almost laughing again. "That plan, man… the ownership breakdown, the royalty model, all of it—where did that come from?"
The question sat there, unignorable. The same one his father had asked. The one Alex would have to answer again and again.
But the truth—the real truth—was locked away behind another life, another decade.
So he just shrugged, pulling his knees in, fingers absently worrying a thread on his jeans. "Been thinking about it for a while."
He didn't say that "a while" spanned a lifetime. That every protective clause came from bruises he hadn't earned in this timeline. That the label wasn't built from ambition but from regret, from pain transmuted into strategy.
Finneas nodded slowly. He didn't press.
"It's brilliant," he said. "Protective. I've read enough horror stories to know this kind of deal doesn't exist. The fact that you're even offering this—that's the crazy part."
He glanced back at the house, then back at Alex. "My dad was grilling you, yeah. But not because he doesn't believe in the idea. He was testing you. And you passed."
Alex didn't answer. He couldn't trust his voice.
Billie had been silent the whole time, her head lowered, one finger tracing idle, invisible circles on the concrete. But now she looked up. Not at Finneas. Not at the house. At Alex.
Her eyes, half-shadowed under the streetlamp, were impossibly clear. They pinned him in place like always—like she was seeing something behind his skin, beneath the careful words.
"You meant it," she said softly. No edge, no irony. Just certainty.
"About protecting the music."
She wasn't asking. She knew. She was naming the truth of it—of him.
Alex met her gaze and didn't look away.
"I did," he said. "I do."
In that moment, something passed between them. A silent current. Not attraction. Not friendship. Not even trust, exactly. Something deeper. Recognition. She understood why he'd done it—because she'd felt that same desperate need. To protect something sacred. To preserve something fragile before the world could break it.
She wasn't afraid of the fire in him. She understood it.
Then the front door opened again with a soft click, casting a warm rectangle of light onto the porch. The three of them turned.
Maggie O'Connell stood silhouetted in the glow, her arms crossed but her face relaxed, softer than it had been inside.
"Well," she said, her voice clear in the still night, "our lawyer's going to have an absolute field day, and your father insists on adding about five more clauses to keep you from blowing yourselves up…"
She paused. Smiled. A real one, wide and warm.
"But... we're in."
Alex exhaled, the breath leaving him like air from a lung held too long. He wasn't even sure when he'd started holding it.
Finneas stared at his mom, slack-jawed for a moment, then grinned so wide it looked like it hurt. Billie blinked once, slowly, and the tiniest, most beautiful smile tugged at the corner of her mouth—small, rare, and brighter than any streetlamp.
And then the three of them just looked at each other.
That was it. The moment. Not of signing, or performing, or launching. But of creation.
Not of a song—but of a future.
They were in it now. Not just as friends, or collaborators. As founders. As something permanent.
Billie nudged him gently with her shoulder, grounding him. Alex turned to look at her. Her grin was sly now, the teasing glint back in her eyes, but underneath it was that same depth—serious and sharp.
"So, boss," she said, barely containing the smirk. "What's next?"
It wasn't a challenge. It was an invitation.
The question didn't scare him anymore. It felt like a beginning.
And for the first time since the ghost had whispered the idea into his head, Alex didn't feel like he was dragging anyone toward a vision they couldn't yet see.
Now they all saw it.
And they were walking toward it together.