For the first time in six months, he smiled.

He opened the laptop again. His finger hovered over the download button.

“It’s not stealing. It’s… research.” Leo clicked.

Niamh padded in, still in her robe. “Did you sleep?”

He never seeded the torrent. Some ghosts shouldn’t be shared. But he kept one song—the B-side from 2012, the one about regret and rain—and sampled it into a lo-fi beat. That beat became his first solo demo. That demo got him an open mic slot. That open mic got him a nod from a small label.

The torrent chugged to life. The Script - The Script (2008).mp3 – 3.2 MB. Then Science & Faith (2010) – 4.1 MB. Then the rare B-sides from 2012, the ones never released in Ireland. The file names glowed like amber streetlights.

Niamh looked up. “You okay?”

He autographed it with shaking hands. For the first time.

“Yeah,” he lied. “Just… forgot how heavy these songs were.”

He turned the laptop toward her. The torrent client was closed. Deleted. But the text file remained.

Track four from Science & Faith : “For the first time, I’m looking in her eyes…”

She read the first line. Her eyes went wide. “Leo… that’s good.”