Stand: A Bleeding Stars Stand-Alone Novel

by A. L. Jackson

  I pressed a fist to my mouth, fighting the bitterness, the true reason for this entire mess.

  Greed.

  Martin’s greed.

  Craig’s greed.

  Veronica’s greed.

  But lust for money was the world’s favorite sin.

  “Zee.” Alexis’ voice wrapped around me.

  Compassion and warmth.

  A comfort I couldn’t accept.

  I started pacing. “Once Mark was gone, that left Craig and Veronica to figure out how to hook me in and swindle the most money out of me once Mark was out of the picture. They viewed me as an opportunity that they took full advantage of.”

  I swung around to fully look at her. “I was a fool, Alexis. Such a goddamned fool, and I wasted so much time, terrified of losing Liam. Terrified of losing what I thought was my last physical connection to my brother, so I continued to play Veronica’s twisted games. Instead, what I lost was six years of truly knowing my son. Tiptoeing around Veronica’s rules. Barely seeing him. Missing him night and day.”

  And this girl…this girl looked at me with all that grace and belief.

  She pressed her hands over her heart. The girl so goddamned sweet.

  “You told me once if you could do anything for yourself, you’d set yourself free. Don’t you see it, Zee? Now you get to be. You don’t have to hide from me anymore. You don’t have to hide from living your life.”

  She took a pleading step forward.

  Filling my senses with her light.

  I wanted to step away, but I could feel myself leaning her direction, needing to fill myself with her memory.

  Her tone turned soft, so caring and sweet. “I know you have a past, Zee. I’ve known it all along, even though I didn’t know the details. And now that I do, I love you even more. I love you. God…I love you so much.”

  I choked over the breath I sucked into my failing lungs.

  Struck.

  Gutted.

  Everything was on fire, this blaze that singed me from the inside out. She’d never said it aloud before. But I’d known, hadn’t I?

  There’d been no missing it swimming in the warmth of her gaze. No missing it in the bliss of her touch.

  It took about all I had to edge back and say the words that were thick with regret. “I have a little boy who’s terrified right now, Alexis. A boy who just lost his mother. A boy who witnessed God knows what. He’s my responsibility. My heart. My life. And right now, I need to focus on him. I need to make sure he heals and knows he’s safe and that he’s always gonna have me right there to protect him.”

  Hurt lashed across her face, and she pressed her palms right over her heart. “Why can’t you do that with me?”

  I reached out, my hand trembling when I set it on one side of her face. My thumb brushed the single tear that slipped from her eye. “Because I don’t deserve him, Alexis, but I’m gonna do my best by giving him every part of me.”

  Before I could get lost in the depths of those stormy eyes, I ripped myself away, forcing myself just to move. To get the hell out of there before my resistance failed the exact same way it seemed to do every time I was in her space.

  I bolted out her door and down the two porch steps. I squinted against the glaring sunlight that blazed hot. Just as hot as my insides.

  God. I felt like I was burning up.

  I fisted my hand, the one with the star tattoo, that forever reminder of what I’d done. Swore I could feel another piece of myself disintegrating as I rushed down her walk and toward my car parked at the curb.

  “Zee.” It was a frantic plea. A chill blasted across my skin when I felt her presence come closer. Grow denser.

  Delicate arms wrapped around me. Refusing to let me go. “Please…don’t go. We can figure it out. I promise, I’ll be good to him. So good to him. I don’t care that he’s not mine. I’ll love him simply because he’s yours.”

  Agony constricted my heart, mashing it in its fiery hold. I gasped around it, my hand on the two of hers locked around my waist. I unwound them and twisted around to look at her.

  She stood there beneath the sun. All lit up. Hair on fire and face aglow.

  An angel.

  The brightest light in the midst of my darkness.

  Starshine.

  I gripped her by both sides of the neck, my thumbs running the curve of her jaw, my insides knotted. “If I could go back, Alexis, if I could go back and make everything right, it’d be you. It’d be you and Liam and me. But I’ve already fucked up too much, and I refuse to make that mistake with you, and I refuse to make another with him. I’ve got to figure out my life, and I’ve got to do it right, and I can’t keep dragging you into my mess when I don’t have a clue what the fuck I’m doing.”

  I jerked back and inched away, another piece of me dying when I watched the pain I’d inflicted whip across her features. I finally turned and jogged around the front of my car, freezing for a moment as I opened the door when I heard the guttural sob that tore from her throat.

  For a flash, I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing on a star, on a wish, for something better. For a way to make it right. For her. For Liam. For me.

  As a kid, I had breathed a million of those wishes.

  Countless.

  Infinite.

  But nothing had changed the silent curse that had been uttered the day I betrayed my brother. One that had left them permanently dimmed.

  Where they forever burned and bled out.

  Disintegrating into nothing.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Alexis

  A swath of sunlight streamed in through the bay window.

  Silence seemed to ride in on it. Hovering in the air.

  Too profound.

  Too dense.

  I was sure I’d never felt so alone.

  I hugged my favorite book to my chest, my old copy of Little Women tattered at the edges, the pages worn from the swipe of my fingers as I’d devoured its words time and again.

  Today, I just held it, embraced it like an old friend. A companion in the desolation.

  Two weeks had passed since Zee had come here and nailed the final stakes into my heart.

  Since then, I’d tried desperately to be strong. To remember the beauty waiting all around.

  To find my solace in the fact that because of him, Avril was safe. She was now in rehab, trying to turn her life around, promising to be strong.

  God, I was so grateful to Zee for what he had done. The ultimate sacrifice he’d been willing to make for her.

  For me.

  He’d set her free.

  It just killed me that in the end he hadn’t had the strength to finish the fight for me.

  To finish the fight for us.

  Zee had lived a life of surrender.

  His days atonement.

  And even though his freedom was right there, waiting for him to reach out and take it, he was still prisoner to the shackles of regret. Still chained to the idea that he had something to repay rather than embracing what he’d been given as a gift.

  A son.

  Was there anything more precious than that?

  But I understood.

  I did.

  But that didn’t mean it didn’t cut and slash and sting.

  He’d warned me he didn’t have anything to offer beyond the temporary.

  It hadn’t mattered.

  I’d dived in.

  Heart first.

  The way I always did.

  Giving him all of me and praying he would love me the way I longed for him to love me.

  The way I loved him.

  Maybe it’d been inevitable—the falling part—because falling for Zachary Kennedy had been the easiest thing I’d ever done.

  Letting him go was the hardest.

  “Fall with me,” I whispered. He leaned down, lips just brushing mine, and Zachary Kennedy murmured his truth. “I already jumped.”

  My heart clenched in pain, and I tucked my knees closer to my chest.
/>   Because with Zachary Kennedy, I’d had no choice but to fall.

  There’d been nothing I could do but follow the call of my heart.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Zee

  “There you go, Daddy.”

  My heart snagged somewhere in my throat when I looked down at my little boy. Obviously, the kid had no clue what it did to me, hearing him saying it after everything.

  He held his dinner plate up to me where I was at the sink washing dishes, a grin splitting his precious face. Through all of dinner, he’d been laughing with Kallie and Brendon, fitting right in, like he’d belonged there all along.

  Like he’d been there all along.

  The way he should have been.

  Shea had insisted everyone come over for dinner tonight.

  It wasn’t that I’d hesitated to accept the offer. Still, I couldn’t escape this uneasiness at being together with the entire group for the first time since everyone had found out, which was why I was basically hiding out in the kitchen. Keeping distance.

  Turned out it was impossible to just wipe away the worry I’d carried around for the last seven years. Now every single one of them knew the hand I’d had in Mark’s death.

  My neglect.

  My betrayal.

  It left me wondering just what each of the guys was really thinking when they glanced my way.

  “Thank you, buddy,” I murmured to him, taking his plate and hooking my index finger under his chin.

  He grinned a little wider, the happiness held in his expression constricting my chest into a frenzy.

  Devotion and love.

  “Can I go play now? I ate my dinner all gone.”

  “Of course you can.”

  It was crazy having him in my life, every day and every moment. Having him as a member of this mixed up, muddled family was something I’d never really allowed myself to long for. I’d always figured it was impossible, even though flickers of that yearning would rise up, and I’d wish things were different.

  Those stars had finally aligned.

  Still, I knew deep within something was out of order. The way I missed and longed and ached as I remained wide awake night after night, staring at the ceiling as I suffered through the loss of the girl.

  Alexis.

  That beam of shining light I hadn’t expected.

  Liam bounded out of the room, shouting for Brendon to come and find him while I turned back to rinsing the plates in the sink.

  “You’re doing great with him.”

  I sucked in a breath when I heard the words, soft with a Southern drawl. I shifted to look over my shoulder at Shea, who was leaning against the edge of the archway with her arms crossed over her chest.

  “I’m trying,” I told her.

  “Raisin’ kids is the single best and most difficult thing we ever get to do,” she mused.

  “Yeah,” I agreed as I returned to rinsing the dishes, doing my best to ignore the weight of her stare. A strained silence filled the kitchen.

  “You know I’m no stranger to keeping secrets,” she finally said.

  Carefully, I glanced back at her when she took a step forward. I gave her a nod. “You did it because you thought you had to.”

  “Exactly.” She rested her forearms on the island. “And all of us, we understand that’s what you were trying to do to. That you were protecting what meant the most to you. Not sure if you were going about it the right way, but doing it anyway because it was the only choice you had.”

  Emotion flared in my stomach. Gratefulness and regret. It only amplified when I felt the movement at the archway. Baz walked through, followed by Lyrik and Tamar, Ash and Willow, then Austin and Edie.

  I turned to face them, my gaze bouncing to each face of this family.

  Some bound by blood. Some by marriage. Others simply by the bonds that had been forged.

  Baz roughed a hand through his hair. “We want you to know we get it. Need you to know there isn’t a chance we blame you for Mark’s death. Shit happened, and you and Mark both made some terrible mistakes, but that will never, ever make you any less.”

  My heart rate kicked a fraction as something fervent filled the air.

  Lyrik stepped forward. “Want you to know how much I respect you, Zee. What you’ve been doing for Liam all these years, thinking he wasn’t your own and standing up and taking care of him anyway? That’s what a real man does.”

  Anxiously, I rubbed a hand over my mouth. “Thank you,” I murmured.

  Ash slung his arm around Willow, who was holding their newborn. “I gave you shit for years, Zee, taunting you for the fact you never took girls home, thinking you were shy or weird or some shit like that, the whole time having no clue the sacrifices you were making.”

  He looked at Willow then back to me. “Come to find out, you had it right all along. You were living for what was most important to you. But I want you to know my goading was only because I wanted you to live. To truly experience life. For you to step out front when you were always content to remain in the shadows. Most of all, I need you to know, I will always have your back. Me and Willow? We’ll be there for you, whatever you need.”

  My chest tightened, floored by the support.

  Austin eased up to Baz’s side. “We’ve got your back, Zee. No matter what.”

  My tongue felt heavy, and I was unable to form words, struck with the magnitude of what this was. Them coming forward and taking a stand.

  For me.

  For Liam.

  Willow stepped forward, her expression tender. “You’ve probably already figured it out, but just in case you were wondering, all of us…”

  She gestured around the room with her free hand. “We wanted to say it aloud so there would never be any doubt. We love you, Zee, and we love Liam. Nothing can change that. No one blames you. No one judges you. And we want you to know we will all be here for you, whatever you need. You are not alone.”

  Relief crashed over me. Pulling me under and making it difficult to breathe. It splintered the last chains that had continued to condemn me, the ones that locked me in shame and regret and disgrace.

  I reached out, holding on to the counter for support, just fucking trying to keep it together.

  I looked to the floor for a few beats before I gathered myself enough to face them, voice gruff. “You can’t know what that means. The fact all of you are willing to stand there after what I did.”

  I struggled for the words, for the right emotion when everything felt so fucking conflicted. “It’s hard…all of a sudden having him living with me. Not because I don’t want him, but because I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing.”

  Lyrik rubbed his jaw. “There’s no shame in that, Zee.”

  My pleading gaze bounced around at each of them. “I need you. I need your advice, and I need your support, because I don’t know how to do this alone.”

  Edie released a breath. “Of course, Zee. That is what family is for.”

  “And what about Alexis?” Shea’s question hit me from out of nowhere. Pointed. An arrow that staked me right in the goddamned heart.

  “What about her?” Didn’t mean for it to come across so bitter. But I was pissed. I blinked as I realized it, that feeling that grappled to take hold. The anger over the situation. Anger at myself for always fucking it up.

  Shea’s eyebrows disappeared behind her bangs. “What about her? We all know full well you would have died for her that day, Zee. And now you’re going to stand here and pretend she doesn’t mean something to you?”

  “Of course she means something to me.” My head shook. “But I…I have Liam. He’s my responsibility. My first concern.”

  “And Alexis didn’t want to take on that kind of responsibility?” Confusion spun through Willow’s question, like she already didn’t believe it when she asked it.

  My heart thundered in its confines, throbbing and fighting against the boundaries that always seemed to rule my life. “Not that…I just…I need to
focus on him. He’s been through so much and—”

  “And you don’t love her, so you don’t want the distraction?” Shea prodded.

  Love her.

  All along, I’d refused to entertain the notion, pretending that feeling wasn’t there when it kept nudging and pricking at my consciousness.

  “I didn’t say that,” I rasped out, feeling overwhelmed.

  Shea straightened with the demand that flew from her mouth. “What did she say when you told her about him, Zee? Because what I’m hearing is you love her but you think you can’t be with her because of Liam.”

  Shame and regret. I kept trying to break from their ties. But there they were, pressing up and taking hold. I hesitated.

  “What did she say?” Shea insisted, somehow soft, but the demand hard enough to pull the admission from my tongue.

  “She said she’d love him simply because he was mine.”

  Tamar groaned toward the ceiling then looked at Shea. “Do you want me to smack him or do you want to do the honor?”

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure Zee is already over there beating himself up. I really don’t think it’s necessary. Isn’t that right, Zee? Tell me you aren’t over there wishing she was here.”

  A frustrated breath heaved from my lungs. “Of course I wish she was here.”

  Shea’s brow twisted in emphasis. “And how is this any different from what you’ve been doing all along? Living for Liam doesn’t mean you don’t get to live for yourself, too.”

  Baz edged forward. “You played for her, Zee. The piano, man. You and I both know that means something.”

  Somehow, the guy just always got me, targeting in for an easy read. “You think we didn’t notice you stopped playin’ your music when you stepped into your brother’s place? She touched something inside you. That’s something you can’t ignore.”

  His words gutted me. The girl was music. Harmony. And the second I’d cut her from my life, the songs had gone quiet. Ever since, I’d been taunted by the silence.