by Anna Bloom
Evan chucked my chin, making me look at him. “Yeah, to you I guess he has, and since you’ve arrived, I’ve realized what his detonator is. Or rather who.” He pressed his index finger against my chest bone. “Right, are you going to sing for me or what?”
My shoulders slumped. “Evan, I haven’t sung in church for four years.”
Scrutinizing me closely, he licked his bottom lip. “Maybe it’s time you did. This is why Jack and I created Church. It’s someplace where you don’t have to feel judged but can still be connected.”
“When I was small, I used to sit in the pew. Grams would hold my hand so I couldn’t fidget the whole way through the sermon.”
“I’ve heard about your church. It sounds very brimstone and fire.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yep.” My chest tightened with a strangling hold. “I never listened to a word, I’d just be watching Blue and Luca.”
Evan’s eyes literally popped out of their sockets.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re standing in Blue’s bar…”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Lyra, think about it.”
“What? He named his bar the nickname I used to call him. I worked that out.”
“Or has he named it for the man he always wanted to be?”
I glanced up at the flashing blue sign above the bar.
“He broke me when he ran away.” I hated the lump that rose in my throat, the weakness that still scored around the edges of my frazzled nerves.
“Or saved you? Ever considered that?”
I took a deep breath, exhaling it gently through my nose, letting my shoulders slump out all the tension.
“I’ll sing. But if I fuck up, it’s on you.”
Singing would be easier without Jack watching and listening, judging.
By the time Evan walked out into stage to open with Cornerstone, I battled the need to throw up all the gravy and biscuits I’d eaten in the library.
“Slight change tonight, folks.”
Oh God, this was it. I wiped my hands down my shorts. I’d refused the electric blue gown. It was bad enough singing. I didn’t need to feel even more of a fraud as I did it.
“The girls have been waylaid in Country Music land.”
There was a groan and a couple of boos. Great, I’d be walking into a hostile crowd. Evan laughed and raised his palm. “Don’t worry, we’ve got something very special for you tonight.
The two hundred strong crowd all craned their necks.
“Introducing Lyra Lennox.” He waved me up to the stage, but my legs refused to move. Evan rumbled a laugh down the microphone. “She’s a bit shy, let’s give her a warm hand.”
Shit. Everyone turned their heads and looked at me.
A gentle push nudged me from behind. “Go get them, Little Miss Green,” Rhian whispered into my ear. The fact that she actually cared made my legs walk mechanically forward. I was still the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz.
Reaching the stage, I negotiated the steps and Evan grabbed my hand. “Relax,” he whispered into my ear. I gave him a smile that communicated my, ‘are you fucking kidding me?’.
He laughed, his teeth shining under the lights.
“It’s Church, Lyra, and no one judges here.”
I nodded, but people always judged, I’d known that for as long as I could remember. They couldn’t help it.
A lifetime of looking different to Luca.
My mother.
The violin.
Everyone judged, it was a built-in human flaw.
I judged too.
It clicked then, as I stood on the stage of Evan’s Church. We were all the same one way or another. All of us created the same, it was what we did with it that caused our differences.
“Lyra,” Evan spoke into the mic, the showman running the moment. “Little Lyra normally plays the violin, but a small bird tells me she can sing the socks off of a hymn.”
I shook my head, studying the floor of the stage until an unexpected shiver ran across my skin. I knew that feeling. I looked up, my eyes landing on dirty green. Jack, dressed in black, a tight T-shirt stretched across his chest, his legs crossed at the ankle, leaned against the bar. His face hid in the shadows of the lights, but I knew his eyes were focused on just me flashing and flickering as the stage lights moved.
My nerves slipped away. My gaze could only watch him, just like it always did in church. The power of him ran through me. He always made me want to prove myself more, to be better. From the first time I’d ever sang on the stage, he’d been six pews back. My seven-year-old knees had knocked together until I’d seen him give a small nod of his head. Luca had been laughing, nudging Blue in the ribs… Blue hadn’t laughed back though. He’d told me to kill it with that one incline of his head. And I had.
I could do it again now.
Just like then, he nodded.
I was doomed.
“I need a pianist?” I smiled into the mic, my gaze unwavering.
“Oh, well, I’m out.” Evan laughed, his showmanship magnetically powerful.
Five people waved their hands, but I kept myself focused on the man at the bar who eventually strode forward and jumped up the steps.
“Singing now, Lyra?” he whispered into my ear, causing heat to flush across my skin.
“For your church.” I nodded and that intense gaze held mine, reading everything I had hidden in my soul.
Jack sat at the stool of the stage piano, his fingers running across the keys. Then crowd lifted into a giant roar. They liked it when he played, which meant he had before.
A dark slice of jealousy settled in my gut for the life he’d been living here. With them, her, all the new and shiny things he had that didn’t include me.
Evan walked to the piano and switched on the mic. The look Jack gave him would have made me shrivel on the inside.
“Another Hillsong, Lyra?”
I nodded and waited for Jack to choose. His fingers danced the tune to What a Beautiful Name, and my stomach clenched in the very bottom of my gut.
He knew I couldn’t sing this without staring at him. It was the penultimate blasphemy, just behind coveting something that wasn’t yours.
I met his gaze and then turned back to the crowd. The words, the prayer, the long-forgotten connection to something I couldn’t see pulling from me as my voice met Jack’s notes.
As I sang, I walked to the piano and sat on the stool next to him, my back pressed into his side. He flexed against me, pushing back until every inch of our sides were firmly pressed together.
God forgive me for wanting something that I could never have.
But I wanted Jack.
Always had.
It tied me into knots that I didn’t think could ever unravel.
Three songs in, Jack turned and shot me a wicked glance over his shoulder. “You know, Lyra.” He leaned back into the mic. “I remember you singing 10,000 Reasons beautifully. Didn’t your Grams love that song?”
I gave a silent nod.
His fingers danced into the tune and I swallowed hard. Grams used to sing this in the kitchen after church while she batch cooked for the week ahead.
‘Sing with me, Lyra’.
But I never could.
Because there was only one thing I worshipped like the song said I should, and it would send me to hell eventually.
I jumped in after the intro and with every word the world around us evaporated.
My path to hell would never end, not with Jack Cross by my side.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jack
Such a high, better than any sip of alcohol buzzing in my veins, any snort of coke or puff of weed.
High.
Lyra high.
She took her bow, grinning as she did, while I sat on the piano stool and watched the star she’d become.
How could one girl hold so much talent?
It seemed an unfair balance within the universe.
After she�
��d finished thanking the audience, I stood, my legs unsteady, and I grasped her hand to help her get down from the stage. As we negotiated the five steps, our fingers entwined, tight and fast.
My head swirled with her.
We made our way through the crowd to the bar, people slapping us on the backs. I glared at every hand that landed on Lyra, but she laughed, turning to me, her eyes burning bright.
Eddie stood by the bar, swiping at his eyes, the big softy. “Little Lyra.” He swept her up in a bone crushing hug. “That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.”
I think she laughed, but her face was squashed into his massive chest.
Pulling my attention from her, I looked for Evan. I knew he’d be buzzing. He loved new sounds, new voices. He had his phone under his ear, his cheeks flushed. “Eddie, put her down. My cousin wants to talk to her.”
My blood ran icy. “What?” I shouted over the din of the bar, the rush of people getting their drinks now Lyra had finished singing. Without thinking, I vaulted over the bar. Evan slowly switched his attention onto me, his skin paling as I grabbed for his phone.
“Evan, you fucking dick, what are you doing?” I swiped for his phone.
“I called Simon.” He met my stare, unrelenting.
I could sense Lyra watching.
“No! You can’t do that.”
A small hand landed on my arm. “Jack? Who is Simon?” She couldn’t hold me back. I grabbed for Evan, curling my fingers into his T-shirt and dragging him toward me. His phone clattered to the floor.
“Jack!” Evan held his hand up. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just knew he’d like to hear her sing.”
“So he can take her away when I’ve only just got her back?”
“Jack,” Lyra snapped. “Put Evan down.”
I turned slightly, looking at Lyra, my vision a hazy blur. All the faces around the bar blurred as they turned toward us.
“No. HE’s going to ruin everything.”
For fuck’s sake. Up there on the stage, I’d had one moment of peaceful enjoyment. I’d craved Lyra’s singing for so long, hearing it was like a dream.
Now Evan, my best friend, wanted to ruin everything.
I pushed him back, throwing him into the back bar, knocking over bottles. “You shouldn’t have done that; you had no right.”
He shook his head, brushing liquid off his arms. “Jack, you’re crazy.”
I pulled my fist back, winding up a punch, but Lyra jumped in front of my target. “Jack, what are you doing? What’s going on? Everything up there… was…” She pointed at the stage. She’d felt it too. That enormous fucking relief.
I stormed past them both, heading to my own personal domain of distraction, forcing myself not to stop and punch his lights out as I heard Evan mumble, “Overreaction,” as I stormed away.
In the staff area, lacking on stock still from my outburst the week before, I crouched down on the floor, reaching for a pallet of bourbon and forcing my fingers through the plastic wrap until I could wiggle a bottle free. Then I unscrewed the top and tilted it to my mouth, letting the burn ease my anger.
Like it even could.
What was he thinking?
I slumped against the wall, stretching my legs out along the floor.
“Jack?” Lyra poked her head around the door. “What’s going on?”
“Forget it.” I took another swig.
“Really? You think I can?” She stepped closer, her long legs in my line of sight until she crouched down next to me. “What happened?” She took the bottle and placed it on the floor.
“Evan’s cousin is a talent scout, and my mate out there just played you singing down the phone to him.”
Lyra cocked her head to the side. “So?”
I grabbed her wrist, holding it closer to my body. “Lyra, don’t you understand how talented you are? The violin is the mere tip of the iceberg with you.”
The right side of her lips curved, her sweet scent filling the space between us. “You and I both know my violin playing is sporadic at best.”
“Simon will be on the next fight in from wherever he is. He won’t be able to resist, and then he will take you away.”
“You make it sound like I don’t have a choice in this. Last week, I wanted to go home. I was so close, so very close to getting what I wanted and being able to leave. But I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
I breathed her in, tasting her smell, the warmth of her skin reaching across the cold air of the storage area and seeping into me.
“Me.”
“You said if I went home you couldn’t come with me.”
“That’s not what you said at the Collins’ house.”
“Oh my god, Jack. I lied. You aren’t the only one who can do that. It’s not a thing just for you.”
Lifting her hand, I pressed her palm into my cheek. Weakness spread through me, along with exhaustion which I didn’t know I could fight. “Lyra.”
She pressed her thumb against my lips, her gaze holding a dark warning. “Only speak now if you promise to not take it back.”
I nodded. “I came here for you. And fuck, if I haven’t made a mess trying to stay.”
The truth, once out, once I’d admitted it to myself, ate away at my insides. My eyes stung in a way I hadn’t felt in years. They prickled and made me blink.
Lyra sighed, deep and hollow, then she pressed her nose against mine. “I knew it. The moment I saw you, I knew it.”
My hand slipped around the back of her head, drawing her in close to me, our lips dancing lightly across one another. Her breathing hitched, racing faster.
“I’ve spent a lifetime trying to protect you, Lyra Bird, and now I’m going to be the one to destroy you.”
She shook her head and saltwater splattered against my skin from her tears. They were a dam to my own which slipped faster than they ever had, faster than after every beating, every dirty survival deal.
“You won’t destroy me, Jack.”
I clutched her face. “I can’t go home, Lyra. Do you understand?”
She nodded, but I didn’t know if she did actually get it. I. Could. Never. Go. Home. Especially not with her.
Lyra slipped onto my lap as I sat on the floor, curling herself around me. I shuddered, my hands running along her spine, my thumbs grazing every bone in her spine and ribs.
“Jack,” she whispered.
I clasped her face, pulling her in closer until we were breathing the same air. “I want to do this right. If we are doing it, then it will be right.”
She edged back to look at my face. “We will.”
I had no idea what ‘right’ meant. Didn’t know how I would unpick my life from the mess I’d created, didn’t even know what life I would have left once I’d done so, but Lyra pressed her palm into the space of my chest, above where my heart beat and I knew I’d do anything it took.
“I’m going to protect you. I won’t let them destroy you.”
She shook her head, laughing, tears slipping faster. “Don’t you see, Jack? I don’t care. I’ve been dead since the night you left. All I want to do is live.”
I held her face tighter, my hands gripping her jaw. “You crazy girl. You were supposed to be happy without me. That’s why I—” I cut myself off.
Maybe I said too much. “Jack, it’s you and me. There can’t be anything else but that. I’ve known it since before I could walk or talk. You are the sun, the air, the very fabric of my existence, and maybe that’s crazy, maybe it’s not normal to feel this way, but I can’t feel anything other than what I do.”
I smashed my lips to hers. Nothing pretty or delicate about it. Her mouth parted, instantly allowing me to stake my claim. I shivered at the warmth of her tongue as I flicked mine against it, swiping and diving, unforgiving.
She groaned and my body sparked with a desire so raw it hurt. Every muscle tightened, my arms curved around her and she pressed in, flooding me with a softn
ess I’d long forgotten.
Our lips worked faster, we were breathless; my fingers wound into her curls, tugging them and anchoring her tight into my grasp as she ground herself into my lap, rocking her shorts against my hard-on, pulling back slightly, momentarily breaking our connection, so she could smirk up at me.
I grabbed her, swiping my tongue across the surface of her mouth, teasing the edges until they smiled beneath me. I dropped my hands from her hair, running them down her spine and making her shiver compulsively, anchoring them on her hips as I rocked her back and forth.
Lyra closed her eyes, dropping her head back, combining a sigh with a groan that made my bones ache.
A flashing thought sparked. She said she’d been dead since the night I left… did that mean...? No, there was no way some other bastard hadn’t made Lyra Lennox his own. It burned in my veins, but I pushed it back. Anything that had happened since I’d left sat firmly on my shoulders. I should never have left, should have fought harder that night no matter the consequences.
“God, Jack.” She rained kisses down my face, her hips still rocking and bucking across my lap. Fuck, she felt good, even with all our clothes on. “I want you so much.” She closed her eyes, her expression one of smooth bliss.
I could get off before I stopped this so we could do it all the right way. I wanted to, it ached low in my gut. Fuck, I wanted to get myself off too, but I wasn’t a teenage boy anymore desperate for kicks and orgasms.
Well… a guy could only grow so much, but I didn’t want to come in my jocks again for Lyra Lennox.
Anchoring my hands on her hips, with one hand I helped her find a steady rhythm, while my tongue stole back into her mouth and my free hand ran across her tit, rubbing her pebbled nipple through her T-shirt. I swallowed every moan that whimpered from her lips. Her knees squeezed me tighter and I smiled into our kiss as her hands grasped my hair and she stiffened, gasping three little pants.
Finally still, she pulled back, a shy smile curving her lips. “Why does this feel like deja vu?”
I pecked a kiss onto her mouth. “Nothing about this has happened before.”
My smile dropping, I caught her face in the cradle of my palms. “You’re so beautiful to watch.” Her cheeks flushed and I ran my thumb across one, feeling the heat of her desire. “Lyra, I need to go and sort things out. Do you understand?” I met her gaze, ducking my head so she’d have to look at me.