There may be a lot of fake things going on between Zach and me for the tour and my reputation, but this wasn’t one of them.
His mouth tore into mine. Licking, sucking, exploring every corner like it had completely changed in the past ten years. He kissed me like he needed to make up for every day that he hadn’t. And he kissed me like he needed to make up for every day in the future that he wouldn’t.
My arms wound around his neck, pulling myself tighter to him. Those firm fingers of his cinched into my waist as he rocked his hips into mine. Just once. I gasped as my body shuddered violently. Warmth seeped out from my core with the need to orgasm.
“Is this what you want, Baby Blake?” he rasped into my mouth, rubbing the hard length of his dick against me again.
I whimpered, nodding jerkily as I tried to push back. I needed more… and I needed it now.
My hands scored over his shirt. I wanted to feel him. Why was I always the one laid bare—physically and emotionally—in front of him and he always managed to keep all his shields and layers intact?
His mouth was on mine again as the hand on my hip slid higher between us. I tried to force myself from arching against him—from being that needy—but I couldn’t stop myself as his fingers reached the edge of my suit.
My teeth tugged his lip into my mouth and I sucked hard. It earned me a punishing grind of his ridge into my sex, the material of my suit now rubbing directly on my clit. And then his hand closed over my breast and spots flashed behind my eyes.
“Fuck.” I heard his tortured curse as he palmed my flesh. It was followed swiftly by an angry growl before the bunched triangle of fabric was yanked to the side. The large, warm hand that had slung mud at me all those years ago closed over my bare breast and it was more than everything I’d imagined.
“Perfect,” he whispered, kneading what was—in my opinion—an all-around-average tit.
I tried to hold onto the word and his voice as he said it. But it was like trying to hold onto the wind.
His mouth trailed along the edge of my jaw, biting and kissing towards my neck. And then his thumb rolled over my nipple before pinching it between his fingers and whatever opinions I had about my boobs were lost.
I rolled my hips against his, blindly searching for what he’d given me all those years ago.
“Zach… please…” I begged. I was so close, but I didn’t know how to get there. I couldn’t get there without him.
“Just let me taste you, Blake, baby,” he whispered close to my ear, the switch-up of my nickname melting through my body like fire on ice. “Let me taste you and then I’ll take you there.”
The half-moan, half-whimper was the best that I could manage as I felt him begin to slide down my body, kissing along the length of my neck as my head pushed back further into the sand. Those fingers pulled on my nipple and my body arched against him, feeling how impossibly hard he’d become against his pants.
Bright flashes appeared behind my eyelids.
God, what was he doing to me?
The flashes appeared again, but this time, the only thing that he did was freeze. My eyes shot open and, like a bucket of ice water had been dumped over us, I realized that the flashes weren’t figments of my desire-fragmented mind.
They were camera flashes.
’She’s over here!’
‘Holy shit! This is going to be great!’
‘She’s with the opening act!’
The breeze carried their every word over from the boardwalk.
I looked to Zach in horror, every expletive that he didn’t say flitting through his eyes. He stayed perfectly still, his hand working swiftly to pull the material of my suit back over my bare breast, lifting off me slightly to make sure that all my necessary parts were covered.
He stood, pulling me up with him so that his back was to the paparazzi, using himself as a shield. He pushed my clothes into my hands, and I quickly yanked them on over my suit.
Even though they’d caught onto our little charade and managed to double back and find us, the cameras stayed on the boardwalk as Zach wrapped his arm around my shoulder and we began to walk swiftly towards the hotel.
I knew from experience that they didn’t need to be closer. They had lenses big enough to see the sand particles trapped in my hair—and other unmentionable places—if they wanted to. And I was sure that they wanted to.
“Are you happy now?” Zach bit out as we walked swiftly through the lobby.
“I-I’m sorry,” I said thickly, trying not to let the tears start to fall.
I had no idea whether or not this was going to be a good or bad thing for the tour, but I had a feeling that this was definitely going to be a bad thing for the two of us.
He punched the elevator button even though the door was already opening.
A really bad thing.
“I told you we had to go. Fuck, Blake,” he swore running his hand through hair that showed no indication that it had gotten a sand-shampoo. “This was not part of the plan. Not part of the deal.”
I winced, not so much at the sting in his words, but at the anger in his eyes. We stared at each other in the reflective metal on the back of the elevator doors as it carried us up to the top.
“It will be ok. It’ll be fine,” I repeated dumbly, unsure of who I was trying to reassure.
“Will it?” he demanded angrily. “You don’t fucking know that. If you knew that, you wouldn’t have picked up and discarded your last dozen boyfriends like you were playing a goddamn card game. The whole point of this was to show that you’ve acquired some semblance of control over your emotions—to give them the fairytale that you seem to think they crave, not just one more fling.”
I stared, speechless and suffering at his outburst. I was surprised he didn’t crack his jaw the way he was clenching his teeth.
Ice-cold reality. Just what I’d asked for.
“Even if—” he broke off with a harsh laugh, “Even if this isn’t taken that poorly, do I really have to bring up the fact that having naked photos of you engaged in sexual activity is probably not the best way for this fake-fucking-fairytale to break. Christ, Ash is going to fucking kill—” He groaned and slammed his fist in the elevator wall behind us, the metal rattling against my back.
“B-but that was real…” I whispered softly. I’d heard the rest of what he’d said, but that last part was the only thing that stuck; what just happened wasn’t fake. It wasn’t.
It was at that moment his eyes tore from mine, glancing down at the floor just as the elevator dinged its arrival.
“No.” The doors opened to the floor where his room was, on level below mine. “That was a mistake.”
I winced, the words ripping back open one more wound that I thought all these years had finally bypassed. I was wrong. Raw and wrong.
And then he walked me to my door, waited until I crossed the threshold, and then retreated before I even had the chance to turn and slam the door in his face.
He always did this so flawlessly—the part where he put another scar on my heart.
Track 07: Lost Cause
“In that moment, I found who I was.
The very best of me would only ever be
your lost cause.”
9 years ago
“ZACH.”
I stood, nervously wiping my hands on my shorts. I’d been sitting and waiting on the white-washed steps of his front porch for him to get home, refusing to admit that this was slightly stalkerish. He looked like Clark Kent walking towards me—solid and sexy Superman mixed with down-to-Earth farmer—in his ripped jeans and a plain tee stretched over his chest, varsity jacket, and that ‘Bama hat on. They’d had a football farewell with the team today; Ash had a dentist appointment afterward which is how I knew that waiting here, patiently not stalking Zach’s house, would get me a private conversation with him—something that he’d been clearly avoiding like the plague ever since my performance.
I watched as his steps slowed and his eyes narrowed
on me. His jaw ticked in annoyance. What was I expecting after the whole graduation party performance last weekend…
Ash had reamed me out later that night for embarrassing the both of them—and myself. ‘How could you do that to me? To him?’ He’d made it painfully clear that I was like a little sister to Zach and that he would never think of me that way so I should grow up and move on.
I couldn’t.
Ash didn’t know. He didn’t know what I felt. He didn’t know about the treehouse.
He didn’t know that deep down, Zach had to feel the same.
He had to.
Just like the sun rises and the seasons change.
“What are you doing here, Blake?” he asked tightly, stopping a few feet in front of me.
I tugged my shorts down slightly, hating how I swore I’d stand here confidently and was doing anything but. I bit into my tongue, my teeth searching for the piece of gum that I’d refused to allow myself until I spoke to him.
“I wanted to talk to you,” I said, wringing my hands before shoving them in my pockets so that I would stop fidgeting with them.
Ever since prom night, there was something different in the way that he looked. For the longest time, I looked at him as this perfect thing that I’d always want and would never have. Like a yacht. Or a record deal.
“I think you’ve said enough.” Unyielding eyes met mine.
“That’s not fair, Zach Parker,” I accused with a twinge of hurt in my voice. “I wasn’t the only one in the treehouse that night. You knew it was me. And you still stayed. You can’t just pretend like you didn’t participate—like you didn’t want it, too.”
His eyes were on fire, but there was nothing warm about his gaze.
“Is this really what you want, right now?” he asked with a strained voice, dropping his backpack onto the ground beside him, his hands resting on his narrow waist. “I’ve been trying, Blake. I’ve been trying to stop this as painlessly as possible, but you just. Keep. Pushing. The tree house… then the party… and now, here you are, begging to be fucking crushed.”
“No, I’m here because I want you to admit the truth to me,” I charged.
“The truth?” he scoffed. “Alright. Let’s start with this: do you think I didn’t know?”
“I don’t understand. Know what?” My forehead scrunched in confusion and my arms folded over my chest.
“Do you think that I don’t know about the huge crush you’ve had on me for basically ever?”
I winced. “N-no… I don’t know…”
He stepped closer to me. “Let me walk you through this so that this conversation doesn’t have to happen again.”
Gulp.
“I’ve known about your crush; it’s been pretty obvious. I kept thinking that as you got older, you’d stop hanging out with us and you’d get over it. But you didn’t,” he paused, exhaling harshly as he pulled his baseball cap off and ran his hand through his hair. “Then I figured that I’d be moving and you wouldn’t have a choice. But then, you hold my prom date hostage in my own—” he broke off, lowering his voice, “—goddamn house. Did you really think I wouldn’t know it was you?”
I blinked rapidly trying to coax the tears back into my eyes; only some of them were persuaded. Stubborn jerks.
“So then why did you stay?” I asked softly. “I heard you… I felt you. I know you wanted me.”
I was like Dory from Finding Nemo. Except, instead of swimming, I just kept pushing.
“Christ, Blake.” He let out a harsh laugh. “Let me explain something to you. I’m eighteen years old. My body? It wants to have sex regardless of most anything. So yeah, you ‘felt’ something—but that something wasn’t special; it wasn’t for you.”
I recoiled. I pushed too far and he wasn’t going to spare me.
Stupid, Blake. You shouldn’t have come here.
“And why did I stay? Because for some screwed-up reason, I thought that maybe if I just got you off, it would get me out of your system.
Tears tracked hotly down my face. I hated him for what he said. I hated him for the lies.
“I d-don’t care what you say,” I insisted, raising my chin up stubbornly, “I know what I felt and what I felt was real. It’s always been real between us, Zach. No matter what you try to tell yourself about that night.”
He let out a long, frustrated groan, looking up at the sky before pinning me with a hard stare. I watched him and the battle that was shredding him on the inside. I wished I knew what sides were fighting so I could pick one. Instead, I only got to see which one won.
“Blake, I care about you because you’ve been like a sister to me for most of my life. I’m sorry if that led to something more for you, but it didn’t for me. And even if it did, I’d never in a million years pursue it; Ash would kill me. But this needs to stop. I’m leaving for college and you need to grow up and move on. I’m sorry if what happened led you on, but this… us… is never going to happen. We are never going to be together.”
Each word was like a bullet to my beaten heart.
He closed the distance between us. My breath came in rapid spurts as I tried to survive his coldness and his closeness.
“Say it,” he demanded.
I was trapped. Closing my eyes, I shook my head. I wouldn’t—couldn’t. I had no choice.
“Say it, baby Blake.” This time he gripped my chin and forced me to look at him; he forced me to watch my own heartbreak. “Say it right now.”
My lip quivered, salty tears leaking into my mouth as the words tasted like acid on my tongue.
“W-we are… never…” I sucked in a sob and he only held my face harder, waiting for the rest of it, “… g-going to be t-together.”
I ended with a sob and that only made him angrier. Probably because of the scene I was making on his front lawn.
“Good,” he said raggedly, dropping my chin like I was a leper. “Now do whatever you have to do… go write a song about it if that’s what it takes to get it through your thick skull.”
He stepped around me, walking up the steps. His footsteps stopped, but I didn’t turn. With a voice that seemed too soft and too defeated to be the one that would crush my soul, he said over his shoulder, “That night wasn’t real, Baby Blake. That night was a mistake.”
I was wrong. So wrong. He never cared about me. He never wanted me.
All he did was hurt me. If he cared, he wouldn’t be doing this.
Screw you, Zach Parker. I don’t care if you taught me how to rollerblade or that you took the training wheels off my bike even when Ash said I wasn’t ready; I don’t care if you helped me with my science homework or always made sure to play ‘Happy Birthday’ to me on your guitar even when Ash gave you shit for it. I don’t care if everyone thinks you are the nice-guy quarterback. You aren’t nice—you are a liar.
A redneck, heartbreaker who was really bad at lying.
I was going to write a song because the hurt was too much to be contained inside me.
I was going to write a song and then I was going to become famous and forget all about Zach Parker because, ‘We were never, ever going to be together.’
Present
THE PRESS HADN’T SLEPT.
Then again, neither had I.
My phone buzzed on the counter as I poured myself the large cup of coffee that I was going to need to get me through the rest of the day. My temples throbbed as I took a sip of the black liquid. Shit was magic for a hangover but didn’t do anything for the ache in my dick.
Last night had been a fucking disaster. The bar. The beach. Everything.
Alex was already assed-out by the time I got up to the room. Cold shower and bed was what I needed. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been lying when I told Blake that the cold water wasn’t how my desire for her worked. I turned that shit to liquid ice and my dick still throbbed just as purple and angrily as when she’d been lying underneath me, all legs and lust, pressing her body up against mine. Touching her breast had been the first hit of
a drug that seemed to come from out of this world. All I could think was how easy it would have been to move the lower scrap of her suit over her tight little pussy, unzip my fly, and shove myself inside of her.
And that’s exactly what I closed my eyes and thought of as I fisted my harder than steel cock, pumping it two—three times before I came all over the shower wall with a low groan. Yup. Nearing thirty and masturbating like a fucking teenager in the shower to images of the girl I’d grown up with. Life goals right here.
Of course, I’d thought about fucking her. I’d thought about fucking her on a regular basis since about the time she turned fifteen and my body told me she was fuckable even though my brain insisted that she wasn’t. Sure, it got a lot easier to think of other things when Ash and I moved to Alabama or when I moved back to Nashville. But that’s like saying that sometimes it’s easier to not focus on breathing. True, but it doesn’t change the fact that your body still needs air to survive; it didn’t change the fact that my body still needed her.
It didn’t change the fact that her brother was still my best friend.
It also didn’t change the fact that the more press and popularity ZPP got here, the more sleeping with her would seem no different than any of those other dipshits who’d used her before for her fame.
Guilt… self-loathing… familiar company throughout most of my life, wanting a girl who was at first, a child, but always off-limits in the bro-code.
There are times in life—unavoidable times, really—where in order to be the good guy, you have to be a bad one. I knew how much I hurt her when we were younger—when I told her I didn’t want her and that we would never be together. She thought I was ripping through her heart when the truth was that I was carving out my own.
‘Mistake.’
I was a modern-day Pinocchio with the lies I told her. Only it wasn’t my nose that got longer and harder every second that I was in her presence trying to fight the truth about how much I wanted her.
Maybe, I’d told myself back then, maybe when I moved back home, if she still had feelings for me, I’d find some way to make Ash ok with it. But the good guy in me wasn’t going to take advantage of my friend’s little sister. The good guy wasn’t going to let my desire take something permanent from her at only fifteen. The good guy in me wasn’t going to make promises to her only to leave for four years and expect her to wait. She had so much drive and potential, and the good guy in me knew that she would have put it all on the back burner for a chance at ‘us.’
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