“Wise words,” I said in a gruff voice, kissing her softly one more time before pulling back. “Would you believe me if I said that my self-control was finally waning?”
“No.” Her cheeks flushed.
“Why?”
“Because a guy like you doesn’t wait twenty-three years in order to find someone worthy of every single piece of him — to suddenly offer it up to some legally blind local girl with a fear of ants.”
“Red ants,” I clarified.
“Yes.” She puffed up her cheeks and exhaled slowly. “Red ants.”
“I disagree.”
“About the ants?” She frowned.
“About the girl.”
“Zane don’t—”
“Some might say it’s our fears that make us unique, different, special.”
“My fear of ants makes me stand out? Is that what you’re saying?” She stood and offered her hand, I took it and stood along with her, dusting sand off my body while she pulled her hair into a messy bun and crossed her arms.
“What if I wanted that?” I asked, a bit afraid of her answer.
“What?”
“Everything.” I grabbed her hands. “What if I asked you for everything?”
She released my hands and swallowed. “I’d have to say no.”
“Have to? Or want to?”
“Have to.”
I reached for her again, just as a loud scream pierced the air and then another and another.
“Shit,” I muttered, jerking my hand back, out of fear that someone would snap a picture and create pure hell for her, but I don’t think she saw it that way. Instead, she flinched, as if I was rejecting her when she was the one doing that exact thing to me not more than ten seconds ago.
“SAINT! SAINT! SAINT!” Chanting started, and sure enough, about seven or eight girls swarmed around the bend and into our little alcove.
I reached into my pocket and crunched some marshmallows between my fingers, struggling to keep a smile frozen on my face, but really, I would rather hold her hand, I’d rather she anchor me than sugar.
And that was my first mistake.
Relying on a person?
Always was.
Because once you love them — you risk losing them.
At least marshmallows — were always there. As stupid as it sounded, they were always available, and Fallon? She was currently walking away.
From me.
From anything to do with me.
And I had to wonder if she cared that part of my heart cracked in half in a desperate attempt to join her.
* * *
* * *
“Someone’s in a shitty mood.” Demetri whistled under his breath while strumming a few chords of the song I’d just delivered, on time, might I add, for the soundtrack.
I glared, but said nothing, just abandoned my guitar and walked over to the baby grand and started playing the song.
Alec whistled. “I like it.”
I nodded, still not trusting my voice to speak.
I was too angry.
A lot defeated.
And probably just as confused as she was.
We were friends, right?
So why abandon me on the beach? I found her an hour later by the car waiting, as if she hadn’t just left me to the fans, by myself. When I asked if she was afraid I would freak out again she answered with one word.
“No.”
Followed by one-word answers for every subsequent question.
Did she have fun?
Yes.
Any ant bites?
No.
Did she still want to be friends?
Yes.
Lame. That last one was lame, but her smiles were forced, and she just seemed… sad. I wanted the happy girl on the beach, the one who had punched me in the face and apologized for slut shaming me.
I wanted that girl.
No one else.
And she didn’t want me back.
“Easy on the keys man,” Alec whispered gruffly.
Her smile had been polite, her thank you hollow, and when I squeezed her hand after dropping her off at her house, she’d pulled away and said good luck with recording.
That was it, like break a leg!
Kill it, Saint!
“Shit, I think he’s going to break the piano.” Demetri muttered. “Should we get Jay?”
She sounded like my freaking manager or agent.
I had those.
What I needed was someone I could share souls with — someone I could open up to, be insecure with, laugh with, cry with.
I pounded the piano harder and harder.
Damn it. I needed someone to be angry with!
I’d messed up by telling her, I knew I shouldn’t have, but she kept pushing and pushing and all I kept thinking was, if I tell her, then this is it.
That’s it.
I’ll be moving forward.
Because limbo sucks.
“Well, at least he’s channeling his emotions.” Came a new voice in the studio. “I was beginning to worry his next song was going to sound like a One Direction reject.”
“Blasphemy.” Alec said in a bored tone while Demetri hissed.
With a sigh, I looked up from the piano and let out a string of curses that would have made any sinner proud.
“Will.” I ignored his look of irritation and glanced back down at the piano and started the song over again.
“Has he been like this long?” Will asked.
“Right here.” I said over my own loud playing. “You want an album? You want a song? I’ll give you a damn song.”
And that’s when I started to sing.
Instead of feeling and letting the feeling dictate the sound of the keys as I played, I sang.
And it was…
“Perfection,” Alec said behind me, and then a guitar joined, and Demetri’s higher voice added the perfect harmony.
“Did you know you lost me tonight?” I crooned. “Leave you, like you left me, just walk away, you always walk away. Take my life away, take my bleeding heart, I’ll allow it.” I breathed. “I allow the pain, I allow the pain, Allow it.” The tempo picked up. “Did you know you lost me tonight? I’ll allow it, a thousand times, I’ll allow it.” Alec joined in with both of us on the melody. “Walk away, tonight, walk away, I’ll allow it.”
I stopped playing, chest heaving, as I stared down at my hands.
The music stopped.
The room was silent, and then Demetri added. “Guys, I think someone broke Zane.”
“Good.” Will, the son of a bitch, said from the sound booth. “He needed breaking.”
I flipped him off, hating that he was right, hating that he was probably the only agent in the universe that truly understood my pain, my process, my past.
“Now,” Will’s voice was commanding. “Do it again.”
Fallon
“Are you sick?” Mags leaned forward and pressed her palm to my forehead. “Hmm, you feel warm.”
I shoved her hand away. “You don’t even know what you’re doing.”
She held up her hands and then reached for her coffee, chewing on the lid like it was a straw. “You know, you’ve been on edge for the past week.”
One week.
ONE full week of no Zane.
No texts.
Nothing.
And in my gut, I knew it was partially my fault. I’d walked away, he’d shared a part of himself with me, a part that nobody knew, and I’d walked away. Because he scared me, his intensity scared me, he was a forever guy, now more than ever. I shuddered, rubbing my hands up and down my arms.
“You were happy,” Mags pointed out. “Until your little excursion with our fun little popstar on the beach.”
I jerked my head up. “How did you even know about that?”
She rolled her eyes. “You really need to subscribe to more gossip magazines or at least pay attention when you check out at the grocery store.” She held up her finger and scrolled thr
ough her phone then pointed the screen at me. “Zane and his new love interest in Cannon Beach love nest.”
“Huh.” I frowned. “Love nest? Clever.”
“Right?” Mags shook her head. “The article says you’re going to be having his love child in about six months.”
I glanced down. “So I look three months pregnant?”
“Maybe stop eating your feelings…” she joked.
I rolled my eyes and tried not to pout, but the sick feeling remained, I wanted to puke, because I’d lost a friend, a good friend, and it was my fault.
“Ugh…” I leaned over the table and pressed my forehead against the cool metal. “I’m so stupid.”
“Ahhh, so he slept with you, you freaked and ran out?”
“Hah.” I licked my lips. “No, that would be impossible.”
“The freaking out part or the running part?”
“The sex part.”
“It’s Zane Andrews.” Mags said slowly. “He sleeps with anything that walks and proclaims itself to have a vagina.”
“Gross.” I prickled with irritation. “And that’s not true.”
“Oh, no.” Her smile was sad as she reached across the table and patted my hand. “He’s got you in his web of sex, doesn’t he? Let me guess, you get to be his new submissive, all you have to do is sign a really long and inappropriate contract?”
I knew she was joking.
But it still stung.
I was literally offended on his behalf.
How did he deal with it every day? The constant jabs at his character.
“He’s not like that.” I whispered. “Not at all.”
“Oh, honey.” Mags sighed. “Look, I know you see the best in everyone—”
“Mags, seriously, he’s not.” I didn’t know how else to say it.
She moved from her seat across from me and wrapped an arm around my body in a hug. “The truth doesn’t lie, my poor innocent sex starved friend. He’s a whore.”
“No, he’s not!” I jerked away from her. “Trust me when I say, he hasn’t slept with anyone… for… a while.”
“A day?” She joked. “An hour? Five minutes?”
“Ever!” I blurted. “Okay? So just, can we drop it? He’s a good guy, and it pisses me off to hear people talk about him like he isn’t.”
“What?” She blinked wide-eyed at me with a frozen expression on her face. “What do you mean… ever?”
“Forget it.” I shook my head. “And if you say anything I’ll hate you forever.”
“Whoa.” She slumped down into her seat. “Either he’s lying to you, or…”
I leaned against her, the coffee shop was mostly abandoned. It used to be my favorite place to go in Seaside when it was rainy out; something about it felt warm and comforting, but right now? It just felt empty without him.
“I like him,” I whispered. “A lot.”
“A lot a lot or just a lot?”
“A lot a lot.” I groaned. “And I walked away from him.”
Mags smacked me on the back of the head. “Why the hell would you do that?”
“Because.” I removed my glasses and shakily put them back on, only to have her frown and pull them off my face then drop them onto the ground and literally crunch them to pieces beneath her boot.
“Oops.”
“MAGS!” I yelled. “THAT WAS MY LAST PAIR!”
“Nope.” She stood and grabbed my arm, pulling me to my feet. “You know my dad’s your eye doctor, and I happen to know he has a pretty empty schedule this morning. We’re going to get you contacts.”
“But—”
“Not for all the time, because I know it’s still hard for you to touch your own eye, but we’re going to do a mini makeover. Who knows? Maybe it will make you brave.”
“I need more than new contacts to make me brave.”
“I know.” Mags grinned smugly. “What are best friends for?”
“You had that same look in your eyes before you pushed me off the boardwalk.”
“Exactly.” She nodded. “So trust me.”
“I trusted you then, and ended up in a tabloid.”
“I don’t see the problem here.” She giggled and shoved me toward the blurry door. “After the contacts, we’re texting him to meet you on the beach. At the bonfire.”
“What bonfire?”
“Keep up!” She cackled, and I had no choice but to either follow or get hit by oncoming traffic.
* * *
* * *
I knew I shouldn’t have listened to her.
But listen I did.
All it took was five hours for Mags to lose her mind and mine right along with it because I was actually starting to feel better.
And all she did was crunch my glasses, give me a trendier pair and contacts to go with.
The hardest part was getting the contacts in, but once my eyes stopped watering, I liked what I saw.
And the fact that I could actually see was a huge plus as well.
“You have huge eyes.” Mags wrapped an arm around me as we walked out of one of the shops. “I never knew until now, but it’s a totally good thing, they’re really pretty.”
“Thanks.” I smiled up at her and then rolled my eyes. “You’re waiting for me to say you were right, aren’t you?”
“Eh, I don’t need you to say it, I know in here.” She pounded her chest and then gave me a playful shove. “Now go put on that cute little black sundress and ankle boots.”
“It’s forty degrees,” I pointed out. “And raining.”
“It’s always forty degrees and raining. That’s our winter.” She rolled her eyes. “That’s why we got the sweater to go with.” I hesitated, the bag still in hand. We were at her beach house right next to the Prom, which just so happened to be next to the bonfire we were apparently having later that night.
“Do it.” She clapped her hands.
I slipped the dress over my head, it wasn’t like it was out of my comfort zone to wear a dress, I mean I wore dresses, just not often, so it wasn’t makeover the frumpy girl day. Dresses just seemed inconvenient.
But boots, I loved boots.
Those were an easy buy for me.
And makeup? Eh, I added some lip-gloss and mascara and just went with it.
Finally, finishing my outfit with a black and white striped beanie to cover my unruly wavy brown hair.
“Chic.” She winked. “Okay, now run along, catch your man.”
“You’re not coming?”
“The bonfire is already set up, I told my brother I’d do the dishes for a month if he made the fire extra big and got the giant bag of marshmallows.”
“A MONTH? You hate doing dishes.”
“I crossed my fingers behind my back.” She winked again. “Now go!”
I took a deep breath and walked out the front door, ready to apologize, ready to accept anything, even if it was just friendship.
With high hopes that the dress would at least be a distraction from the norm so he’d be more likely to say yes.
Nerves attacked me when I thought about how I’d lied to my parents about staying the night with Mags.
Well, technically it was true. I was going to stay with her after I hung out with Zane — but if he offered — if he wanted to hang out all night and watch the waves, I wasn’t going to say no. Not to him. Not anymore.
And I think a part of my mom realized that, when I walked out the door that afternoon and told her my plans, she was quiet for a few minutes before finally nodding and telling me to be safe.
Well.
Here went nothing!
Zane
I took a break from her, not because I was still angry or even upset, but because suddenly the music wouldn’t stop coming. I turned to music, as I always did, only this time, it wasn’t my savior.
It was my sanity.
The more I sang, the more grounded I felt.
The more grounded I felt, the more I thought about things from her perspective.
<
br /> And I felt like a dick.
Because what did I expect? To sweep her off her feet and tell her that despite what millions of people around the world said about me — it wasn’t true.
I wanted her.
Yet, look at any Google search of my name.
And I was at the Grammys with supermodels.
Supermodels who thought a full meal was an ounce of almonds and a bite of cheese.
I was asking a lot for someone who was normal. And after Alec sat me down and basically told me I was inhuman after all the songs I managed to record, I realized, maybe, I wasn’t as normal as I’d like to think I was.
And then when Will said the last song I dropped today was the best track he’d heard from me ever — well, it sunk in.
Regardless of the role I played, Saint or Zane, I was still a musician, a famous musician.
And she was a college student with a fear of ants and glasses that managed to slip off her nose no matter how many times she tried to push them back up.
I checked my watch and sat back against the sand.
There was a bonfire.
A giant ass bag of marshmallows.
But no girl.
And since the girl was the reason I was out there, by myself, when I could get mauled any minute — I was a bit disappointed.
At least I had enough marshmallows to keep some of the anxiety at bay, not all of it, but some.
And I was too emotionally exhausted to be anxious about people touching me, or staring, or wanting a picture.
“Hey.” A nervous voice that sounded a bit too insecure to be Fallon cut through the stress of my day. I quickly turned and nearly pulled a muscle doing a double then triple take.
“That’s a dress,” I said dumbly.
She pulled at the short black dress and shrugged. “These are also legs.”
“They are.” Throat dry, I had to wonder, what was it about this girl that set me on fire, that made me want to take her and refuse to let the world have her. Beautiful women had always surrounded me, thrown themselves at me, and now… now I was struggling to speak.
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