Uh…no, I definitely did not want to join in. Normally after a show, residual energy flowed through me—this strange high filling me with this antsy bliss—and I was usually dying to get my dick wet. And hell, I was. But the last thing I needed was to get anywhere near Lyrik’s lanky ass. Getting naked with another dude involved was not ever gonna be my thing.
And the only woman I wanted was Shea.
Goddamn, I’d let that girl take up residence right under my skin.
“You sure you don’t want to head over?” This time Lyrik’s question was concerned because the asshole knew it, too.
“Nope. I’m good.”
Fucking lie, but if it was one I had to tell to make it through this, then I would.
“Give me a buzz if you change your mind.”
I slung my bag over my shoulder. “Yep.”
His words tripped me up as I pitched open the door. “Gonna have to figure this shit out. You can’t go on pretending like everything is just fine and finally coming together for you when it’s not. Know you, man.”
Pretending.
Pretending.
Pretending.
I didn’t honor him with an answer, just let the door slam shut behind me.
I wove through the mass congregating backstage, stopped a couple of times to sign some autographs, faked my way through some smiles for the overanxious girls who wanted pics with me.
“We love you, Sebastian!”
“Sebastian Stone, I love you!”
“Oh my god, I am so in love with you.”
All these girls who didn’t know me, feeding me all that bullshit they believed, like whatever they felt could possibly be real.
I love you. Shea’s voice washed through me on a haunted memory, soft and sweet and said as if it were a plea. As if she knew it was going to be rejected. Shunned when it was real, real, real.
Remorse nearly overwhelmed me.
Why did she have to be real? Be different? Love me when I didn’t have the right to love her back?
I escaped out into the night, hitting the back lot where I hopped in my truck, both my car and bike still back in Savannah waiting to be shipped here in California since we’d packed up and left so fast.
City lights blinked past, my mind straying where it shouldn’t as I wound back up the hill toward my house, regret chasing me the whole way home.
I found Austin in one of the big recliner chairs in the theater room, and I plopped down beside him, pretended like everything was fine—better than fine—and watched a movie with my baby brother that was already half spent, praying to God that all of this was worth it.
When the movie finished up, rolling through the credits and switching back to the main menu page, Austin stretched. “Good show tonight?”
“Yeah, it was good.”
At least that much was honest.
My brow lifted as I looked across at him seriously. “Fitzgerald came by. We get to keep the label.”
I knew it’d been eating at Austin since he found out the reason we got sent to Savannah in the first place.
Relief blew across his face, a smile to match. And if that didn’t push at my ribs, nudging at my hope. “That’s good, right?” he asked.
“It’s really good, Austin. Things are good,” I promised.
“Awesome.” He stood from the recliner and pushed a fist out in front of him. “Going to call it a night.”
I bumped him back. “All right. See you in the morning, little brother.”
His smile turned shy, like a little boy who just needed the affirmation. “Night, Baz.”
He left and I sat in the dark against the stagnant glow of the screen for who knows how long. Finally I gave in and dug my phone from my pocket, wondering why I chose to torture myself. But God, knowing it was there was too much of a temptation to ignore. I clicked into my pictures, scrolled through to the one I wanted. Shea’s back was pressed up tight to my chest, those super soft waves all bunched up in my face as she rested her head on my shoulder, her smile sweet and open and telling, my arm holding her close, my phone in my other hand while I snapped the picture of us. Afterward, we’d started making a bunch of goofy faces into the camera, Shea bursting into a fit of laughter. God, I loved that sound.
This was one of those impulsive, normal things I’d done with Shea, taking pictures of us like this girl somehow could belong to me. But this was the only kind of forever I was going to have with her.
Gently, I ran my thumb across the screen, touching that gorgeous face, wishing that forever was real.
Dark. Light. Heavy. Soft.
Trouble.
Trouble.
Trouble.
A smile pulled at just one side of my mouth—sad and adoring—and with every part of me I hoped she was hating me so she wasn’t suffering like I was, so she wasn’t sitting there missing me the same way I was missing her.