Snared(27)

My chest tightened. No one will ever love you because you are unlovable. I exhaled, forcing my hands to pick up my sandwich without shaking.

“You know we’re all a little fucked up,” Johnny continued, used to my silence. “I know we don’t sit down and have heart-to-hearts and shit, but you know a lot about my past. It’s only because of Bex my chest doesn’t tighten up, and I don’t scream in my sleep anymore. You know this, right?”

I nodded. “Thanks, Johnny. I’ve been doing better. Some days are just hard.”

“I don’t need you to tell me everything. I just want you to know you aren’t alone.”

“Beau? Johnny?” I snapped my head up and met the eyes I’d both wished for and dreaded seeing again. Of all the places for her to be today during her lunchtime, it just had to be here.

Johnny beat me to it. “April? Wow. How crazy to run into you here?”

She might’ve said something to him, but I honestly had no idea. “What are you doing here?” Her hypnotizing gaze settled directly on me.

“We went to Beats, the music store that’s closing.” Johnny again took up the slack for me. I hadn’t said a word. I wasn’t even sure I was breathing. My sandwich was stuck in my esophagus and left me unable to speak a word.

“Oh yeah! I heard about that. You came all the way here for that?”

“He’s a friend of ours.” Johnny finally glanced over at me, giving me the “what the hell” look before sliding out of the booth. “Excuse me, April.” He eyed me. “Beau, I’m going to the restroom. You ready to leave when I get back?”

I nodded, my eyes still connected to April’s. Johnny walked away, and April slid into his spot. “It’s great to see you,” April murmured, twisting a straw wrapper with her fingers. “I wasn’t sure if I’d see you again before your concert here.”

I realized I still hadn’t said a word to her and needed to respond. “It’s good to see you, too.”

April was in a pair of black dress pants and a purple silk top. Small pearls dotted her earlobes, and a matching necklace draped around her neck. Her makeup was classy and understated. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I found myself wondering what would happen if I released those buttons and . . .

Damn, I was growing hard. “You on your lunch break?” I had to say something to stop my train of thought. A vision of her creamy skin, bare in front of me, came to my mind.

April nodded. “Yes. You guys were off today?”

“Bex has been busting our asses lately, so we have the day off. We’re heading out on tour soon, so it’s time to wrap up our stuff. Bex is spending time with the kids.”

Her eyes widened, and I realized it was because I’d spoken several sentences at once to her. “I have a question for you.”

Questions unnerved me, but she liked to ask them. Unease settled in my stomach, and I wanted to look away from her, but I didn’t. I nodded once, not trusting myself to say anything.

“I can ask Bex if you want me to, but I was wondering if when you guys came up here for the concert if you’d have time to come to one of the group homes and hang out with the kids? We would run a story here for our paper to help with awareness of the children who are up for adoption. So yeah, we would totally use you.” April laughed, flipping her hair behind her shoulder. I smelled her floral perfume again.

The last thing in the world I wanted to do was go into a group home ever again. I’d had enough of seeing those. However, I wasn’t the boss of this band, and I knew Bex would absolutely want to do it. “I’d say ask Natalie to see what our schedule is like. Bex will want to do it if we have time between our stop here and wherever we go after that.”

“Would you want to do it?”

Ah, so she wanted me to talk about myself. I shrugged. “I do whatever the band does.”

She shook her head, a smile playing on her intoxicating lips. “Does it bother you to be around kids . . . like you?”

Kids like me? “You mean be around kids whose parents abandoned them and left them in a system that couldn’t care less what happens to them?”

An appearance of pain crossed April’s face. I didn’t mean to hurt her, but it was the damn truth. The system was broken. “I care,” she whispered. “I care so much about all these kids that I go home and cry almost every night. I want to take all of them. Even the ones they say are ‘unadoptable.’”

“That was me,” I said so low I didn’t know if she heard me. No one wants you. No one will ever want you. I don’t even want you. I never did. I knew the second you were born you were just like him.