He moved in and grasped her throat before she could block the move. The wide plane of his thumb tipped up her chin until she had no choice but to meet his furious gray eyes for one frantic second before she fixated on the movement of his lips. “You think I don’t see you, Jazz?” His voice was quiet. Too quiet. She didn’t know how she could hear him over the crowd. Maybe because she couldn’t drag her gaze from his mouth.
God, that mouth. She wanted it so bad she couldn’t think. Couldn’t tell herself to calm down or save it for another time when there weren’t so many people watching. They weren’t just two anonymous kids anymore. They were in a semi-famous band. Together. How they behaved in public affected the others.
But none of that seemed to matter. All she could do was prod him harder.
“You were with her, weren’t you? While I was waiting, you were probably fuc—”
“Shut up.” He shook her lightly. So lightly she wondered why it felt like her bones were rattling under her skin. Those blunt, scarily strong guitarist’s fingers slipped around to the back of her neck, digging into flesh. “Just shut the hell up. For once, stop talking to me. I don’t want to hear your voice in my head anymore.”
Hurt slammed through her, slicking ice over the burning fury. “So go. No one’s forcing you to be near me if it’s so repulsive to you. I’m sure she’s waiting anyway, right? She has something you need.” His pupils flared and the truth cut her so deep that she went limp in his hold. She hadn’t wanted to believe it. But the reality burned in his eyes.
Those eyes had never lied to her. And they weren’t lying now.
Don’t cry. Not here.
She yanked at his hold, desperate to get away. Things had quieted considerably in their corner of the bar, probably due to all the spectators watching them, but she didn’t give a shit. Let them listen. Let them do what she always did and record it all for Twitter. She was tired of being the cute, spunky, easily dismissed Oblivion chick.
If that meant she had to have a meltdown in the center of a New Year’s Eve party, she was entitled.
“Let me go,” she whispered when Gray’s grip only tightened, taking her right up to the point of pain but never beyond. “You want me out of your head. I’m gone.”
“You don’t get it. You never did.” He brought their faces close, so close that his breath fluttered over her lips. He’d been drinking too, something dark and rich. “I could walk out of here and never see you again and it wouldn’t make one fucking bit of difference. I could screw every woman I see blind and I’d never shake that sound from my mind. You. Always you.”
Each word hit her heart like a blade. Any more of them and she’d be left quivering on the floor, impaled by his obvious disgust.
All this time, she’d believed they were a team. Sure, they’d had their rough patches. Joining Oblivion for one. That insane threesome for another. He’d pulled further and further away until she’d felt like she was losing her best friend, but she hadn’t panicked. Because she’d known way down deep that he would always come back to her. He was her constant. The center of her life. Without Gray, nothing made sense.
But now with Gray, nothing made sense anymore either.
“Let me go,” she breathed again, her throat as raw as her eyes. “Just let me go.”
He stared at her for so long that she started to shake. This was really it. He was going to release her and they would be over, without really ever having been anything. This had all been a long dream. She’d just imagined he’d ever loved her—
“Never.” He crushed his mouth down on hers.
CHAPTER FIVE
Then
“Okay, now do it again.”
Jazz sighed. She’d been playing guitar for years, but he took it to another level. He was crazy good. Almost Kirk Hammett-in-Metallica good. “My fingers are tired.”
“Aww, poor baby.” Gray grinned. “I thought you wanted to be in a band.”
She snorted. “Like that’s ever actually going to happen.”
They’d been practicing for hours in his parents’ basement rec room, which was fancier than the house she’d lived in with her sister and her mama in Glenview. Expensive artwork decorated the navy walls and leather furniture filled the space. The huge TV and high-end stereo were fascinating enough, but the row of antique pinball machines always drew the bulk of her attention. Ms. Pac-Man was starting to look really appealing.
She wasn’t a gamer and normally she loved playing her music more than anything, but Gray had been teaching her some complicated finger combinations on his spare Stratocaster since they’d gotten home from school. Between his endless instruction and the reverberation from the amp, she was starting to get a headache.