“Look, angel, Iwantto do the song with you.” His voice turned coaxing. “It’ll be great. You’ll be great. Let me send Jimmy. We’ll record the vocals and get you home before you know it.”
My defenses crumbled like a castle of dry sand, and Colt rushed in like the tide.
Of course he got his way. He always did.
Even after I ended the call, I could feel the pull of him, feel myself dissolving in a swirl of expectations and anxiety.Do this. Or that. Be thin. Be normal.Be more like your sisters.I was desperate to shore myself up somehow, to fill the void with food. To eat something. Or puke.
Puking would be good. The yogurt I’d eaten curdled in my stomach.
I swallowed self-loathing. I needed to move. Breathe. Escape.
I burst out the back door, still in my running clothes, the impulse natural as flight.
“Dan!”
Relief washed over me. He was standing in the sunlight. I drank in the sight of him, his body hard and knotted as a rail, his thick, soft hair and full, soft beard. We hadn’t been alone—truly alone, the two of us—since he kissed me more than a week ago.
My heart steadied, ridiculously calmed.
His eyes met mine. “What’s wrong?”
Like he saw me in all of my confusion and distress. Like I didn’t have to hide. That, too, should have been a relief.
But... Hiding was a habit. It’s what I was good at.
“Nothing.” I managed a smile. “I talked to Colt. He, uh, he loves the song.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
“You don’t sound too happy.”
“I am.” I smiled harder to prove it. “He... He wants me to record it. This week.”
Dan hitched his thumbs in his belt loops. “So you’re leaving,” he said, no judgment in his tone.
I flinched anyway. “Only for a few days. He’s sending a car.”
He waited, his expression neutral behind his beard.
“It’s a duet,” I said. “If I don’t go, he’ll sing it with somebody else.”
“I don’t know much about the music business,” he said slowly. “But it’s your song.”
“No one would ever hear my songs without Colt. Iowehim this. It’s not like Iwantto go. I don’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” he said.
The silence pulsed between us.
“You don’t understand,” I whispered.
“So tell me.”
I opened my mouth. Shut it, the weight of my secret balling like shame in my stomach. I couldn’t tell him what I wanted. What I feared. I’d never told anyone.
Dan nodded, once. “You change your mind, you let me know.”
