vulnerable.
“Are you kidding?” I whisper. “It’s...beautiful. You’re…” I can’t finish. He just smiles a glorious crooked smile, and I think, god, I’ve never known anything like him. He feels like home, even though I just met him.How is that possible?
Pretty soon, the beer’s gone, the stars have multiplied, and my head feels heavy and warm from all of the beer. He lies back on the dock, staring up, and after a moment, I do too. We fall asleep like that, two strangers under the same sky, the waves rocking softly below us.
And that’s how it all started.
~*~
I open my eyes, and the performance video ends. The screen freezes on his face—sweat on his temple, eyes shut, hand gripping the mic. My throat tightens, and I instinctively touch my sternum. My anxiety has been kept at bay for years…but I feel it rearing its ugly head, attempting to crawl through my veins and slice them open with its claws.
“What happened to you?” I whisper.
Chapter five
JUDE GRAVES
There’s a sound like a fly trapped in my skull—an angry, relentless buzz that won’t fucking die down. Might be the AC. Might be my pulse. Hard to tell when my head feels split open from the inside. Fuck.
Cold tile presses into my cheek.
I blink slowly, and realize I’m on the bathroom floor of the hotel suite. Half-dressed and shaking, my shirt ripped open at the collar. My knuckles are shredded, skin split in jagged little smiles that sting when I flex my fingers. Blood coats the side of the sink in rusty, dark streaks.
I push myself up onto my elbows, ribs screaming. There’s a deep ache in my side, like someone took a bat to it. Maybe someone did. A flash hits me—
My fist connecting with a face. The crunch. The way his head snapped back.
Another flash—
A bottle shattering against the bar. Liquid spraying, glass shattering mid-air, and falling to the floor.
Then—
A woman screaming for security. Someone grabbing my shoulders. Me lunging. Rage ripping straight out of my soul.
The last thing I remember clearly: wanting him to hit me back. Wanting to feelsomething. Pain. Punishment.Anything.
I drag myself to my feet, using the counter like a crutch. My lip is cracked and swollen, with a trail of dried blood down my chin. My reflection looks like a goddamn zombie.The fuck.
Voices slip in from the adjoining room—sharp, irritated, and far too awake for the state I’m in. “Jesus Christ, Nolan,” Adriana snaps near the window. “He looks like a corpse.”
“That’s because he practicallyis,” Nolan mutters, sounding far too detached. “We spin it the same way we always do. ‘Exhaustion,’ ‘dehydration,’ ‘stress from touring.’ You know the drill.”
“I can’t keep selling this. The bar fight waseverywherelast night. That video—”
“I handled it.”
“Youhandledit?” Her laugh is sharp. “He broke a guy’s nose on camera! Right after he overdosed on stage last week! He’s having too many fuck-ups. Everyone can tell he’s spiraling.”
“Aw, do you care for him?”
“You know I do,” she snaps back.
Nolan’s silent for a beat. “He said something about his dead brother,” he replies, casual as ever. “The fans will eat that up. Makes him look human.”
Human. Yeah. Sure.
I limp from the bathroom toward the bed. The light slashes through the curtains, stabbing behind my eyes. My legs feel like I’m trying to maneuver through wet sand. I don’t regret smashing that guy’s face in for talking about Nicholas. I regret that I didn’t hit him harder.
