He sighed. “I’m not gonna talk like that.”
I could feel a headache working its way up from the tension in my neck to my temples and it had nothing to do with my hangover. He was my every fantasy come to life, offering to give up his big break because he was so sure he wanted to be with me. A man had never been that sure he wanted me.
But a fantasy is exactly what it was.
A fairy tale.
And fairy tales aren’t real.
He was too talented and too wonderful for me to let him throw this away on something he would regret. Even if by some miracle we did stay together, I couldn’t compete with what he’d be giving up. I didn’t want him to wake up one day years from now, look over at me, and wonder what he’d seen in this moment that made it seem like I was worth that much.
I glanced at my watch. “You’re gonna be late.”
He kissed me. Not a goodbye kiss or a heartbroken kiss. A promise of more kisses to come.
Fuck. He’s going to break me.
25
ZANE
Then
* * *
“You sure about this, man?”
Johnny’s skepticism couldn’t touch me that day. I was too eager, too certain this was the right move.
“Never been more sure about anything in my life. She’s the one.” The other guys in the band exchanged a look I pretended not to see.
Johnny said, “Yeah, but like…quitting the band doesn’t seem a little dramatic to you?”
One of the others said, “You’ve known her for like five minutes. And she’s…” He trailed off.
“What? Older than me? Tell me you’re not gonna start with this shit too.” Our age wouldn’t matter in a few years when everyone stopped feeling the need to tell me how young I was.
Johnny jumped back in. “No, man. She’s an escort. She fucks dudes for money. What’s your plan there?”
Back to this again. “Why does it matter? We’ll figure it out.”
He turned all the way around in his seat to face me, smirking. “So you wouldn’t have a problem with me hiring her?”
A different kind of tension flared in me. “She wouldn’t do that.” We set a boundary and I trusted Maia to respect it, but from the look on Johnny’s face I was glad Maia and I had the conversation.
Johnny pushed, “Why would it matter? Me fucking her is worse than some random rich dude fucking her?”
I looked out the window, wondering what was holding up the line of cars waiting to get to the front of the casino. “That’s different. She wouldn’t fuck one of my bandmates because that’s weird, bro. We talked about it. The rest of it, we can figure out.”
He was going to keep talking, so I opened the car door. I was too antsy to wait.
I hopped out, but leaned back down to the car. “I need to run up to my room. I’ll meet you guys at the party.”
They all had the same judgmental look on their faces. They didn’t get it, but they didn’t need to.
I knew Maia was at the party waiting, but I still looked around the room eagerly when I opened our hotel room door. She wasn’t there and the bed had been precisely remade by housekeeping.
I rummaged through my bag to grab what I needed and headed for the party. It was in another tower of the casino, so I had to weave through crowds of drunk people to get there, but finally reached the right elevator.
