Page 72 of Knot Their Starlet

He’s frozen, his dark eyes wide and his jaw slack. I wonder what’s going through his head.

Are his emotions as ridiculous and overwhelming as an alpha? Or is my designation just a curse for me?

“I should get into the studio,” I say with a shake of my head. There are so many thoughts swirling through my mind. So many feelings I need to let out.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Eli says, with a stiff nod. “Sorry. I can never fucking say the right thing.”

“It’s okay,” I say, my smile tight. “Neither can I.”

The moment the studio door closes behind me, I finally feel like I can fucking breathe.

I flick on the dim lamps rather than the harsh overheads and grab the acoustic guitar hanging against the wall before slumping into the couch.

A jumbled mishmash of thoughts and feelings swirl around in my brain.

There’s a sixth sense I’ve seemed to have developed for experiences in life that really fuel my creativity. I’ve gotten into moods like these, where I just have to create or else I feel like I’m going to explode. It’s been like that ever since I was a kid.

But there’s something about Andi, about Eli, about this whole mess, that’s like gasoline. The flames in my mind are almost overwhelming.

Flashes of Andi’s eyes, wide and terrified—almost to the point where I could tell she wasn’t seeing what was in front of her—flood my mind. She was haunted by a living nightmare.

I snag the blank notepad and a random pen and begin scrawling down jumbled streams of my consciousness.

They say the last thing you should do when you see someone drowning

Is help them

But how can I not

When I look at you

Even though I’m drowning too

I continue scrawling more jumbled thoughts onto the paper until I feel like I’m going to pull my hair out.

The door opens and Leo peeks his head in.

“Sorry to interrupt, man, just got some coffee for you.”

“Thanks,” I say, my head bobbing in a jerky nod as I reach for the guitar. “Just leave it on the table here.”

My fingers start plucking against the strings in some basic chords while I hum some of the melodies swimming around in my head from earlier.

By the time I finally pull myself away from the guitar, the cup of coffee is cold. But that doesn’t stop me from pounding it back.

Or from working until my eyelids are heavy and the tips of my fingers are a little sore from playing the guitar for so long.

When I emerge from the studio, I catch a reflection of myself in one of the mirrors in the break room across the hall. My hair is wild, and there are dark circles under my eyes. I look like I stayed up all fucking night.

I mean, I did, if the light filtering in through the windows is any indication.

Eli and Leo are sprawled out on the couches. There are a few empty paper cups left on the coffee table, the remnants of what must’ve been their attempts to stay awake.

Eli stirs, lifting his suit jacket from his face and blinking up at me with bleary eyes.

“Shit, sorry, I should’ve tried to be more quiet,” I whisper, wincing as I glance at Leo stirring from his couch.

“It’s cool,” Eli says, his eyes trailing up and down my body before his lips quirk up in a boyish grin. “Good session?”