My gaze dropped to my fuzzy white socks. Maybe it would hide what I knew was ripping through my expression.
The redness and heat and vestiges of the man who’d steadily staked claim after claim.
Stealing my thoughts and my dreams and my breath.
I should have known she’d catch it.
“Oh…” It slid from her like an aha, curiosity blazing free. I wasn’t even looking at her, but I totally knew she had that smile on her face. The smug one that said she’d caught me red-handed.
“Alexis.” She said my name like a prod.
Warily, I peeked over at her.
She was grinning and circling her finger in my direction like proof. “Tell me what that’s all about.”
I cleared my throat, but the words still cracked. “I…I am doing something for myself.”
Her brows rose, a nudge for me to continue.
“I’m…learning how to play piano.”
“You are?” Her smile widened. “Why didn’t you tell me? That’s amazing.”
“It’s new.”
“Where are you taking lessons?”
This was the part I wasn’t sure I wanted her to know.
Chair legs skidded against the tile. Chelsey stood, taking the three steps it took for her to cross the kitchen. She jutted her hip into the counter two feet away from me. “Why do I get the feeling there’s more to this story than you’re letting on?”
I chewed at the inside of my cheek, wondering how much to give her. Because she was going to want answers, and I had no idea what any of this even meant.
She touched my shoulder. “Hey…I’m your sister. You can tell me anything. You know that, right?”
I turned to look at her. “I do know that.” My tone was cautious. “The guy who saved me…”
Her eyes flared with surprise. “The drummer?”
I nodded.
“You’re kidding me.” It was a dumbfounded breath.
I wrung my hands. “He came to check on me a couple of days after everything. And…we kind of became friends. He offered to teach me how to play.”
Skepticism seeped into her chuckle. “Your expression isn’t exactly saying friends.”
I clutched the counter with both hands, as if it might support me. “Because I’m not sure that’s what I want us to be.”
Concern climbed back to her face. “That’s a gorgeous man, Alexis. Believe me, I get the attraction. That morning outside the station was kind of…intense between the two of you. You obviously went through something together. But chasing a guy like that? It doesn’t seem your style. And the rock star drummer actually plays piano? I just…” Her words trailed off with her own questions.
I understood the paradox. The way that boy looked, so bad and bold on the outside, covered in ink and that mystery each day I wanted more and more to discover. But what she didn’t recognize was the vulnerability that glowed from the inside.
My head shook. “He’s different.”
Incomparable to anyone I’d ever met.
“You need to be careful, Alexis,” she murmured the quiet warning. “You always run headfirst into everything without thinking through the consequences.”
Softly, I scoffed. “You’re always telling me I need to get out and do something for myself, then the second I do, you start telling me to be careful. I’m twenty-five. I’m not a child anymore, Chelsey. You have to stop thinking you need to question and criticize everything I do.”
She touched my shoulder, the words winding with the lightest tease. “But you’ll always be my baby sister.”
My smile was slow. “I know. But you have to know sometimes taking the chance is worth any consequence.”
She eased forward and wrapped me in her arms. “I love you.”
I squeezed her tight. “I love you, too.”
She rocked me and laughed, something wistful in her tone. “How about we make a deal? You stop chasing the dangerous things and I’ll stop worrying about you.”
Soggy laughter rolled from me as I squeezed my eyes shut and buried my face in her neck. “I’m not sure I can make that deal.”
Because sometimes the best advice was the hardest to take.
Chapter Fifteen
Zee
Crossroads.
They were always there. On the horizon. With each second that sped by, they got closer and closer until they were right in front of us.
Obstacles littering the way. Distracting and diverting us from the direction we knew we needed to travel. Slowing us down when there wasn’t anything we should be doing other than barreling forward, full speed ahead.
I knew where I was supposed to be going. The direction I had to go. Yet there I was—distracted.
Guilt scraped at my insides, this feeling that was achy and raw, goading me for being so damned selfish that I couldn’t just cut ties with the girl right from the start.
I knew better. I fucking knew better. But that knowledge sure as hell didn’t seem to stop me every single time I got in her space.
She’d be at my place soon for her next lesson.
The fact that was the only thing I could think about all day should’ve been warning enough.
A heavy sigh pilfered from my lungs, riding out into the silence like a reprimand. Because taking this kind of risk was just about as stupid and selfish as I could get.
That reality was mixed with the fact that not taking the risk for her felt like some kind of mortal sin.
The waning day burned through the windows as the sun crashed toward the horizon.
The world on fire.
I found myself standing in front of my piano. The piano that had been my grandmother’s. The piano where I’d basically spent my life growing up. Countless hours at her keys.
A shiver of unease slithered across the surface of my skin and then prickled with the need.
Alexis had nailed it. I hadn’t played in years.
Not since it had all gone down, and that comfy, cozy rug had been ripped right out from under my feet.
Dreams shattered.
Aspirations lost.
Hearts broken.
In all that time, I’d never itched or yearned or felt that stirring rise from deep within me.
The inspiration had died.
Until she had somehow brought it back to life.
Last Saturday, she’d incited something in me. And it fucking terrified me, the way it had felt to be wrapped around her body when I’d given in. When her song had come pouring out the exact same way as I’d heard it in my head.
A knot grew in my throat, and I shook, compelled by that same kind of need as I sat down at the bench. My eyes dropped closed and my fingers found their mark.
Hesitation trembled in the cage of my chest before I gave, for the moment letting it loose.
Her song.
The chords and the strains and the melody.
Harmony.
I bit back the lyrics that spun on a circuit through my mind, demanding to be released, and instead, I let my fingers sing her words.
Need.
Lust.
Belief.
So many questions and too much confusion.
It poured from my fingers as my body bowed and curved and swayed. The piano like an old lover. My first friend.
And that energy…it lashed and hammered and pounded.
Alive.
Too intense. Too much. So close.