I reached out and set my palm on his rugged cheek. “What if Mark is looking down? How could he not be proud of you and what you’ve become? How could he not be looking down at the guys…his best friends…his family…and not be at peace, knowing every single one of them has found happiness? The good kind of joy?”
He trembled against my palm, that energy potent with the connection. “They had a pact, Alexis, a pact that they were going to make it no matter what. Nothing was going to stand in their way. Sunder is what Mark wanted more than anything in his life.”
I could feel the frown that pulled at my brow. “And how do you know that wouldn’t have changed for Mark? How do you know he wouldn’t have found love like the rest of the guys?”
He flinched with that.
Pain. It was so damned intense. I wanted to caress it away.
“Priorities change, Zee. Don’t you see that? We grow and we learn and we find out some things are so much more important than the things we originally thought were the most significant. Sometimes we find they aren’t significant at all.”
Helplessly, he looked down at me. “I gave up my whole fucking life, Alexis. Everything. Everything I ever wanted. Every goal I ever made…every love I ever had…to keep that promise.”
“Zee,” I whispered, edging closer, letting the warmth zap and fire between us.
His breaths became shallower with every inch I erased. I tipped my face toward him. The man towered over me.
Caging.
Consuming.
Obliterating everything but him.
“Do you really think this is what Mark would want? You running around trying to keep things together? Terrified a piece is going to slip through the cracks and you aren’t going to catch it in time? What about what the rest of the guys want? What about what you want?”
His throat bobbed. “I owed him this, Alexis. Owed him everything.”
“How could he ever ask that of you? Expect that from you?”
Zee’s hands landed on either side of my neck. I could feel the wild thrum of my pulse beating against his palms. “Because I took everything from him.”
Bitterness shook his head, and he gritted the words as he studied his feet. “And I sound like some kind of pussy asshole…complaining when I’ve got the rock star life. When I’ve got more money than I could ever spend. Have more experiences than I ever thought I’d have. When I inherited this amazing family.”
He cut his gaze to me. “And all I fucking want is for them to be happy. For them to live the good life, whatever that looks like for each of them. I’m just not sure I know how to keep it all together any longer. Can feel it slipping away and, when it does, I’m going to be left without anything.”
The words broke, as if the thought of it broke his heart.
“Keeping them together doesn’t have to mean keeping them together as a band. What about family? And what about me? You have me,” I pleaded.
“Goddamn it, Alexis.” He grasped me tighter, a war in his gaze.
Am I worth the fight?
His mouth collided with mine. Dominating and devouring. His tongue fevered and his touch demanding as he pulled me closer, hands in my hair and gripping down my back.
I let him possess me right out there in the open. Beneath the sun and the trees. And I thought maybe, just maybe, I had my answer.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Zee
“Where are we going?”
Alexis struggled to keep up as I eagerly hauled her along behind me. Seemed it’d been that way a whole lot of late. Me pulling her along. Wanting her with me no matter where I went.
I was unable to fight back the full smile that broke free. “Figured you could use a little fresh air.”
She giggled, a tinkling sound that bounced off the closed-in walls of the stairwell. “Fresh air? In the middle of Hollywood? Don’t tell me you’re confused and think you’re back in Savannah.”
Grinning, I kept climbing the stairs to the building rooftop. A tease found its way into my voice. “Isn’t it you who’s always going on about making the best of the things we’ve got?”
“I guess I am, aren’t I?”
“Yeah.” I glanced at her from over my shoulder. “You’ve just got this way of seeing all the good through the bad. Figured you might wanna take a peek at this, as well.”
A flush rushed to her cheeks, anticipation swelling with that shyness that had her chewing at her lip.
There were few things I liked more than that. The humbleness radiating from this tender girl. The grace and the good that emanated from her like a lullaby.
Harmony.
Her voice softened. “I’m not sure I don’t see the bad in things, Zee. Sometimes I just choose to look at them differently.”
“Case in point.”
Confusion slowed her and a line dented her brow. So damned cute. “What?”
Light laughter filtered free. “You just keep proving my point, again and again. You’re better than me. Better than this…what I’ve been giving you.”
She blinked up at me. “When are you going to realize you’ve given me more than anyone ever has?”
“Lex,” I sighed, smiling at this girl who kept tripping me up. Distracting me. Leading me astray.
Wanted to follow her everywhere.
When we made it to the top, I wedged open the heavy door. A gust of warm wind blasted across our faces as we stepped out onto the rooftop.
Alexis gasped and immediately wandered out toward the railing at the edge. “Oh my God. It’s incredible up here. I had no idea this was even here.”
“Best part of the whole place, in my opinion.”
Her smile was so bright when she looked back at me, those locks of white whipping around her face as another gush of wind came barreling through.
“I would have to agree,” she whispered as she turned back to the view.
A summer storm was on the horizon, the city alive on the streets below, and up here, you couldn’t help but feel removed from it all.
Like you were looking at it through a different sort of lens. A lens that obscured and bent and distorted. Made things look better than they were.
Night wrapped us tight from above, sinking so low it felt as if we could reach out and dip our fingers into its murky depths.
Hidden in the darkness was a blanket I’d come up earlier and spread out on the ground. I had a bottle of wine chilling in a bucket, fruit and crackers on a tray, pillows spread about.
All that shit that was supposed to be romantic.
Because I wanted to share that with this girl. Something normal. Give her something good. And having a glass of wine with her sure wasn’t any worse than the traditional shot I always took with my crew after a show. Maybe she and I were making our own little pact.
I couldn’t help but find an extreme contentment in that.
Alexis looked over at me. A gasp parted her lips when she noticed where I was kneeling on the blanket. Something so damned simple. And there she was, looking at me like I might have given her the world. “Zee…you did all this for me?”
I pulled the wine from the ice and focused on removing the cork. “This is nothing, Alexis.”
She edged my direction, wearing a thin, loose-fitted dress, white like her hair that whipped all around her.
Chaos and light.
Angel.
Temptation.