I didn’t mean to fucking flinch. But I did.
“He was good to me…treated me well, and I liked him a lot. I wanted to love him. But it just wasn’t there. Because being in love…it should be something more.”
“What is it you want?” I suddenly murmured, right up close to her ear. “What have you been wishing for?”
I could feel the tremble skate her spine. “I don’t know, Zee. I just know I want more.”
Her voice dropped to a murmured wish. “I want to fall. I want to feel it. I want to see stars. Float with them and fall with them.”
She burrowed herself deeper. Closer. “I can feel it. Can you?”
Chapter Thirty
Zee ~ Twenty Years Old
“Can you just be cool for one night? It’s my brother’s birthday.”
Julie sat in the passenger seat of the car with her arms crossed over her chest. Over the last couple of years, it’d gotten harder and harder to talk Julie into hanging out with his brother and his crew.
It seemed to be Zee and Julie’s single point of contention.
The place where they always seemed to clash.
“I told you I don’t feel comfortable around this crowd.” Her voice was pleading.
Frustrated, Zee swiped a hand down his face. “If you’d just give them a chance, you’d see they’re all really good guys. Yeah, they’ve made some mistakes, but we all have and there’s not a single one of us that is perfect. You know that.”
Tears pricked at her eyes. “Give them a chance? Every time we show up to a party, there are drugs all over the place—and before you say something, I know your brother has been trying to stop. That the rest of the guys have. But that doesn’t mean it’s not right there, in my face.”
She pulled in a frantic breath. “Not to mention every single time, there is some slut trying to steal you from me, acting like I’m not even there. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?”
Searching for patience, he looked to the ceiling. “And you really think that’s ever going to work, Julie? That I’d step out on you like that? Mess up my entire life for a night of fucking around? I think you know me better than that. ”
He squeezed the steering wheel. “I grew up with them. They’ve always treated me like a brother. They’re family to me.”
He loved Julie. He did. So fucking much. But ever since they’d gotten together, he felt like there was a little bit that had gone missing in his life.
Friendship and brotherhood.
That sense of really belonging. That bond to his brother had always been tight, and it was time to take the steps to make sure it didn’t weaken.
Julie touched his forearm. “I just worry if you hang around them too much, they’re going to influence you into doing something you shouldn’t do.”
“I’m not twelve.”
A frown pulled between her brows. “Why do you have to be like that? This is a legitimate concern. You don’t know when you step through that door what kind of situation you’ll find yourself in. I care about you. I care about us, and you know that isn’t the type of crowd we need to be associating ourselves with. You know the kind of reputation it could earn.”
Disbelief and frustration flooded the short laugh that Zee released. The problem was, he understood her point, too, and wholeheartedly disagreed at the same damned time. “You’re concerned about my reputation? These guys aren’t just insanely successful, they’re also insanely talented.”
She rolled her eyes. “You don’t need to pretend like that’s music.”
“Are you joking right now? Do you think the songs they write are any less important than mine?”
“You’re brilliant, Zee. Brilliant. None of them can touch what you do.”
“I can’t believe you’d say that, Julie. You of all people should know there’s importance in everything. In every art, however it’s created. Only thing different is how people react to that art. Art touches people in different ways, and each of us is drawn to the different forms of it.”
She dropped her head, the words a whisper. “I know that…I’m sorry. I just…”
With wide eyes, she looked over at him. “It scares me, Zee. What they do. The way they live. I don’t have room for that in my life.”
“But Mark is part of mine.”
Nodding, she unlatched her door the second Zee pulled to the curb, like she needed to do it before she changed her mind. “Okay.”
Cars lined the streets, and he could already hear the heavy metal blasting through the walls.
“Hey,” he called softly.
Before she climbed out, she shifted to look over at him.
“I promise you…none of this even entices me. I want no part of it other than to hang with my brother and his friends.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Killing the engine, he climbed out and went straight to Julie’s side.
He took her by the hand. “Come on, baby, this will be fun. Just…let loose a little bit. Enjoy yourself.”
“Okay, I’ll try.”
He framed her face and kissed her hard. “Thank you for doing this for me.”
She brushed her fingers down his chest. “You know I’d do anything for you.”
Zee hugged her, so tight. “I love you so fucking much.”
She burrowed her fingertips in his waist. “I love you…more than anything.”
Ash lifted his shot glass. “To Mark, the birthday boy. May this year be the best yet, brother, full of songs and full of life. And let’s not forget the ladies. May there ever be a long line of the lovely, lovely ladies.”
Mark lifted his glass and shouted, “Here, here,” before he looked down and winked at Veronica, a chick he’d apparently been hooking up with for the last couple of months.
Baz had filled Zee in. He wasn’t a fan.
Veronica joined in on lifting her glass.
A slew of glasses clanked where the toast went up in the middle of the packed kitchen, arms stretching wide to make sure they were right in the middle of the festivities.
Zee was laughing as he clinked glasses with everyone in the room before he tossed back his shot. It seemed crazy a freezing cold liquid could light like fire in his belly, warming him from the inside out as it spun his head and slowed his senses.
Still, everything felt heightened.
Good.
He tightened his arm around Julie’s waist and nuzzled his face in her neck. “You smell delicious.”
Giggling, she pushed at his side. “And you smell like a bar.”
“And you smell delicious.”
“You already said that. I think someone has had too much to drink.” She laughed again, lifting her chin and granting him better access as he kissed up her throat.
God, he loved it when she was like this. When she opened herself up and stepped out from behind the barricades of safety where she liked to stay. When she allowed herself to see where he came from. Who he was outside the tuxedo sitting at a piano to entertain a prim and proper audience.
He was both of those things.
A part of both worlds, and he loved each of them equally.