Beauty and the Bassist (The Extra Series Book 9)

by Megan Walker

  “Shane!” I hear Allison say. And then I’m out of the ballroom and stalking through the garden, looking for one of those remote corners, not to get high or hook up, but just to get away.

  Seventeen

  Allison

  I follow Shane as he all but runs from the ballroom and out into the gardens. People turn to look, but it’s not as dramatic out here, more curiosity than shock. Unlike in the ballroom, where they saw his expression as he knocked into the table. As the glass shattered and he jumped like a gun-shot had gone off, sweat shining on his face, his blue eyes wild. Terrified.

  Or maybe they didn’t notice all that like I did, and just saw a rock star having a meltdown or some drug-induced fit. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care what they think they saw. I only care about him.

  I don’t call his name anymore, though, not wanting to draw further attention, for his sake. My heels catch in the grass of the garden—Shane isn’t keeping to the curated pathways—and my heart hammers in my chest.

  I started to worry as soon as we got here tonight. He was so nervous, but not in the fidgety, anxious way I get right before the pageant starts or before a big meeting with my investors. He was nervous in this too-still, frozen kind of way, like if he doesn’t move, no one can see him.

  I wondered if this was all a bad idea. Especially when I saw my friends, and he got even more nervous about what they’d think of us together. For my part, I wasn’t worried about that. If my family doesn’t get a say in who I date—which they don’t—then my friends and work colleagues definitely don’t. Also, I knew that Jenna and Felix weren’t the type to make a big deal of it, even if they think Shane’s a dick, and Alec, well . . . Alec doesn’t tend to care about things that don’t directly affect him. I thought it would be fine. Awkward for a minute or so and then fine.

  I hadn’t, however, counted on Anna-Marie being there. And it’s pretty clear Shane didn’t either.

  “Shane,” I finally say, and he stops, though probably more from the fact that he would have needed to hurdle a large decorative hedge if he wanted to keep moving in that direction. I catch up to him and touch his elbow, and he turns. It’s dark out, but the hotel has these glowing lamps around, so I can see him well enough. My heart breaks at the pain on his face. Pain and fear and, I think, shame.

  “Hey,” I start, stepping forward. I want to wrap my arms around him and hold him like I did after his nightmare, but something about the way he’s standing, the walled-off energy exuding from him . . . I’m not sure he wants that. Maybe he didn’t even want me to follow him out here.

  “Sorry,” he mutters, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “God, that was . . . I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I say, and then I do put my arms around him and press my face into his neck, which is too warm and yet clammy, like he’s running a fever. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not,” he says, but his body relaxes a little into mine.

  Then he tenses again, pulling back. “What do you want?” he asks, his voice harsh.

  I blink, confused, but then see he’s glaring at someone over my shoulder. My chest squeezes too tight, already knowing who.

  Anna-Marie.

  She’s standing there, just at the edge of the path, her eyes wide. She’s clearly nervous in the fidgety way, her fingers toying with the fabric of the gown around her largely pregnant belly. Josh is there, too, but a few feet behind her, like he’s trying to stay out of their way, but is ready to jump in if necessary.

  I understand the impulse. The thick tension between them is back, and I step away, like there’s no room for me in it. There’s a pit in my stomach that started when he saw her again, and it only grows now.

  “I just—” she starts, then blinks too rapidly. “Are you okay?”

  “Why the fuck are you asking now?” Shane snaps. “You never cared before.”

  She looks like she’s been slapped, then her expression hardens. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  They aren’t being quiet, but thankfully there doesn’t seem to be anyone hanging around this part of the garden, and we’re mostly blocked off by tall hedges.

  Shane’s eyes narrow. “It means don’t pretend you give the tiniest shit about me, Anna. You don’t get to act like you fucking care all of a sudden.” His anger is a palpable thing, rolling off like waves, his hands clenched into tight fists.

  Anna-Marie gapes. “Are you kidding me? You’re accusing me of being the one who doesn’t care—after all the shit you—” The words are getting caught up in her flustered rage, and Josh takes another step forward.

  “Right,” Shane says. “Just keep playing the fucking martyr. It plays well for sympathy, I’m sure.”

  “Oh, I’m the one who uses people now? You are so—” She snaps her lips shut, shaking her head. “Never mind. Why do I bother?”

  “You don’t,” Shane says, and I can see his hands trembling. “That’s the point. So just get. The fuck. Away from me.”

  There’s this frozen moment of them glaring at each other, and I can’t breathe around all the tension, around all this raw emotion, and the pit in my stomach is gaping.

  I’ve fought with people, and I’ve had awkward, even pissy, run-ins with exes, but never like this.

  I almost wish Josh would look at me, that there might be this moment of mutual fear of what the hell this is between them, or, even better, some assurance that he understands it on some level that I don’t. But he’s just glaring at Shane and hovering at Anna-Marie’s side.

  Then Anna-Marie, her lips pressed into this tight, thin line, spins on her heel and walks away, and the moment is broken. She makes a motion like she’s brushing away tears, and Josh puts his arm around her shoulders, and then they’re gone, out of sight around the pathway bend.

  I look at Shane, and I think I see tears gleaming in his eyes before he turns his glare to the ground. My throat is so dry I’m not sure I can speak.

  He said he was long over her, but that . . . I don’t know exactly what that was, but it didn’t feel like being over someone. The pit in my stomach feels icy around the edges.

  “What?” Shane says, and he’s looking at me with that hardness in his eyes. “You’re clearly thinking something. You might as well say it.”

  “Of course I’m thinking something, after that,” I say, snapping back more than I mean to, and he blinks rapidly, looking away. I swallow, not wanting to say it, but feeling like I need to. “Are you still in love with her?” I try to keep my tone as non-accusatory as possible, as calm, but I feel the words waver at the end.

  His head jerks back to me. “In love with her?” The incredulous, pissed-off look he gives me is worse than when I tried to set him up with Nix. “No.”

  My arms fold across myself, and probably now I’m being the one who’s too still, fear pulsing in me with every heartbeat. “I know you don’t think so, but it’s been years since you’ve even seen her last, right? And that was so emotionally charged—”

  “Yeah, it’s charged as hell, and I’m pissed, but it’s definitely not romantic.” He runs a hand through his hair, and I can see that his hand is still shaking. “She was this big part of my life, and she just walked out, you know? Like it was nothing.” Every word drips with bitterness.

  “When she left Wyoming,” I say. “After you guys broke up.” I’m trying to keep my voice even. Trying to understand. Wanting to believe him.

  “Yeah. I mean, she was still in Wyoming for like a year after we broke up, and we didn’t see each other or anything, but that was cool. I wanted space, too, after all that shit, so fine. But then she just left the fucking state, not a single word or text or anything. And then shows up four years later, doesn’t even bother to tell me she’s coming back to town, doesn’t give a shit about me, even after everything.” He shakes his head, glaring up at the dark sky. “She didn’t care then,
and she doesn’t now, and it fucking pisses me off for her to pretend she does.”

  I look back along the pathway, even though Anna-Marie and Josh have long since disappeared from sight. But I can still remember the look on her face throughout all that—the worry, then the hurt and anger. She clearly does care, in one way or another. Sure, she’s an actress, but there’s no need to act here, in some secluded part of a hotel garden where no one can see her but her ex, his new girlfriend, and her husband.

  But I don’t think telling him that will help anything right now. And it doesn’t help me feel any less afraid that the unresolved issues between them are something more than Shane is willing to admit.

  We’re not standing all that far apart, but the distance between us feels like miles. I know part of that is my fault, but I can’t seem to step across it. Not without knowing.

  Is it just his issues with being abandoned? Clearly he has those, from what he’s told me of his past and his fear that I’d just walk away from him after we slept together.

  Is that it? Or is it more?

  “Okay,” I say, trying to curb my growing panic, that I’m in this so deep so quickly with a man who may never be over another woman. “But you don’t get like that about Kevin, or even when you’re talking about your parents, and it’s just—” I squeeze my own arms tight enough I can feel my nails digging into my skin. “It’s like she has this hold on you that—”

  “I’m not in love with her, Ally,” he says. His eyes bore into me, all of his intense emotion zeroing in like a laser beam, and it’s at once exhilarating and intimidating. “I’m in love with you.”

  I gape, not able to even breathe; even he seems taken aback by blurting that at me, and his blue eyes blink.

  “God, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—not like that.” He presses a trembling palm to his face.

  My eyes are burning, and I take a step forward. “Are you really?”

  He looks at me, and I can see the truth on his face, even before he speaks again. “Yeah. I am. More than I ever was with her, even back when we were together. I love you, Ally.” He swallows, his voice thick. “Only you.”

  The icy fingers of my fear melt away, and those words light up every part of me. And while before now I haven’t let myself go there in my own mind, I know by the way those words make me feel, by the way he makes me feel . . .

  “I love you, too, Shane,” I say, a small smile tugging at my lips as I look up at him. “I love you, and I believe you.” I wrap my arms around him, and it’s like I can feel his entire body exhale against me, even as he pulls me in tighter, pressing his face to the top of my head. I can feel the wetness of tears against my hair, and my heart, so warm with happiness at knowing he loves me, also squeezes in sadness for his pain.

  I do believe him. I may not understand it all, but those words, the look on his face when he said them . . . He may have emotion in regards to Anna-Marie, but it’s not that emotion.

  He loves me. I close my eyes, breathing that thought in for a moment.

  “Hey,” I say, pulling back just enough to see his face. “Let’s sit down, okay?”

  He wipes at his eyes and looks around for a bench or something, but there isn’t one here. I tug him down to the grass, which is cool against my legs but thankfully not damp, and he sits next to me, with me burrowed up under his arm.

  There’s silence for a bit, but it doesn’t feel scary like it would have just moments before. It does, however, still feel heavy, weighed down, and I wish I could help him shoulder some of that.

  Then he speaks again, staring down at our linked fingers. “You’re right, about Kevin and my parents, but it’s not . . .” He shakes his head, and the tears spill down his cheeks. “Like, yeah, I hate that Kevin’s leaving me. But I can’t be mad at him, not like that, because he was there in that van. He lost everything too.”

  I run my thumb over his knuckles and nod against his shoulder.

  “I mean, he has Maya, so I guess not everything,” Shane says with a tinge of bitterness, scrubbing at the tears.

  “What about your parents?” I ask quietly.

  He shrugs, and there’s a whole world of feeling in that small gesture. “My mom . . . I mean, she walks away. It’s what she does. It’s what she’s always done, from before I can remember. If I were to yell at her like that . . .” He closes his eyes. “She might never come back. Not even for tickets or whatever she can get from me. And my dad . . . god, no.”

  The stark pain in his voice brings the tears back to my eyes. “You’d be too afraid to confront him like that.” I remember the way he talked about what a jerk his dad was—“an alcoholic and a first-class asshole,” I’m pretty sure he said—and I have a feeling there’s lots more there that he hasn’t shared.

  Fear and hurt and anger that he probably tries not to let himself feel at all, let alone yell at his dad.

  I think maybe I get it now, why he can freak out like that at Anna-Marie. Because it’s safe; he has nothing else to lose there, in a relationship that ended years ago. Even if it clearly still hurts him that it did—the friendship part, at least.

  Shane lets out a shuddering breath. “It’s just that everyone leaves me,” he says, his voice breaking, and my heart along with it, “and I have—”

  “Me,” I say, looking up at him. Hoping he can feel how deeply true it is.

  He gives me a sad smile and kisses the top of my head again, leaving his lips pressed there for a long moment. Then he pulls back. “I have something I need to tell you. And I get if it freaks you out, if it means I’m too fucked up to—”

  “Shane,” I say, squeezing his hand. “Just tell me.”

  I think maybe he’s going to tell me something about his dad, about things I’m beginning to suspect may have happened to him in his childhood.

  Instead he says, quietly, “I see JT. Like, a lot. Hanging around and talking to me and generally being an ass, but like . . . he’s here.”

  I’m not super great at hiding how stunned I am, or the reflexive looking around I do, but Shane lets out a small, nervous chuckle. “I mean, he’s not here right now. But lots of times he is.”

  “Like . . . a ghost?” I don’t totally disbelieve the possibility that ghosts exist—I do believe in an afterlife, and that people’s spirits continue on after death—but I have a hard time imagining they don’t have better things to do than hang around earth generally being an ass.

  Shane presses his lips together briefly. “No. It’s not that. He doesn’t see anything I don’t see, and he doesn’t know anything I don’t know. It’s some product of my messed-up brain, like the headaches and the nightmares.” He hangs his head, and his blond hair flops forward, covering his face.

  I brush the hair back, tuck it behind his ear, and he looks at me out of the side of his eye.

  “Is it scary?” I ask.

  He pauses, like this wasn’t what he expected me to say. “JT? No. It’s kind of nice to still get to see him, you know? Despite that part about him being an ass.” A little smile forms, then drops away just as suddenly. “But the fact that I’m one big mental shit-storm who hallucinates his dead best friend on the regular? Yeah, that’s less great.”

  “It makes sense to me, though,” I say. “Wanting to see him again. Your brain trying to give you that.”

  His brow furrows as he turns to face me. “I just told you I’m hallucinating JT, and you think it makes sense? Like, this doesn’t freak you out?”

  I shrug. Maybe with some other guy it would have seemed too much to deal with, but not with him. Not with what we have. I give him a sly smile. “I mean, compared to the idea of Ghost JT hanging around and watching us have sex, I’d say the idea of you hallucinating him is preferable.”

  Shane groans. “Yeah, well, you should know I’ve told Hallucination JT he’s not allowed to watch. And so far he’s kept up his end of that.�
� He pauses, and when he speaks again his voice is strained. “But really, though. I’d get it if you couldn’t handle this, and if—”

  “Really,” I say, squeezing his hand. “This isn’t scaring me away, Shane. I love you. And yeah, I’m worried about you. But I’m not going anywhere.”

  His mouth drops open and closes again. He blinks quickly, and I wonder if, after everything that’s happened in his life, he’s afraid to trust that.

  I don’t blame him, but I do hope he lets me prove to him that I mean it.

  “Okay.” He lets out a little breath of what sounds like relief. “Okay.”

  “What does your doctor say about all this?”

  Shane tenses up in my arms. “Um,” he says, grimacing.

  My eyes widen. “You’ve been having hallucinations and you haven’t told your doctor?”

  His expression is all the answer I need, and I give him a little smack on his chest. “Shane! You can’t keep stuff like that from your doctor!”

  “I couldn’t—I just . . .” He sighs. “I couldn’t tell anyone.”

  “Not even Kevin?”

  “Not even Kevin. You’re the first person I’ve told.”

  My heart warms, knowing the level of trust that must have taken. Honored that I’m the person he trusts that much. But . . .

  I open my mouth, but he beats me to speaking.

  “I know, I know. You think I should talk to an actual medical professional.”

  “I do.”

  He nods against my hair. “You’re probably right,” he says, though it’s clearly reluctant.

  “Get used to saying that, dating me,” I murmur, and he laughs.

  “Nope. Enjoy it now. The next one may be a long ways out.”

  I pinch him, and he squeezes me back.

  “But,” he says, his body relaxed into me again. “Since I’m being so generous in my acknowledgment of your rightness at the moment, is there anything else you think I should do?”