by Jamie Shaw
“What girls?”
“The ones outside your Perth show, at the front of the line. They posted a video on YouTube and—”
“Baby, you can’t look at the stuff on the Internet. It’ll drive you crazy.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to escape the pages of images I looked at this morning. The girls in Australia, the girls in Malaysia and China and Korea, the girls in the U.S.—years and years of girls. Girls taller than me and curvier than me and, just . . . more than me. Smoother hair and prettier clothes and a million other reasons why Mike should be with them instead of me.
“Do you think I don’t worry every day that you’re going to meet someone while I’m gone?” Mike asks, shocking me into opening my tear-filled eyes. “We live in a college town, Hailey. You go to school every day with frat guys and future CEOs. I’m terrified you’re going to meet someone better than me, smarter than me—”
I want to tell him that there’s no one better than him, no one smarter than him.
“I’ve never taken a college class in my life,” he says. “The only thing I know how to do is play the drums.”
“I don’t want a CEO,” my small, broken voice assures him.
“Then tell me what you want, baby.”
My heart aches as I think, I want to hold his hand in public. I want to kiss him under the glow of my porch light. I want to cheer for him at his shows. I want to love him without repercussion. I want to be with him without Danica’s shadow hanging over me. I want to be enough for this beautiful man I don’t deserve.
“You,” I tell him, and Mike sighs.
“Even if I’m a drummer? Even if I have to tour?”
“Yes,” I answer without needing to think about it, because drumming isn’t just a job to Mike. It’s who he is. He’s the drummer of The Last Ones to Know, and I would never want him to be anyone different.
Mike lets out a breath of relief, but it does nothing to soften the guilt hardening in the pit of my stomach. Yes, I want him. But wanting him doesn’t change the fact that I can’t have him, not if Danica gets her way. And Danica always gets her way.
“I know it’s hard waiting,” he says, “but I told you even before I left, Hailey—I don’t want anyone else. I only want you. I’m thankful every day that I fell for the wrong girl, because it led me to the right one. It was always meant to be you.”
I shiver with the absence of his arms around me, and he says, “I know you don’t believe me when I tell you how special you are, but remember, all it took was a red dress for over two thousand people to not be able to take their eyes off of you.”
“That’s only because I was the star,” I say, remembering the way I spun around and around on the steel platform for Mike’s music video.
“You were the star for a reason, Hailey,” he says. “You’re a light in the dark. And the only person who can’t see that is you.”
Mike’s phone beeps, and he curses. “Shit. My phone is going dead.”
I close my eyes, and more tears squeeze through my lashes.
“Hailey . . . I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Can you wait for me?”
My lips part, but the call drops before they can form an answer. One dead battery, and he’s gone—thousands of miles away again—and all I can do is try to breathe in spite of the overwhelming hopelessness digging its claws into my chest.
I don’t change out of my pajamas after getting off the phone with Mike. I don’t shower. I don’t go to my classes. If it wasn’t for Phoenix, I wouldn’t even get out of Mike’s bed.
I text Rowan and Dee to tell them I’m okay and that I need to spend the day alone, and since they have no idea I’m camping out at Mike’s house with my vagabond dog, they have no choice but to honor my wishes.
Thanksgiving is tomorrow, when I’ll have to put on a brave face and spend time with family, but for today, I’m off the map, and time passes slowly. I spend countless hours watching daytime TV and old cartoons from Mike’s bed, and he does call just like he promised he would, but for only two short minutes. Just long enough to ask me how I’m feeling, listen to the lie I tell him, and then have to run again.
I’m curled up under his heavy comforter when the sun sets, its yellow halo around his curtains fading to dark blue, to gray, to black. With Phoenix sleeping in her usual spot out on the living room couch, I’m alone in the dark. I close my red-rimmed eyes against his pillow, wondering how I got here.
When I moved to Mayfield, the plan was simple: do my best to get along with Danica, excel in all of my classes, try to make sure she didn’t party her education away, make something of myself. A boyfriend was never part of the picture—much less my cousin’s rock star ex, who I have fallen madly, irreversibly, desperately, soul-crushingly in love with.
I’ve never been this girl—one to cry herself to sleep in the same pajamas she wore to bed last night. But here I am, completely raw. My eyelids have been rubbed sore from all the crying I’ve done today, so I can’t even touch them when more tears begin to spill onto Mike’s pillow.
I wanted sparks, and I got them, in the form of a man who kindled an inferno inside of me. If I let it burn, it will destroy everything. But if I put it out . . .
I’ll miss his warmth. I’ll miss his heat. I’ll miss the way he consumed me, the way he made me burn.
I can’t give him up, but I can’t keep him, and in ten days, I won’t have a choice.
Under Mike’s covers, I think about playing princesses with Danica when we were little girls—how we dressed up in tiaras, wore sparkly dresses, and planned to marry our one true loves . . .
They were always princes—they were always princes.
But what happens when they’re not princes? What if they’re a rock star—just one rock star—and we both want him for ourselves?
Chapter 48
It’s late when the bed stirs, and my mind is fuzzy from sleep when comforting arms wrap around me—big, strong arms that snake around my waist and pull me close.
“Mike?” I rasp as he nuzzles his nose into the crook of my shoulder, his stubble abrading my skin. I’m sure I must be dreaming . . . but I can feel him—his rough jeans against my bare legs, his hard chest molding against my back. I can smell him too—a familiar scent that makes my heart slam against my ribs as I turn in his arms. In the soft glow of a nightlight I brought from home, I find his warm brown eyes, and my breath catches in my lungs.
Mike smiles and tucks a long curl behind my ear.
“How are you here?” I whisper, a flood of emotion washing away my voice as my eyes begin to water.
“I told you I was coming home, didn’t I?”
At the warmth in his eyes and the soft curve of his smile, a sob escapes me, and Mike pulls me tighter against his chest. I grip the back of his T-shirt, terrified he’s going to disappear. “I told you not to,” I cry, holding him tight enough that I can feel his heart pounding against my cheek.
“Nothing you could have said would have kept me from you,” he promises, his chest rumbling against my ear, and quiet sobs escape me as I tremble in his arms. My body still aches from the crying I’ve done all day, and now a new wave of emotion racks me from the inside out.
Mike rubs my back. He kisses my hair. He hushes me as he picks up all of my broken pieces and tries to put them back together. It’s like he took my heart with him when he left, and now he’s put it back in my chest. In his arms, it can finally beat again.
It took him all day to fly here—I know, because I’ve spent countless hours these past few weeks looking up flights to wherever in the world he was, and I’ve daydreamed about being able to afford visiting him. Twenty hours to South Korea. Twenty-seven hours to Indonesia. Twenty-four hours to Australia.
Ten hours from London, not counting the time it must have taken him to purchase tickets, get through security, wait for his flight, drive home.
“How’d you know I was here?” I ask with my ear still pressed a
gainst his heartbeat.
“I didn’t,” he admits, trailing his fingers over my back. “I came home to change clothes, and then I was going to throw little rocks against your window or climb your lattice or something romantic.”
I smile against his shirt. “My room is on the ground floor.”
“Then I’m glad I found you in my bed,” Mike says, combing his fingers gently through my hair.
“What about your tour?” I ask as I let his closeness make the past five and a half weeks disappear. In this moment, nothing else matters—only that he’s here. That he’s holding me. That I can touch him. That I can feel him.
“I have to fly back in a few hours.”
I pull away far enough to look up at him, and he gazes down at me like he would have flown around the world a thousand times just to hold me like this. “You flew all day just to spend a few hours with me?”
Mike brushes another stray curl away from my face, his fingers threading into the hair behind my ear. “I would have flown all day just to spend a few minutes with you, Hailey.”
He brushes his thumb over my cheek, like he’s memorizing the softness of my skin, and his eyes scan my lips, my nose, my forehead, my chin—as though he’s checking to make sure I’m exactly as he remembers.
I don’t wait for him to finish searching my face before I kiss him. I shift on his mattress and touch my lips to his, and Mike’s fingers in my hair immediately pull me closer. My lips part, and my body melts against him as he unleashes five weeks’ worth of wanting into one slow, consuming, bone-melting kiss.
We should be talking. I should be making the most of the short time he has here. But instead, his leg is wedging between my thighs and I’m tugging him with me as I roll onto my back. I kiss him desperately, not letting either of us up for air, and the unguarded moan that escapes his mouth as I scratch my fingers over his scalp makes my whole body tremble with need. My hips lift to tempt him, and Mike’s hand slides down to catch the underside of my knee, hiking it up so that my leg is wrapped behind his back. He grips my ass, tugging me against the erection I’ve created, and I moan against his mouth as my core turns to molten lava. His lips drop to my neck, and he lavishes the column of my throat with satin kisses that threaten to make me erupt. All I want is for my clothes to disappear, for my skin to blaze against the heat of his body.
Mike’s hand is greedy against my silk shorts, kneading my ass as he makes my panties wet for him. I’m falling apart, and all he’s done is touch me over my clothes.
“Mike,” I beg, and he doesn’t hesitate to give me what I want. His fingers slide up to hook in the waistbands of my shorts and panties, and he tugs them off in one easy movement. His finger slides down through my slick heat, and his mouth claims the gasp that bursts from my lips.
“Is this what you need, baby?” Mike asks as he traces circles around my tight bundle of nerves. It feels like every one of my cells is reaching out to him, begging for his attention, begging to be touched. “Tell me, Hailey,” he gently demands. “I flew across an ocean to take care of you, but you need to tell me what you need.”
“Yes,” I groan, my fingers sinking into the firm muscles of his back. My entire body feels wound too tight, and with every circle Mike draws around my pulsing bud, I wind tighter and tighter and tighter.
“Say it,” he whispers in my ear, and my toes curl beneath his sheets.
“I need you. I need you to touch me.”
Mike gently pinches me between his wet fingertips, stroking me delicately with every slick pinch. My knees begin to quake, and he settles beside me, using his heavy jean-clad leg to pin my right knee to the bed, leaving me open and exposed. “What else?” he says, his warm breath fanning over my ear as he touches and strokes and teases, readying me for him.
“I need you inside me,” I whimper as he drives my body to the edge. I’m teetering on a cliff, clinging to him even as I beg him to push me off it.
Mike presses soft, warm kisses below my ear as he continues priming me, and I can’t help the sounds I make for him. Desperate moans, tiny whimpers, sharp gasps of pleasure. His tongue traces down to the hollow of my collarbone, and my eyes roll back in my head, my muscles aching with tension.
“Not yet,” he says when I’m close to coming. He pulls away and shifts between my legs, raking both hands up my body to strip me of my oversized shirt. He tosses it onto the floor, and then he sits back, letting his hungry eyes rove over my flushed face, my pert breasts, my smooth stomach, my bare sex. When his eyes find mine again, they are full of heat that makes me want to cover my breasts—or play with them.
“You are so fucking sexy,” he says, his fingertips drawing feather-light patterns over the tops of my thighs.
Encouraged by his words, I slide my hands to my breasts, and I fondle them with him watching. I glance at the bulge straining in his jeans, and I bite my lip between my teeth as I pinch my nipples between my fingers, teasing him.
Mike’s voice is rough with lust when he says, “I planned to kiss every single inch of your body when I came home from touring. But I don’t think we have time.” He leans down and kisses my fingertips, coaxing them away from my breasts. “So I think I’ll have to settle for everything from here”—he wraps his soft lips around my nipple, lavishing me with his tongue—“and here”—he slowly drags wet kisses to my other breast, drawing it into his scorching mouth. “To here,” he finishes, meeting my sex with his fingers and applying electric tension. Every nerve in my body sizzles to life as I thread my fingers into his hair, encouraging his mouth to continue exploring my body.
Mike carries through with his promise, spoiling every inch of me from my breasts to the junction of my thighs. He watches me watch him as he strokes his tongue over my sex, nibbling and kissing and suckling until I’m nothing but a whimpering mess of need on his bed. When I think I can take no more, he pulls away from me to kick off his jeans and boxers, and I force myself to be coherent enough to watch as he pulls off his T-shirt.
My eyes feast on his chiseled biceps, his sculpted shoulders, his hard chest, his flat stomach, and then he’s settling over me and I can feel him between my legs. He kisses me feverishly while his swollen head presses against my sex, and when I’m moaning against his mouth and arcing against him, he finally begins pushing inside me.
It isn’t like last time—he didn’t enter me with his fingers first, so there’s nothing to prepare me. The only help he offers now is the way he kisses me—ravenously, without giving me time to think. He devours me with his lips and with his hands, and it all helps distract me from the way my body stretches around him as he pushes his sex inside of me.
“Oh my God,” Mike groans, struggling to keep his composure as he enters me, and I wrap my legs behind him, slowly pulling him the rest of the way inside my body.
When he’s sunken fully inside me, I pulse around him, and his cock throbs in answer. Mike rests his forehead against mine, his eyes closed, and I plant soft kisses against his closed lips. When he opens his eyes, there is so much love in them, I almost start crying again.
“You undo me, Hailey,” he says, and a tear slips out of the corner of my eye.
“I love you,” I tell him, and he wipes my tear away, smiling. It’s the first time I’ve told him in person, and the words feel healing—freeing.
“I love you too,” he says, kissing me as he begins moving inside me again. His kiss isn’t fire or torture or teasing—it’s love. I feel it in my chest, in the way my heart beats against his while he makes me remember how perfectly we fit together.
It’s like he was made for me. Just for me.
Mike makes love to me until I shatter around him, and then he releases inside me and tells me over and over again how much he loves me, how much he missed me, how much he needs me. I say it all back, and I mean every word.
I love him. I missed him. I need him.
It’s still dark outside when he tugs me against his chest and wraps his arms around me. I smile contentedly as
I play the little spoon to his big spoon, and eventually, my eyelids grow heavy.
“Get some sleep,” Mike orders when my body jerks to fight off sleep for the fifth or sixth time.
“I don’t want to,” I argue, my groggy voice betraying me.
Mike hugs me tighter, his breathing steady against my back. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
“But you’re leaving soon. I don’t want to waste the time we have.”
“This isn’t wasting it,” he says, linking his fingers with mine and hugging our arms tight against my body.
“We should talk,” I counter, feeling a peacefulness I shouldn’t. Danica’s threat is still looming over us. But right now, it feels so far away.
“What do you want to talk about?” Mike rubs his thumb over my hand, since his hands can never be still, and I smile against our pillow.
“I don’t know . . .”
“Good talk, baby. Now get some sleep.”
I chuckle and try to think. “Uh, how was your flight?”
“Long.”
“Was it worth it?” I ask, and within seconds, I get my answer in the form of a growing erection that Mike presses against my ass.
“I suggest you talk about something else unless you seriously don’t want to get any sleep.”
I let out a soft chuckle and nibble my bottom lip, tempted. “Sorry.”
Mike’s hand lifts to my mouth, and even though he’s behind me and can’t see me, he frees my lip from my teeth. “Liar.”
I laugh, and he snuggles me closer. The hard length pressing against my body is starting to direct my thoughts to a very dirty place, so I force myself to change the subject. “Where was your favorite place on tour?”
“Probably the market in Seoul,” Mike answers after thinking about it for a while. “The food was amazing and the vendors were really friendly. It was kind of like Chinatown in New York, but so much better.”
I have no basis for comparison, since I’ve never been to Chinatown . . . or New York . . . “That sounds really cool.”
