by Piper Lawson
At the end of the day, I drop my books in my bag, grab my gear, and head to rehearsal.
“Annie,” Miss Norelli says when I’m barely in the door, “I want to run the dancing scene. Can you grab Kellan?”
I head up to the stage and drop my bag in the wings. After shrugging out of my jacket and rolling up my sleeves, I scan for him. My attention snags on two figures behind a curtain, bobbing heads mashing together.
“Can we break up this two-headed-dog thing?” I ask.
Kellan pries his face away from Carly, looking disinterestedly at me.
“Annie, I’m surprised you even showed. You seemed emotional in English today.” She smiles wickedly. “Your little poem had a very unrequited love vibe, don’t you think? Listen, I know you didn’t get asked to prom, but Kellan and I will tell you all about it.”
Kellan snorts at her meanness, and I turn my back.
At least she doesn’t know what happened between me and Tyler. Falling for the guy in my pool house, the one they all worship? I’d never live that down.
Kellan and I take the stage, and I force myself to step closer to him, wondering how Ariel ever loved this guy.
The choreography is simple, but Kellan trips as he sings the chorus, and I hold in a groan.
Miss Norelli calls, “Stop! Kellan, what’s going on?”
“Annie’s fucking it up.”
I barely hear Norelli chastise Kellan for his language because I’m looking past him to take in Carly’s mischievous expression. My hands ball into fists. “Maybe if you spent half as much time practicing your dance moves as your seduction moves, you’d have it down.”
“Again,” Norelli commands.
We do it again. And again, Kellan makes it look like my fault when we screw up.
Carly’s already up off the floor, heading for us.
Miss Norelli sighs. “Annie, I understand it’s challenging, but we can’t keep doing this. I’m going to have to—”
“It’s not challenging.” I glare at my costar.
“She’s right. It doesn’t look hard.”
Every heads whips toward the open auditorium doors.
There’s a collective gasp followed by whispers as people realize the same thing.
Tyler Adams is in rehearsal, and he has a fucking opinion on it.
Kellan recovers first, barking out a laugh. “You can do better? Be my guest.”
Even Norelli doesn’t object as Tyler makes his way up the steps, sets his bag on the floor, his jacket over that. His tie is loose, and his shirt clings to the slopes and planes of his chest and shoulders. He rolls up the sleeves as he approaches.
My anger at Kellan fades. He’s a pawn in this game of Carly’s, nothing more. The frustration I feel with the boy in my pool house though…
Oh, that’s a living, pulsing thing.
“What are you doing here?” I hiss as he approaches.
Tyler reaches up to flick the top button of his shirt open, then the second, his gaze never leaving mine. “You haven’t answered my messages.”
“A rational person would assume I didn’t want to see them.”
My attention drifts to the exposed skin at the top of his chest as he takes my hand, tugs me closer.
I’m too startled to resist when he fits my hips to his and murmurs his response next to my ear. “Thank fuck you don’t speak rational.”
Someone starts the music.
Tyler nudges me back, and he steps into the choreography Kellan screwed up.
I’ve died.
There’s no way in my lifetime I expected to see Tyler Adams dance on stage at our school, not to mention with me.
But it’s not a dream, it’s a waltz, and his touch warms my waist through my shirt, his confident hands moving my body where he wants it.
When I lift my gaze to meet his, I’m taken from stunned to wrecked. The longing from the restaurant hallway is there, but there’s also fierce determination, as if he knows this is a bad idea and he gives zero shits.
There’s something beneath the fierceness. If we were alone, I’d pressure him to tell me, but I don’t have to wait long for him to spill his secrets.
Eight bars in, the guy I can’t stop thinking about sees my “what the hell” and raises me a “the fuck he is.”
Because Tyler starts to sing.
His voice is smooth and full, wrapping around me as if we’re the only two people here.
He’s playing Kellan’s part better than Kellan does.
I feel each word in my soul.
His gaze holds mine as he sweeps me across the floor. I dig my fingers into his shoulder through his shirt, living for the warmth of his palm against mine, the one I read at that carnival so long ago.
I knew something was going to change for me this year, I could feel it coming like a promise.
I’d thought it was landing the lead in the musical, but it’s more than that.
It’s Tyler.
I don’t know if this is his way of showing me I can’t avoid him or the world’s most public peace offering, but no girl or fish could resist this prince. He’s strong and sure. The cool edge that follows him around has melted, and the invitation beneath is impossible to reject.
It takes a moment for me to realize he’s stopped, we’ve stopped, and the stage crew cuts the music.
“It’s not her. It’s you.” His words are loud enough for the entire auditorium to hear.
Kellan's watching from the corner, stunned.
Tyler’s touch leaves my skin tingling, my heart hammering as he steps away.
I’m missing his warmth, his talent, his strength, even before he picks up his bag and jacket and heads for the door.
I don’t pretend I’m not watching him go, standing in the middle of the stage and waiting for my heart rate to return to normal.
Actions speak louder.
When Norelli calls us back to order, I catch sight of Carly’s pale face, her slack mouth, and I understand what happened.
In this power struggle between me and the assholes, I forced Oakwood’s prince to choose a side.
And he chose mine.
13
After rehearsal, I make a stop on the way home.
Then I collect my prize from the trunk of my car and head around the house toward the patio.
I rest my package against the siding before knocking on the door of the pool house.
Tyler answers, deliciously disheveled. He looks as if he started changing but forgot, clad in faded jeans with his dress shirt half-unbuttoned. “What’s up?”
“What’s up?” I laugh. “You show up at rehearsal and go all Rodgers and Hammerstein, and you’re asking me what’s up?”
He pulls back the door, and I glance past him at the three guys in the main living area with their instruments, all staring at me.
“Give us a second,” he tells the guys.
“Right. We’ll just… water the plants.” Brandon offers a wink as he and the others trail past me.
Tyler crosses the room, the muscles of his back tugging at the dress shirt in a way that makes my throat dry as I follow him inside and shut the door.
He picks up a remote, and a speaker in the corner starts to croon something bluesy.
I set the guitar case on the bed. “This is for you. Because you believed in me enough to help me. And I believe in you.”
He opens the zipper with calm hands, pulling back the soft top to reveal the instrument inside.
His long exhale has the hair standing up on my neck. “Annie, I can’t accept it.” Tyler tries to shut the case, and I grab the top at the same time.
“You know,” I say, my voice rising, “most of the time, I let you be an idiot.”
His jaw tics, eyes flashing. “I’m an idiot?”
“Yes, because you won’t take the things you want. I had this guitar made for you because this way you can’t ignore it, can’t pretend it’s not yours.”
He doesn’t release my hand as I stare at him, my eyes
burning as the weight of the last few days builds up on me.
“This guitar is made for a prince. Not a prince of assholes, but a prince who trusts himself enough to take what the world gives him and then some. You can break it or sell it or throw it in the pool, but if you’re going to throw it in the pool, at least wait until I’m gone.” My heart twists at that sickening thought. “It’s so beautiful—”
“You’re so beautiful,” he interrupts. “Do you know that? How fucking beautiful you are?”
His voice is raw silk.
My heart thuds as he steps closer, stops in front of me.
Tyler fills my vision, his sculpted chest and shoulders making me feel small but not weak.
“You’re worth a thousand of every person in that school,” he states. “When they’re assholes, you fight back. When you almost get assaulted at your own party, you turn it into an excuse to work harder. You survive everything that gets thrown your way.”
Tyler cups my face, that firm, perfect mouth descending toward my cheek. The first brush of his lips on my skin sends a jolt of awareness through me, electricity that has my lips buzzing and my breasts aching.
More.
I circle his wrists with my fingers to keep him from moving away.
He doesn’t. He moves to the other side of my face, and as his lips descend, I lift my face.
This time his lips brush the corner of mine, cling for a moment. It’s open-mouthed and deliciously sexy.
My fingers creep up his face, curl into his hair. I tug at the ends of the soft strands—not hard enough to bring his mouth to mine, but enough that when my tongue darts out to wet my suddenly dry lips, I taste him too.
I want him closer. Want more of him, all of him.
Holding back nearly breaks me, takes every ounce of control I have plus some borrowed from tomorrow, next week, next year. Tears sting the backs of my eyes from the effort until one spills over, tracing a bold path down my cheek.
Shit.
“You can’t kiss me right now,” I breathe. “I wanted our first kiss to be perfect.” I reach up to swipe at the tear, the evidence that this isn’t going how it’s supposed to, and he brushes my hand away.
He gazes down at me, his expression full of wanting and something more.
“Really.” His breath dances across my lips, and his warm palms cup my neck. “Because I just fucking want it.”
Before I can protest, Tyler Adams is kissing me.
His hand is in my hair, dragging my mouth to his.
Of the million thoughts I could have in this moment, the only one that cuts through fog is, Fucking finally.
He tastes like home and adventure, everywhere I’ve been and everywhere I want to go. It’s so new I’m fascinated and so familiar I ache.
The first brush of his tongue sets me on fire. Forget playing it cool. My arms lock around his neck and pull me up so I can press my body closer to his.
I want to feel him everywhere. From the way he kisses me back, I can tell he wants that too.
He backs me across the floor, swallowing my gasp when I hit the wall.
My hands slide up his firm chest, relishing the muscles that jump beneath my touch. I swear I feel every inch of him, and my leg hooks around his as if I can draw him into me from that motion alone.
Kissing Tyler is a storm I want to bottle, to study, to chase to the ends of the earth.
We’re both storms, two opposing forces clashing, becoming one. It’s hard and hot and bewildering.
My teeth sink into his lower lip, and he groans, tugging on my hair so I open for him.
He grabs my ass, grinding against me, and I rub my breasts against his chest though our clothes, needing some friction, any fucking friction.
His lips skim my damp cheek and down my neck. I angle my jaw up, needing him closer, and he devours me like a starving man.
I’m dying.
Turning to a liquid, to a gas, to plasma under his hands.
If this is what it feels like to be real with Tyler, I’m in. I want everything he is, and I want to be everything he’s not.
I want to shut out the world and lose myself in him, to beg him to show me all he—
A knock at the door has Tyler tearing his mouth away. The anguished look on his face has my gut wrenching.
“It’s Brandon,” comes the voice through the door. “You ever gonna come out, or is this a sock-on-door kind of situation?”
Tyler shoves a hand through his hair. “One sec,” he calls back, his gaze on me. I adjust my clothes, and he helps me off the wall.
I square my shoulders and lift my chin. “That was…”
“Fucking crazy.” His heavy exhale makes me inordinately happy.
“Yeah. It was fucking crazy.”
He steps close, leans his forehead against mine as if he can put off the inevitable, steal a few more seconds where it’s just him and me.
That tiny gesture gives me more hope than anything he could say.
“Enjoy the guitar,” I toss when he steps back. “And I won’t tell anyone crying turns you on. It’s our little secret.”
He smirks at me, and my heart flips.
As I turn for the door, I decide the only thing better than Tyler smiling is Tyler smiling when his mouth is still swollen from mine.
* * *
“Your lilies need mulch,” Brandon says when I close the door after him.
“Where’d the others go?”
“They took off. You were taking too long.” Brandon rubs a hand over his jaw. “Trisha called. She doesn’t think she has more gigs for us. I’m guessing you guys haven’t smoothed things over.”
“Nothing to smooth. We’re done.” I haven’t seen Trisha since the night of the party. “I coulda used the tutoring before exams, but it wasn’t worth the drama.”
I turn to see Brandon circling the bed.
“Damn, this is sweet.” His fingers slide over the strings and frets, admiring the wood, the full sound. “It’s yours?”
“Yeah.”
Brandon’s low whistle is admiring. “One of my brothers bought me a six-foot stuffed lizard for my sixteenth birthday party as a joke. This is way better. What’s the occasion?”
I take it from him, put it back in the case, and close it before following him to the couch and dropping onto the opposite end. “It’s my ‘I’m in over my head and it’s all my fucking fault’ party.”
He frowns. “That some Catholic thing?”
I shoot him a look. “Jax introduced me to a guy who can get me working in New York after graduation.”
“No shit. When are you going?”
My abs clench. “This summer, I guess.”
“You guess,” he echoes.
I rub a hand over my mouth. I swear I can still taste her. “When I came here, it was a short-term deal for my music. I wasn’t planning to make friends. No offense.”
“None taken.” He cocks his head. “I always figured part of why you ran with us was to keep Carly and others from fucking with your girl.”
I swivel on the couch to stare him down. “What are you talking about?”
He smirks. “It’s obvious. Not to all of them, but to me. Only reason Carly can’t see it is she doesn’t want to. She’s got what my dad would call a vested interest. Gotta say, I’m sorry I missed that stunt at rehearsal. Sounds like a bold move.”
I shove off the couch to pace the room, thinking of Kellan’s and Carly’s bewildered faces. “It’ll cost me.”
“No. It’ll cost her.”
I pull up sharply. That thought hadn’t occurred to me.
When Annie showed up at my door, half of me wanted to lock her out of my life and my heart.
The rest of me wanted to press her up against that same door and prove I’m worthy—of her trust, her hope, her damned guitar.
I’m supposed to be in charge, but tonight she turned the tables. She was holding court, and I was on my knees.
“I can’t,” I hear myself say.
> “Can’t what?”
“Anything,” I grind out. “I can’t have her. I can’t ignore her. I can’t even look at her without wanting her.”
It’s a dangerous game. Not only because Jax would string me up, but because I’m supposed to be leaving and focusing on my future, scraping together the pieces of the hand I’ve been dealt to try to make a life for myself. Not lose my head by depending on a girl, letting her depend on me.
“Who says you’re supposed to?” Brandon shakes his head. “You want me to say Annie Jamieson doesn’t want something from you? You’re asking the wrong question. What you should be asking is, who’re the people in this world you wanna count on? Because none of us make it through alone.”
14
Jenna’s always early to English. This morning I am too, looking up from her seat, my arms folded.
“I know you took my poem.”
She stops in front of me, avoiding my gaze. “I’m sorry, okay? I need to be on Carly’s good side. I’m not like you. You don’t need her. She knows it.”
I shake my head, but I can’t find it in myself to be angry about the poem because I know what it feels like to want approval. “Carly’s going to turn on you again if you don’t give her enough shit on people.”
“I think I gave her enough,” she says softly.
I move back to my seat, and the room fills.
Brandon strides in, but there’s no sign of Tyler. Where is he?
“Ugh. I’ve been trying to finish the fourth book you sent me since the weekend,” Pen says, dropping her things on her desk right before the bell. “It’s just getting real, where she’s blown off her entire family and set off with this guy around the world even though he’s keeping secrets from her. But debate’s brutal, and I was sequestered all night. And student council…”
Tyler walks in the door, and suddenly Pen’s talking Greek because I don’t get a word after my gaze locks on his tall frame, his messy hair, his cut jaw. The casual way he drops his books on the desk, then looks toward the back of the classroom.
