Keep (Seaside Pictures 2)

He served it for dinner.

I wondered if it was a bad time to tell Zane I was a vegetarian, only eating seafood out of necessity.

“What’s your point? Are you going to take me out on a pity date? Get some good publicity? What’s your angle? What do you get out of our friendship?”

“Okay.” Zane broke eye contact, not something he did often. “You want the truth?”

“Please.” I braced myself for impact.

“I’m lonely.”

I burst out laughing.

He didn’t.

My eyes narrowed. Could he be telling the truth? “You live with friends.”

“You know what?” He stood, his frown deepening. “You’re completely right. This is a bad idea. Being friends never works. We come from different worlds. I’m hot you’re…cute as hell when you aren’t wearing grandma glasses and tugging at your clothes like they itch.”

Suddenly more self-conscious, I tugged at my t-shirt and glared.

As usual, he ignored me. “But it can’t end well. Right? So best to just let this be the first and last date, end on a handshake, and go our separate ways.” He held out his hand.

I stared at it.

Even his hands were pretty.

Well, that was unfair.

I took it in mine and squeezed. “Are you using reverse psychology?”

“Two years,” Zane whispered. “I graduated summa cum laude. Psych major with a minor in family therapy.”

“But—”

“Is it working?” His smile was back.

“So, you really just want a friend?”

“I want a local friend. I want a friend who can take me to all the places that inspire her in Seaside. I need to finish this album, but I can’t…” He licked his lips. “I can’t do it alone, get it? And I have zero creativity at the house.”

“What do you mean you can’t do it alone?”

“I’m afraid of the dark.”

“So go during the day.”

“Four eyes…” he groaned. “I wish I could do it alone, but I can’t do it alone, literally can’t do it alone.” His hand was still in mine, it started to shake again as his eyes darted to all the people around us, the people watching us, his grip tightened as he moved closer to us.

He looked terrified.

Which is why the next word out of my mouth was. “Okay.”

Chapter Nine

Zane

THE MORNING LIGHT PIERCED through the curtains, dancing along my fingertips, its warmth reminding me that it was a new day, and I’d made a really shitty life choice by inviting someone to share it with me.

What the hell had I been thinking?

I knew it was a bad idea the minute the offer left my lips. She was too perceptive by half—most of the people I knew, didn’t give a rat’s ass that I didn’t like crowds. They assumed it was a complete privacy thing.

But that was the really unfortunate part about studying your own brain and human behavior—you realize that sometimes there is literally no explanation for why you go into fight or flight, or why for some reason, I can handle crowds if I’m distracted or with a friend, but have trouble going to the grocery store by myself.

One meltdown.

I’d had one meltdown at a concert last year.

The record label wasn’t pleased.

It wasn’t my fault everyone assumed it was drugs, the perfect storm of overheating, being dehydrated, and having a full-blown panic attack while the stage broke beneath my boots sending me careening into the crowd.

The real sucky thing about being an artist? I take inspiration from the very thing that terrifies me—people.

So, how the hell could I write good songs when I’m not around them?

I couldn’t.

I’d tried.

For two months.

And had about fifty renditions of Old Mc Donald, before I started trying to go for walks on the beach, all it took was one bad experience with a dog owner and a kite, and I was back in the house shaking.

I stared up at the ceiling.

Damn but the fan seemed to be staring right back, each time it whipped around and tossed air in my general direction I felt its words.

Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

Miserable.

Miserable.

Miserable.

I’d been up for hours.

Ready to start my day.

Ready to write some music—because my fingers itched for it, my hands trembled with the need to deal with my anxiety, but I was blocked, blocked by the white ceiling and white walls, blocked by the inability to think outside the white suffocating box I was in.

And unable to think past the fact that I was completely using a nice girl in order to further my career—something I’d never thought I would be guilty of. She was fun to hang out with, but not my type, not at all. She was too innocent, and although I wasn’t the sexual deviant she thought me, I wasn’t a saint either.

Far freaking from it.

She was this breath of fresh air.

I was the darkness sucking it in. At least that was what it felt like.

But, that was where my exercises came in. Just because it felt like the end of the world, didn’t mean the world was actually ending.

I hopped out of bed and glanced out the window. The sun was just rising, and all looked right on the beach.

See? World wasn’t ending.

I snatched a few marshmallows from my nightstand and swallowed them nearly whole, my body finally relaxing enough for me to think clearly and stop assuming the worst about what type of day I was going to have.