Keep (Seaside Pictures 2)

“So how did this all start?” I was almost afraid to ask, but for some reason, I felt like I needed to. Maybe for him, for me? For us. “The anxiety? The craziness? The attacks?”

“They’ve always been there. I mean as a kid I remember having them all the time. Maybe I was just so busy in college that it didn’t register? I started playing at a local coffee house. That’s where Will found me and signed me immediately to one of his friends’ labels. That was four years ago.”

“Four years and you have seven Grammys.”

“Eight.” He corrected. “Actually.” I smiled to myself at his nonchalant correction, like it wasn’t a big deal that he had one more Grammy than I assumed. I mean it wasn’t like I had any awards laying around. I won my eighth-grade spelling bee, and I was pretty sure the trophy was no more than a participation one.

“And the anxiety?” I prodded.

“Music makes you vulnerable.” His voice was distant. “You may as well invite someone into the deepest parts of you—I’ve never been able to write music without putting myself into the words, into the songs. And people, they sing them, they identify with them, they worship you for them, they condemn you for them. Suddenly, I was getting criticized for being afraid, for being hurt, for falling in and out of love. My soul was a punching bag, and nobody taught me how to be anything but that person with music. It’s always me, so I took it personally and eventually it just broke me down.” He shifted his position and muttered a curse. “The same people who wanted my autograph talked trash about me backstage. Other bands started doing the same, and it got hard, so I pulled back more and more because that’s what you do when you don’t know what else to do, you retreat. You tell yourself that by retreating, you’re really allowing yourself to lick your wounds, to heal. But instead? The mind, it takes control of so many things, plays tricks with you, lies, hell my mind is a damn liar it’s been lying to me since the day I was born. Telling me I wasn’t good enough, that everyone I loved was going to leave me, that I wasn’t worthy of love, I was able to push past that when I had goals, but when I had everything the world told me I needed to achieve to maintain that level of self-actualization. I looked down from my tower and panicked because I thought I was at the top and I was only halfway, how could that be? How does that make sense? It’s because it’s not achievable, but it was already too late for me, my retreat became my hell and it’s where I’ve been ever since.”

“And now?” I whispered, reaching for his hand, linking our fingers together, trying not to freak out over the fact that he was still talking to me, opening up, allowing me to see who he truly was and not shoving me out of bed and making me sign some sort of agreement that I wouldn’t talk about him. “What do you feel like now?”

Zane’s long eyelashes pressed against his cheekbones as he blinked down at the white duvet then up at me. “I feel everything.”

I gulped as his hands moved to cup my face.

“I feel your breathing. I feel your heartbeat. I feel the tension in the air, the scent of your body, the rhythm of your pulse—I feel it all.”

I exhaled slowly through my mouth, worried that I’d ruin that look of bliss on his face by breathing too loud.

“But mostly…” A smile crept across his face. “I feel you and me.”

“Us.”

“Yeah, us.” His hands trailed down my neck, resting on my shoulders.

“I think I’m going to keep you.” I smiled, licking my lips.

He sobered. “I’ve never been kept before.”

“Well…” I crawled into his lap and wrapped my legs around his waist. “Now you are.”

His eyes crinkled at the sides as his smile widened. “I think I like this idea of being kept.”

“I’ll be sure to administer the daily marshmallow allotment before and after bed.” I nodded encouragingly.

“Oh, baby.” His knuckles grazed my sides, his hands spreading across my skin causing goose bumps to flare everywhere. “I love the sound of that.”

“I knew you would.”

“What about marshmallow trails to bed? Are those out too? Because I’m really good with positive reinforcement.”

My cheeks heated. “Yeah. I bet.”

“Stay.” His forehead touched mine, chest heaving, he kissed me across the mouth. “Stay.”

“I will.”

He nodded and then I was drowning in his deep kisses, my body already responding to his, ready for whatever he had to give me.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Zane

I WAS FLYING.

Every time she gave herself to me—which by the time five a.m. rolled around, had already been twice more, I was flying.

Each experience was different.

Each kiss evolved.

Each touch transformed into something more meaningful. Something that meant a hell of a lot more than a twenty-four-hour booty call.

She was breathing deep, her wild hair falling across her face, kissing her barely parted lips.

I leaned down and kissed her forehead then walked over to my guitar and picked it up.

I processed things differently than most people. Therapy had never worked for me because talking about the anxiety had always made it worse, almost like this weird paranoia that if I talked about it, it made it more real, so I kept it to myself.

But talking to Fallon felt freeing.

Like I could trust her with the deepest darkest parts of me, and she’d still hold my hand.