Idol (VIP 1)

Memories of Jax chucking a salami sandwich at Rye on our tour bus after the five-hundredth playing of “Mandinka” run through my head, making me smile. And then Liberty begins to sing.

The beer bottle slips from my hand. Holy. Fuck.

Her voice is melted butter over toast. It’s full of yearning, soft and husky. Need. So much need. And pain.

I’m on my feet before I know it. I go into the house and pull my acoustic Gibson from its crate. The neck is smooth and familiar against my palm. A lump fills my throat. Christ, I’m close to crying.

Get a grip, James.

My fingers tighten on the guitar. From the open door, Liberty sings about loss and separation with a rasping defiance. That voice guides me, sends my heart pounding.

She doesn’t hear me approach or even open the door. Her eyes are closed, her body curling protectively over the guitar. That her voice has so much power in such a restrictive position is impressive. But it’s the expression she wears, lost yet calm, that gets to me.

She feels the music, knows how to phrase it and own it.

I’m hard just being close to her. My balls draw up when she hits the last power refrain, her voice coming down like an anvil, and I swear I can’t breathe. It’s like the first time I sang on a stage and felt the world open up with possibilities.

I think I fall a little in love with Liberty Bell in that instant.

She notices me then and gives a yelp, abruptly killing the last note. “Jesus,” she says when she finds her voice again. “You scared the life out of me.”

You’re bringing me back to life.

The thought runs through my head, clear as glass. But I don’t say that. I can barely find my voice at all. I stand there like an idiot, my chest heaving, gripping my guitar as if it’s a life line.

A flush rises up her neck and over her cheeks. She ducks her head, as if she’s ashamed. No way in hell am I letting her hide.

“Beautiful,” I croak past the lump in my throat. “You’re beautiful.” I know with an eerie calm that I’ll never see anything or anyone more stunning in my life. Everything has changed. Everything.

Libby

My heart is still trying to beat its way out of my chest after the scare Killian gave me. But it’s slowly calming, and on the heels of that comes something that feels a lot like mortification. Killian has caught me singing, balls to the wall—or whatever the female equivalent would be.

A few days ago, I heard him take off on his bike, and when he didn’t come back that night, or the next, my heart squeezed and my stomach sank. I might have thought he’d left for good, only Killian tacked a note on my front door before he left: Gone roaming for a while. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do—at least not without me.

It simultaneously hurt that I was so easily left behind and pissed me off that he didn’t bother saying goodbye in person. But I’m not his keeper. And I clearly can’t make anyone stay in my life. So I went back to business as usual, trying to ignore the yawning pit in my stomach, only to discover that my “usual” was now empty and quiet, too quiet.

To fill the void, I played my guitar and sang. Every night. Something I hadn’t done in months. It made me think of my parents, and that hurt too, like a wound scabbed over that you keep picking despite the pain, or maybe because of it.

And now Killian is back, filling my porch doorway and lighting up the room with his presence. He’s here. My own personal magnet. His pull is so strong, I have to fight not getting up and running to him. Fight not grinning like a fool even though I’m still hurt. But I want to grin, so badly. Because He. Is. Here.

It sets everything right again. And yet it puts my world off kilter as well.

The way he’s looking at me… Hell, it lights me up, sends sparks and flares along my nerve endings.

Beautiful. He called me beautiful, his dark eyes roaming over me as if I was his reason, the only reason.

I sit frozen under the force of that stare. He isn’t wearing his usual playful smile. He looks almost angry, desperate.

His fingers tighten around the neck of the guitar until his knuckles turn white. “Play with me, Liberty.”

I should have expected that—he’s holding his guitar, after all—but I didn’t, and the request is a sucker punch to the throat.

A strangled sound escapes me. I can’t perform in front of Killian James. While I’m comfortable with Killian the man, Killian the musician intimidates me. His vocals are the stuff of legend—strong, clean, and powerful with a rawness that hooks into your soul and gives it a tug. He sings, and you feel he’s doing it just for you, taking your pain, frustration, joy, rage, sorrow, and love and giving it a voice. And while I know I can sing, I’m an amateur.