I watch from the edge of the room, uneasy, as another strange emotion washes over me. Loneliness. I’m in a room with five other people and I feel completely and utterly alone. It’s how I felt when Dad lost his job and I left all my friends behind to move to Hackney. Only now the pain is focused on a single aching spot that is piercing straight through my heart.
“Hey sweet girl, what’s with the sad face?” Adam snakes his arm around my shoulders and I can see concern in his bright hazel eyes, the flecks of golden brown in the greenish-gray background shimmering under the lights.
I give him a pathetic smile. “Nothing. I’m great, Adam. I’m just thinking about how your side must hurt. That’s all.”
Adam raises an eyebrow and frowns. “You’re a crap liar, El.” He pauses, studying my face for a moment. “Give me a second, then we’ll go, alright?”
I nod blankly, suddenly overwhelmed with the need to get the hell out of this cramped room. Adam steps over to Dax and says a few words. I worry at my thumbnail, not even realizing that I’m doing it until the metallic taste of blood hits my tongue.
Adam slides his hand into mine, threading our fingers together and squeezing tight, his warm touch instantly calming me. “Let’s go, Sweetheart,” he whispers.
He gives me one of his perfect smiles and my heart speeds up. Falling for Adam Reynolds? Worst idea ever. He’s meant for greatness, I know it. I’ll never have him to myself. I’ll have to share him with the world once they hear his music. This cannot end well.
chapter 9
Adam
Watching the tattooed and pierced Hawke eye-fuck Ellie and the too beautiful, too-tan and blonde surfer Gavin touch her all night was a wake-up call for me. I’m not going to be able to sit back and let some other guy come in and snatch her out from under me. She’s too gorgeous, too caring, too fucking perfect to not want her for myself.
That’s my biggest problem, that she’s too good for someone like me. I’ll drag her into my crap, my brother, my dad, my dead end fucking life. Ellie deserves better, she is better.
I walk her back to her flat after leaving the DK and catching the tube to our crap side of town. She let me hold her hand the entire ride home. I knew then, even though I’m probably the worst thing for her, that I was going to try to make her mine.
“Thanks for walking me, Adam,” she says softly, strands of her long blonde hair blowing across her face in the chilly winter night.
I scoff at her. “El, it’s after midnight, it’s freezing out, and I’m still worried about your safety. Not to mention that I’d be a real prick to let you walk home alone.”
She brings her shimmering blue eyes up to meet mine. Even in the dark, I can see a hint of a blush stain her cheeks under the streetlights. I look down at her mouth and watch, mesmerized, as her lips part just a fraction and her tongue darts out and moistens them.
Unable to stop myself, not wanting to stop myself, I reach up and push her hair behind her ear, leaving my hand on the side of her face. “Tell me if you want me to stop,” I whisper, leaning closer, pulling her gently towards me with my other hand that’s somehow found its way around her waist.
“I don’t want you to stop,” she says, her voice husky with desire.
Those words undo me and the last little bit of restraint I have evaporates. I bring my mouth down on hers and she lets out a tiny moan. It’s hardly loud enough to hear, but that sound marks this moment for me. The moment I begin to fall hard for Ellie Palmer.
She kisses me, hesitantly at first. Then that moan, and her mouth opens, giving my tongue enough room to explore and taste and discover. The kiss is so perfect that I never want it to end, but it’s late, and getting colder every minute.
Reluctantly pulling back, I rest my forehead on hers, allowing us both to catch our breath. The small clouds of mist mingle between us in the frigid air.
“Ellie,” I murmur, her name a benediction for me. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
Her eyes close, as if in pain at the thought of parting, but she nods. “Yes, tomorrow.”
“Okay.” I press a kiss to her forehead and another quick one to her swollen lips. “Go inside. I can’t leave until I know you’re safe.”
Ellie takes the last few steps backwards, not turning away until the last second. “Bye Adam,” she says as she opens the door and disappears inside.
“Bye Ellie,” I whisper to myself.
Turns out Gavin and Hawke are excellent at their respective instruments. Better than excellent, they’re freaking brilliant. When they jammed with us the first time, it was as if we’d all been playing together for years. They both get it, the importance of the music we make, how you have to live it, breathe it, until it consumes you and becomes a part of you.
“Ellie! You ever going to get your nose out of that sodding book and listen to us play?” I call out to where she’s sitting nearby with her maths book open.
“Adam, stop trying to corrupt me. I have to keep up with school so I can take my A-levels,” she snaps back at me playfully, smiling the entire time. “Just because you’re going to be a huge famous rock star and won’t need to know any of this, doesn’t mean I don’t.”
I shake my head and laugh at her. There are only two things I care about these days, music and Ellie. School isn’t part of my future, I know that, Ellie knows that. In fact, if I didn’t get to see Ellie there everyday, or need to get out of the hellhole I live in for a few hours, I’d probably have dropped out by now.
“Fine, miss out on being a part of history in the making,” I joke with her as I play a quick riff.