I went to set my guitar aside.
She lifted a hand. “Please . . . don’t stop. I didn’t know that you play. That was . . . beautiful. And sad.”
Compassion filling her voice, she watched me through the hazy shadows. Looking for the truth.
Things she wasn’t supposed to see.
Girl had the power to dig them out, anyway.
Reaching over to the small table beside me, I picked up the cigarette that was slowly burning in the ashtray. I flicked the ash and took a deep, long drag. I held it in, staring at her from across the space before I exhaled toward the sky, watching the smoke twirl and coil and climb, disappearing into the nothingness.
I leveled her with my gaze. “I wouldn’t be a very good judge of talent if I didn’t play, would I?”
I picked across my guitar, the sound of it lulling us into a peace that neither of us should feel.
Common ground.
But that’s what music did—it reminded us that we weren’t so different, after all.
Shrugging, she took a timid step forward. “Sometimes all it takes is listening from your heart to see where true talent grows.”
A snort huffed through my nose. “That’s appreciation, Precious, not knowledge.”
She cocked her pretty head, fiddling with the hem of her nightgown, tugging it up to expose the top of her thighs. My mind was instantly back to when I’d had her propped on that table back in Savannah.
Knots of lust fisted my stomach.
My mind going haywire.
Shorting out.
How the fuck had this girl gained the power to ruin me like this?
“Honestly, Royce, do you believe in Carolina George? Or are we just another job? Do you really think we have what it takes to be somethin’ great?”
She took a step toward me, watching me like she trusted me. Respected me. Like something had changed in the span of days.
I’d be a fool to deny it.
Could feel the shift happen along the way.
That connection growing.
Gaining in speed.
Pushing to my feet, I propped my guitar against the small table.
“You are great.” It was gravel on my tongue. “That’s knowledge. Truth. The question is, what are you going to do with it?”
Funny how I just kept pushing her and pushing her in a direction that hadn’t been my original purpose. Not that I hadn’t wanted her to succeed.
Flourish.
But seeing this girl fly had started to feel like a necessity.
She released a small, incredulous sound. “That seems to be the question, doesn’t it?” Her face pinched, and her voice quieted. “I’m tryin’ to hold it all together, you know?”
Honesty poured from her, and my heart kicked an extra beat.
The air surrounding us was dense and deep.
Small, disbelieving laughter filtered out of her mouth, and she turned her attention up to the blackened sky, like she was trying to see what was written in the stars.
“A year ago? It all made sense. Playing. Living this crazy life. We were gonna get a big deal, and we’d finally be a big deal. Play at big stadiums. Get invited to all the award shows. Be somethin’. The guys would be living their dream. Money and fame and power.”
She said it like she’d decided it was dangerous.
She wouldn’t be wrong.
“I would be livin’ mine, though my dreams looked a bit different. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to scoff at the money. I want it as much as them. But Richard and Rhys? I think they’d be content to be on the road for our entire lives. But I wanted more, Royce. I wanted it all. I was gonna get married and have a family, and they’d be there at my side, and I’d be writing music, singing it and playing it because I’m not sure I really know how to fully exist without that being a part of me. It’s just natural.”
She blinked my way.
Pleading.
Like maybe she thought I was the only one who would get this part of her.
“It’s natural because it’s what you were born to do. You are a star, Emily. And fame doesn’t have a fucking thing to do with that.”
A sad smile twitched at one corner of her lush mouth, and her head angled farther. “But it only takes one mistake to ruin everything, doesn’t it? One misfortune, and everything starts fallin’ apart? Piece by piece. Brick by brick. I’m not sure I have what it takes to climb out of the rubble.”
Rage fisted my hands. “And what started that? Let’s go back and fix it.”
“If only it were that easy.” Quiet horror weaved through the lines in her expression, grief and shame, like she was a prisoner forced to watch all those misfortunes play out time and again. I wanted to erase them.
Wipe the terror from her face and scrape the guilt from her soul.
“I . . .” Her words faltered.
I took a step closer.