I can’t spot Chris anywhere near, but the rest of the band and crew exit to the performance room. Kace doesn’t move, but I know he knows I’m here. I slide under Kace’s arm, between him and the wall. “Kace.” My hand is back on his chest, his thundering heart beneath my palm.
His stare is heavy-lidded, expression as taut as his tone. “What are you doing, Aria?”
“Getting ready to watch you perform.” And then I dare to confess, “I just want you to know that I love you, Kace. I love you.”
His reaction is instant, visceral. He cups my head, tilts my face to his. “Do not say that to me when you don’t even know who I am.” His voice vibrates, his teeth clenched.
“I do know. I know you.”
“No,” he says. “You don’t. So don’t say that to me now. It’s not real.”
In thirty seconds, his words have ripped at the very fabric of our relationship and did all they could to shred it. They cut. They cut deep, and suddenly Chris is at our sides, his hand on Kace’s back. “We have to go on, man. I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner, but Alexander is gone.”
Kace releases me and turns to him. “I’m going to need to change the lineup tonight. We’re going dark.”
“Throw it at me, man. I’ll go there with you.”
There’s a knock on the door. “That means lights out,” Chris says. “We have to go.”
Chris opens the door and exits and Kace follows. He’s gone. And I’m alone. So very alone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I stare at the door and then at the bracelet Kace gave me and all of Sara’s words tumble through my mind, play in my head. She told me he’d push me away. She told me I’d have to fight for him. And she was right. As if I’ve willed her presence, she opens the door and catches my hand. “We need to take our seats. You need to be there for him. He’ll know. It will matter. Come.”
I nod and hurry forward and out into the dark room where an usher with a flashlight helps us to our seats in the front row. Dramatic lights start flickering and my heart starts to race. The audience’s excitement expands in the room. The sound of a violin touches everyone’s ears, teasing us all, before the lights come on. Kace is center stage. He commands that stage. He begins to play dark, heavy music, Black Sabbath at one point, AC/DC’s “Back in Black.” The more classical but sinister “Dark Waltz.” But it’s all beautifully dark. All of his anger, his passion, his pain come through that instrument and flows to Chris’s paintbrush. Chris paints a storyboard of a hurricane-brushed night in San Francisco with haunting images of people rushing through the streets, fighting the force of wind. I watch and listen in wonder as does everyone else. I now know how Kace performed the night his parents died. I need a violin in my hands right now. I need you to understand that. The violin is how he grieved and survived. When the performance is over he and Chris claim their seats with me and Sara. Kace sits next to me but he doesn’t touch me. I touch him though. I take his hand and it’s not until the bid on the violin goes ridiculously high that his hand closes around mine. The three paintings Chris created are next and the bids go nuts, once again. As soon as Chris’s auctions are over, Kace stands and takes me with him, heading for the door.
We enter the hallway and Savage is there waiting on us. “Let’s go,” Kace says, pulling me down the hallway. Chris is suddenly here with us, too, and the hallway is just wide enough for him to step to Kace’s side and grab his arm. “Wait. Man, I know this isn’t how you wanted this to go down, but it did. It’s here. It’s now. Tell her everything. Just tell her. Tell her and face it together.”
“Let go of me, Chris,” Kace orders.
“Not yet.”
Kace shocks me by shoving him against the wall. “I said let go of me.”
“You want to fight,” Chris challenges. “You want us both to screw up our hands? Maybe you do. You’re on a mission to punish yourself, but you’re punishing her, too. I’ve been here, man. You know I have. It goes no place good.”
Seconds tick by and Kace steps back from him and scrubs his jaw, cursing under his breath. He grabs my hand again, and starts walking, charging toward the exit and I have to double-step to keep up. He all but blasts through the exit and thankfully the SUV is waiting on us. Adrian is leaning on the door and quickly straightens.
“Behind you,” Savage says, as Adrian opens the door for us.