Page 52 of Sing Your Heart Out

Dwayne pats my shoulder. “Chin up, young man. You can have as much work as you can handle. Pretty soon, you’ll be watching someone famous recording something that you wrote.”

I cock a brow at him. “That’s really not what I’m worried about, honestly.”

“Oh?” Dwayne says. “Does that mean you finally did more than just make eyes at Sarah?”

I huff out a laugh. “You could say that, Dwayne.”

“And now…” He looks behind him, to Sarah’s room. “What, you guys aren’t on good terms?”

“No.” I sigh. “We definitely fought last night and broke up in anticipation of today.”

He winces sympathetically. “Ohh. She couldn’t handle the idea that you might win? That’s hard…”

Chagrined, I hang my head. “No. Actually, it was the opposite, sort of.”

Dwayne looks surprised. “You broke things off with Sarah because you were worried that she might win?”

I touch my temple. A headache is forming right behind my eyes. “Sort of. It’s more complicated than that, obviously.”

“Mm. Sounds like there are a lot of moving parts to that.” He nods again. “Hey, at least you are leaving here with a contract offer. You’re not leaving empty handed.”

I smile thinly. “Thank you for that. Seriously, this competition has really been the wildest ride of my whole life. It was nonstop intensity from the minute I got here right up until now.”

He smiles, nodding. “Yeah. It was the first contest that Dee and I have ever hosted. But it won’t be our last.” He scrunches his face up. “I’m sorry about you and Sarah not working out, though.”

Nodding, I exhale a long breath. “Thanks, man. When do I have to leave the house?”

Dwayne shrugs. “Technically we have it until next week. Dee and I will probably leave tomorrow afternoon, though.”

“That sounds good. And I will definitely be signing a contract with Heartbreak, for whatever that’s worth.”

He beams up at me. “That’s really great news. I’ll go tell Dee right now. Have a… well, not a terrible night…”

“I’ll try.” I smile at him, but I don’t feel anything even remotely close to happiness.

As I close the door, I let out a huge sigh. Sarah is leaving tomorrow. Things between us are so bad that I don’t even know how to fix them.

I pace around my room, feeling my energy rise to a weird level. I’m so raw right now that I should be capturing my feelings in my notebook.

When I pick it up and turn the pages though, I feel to on edge to stop and write. Frustrated with myself, I cross my arms across my chest and stand by the window.

The view here isn’t great. It just looks down on a bunch of squat black rooftops and some mountains in the distance.

The question of whether I should talk to Sarah rears its ugly head again. I was wrong, there is no doubt about that. But do I dare ask her to take our relationship outside of this house?

Sure, fucking her is great. And the intimacy as mind blowing when we lay side by side, looking into one another eyes when we are cooling off for a minute.

But what if that same intimacy turns on me in the future? Quick as a snake, it can double back on a relationship and turn toxic.

That’s just the fear talking though… right?

Sighing, I make the decision to just try to go talk to her. If I don’t I will always wonder if she was really the one that got away from me or not.

It’s time to find out.

Heading out to the hallway, I go to her room. The door is wide open; it looks like Sarah is all packed and ready to go.

Swallowing thickly, I blow out a breath. I’m just about to head downstairs to try to find her when a voice rings out from behind me.

---