Page 38 of Heart Break Her

“It’s beautiful,” I tell him, meeting his honey stare with my eyes. “Dark, but beautiful. You wrote this?”

“A few days ago. Passes time on the road.”

I look back down at the words on the page. Angel wings are scribbled next to them, and I trace them with my finger.Angel of Life, Angel of Death. Feeling torn between the beauty of one and the sadness of the other. Like when Sebastian sang Revolve Her at his concert, I feel his words once more, reaching into the marrow of my bones. Knowing he wrote them, but they might as well be my own.

A knock at the door gets his attention, and he heads toward it.

“Food,” Sebastian says, opening the door to retrieve a full cart. He rolls it over toward the couch.

I set down the notepad and my stomach growls at the smell.

“Cheese fries, please,” I say, as he starts taking lids off things. “And is there any ketchup and ranch?”

Sebastian hands me my items, and I mix the ketchup and ranch together on my plate.

“That looks disgusting,” Sebastian says, as I dip a cheese fry into the mixture and pop it in my mouth.

“Don’t knock it ‘till you’ve tried it.”

Sebastian shakes his head and turns before I catch sight of his full grin. His smile is haunting.

“No thanks,” he says.

I shrug, and bite down on another fry as Sebastian makes his way over to the couch and sits as far away as the length of it allows. He rips open the bag of licorice and pulls a bite off between his teeth, looking uncomfortable or stressed. Maybe both. For someone who is definitely drunk and maybe a little high, he’s not relaxed at all.

“Do you want me to leave?” I blurt out.

Sebastian lifts an eyebrow, his gaze falling to the fry in my hand. “The food just got here.”

“I’m not talking about your room.” I set my fries down and turn to face him on the couch. The movement alone makes his back stiffen, and it’s clear how uncomfortable he is around me. “I mean, do you want me to leave the tour? Maybe this was a mistake, and it would be best if I just go. I’m not sure what I’m doing here anyway.”

Sebastian sets his licorice down and kicks an arm up on the back of the couch, facing me. “Why would I want you to leave the tour?”

He’s got to be oblivious or playing dumb because even if we were intimately close with each other a week ago, it’s now nothing but awkward.

“I appreciate what you’re doing for me,” I say. “But this isn’t working. I thought coming on tour would be a distraction, but I get the feeling it’s just making you uncomfortable, which makes me even more uncomfortable. If that’s possible after being in the middle of a sex tape scandal. I think maybe it would be best if I rode this out at home. My family is there, maybe I’ll stay with my parents for a bit until it all blows over.”

I dread the thought alone, but anything sounds better right now than staying around Sebastian and feeling like a fling he can’t kick loose.

“No.” Sebastian shakes his head.

“No?”

Sebastian relaxes the slightest bit, and I almost sense defeat in his eyes. “You should stay.”

For a man who has the words to bring millions of women to their knees, he is surprisingly tight lipped in conversation.

“This isn’t working,” I say again, tucking my legs up against my chest and wrapping my arms around them so I can rest my chin on my knees. “We can barely be around each other without it feeling uncomfortable.”

Sebastian stares for a moment, inspecting my face, my lips, my hair. I’m not sure what he’s looking for, or if he’s spacing out and thinking, but his eyes trace over me. Finally, his tight expression softens, and he moves closer on the couch until his thigh is almost touching my toes.

“I’m not good at this,” he says, wrapping one of his hands around my ankle, and I’m not sure if he even realizes he’s doing it. But the simple contact of his palm on my skin makes my heart race in my chest, and I have to lean back to get some distance.

“Not good at what, exactly? Being friends?”

“Is that what we are?”

Honestly, I don’t know what we are. He’s spent the better part of our time together ignoring me.

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