Page 46 of Heart Break Her

I love how she listens to our music, with her eyes closed half the time like she’s taking everything in. I swear she feels the songs the way I do. Like they aren’t just words being sung for show to get women to throw their panties at me. They’re pieces of my soul spilling out.

It’s been two days since I’ve talked to her face to face, and I can’t help that I’m looking forward to seeing her. Even if we have been texting daily.

Call me the bad guy.

Call me trouble.

She sticks my good intentions in a blender and turns it on its highest setting.

I’ve never been this fucked up over a girl, and I’m not sure how to process it.

“You’re way too fucking happy tonight,” Eloise says, coming up beside me and shooting me a suspicious glare out the side of her eyes. “And sober.”

“So now that’s a bad thing?” I cock an eyebrow at her.

Leave it to me to disappoint everyone even when I’m not drunk or high. If I thought the comments about my drinking were bad enough, they’ve got even more to say about the fact that I’m actually standing up straight tonight. Even Rome noticed, and his mind was sideways after getting head from a groupie right before we went onstage.

So what, I’m sober. Kind of. It’s not like I’m committed to it or anything.

For the first time in a really long time, I didn’t drink before the show. Didn’t even finish a joint. I was already buzzing off of the energy trying to crawl out of my skin. And when I stepped out on the stage, I felt the crowd like I used to in the beginning. Alive and vibrant. The screams from the stadium fueling me. The pulsing energy from the audience. Filling me up and making me whole.I heard them. Felt them.Wasthem.

And now I know Cassie was out there in the sea of faces, bringing me to life.

“Bad, no. You know I love your dopey-ass smile, and I’m happy to see it any day,” Eloise says, her eyes darting to the door under the J sign. It opens, and Cassie and Quinn walk through it, laughing and holding hands.

Cassie might as well blind the whole room with the smile stretched across her face. While I feel like I’ve spent the past year broken, Cassie somehow manages to shoot sunbeams through her grief. And all I want to do is soak it up.

“But I know you,” Eloise turns her inquisitive gaze on me, “and this is more than you putting down the whiskey bottle for the night. It’s something else.”

“We’re just friends. It’s my fault she’s in this mess, so I’m going to get her out of it.”

“Mm-hmm,” Eloise hums, planting a hand on my shoulder. “I’m not judging, Sebastian. I love you, and I want you to be happy, especially after this past year and all you’ve been through. It’s just, Myth said it himself. Cassie’s not cut out for this lifestyle. So if you want to help her, that’s great, but be careful. You know how this world is. A good girl like her gets chewed up and spat back out. Make sure your intentions are coming from the right place.”

I’d like to think they are. That I’m the victim as much as Cassie is, and I’m trying to help her through this because I owe this to her brother. But every glance from those blue-green eyes, and I’m reminded I’m the bad guy, taking until she has nothing left.

I look into Eloise’s deep, brown eyes and try not to get sick right here in the stadium hallway.

“We’re just friends.” I turn away from Eloise before she can use her twin voodoo to read me.

Friends is all we can be.

God, why does that feel like a knife to the kidneys?

“Hey, pink ladies,” Eloise says as Cassie and Quinn reach us.

Quinn tugs at her pink ponytail and Cassie giggles as she does a little curtsy that makes my throat tight.

Cassie tucks her hands in the pockets of her cut-off jean shorts and bites down on her bottom lip, like maybe she’s nervous, and I can’t figure out how she always manages to look so fucking gorgeous without even trying.

Her hair is tied in a loose bun, sending pink streaks tumbling over her head. She has barely any makeup on her face apart from a dash of blue eyeliner above her lashes, and she’s wearing a simple white T-shirt that clings to her perky tits.

This is why I’ve been avoiding her. At least through text I can halfway pretend she doesn’t make me hard on sight.

“Hey, El,” Quinn says, unhooking her arm from Cassie’s. “Come with me, and let’s grab a few shots really quick over by that brick wall for your socials. Catch you later?”

Cassie nods at Quinn, who walks away with Eloise. But not before Eloise gives me a final warning look over her shoulder.

I turn back to Cassie, and we’re alone again for the first time since dinner in my hotel room a week ago. She passed out on the couch with a full belly, and I must have fallen asleep in one of the chairs because by the time I woke up, she was gone.

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