Page 58 of Rock & Roll Nights: The Lila and Rivers Edit
“Yes!” she shouted, smiling so hard I thought her cheeks must hurt. “In that case...”
She cast me one more teasing look, lifted an eyebrow of her own, and strummed a chord. A chord, I realized, that I knew quite well.
The first notes of our one and only love song.
Well, shit. Global Authors had just started singing the tune on this tour because it had turned out to be so popular with the audience. The problem was, playing it always reminded me of Lila herself. And I’d always managed to find her in the audience and sing it right to her, even when I didn’t want to.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to take the risk of singing it with her on the stage with me.
But the guys were already jumping into it, and she was playing it like she knew exactly what she was doing—she must have actually gone out of her way to learn it—and before I knew what I was doing, my fingers were finding the right notes on my own guitar, and I was joining in.
When I started singing, Lila was right there with me, her voice blending seamlessly with mine and lifting me up in a way I’d never dreamed possible, and we soared together, flying through the space like we’d somehow sprouted wings. My heart was feeling both elated and broken at the same time. I looked over to find her staring at me, her eyes wide and open, showing me all her emotions, and God, if I hadn’t already been split in half, that would have done it to me.
This girl. This beautiful, sunny, happy girl, who’d come into my life and tried to show me that there were animals in the clouds and sunshine no matter how dark the day was...
Only I couldn’t be the man she thought I was. I wished I could. I wished everything was different. If only I knew how to fix myself. Turn myself into the man she needed. Make myself whole, make myself worthy of someone like that.
If only I was anything like what she needed.
Because if I was—if I thought I could live up to her dreams—I’d take her in my arms and never, ever let her go. I’d laugh and cry with her and let myself fall for her charms and bright, shining light.
I’d let myself fall in love for the first time in my life, and I’d never look back.
But that wasn’t part of the plan, and it sure as hell wasn’t within my capabilities. I’d never been able to love anyone before and I didn’t know if it was even in my DNA.
Given the fact that my own mother hadn’t bothered to stick around for me, though, I was sort of doubting it.
I turned away from Lila and her open face and back toward the audience. And for the first time on this tour, I sang the love song to them rather than to the girl who was breaking me down, piece by piece, by loving me too fucking much when I knew I couldn’t love her back.
30
RIVERS
Once the show was over, I did what I’d been doing for the last week.
Namely get off the stage as quickly as I could and make for the exit. I didn’t want to talk to the band, or Taylor, or Lila.
Especially after what had just happened onstage. I mean the girl had basically taken the one love song I’d ever written and then sung to her far too many times and weaponized it against me. She’d learned the whole fucking thing and played it better than I ever had, and instead of watching her in awe as she sang my words, which was what I should have been doing, I’d turned to the audience and watched them watch her instead.
Like a fucking coward.
No way was I sticking around now for her to come running after me. She’d corner me and look at me with those green of eyes hers and do what she always did: stare right through me and see all the things no one else had ever bothered to look for.
And yeah, sure, it should have been nice to be seen. I should have been reveling in someone taking the time to try to figureout who I actually was and then love that person rather than the image I projected.
The truth was, though, it was fucking scary. I’d spent most of my life hiding the soft spots inside me and I didn’t know how I felt about someone else finding them and poking at them. What if she didn’t like what she saw in there? What if she poked too hard and hurt me? What if she turned her head just a bit and realized that those weren’t actually soft spots but gaping holes where I was missing the things any normal human being should have?
I already knew I was. I didn’t think I could stand for Lila to realize it, too.
Which was exactly why I’d decided to run. Way better to be out there in the night on my own, without her probing gaze and questions about why I was doing what I was doing. Sure, it was lonely.
But it was also safe. For both of us.
I spotted the exit ahead and increased my pace, counting the steps until I was through that door and into the dark courtyard behind the place. I was going to make it. I was. And once I was out there, I’d put some serious thought into the plan I’d been developing and how I was going to pull it off. Then, once an hour or two had passed and Olivia and Connor were well into their set and everyone was distracted, I’d head to my room in the hotel next door and?—
A body slammed into me and pushed me against the wall, turning me in the process so that I was facing out into the hallway rather than toward the door I’d been aiming for.
I gasped at the impact and looked up, ready to shout at whoever was manhandling me like this. No, I didn’t have security back here but anyone in their right mind should know that you don’t throw the lead singer of one of the bands around like they were a sack of fucking potatoes.
