Page 133 of Dear Rockstar (Dear Rockstar 1)

“You didn’t?” My heart swelled to bursting. Somehow the thought of him spending a night with Holly Larson had been far worse than his sin of omission about Tyler Vincent.

“No.” He lowered his head to mine, kissing the top of my head again and again. “When are you going to realize there’s no one else for me? You’re it, baby.”

“Me too, Dale,” I whispered. It was the closest I could come in the moment.

He chuckled. “You’re forgetting Tyler.”

“No I’m not.” I lifted my head to meet his eyes, shining in the darkness.

“Wait… what are you saying?” Dale frowned, and I couldn’t resist, reaching out to touch that delicious dent in his chin. “I don’t want you to give up your dream for me.”

“What if you’re my dream?” I whispered, tracing the line of his jaw, trailing my finger down over his Adam’s apple as he swallowed. “You’re good at being a rock star. I’m good at being the world’s biggest fan. It’s a match made in heaven.”

“I don’t want you to be my fan,” he said hoarsely. “I want you to be mine.”

“I am.” I moved my hand up under his shirt, seeking the heat of his skin, wanting to feel him, solid and warm. “I’m the luckiest girl in the world. Why? Because you chose me. Out of all those girls who want you—out of all the millions who will want you, and believe me, they will—I’m the one you chose.”

He kissed me—the soft press of his lips, the way he breathed me in as if I was honeysuckle or lilacs or roses, the most compelling scent in the world—reminding me in an instant of his love for me, how much I had missed him and how much I was missing when he was gone.

“Sara, listen to me.” He pressed his forehead to mine, eyes closed. “Once I choose a direction, I don’t stop. I can’t.”

I nodded, loving him for it. I’d seen it every day in the way he pursued his music, how much of his time he dedicated to practice, to perfecting his craft.

“I’m like a damned freight train. Or the fucking Titanic.” He snorted, opening his eyes and meeting my gaze. “There’s no turning me away, not now. I can’t turn back.”

“I know,” I whispered.

“No.” He pursed his lips, shaking his head, looking away from me, out the window at the shadow of someone going into the apartment building. “I don’t think you do. You seem to have room in your heart for more than just me. But I don’t. For me, there is only you. Only you.”

“Dale, no,” I protested. “You don’t understand. It’s not like that for me either.”

“Shhhh.” He pressed his fingers to my lips. “I know you. Inside and out, Sara. I know you, and I’ve accepted it all. Every bit of the crazy. And I love you anyway remember?”

“This isn’t about you.” He touched the locket hanging around my neck, a constant. “It’s about me. You need to know this. I will never, ever have room in my heart for more than one woman. I used Holly to hurt you, because it was the worst thing I could think of. It was wrong and I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“You need to know what it means when I choose you, Sara.” He turned my locket over in his hands, flipping it open, his eyes sad as he looked inside. “I won’t ever do to you what this man did to his family—to mine.”

“It was Tyler?” I whispered. Of course I’d known. I’d hoped maybe I was guessing wrong, jumping to conclusions. I’d spent three days staring at the man who papered my walls, realizing Dale had been trying to tell me something when he told me I was filling in all the wrong pieces to the puzzle. I had created the image of the man I wanted.

And then that image had walked into my life as if out of a dream.

Dale was the man I needed in my life, not a fantasy, but a real, warm, flesh and blood human being. Not Tyler Vincent, the man I had fabricated, just as two-dimensional as the paper he was printed on.

“Yeah, it was him,” Dale confirmed, snapping my locket closed.

Dale had known all along what Tyler really was, and he hadn’t told me. It was a sin of omission, but I couldn’t fault him for it. It had been a selfless act. He hadn’t wanted to spoil my image of him. He let me hold onto the dream instead of waking me with the truth. He had loved me through it, all the shamefully crazy hopes and fantasies I’d pinned on a man I had never even met, all the while hesitating before a man who knelt before me with his heart in his hands, offering himself fully to me, knowing I could step on it and crush his hopes at any moment.

“Dale, I’m not going to Maine.”

His gaze lifted, meeting mine, his look so hopeful and open and raw, my heart shattered into a million pieces, knowing how much I had hurt him already. There were no words that could ever make up for it. I could only hope my actions could speak loud enough.

He kissed me, making a small, pained noise in his throat, his mouth opening mine, his tongue seeking entrance, and I let him in, as fully and completely as I could, wrapping my arms around his neck and pressing my body to his.

“Let’s go upstairs,” I whispered when we parted.

We had the whole apartment to ourselves and still we ended up in Dale’s bed, the place we’d spent hours whispering and laughing and kissing.

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