Rome chuckled and shook his head. “You’re a fucking idiot, Carter. That girl has been in love with you since the moment she saw you. You were her childhood love. You were her fucking god. She might’ve wiped your asshole if you asked her to. Chicks don’t move on from the same kind of love she had for you. They might live with it, they might learn to love other guys, but they don’t move on. Inside, the what-ifs consume them.”

I stared up at him in disbelief. “I’m beginning to think you should be the one writing our lyrics, man.”

“No way,” he disagreed firmly. “I just hit some drums and watch you slay the crowd. I’m content never to want more than that.”

At this certain time, I kind of wished he did.

“I don’t deserve her.”

“I know,” he agreed. “You don’t deserve her one bit. Leah was one-of-a-kind and you totally pissed it away.”

“Thanks, man. Thanks.”

“Point is, Carter, you have to be the man that deserves her.”

I exhaled slowly, rubbing my temples as I listened to him.

“Now don’t sneak away again,” he added, solemnly. “I’m not happy with that shit. Leave her alone, let her heal and come back when the heat on us has died.”

I chuckled mockingly. “The heat will never die, Rome. If anything, it’s only going to get worse! Soon, I won’t be able to take a shit without someone standing there.”

“Doesn’t matter. You can’t just spring shit up like that on Leah, especially when you have Molly in the next fucking room.”

“Molly is here on her own terms.”

He ground his teeth together, holding back his anger as he said calmly, “Yeah, well, everyone is under the impression you’re with her. You want the paparazzi to catch you chasing around Leah instead? That sort of shit is bad news for us.”

“It’s none of their business –”

“You want Leah to get caught in the middle of that fuckery?” he cut in, louder than before. “The girl’s living her life. The last thing she needs right now is to get dragged into something she isn’t ready for. The baggage that comes with fame is too big. Don’t dump that on her. Not after all the work she’s done to look after herself.”

He grabbed me by the shoulder then and squeezed, bringing his face closer to mine.

“You want her,” Rome stated calmly. “Now’s your time to see who you should be improving for. Wait until the heat has died down, ditch Molly, and Leah could be yours.”

It wasn’t a matter of “could” for me. It was a matter of “must.”

I didn’t just need Leah.

I wanted her.

And fuck Rome. He wouldn’t get his way.

Eight

Leah

You convince yourself for so long that you’re done with someone.  You think you’ve been through the worst of it, and that the pain couldn’t be as potent as it was the second that heart of yours snapped open. All of that was rubbish, though. Truth was, the heart never closes back up again. Not all the way. There are cracks and scars along its surface, a sharp reminder that it’ll never be smooth and untouched again.

Needless to say, I was throwing myself a full blown pity party tonight, musing myself by constructing metaphorical bullshit. I was getting creative, especially after I’d dug out Melanie’s bottle of vodka she’d left in my car that I’d forgotten to leave at the apartment. I’d gulped a few mouthfuls down in an effort to get to sleep. Sadly, it wasn’t working, and I ended up facing the wall. I tried to shut my eyes for the hundredth time, but darkness wouldn’t come, no matter how hard I tried.

I want more, he’d said.

Now he was sleeping upstairs, while I was drowning in my sorrows in my old suite bedroom. It was Deja Vu all over again. I knew time was slipping through my fingers. That he was likely to leave tomorrow, and maybe that was a good thing. He’d rocked my world, and not in a pleasant way, but more in a holy-shit-I’m-not-over-him-entirely kind of way.

It would be good when he left, I told myself. He’d go back to his world, and I’d continue living in mine.

So why did that hurt so much?

Why had what he said clawed its way inside my soul? I knew what my brain was telling me. It was warning me not to accept his word. He could be taking me down that same path again. But my heart – that damn freaking muscle – was playing by its own rules.

A faint knock sounded out. I opened my eyes in the darkness and sat up slowly in bed, straining to listen. It came again, and I followed the sound to the window. I rubbed my eyes, a small smile already playing at my lips as I noticed his face peering through the glass.

What the hell?

I climbed off the bed and walked to the window. It was already opened, but the air was so dry and hot, it had offered me little relief in the summer heat.

“What are you doing, Carter?” I whispered at him in disbelief.

“Knocking on your window,” he answered, before adding, “Like I used to.”

I sighed, pretending to be irritated when I wasn’t. “I didn’t realize we were going down memory lane at two in the morning.”

“It’s not like you were sleeping.”

“How long have you been at the window?”

“Enough to warrant you filing a restraining order against me.”

I burst out laughing. “Wow, there’s something insanely cool about a rock star knocking on my window like a creepy dude.”

“You could make any guy creepy, Leah.”

I rolled my eyes, grinning.

He smiled back at me through the mesh. “Open up, and let me in.”

I stared helplessly at the screen in front of us. “How am I meant to remove this? It’s not like the trailer without the flywire.”

“You should be able to pull on the plastic tags at the bottom there.”

“How about I just open the door for you?”

“How about you fulfill my fantasy and pull this out?”

Cursing under my breath, I rubbed my eyes again and grabbed at the plastic tag on the bottom corner of the screen. I huffed as I tried to pull it back, but it didn’t budge. “It’s not working,” I muttered under my breath, tugging again. “It’s stuck.”

He watched me pull in vain, and then he exhaled dramatically, resting his forehead against the screen. “This was meant to be romantic and easy. I was meant to climb into your room and sweep you off your feet.”