Tonight, The Lighthouse was packed. A din of voices vied for attention above the canned music pumping from the speakers, the music filler between the band who had played before, one we had missed, and Austin who was supposed to play in fifteen minutes.
I blamed Blaire for us being late.
Anxious excitement wound me tight.
I couldn’t wait to see him with his guitar again.
Out in the light.
Where he belonged.
Blaire hiked up on her toes and craned her head around the crush of people gathered in the bar. “Ugh,” she groaned. “I don’t think we’re going to find a spot to sit.”
I shifted around, searching for a straight shot of what, or rather who, I wanted to see. “Let’s just…get as close as we can to the stage.”
“Fine. But let’s order drinks first.”
She grabbed my hand and hauled me behind her. She pushed through groups huddled tight, no remorse at all as she clung to my hand and cut us a path toward the bar.
I yelped when a hand suddenly clamped down on my elbow.
Firm enough to tug me back.
My head flew around. I was still on edge from the text I’d received last night, and I was struggling with all of me not to allow Paul to ever again have any hold over me.
The harsh breath I’d sucked in eased out on what I was certain was nothing less than a pathetic, dreamy sigh. Like a school girl with a hardcore crush she just couldn’t shake.
Who could blame me?
Poetic eyes glinted in the shimmer of the strung-up lights. It felt like we’d been set to pause, the two of us staring at each other while the bar buzzed round us.
God. His face was so mesmerizing it twisted right through the middle of me.
Ever so softly, the hand that’d clamped down on my elbow trailed down until he was weaving his fingers through mine. Tugging me closer. Brushing his mouth against my knuckles.
Oh God.
My heart.
It was all mushy and soft and just…swoon.
It was so strange, being this girl. Giddy and light.
But that’s the way this boy had always made me feel.
A little needy and so much stronger.
Twisting me inside out.
Revealing to me what was waiting to be exposed within.
Reminding me that despite my mistakes, there was hope.
I guess the problem was I’d never figured out where that hope left me. What it could offer and what it meant, before Austin and I had run out of time.
It’d left me unsure if I could find that hope on my own.
The truth was, I’d always been aware it was there. Lurking behind the shadows that kept me frightened of the dark. Now, I felt as if I were standing out in front of it. Opening my arms and welcoming possibility. All the while I was on my knees praying I wasn’t a fool to give in so easily.
I wondered if every single one of those emotions had played out in my expression, because Austin smiled a soft, almost somber smile and dragged me up against that delicious body that was so big and warm.
“Don’t,” he murmured low, his mouth inclined close to my ear.
And I would have laughed if I hadn’t been burying my face in his neck, where his pulse was steady and strong.
“Don’t what?” Should I have been surprised when my mumbled response came out like a tease?
“Don’t freak out,” he said. I could feel the hint of his grin emerging at the top of my head.
“Ahem.”
We both jerked to find Blaire standing there with her hands on her hips.
“Hello.” She waved her hand in a flourish around her face. “Best friend? Sound familiar. No ditching me for a boy, Edie.”
Austin tucked me under his shoulder, turning so we both were facing her. “Sorry, Blaire, but you’re gonna have to share. Edie and I? We’ve been best friends for a long, long time.”
Blaire shook her head. “Ha. That’s totally different, right?”
His head tilted to the side. “Well, I’d certainly hope so.”
Eyelashes fluttering, her lips curved as if she were going in for the kill. “Are you sure about that, music man? Because most boys I know would think that a bonus. I’m totally game if you’re up for it.”
Shock shot from my mouth. “Blaire.” I smacked at her. “You’re so gross. What is wrong with you?”
She shrugged. “What? Just testing him out. That’s my job as best friend. You know, make sure new super-hot boyfriend isn’t just another scumbag.”
Austin chuckled and raked a hand through his hair, gaze slanting my way. “Remind me to watch out for her,” he said. He glanced between us with his eyes full of a tease. “Pretty sure this one’s going to be setting all kinds of traps.”
So maybe I was surprising myself again, because I popped up on my toes and swept a quick kiss to that soft mouth.
It struck me that was the first time I’d ever initiated a kiss. Reached out and taken what I wanted, confident in that decision.
Change.
Change was good.
“Just don’t fall in one and you’ll be fine.”
He ran his fingers from my temple all the way down to my chin, lifting it slow. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Okay, okay, you two. Break it up. There’s plenty of time for that later.” Blaire shooed him with her hands. “We have to grab drinks and hopefully find a place to stand before you go on in…oh…like two minutes.”
“That’s actually why I came to find you. Saved a seat for you. Deak and Damian are down close to the stage.”
There she went, Blaire’s mouth as big as the Cheshire Cat as she looked my way. Obviously her words were meant for me even though she was speaking to him. “Oh, Austin Stone, I believe you’re a keeper.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Austin led us to a round table close to the stage, secluded beneath the high-topped tables where I’d initially seen him just the week before.
Crazy, because that seemed a lifetime ago.
Damian was already standing. Antsy. Searching the crowd as we approached. Relief flooded him with he caught sight of us. “Austin, man, there you are. You gotta move. You’ve got like thirty seconds until you need to go on, and you are already so high on Craig’s shit list I’m pretty sure you’re gonna get pushed right off the top of it if you mess this one up, if you know what I mean.”
I smiled, getting ready to push him off, to tell him to go, when my cell I was holding in my hand vibrated. On instinct, I lifted it, the screen bright against the dimmed-out lights of the bar.
I gasped in a sharp, horrified breath, stuffed my phone in my back pocket as if it would hide the cruelty of the notification that had scrolled across the top. Short enough to be read. Clear enough to be understood. Even though it’d again come from that unknown number.
Fucking bitch. You owe me. You owe me big. Gonna collect.
Austin tensed at my side. Anger fierce. A brutal hostility and a raging fear. All of it mixed with mine.
Flooding fast.
Rising higher and higher.
Pulling me deeper and deeper.
“Edie.” Austin said my name as if it caused him pain.
My words shook just as violently as my hands. “Go. You can’t be late.”
“Can’t…Edie…can’t.”
Torment wrenched his expression. The dichotomy of the way he’d wanted to protect me when in turn he’d only harmed me. His hands tied too tight and his tongue set too loose.
The secret he’d unwittingly exposed that had sent me running.
I gripped his tortured face. “I’m right here. I’ll be right here.”
Distress left him on a moan, and his voice lowered, only meant for me. “How can I leave you? I want to be the one taking care of you, Edie. Standing up for you.”
Confusion lined Damian’s face, but he was tugging at Austin’s arm. “Now, man. You can’t fuck up another show. You’re too good for that.”
“He can’t touch me here, Austin. Go. Up there is where you belong,” I said. If only he believed it. If only he realized he deserved so much more. If only he recognized the talent I saw when I looked at him.
“I’ll be right here.”
He hesitated.
“I promise.”
His words were muffled where he uttered them into my hair. “We’re going to make it, Edie. The two of us together. Won’t let that bastard change that this time.”
Reluctantly, he jerked away, gaze commanding when he peered at me from over his shoulder as Damian led him to the side of the stage.
I sank into a chair. Overwhelmed. Ripples of fear slid through my veins while Austin’s promise saturated me everywhere else.
Every cell.
Every fiber.
Belief and hope.
Blaire’s voice was in my ear. “What the hell was that?”
My head shook. “Nothing.”
Her glare was worried, calling me on the lie without saying anything, but she sat back when the crowd rustled. Austin climbed three steps onto the small stage. Deak sat on the other side of her, and Damian settled in the open chair next to him.
Austin moved across the stage. So big and dark, everything about him so complex.
A riddle.
He settled onto the stool close to the mic, pulled his guitar onto his lap as whoever was working the spotlight angled the beam just right. Lighting him up in his ethereal glow.
Beautiful.
Devastating.
Captivating.
“Seems you’ve met my boy Austin?” Deak took a sip of his beer, eyeing me over it.
I didn’t look toward the voice. I just absently nodded and stared ahead.
Enamored.
“I’ve known him. All my life.”
Deak gave a slight nod. Processing. Adding up. “You look different, Edie.”
Austin strummed and my heart went mad within the confines of my chest.
Like he had a direct connection and he’d zapped me with a lash of that energy that roared between us.
Deafening.
And his voice…that gorgeous, mesmerizing voice…Austin set it free.
That haunted harmony wrapped around me.
Tonight it was even more intense than it’d been the night when I’d first stumbled upon him here.
As if through his music he was trying to speak to me.
Tendrils of solace and joy and despair reaching out.
Conflict and comfort.
Beneath it, even with everything, I didn’t feel afraid.
“I feel different.” It was a murmur I wasn’t even sure was intended for Deak or for myself.
But I did.
I felt different.
I felt courageous.
As if I wanted to reach out and grab life.
The life I hadn’t been brave enough to live. Too afraid to lose.
Austin played his songs.
Each of them seemed at one with the sea. The sea that gently rolled right outside The Lighthouse doors. Those doors were open wide to welcome the cool night air that trickled in with the breeze.
Meshing with the lyrics that were so dark. So deep.
Packed with a kind of meaning I doubted anyone could understand but Austin himself.
But I heard them.
Felt them.
Understood.
That broken boy hiding beneath that brilliant, intimidating man was so transparent to me.
And I hurt for him.
Hurt for us.
Wanted to hold him and soothe it away, just as strong as I knew he wanted to keep it at bay.
To pretend as if it no longer had a hold over him.
But I saw it in those flickers of vulnerability. His truth so clear to me in the depths of those stormy eyes.
Austin drifted in and out of songs seamlessly. Expertly. With enough talent to fill a thousand rooms and give peace to a million hearts.
Affection and longing pierced through me. God. How much I wanted him to recognize it.
The gift he’d been given? So clearly he viewed it as some kind of curse.
But I guess we always run from the things that scare us most.
Austin wrapped another song. He didn’t launch into another the way he had during his entire set, this seamless transition that sewed his songs together like a quilt of comfort.
Instead, he paused, his hesitation thick. I thought maybe he was going to call it, utter a thank you for coming out, and stand.
In discomfort and indecision, he rubbed a big hand over his defined, strong chin.
He seemed to make a decision, and he exhaled, spoke into the mic. “Wrote this song a long time ago. It was during one of the toughest times in my whole life. I never played it for anyone other than for myself, because it was private. Between me and a girl I’d done completely wrong. I didn’t have any other way to reach her but through that song. Praying somehow she’d understand it, feel it across time and space, even when there was no chance for her to hear the words.”
His gazed roamed over the crowd until it locked on me.
I gasped a tiny breath under his stony stare. Both bare and restrained.
A perfect, unsettled contradiction.
Impenetrably hard and excruciatingly soft.
Broken and bold.
“And tonight…I want her to know.”
I sucked in a breath, and I could sense everyone sitting at the table peering my direction, searching for my reaction, questions darting through their minds and passing in their eyes.
But the only thing I could see was him.
Tied.
Bound.
Don’t say a word
Come inside
Lie down while I hold you up
Don’t get too close
I know nothing but
Broken promises and broken bones
Pieces that just don’t fit
His voice shifted, and the chords became more intense as he drove into the chorus. While I stared up at that striking face, his lips so full and his voice so smooth.
Its pitch perfect.
A match to my soul.
Standing on a mountain
Swept beneath the sea
Lost somewhere in between
Condemned to the darkness
My whole world in black and white
Until I was staring at it
Through the eyes of Firelight
I felt as if I were floating in the middle. The two of us drifting through the floor of the darkest sea.
Lost.
Found.
That husky voice once again veered and dipped into the raspy lilt of another verse.
Aimed to be better
Would’ve given my life
This statue nothing but rubble
Good intentions gone bad
Just when they started
Baby, you were the best secret
I never got to keep
Standing on a mountain
Swept beneath the sea
Lost somewhere in between
Condemned to the darkness
My whole world in black and white
Until I was staring at it
Through the eyes of Firelight
With his eyes closed, Austin’s hand moved over the frets, quick and precise as he bled his beauty across that stage. Pouring it out over us. Filling up all the vacant places of my heart.
Can I keep staring at it
Through the eyes of Firelight
Say I can keep on staring at it
Let me see it
Let me see it
Through the eyes of Firelight
Through the eyes of Firelight
Blaire dragged me to standing when Austin suddenly stood and left the stage.
“Oh my God. That was incredible. Seriously, maybe the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. For real, Edie. That boy. If I thought you had no chance before…you’re a goner, girl.”
Blaire raved as I struggled to find my footing.
A rush of lightheadedness swept through my head, and I blinked.
Stunned.
Staggered.
Completely overcome.
Those who played at The Lighthouse were typically there as a side note. A complement to the setting of the sea. Entertainment while people ate, chatted, and drank from their glasses while they drank in the breathtaking view.
Breathtaking.
That’s exactly what this had been.
And mine hadn’t been the only breath that had been stolen by this hypnotic boy. The entire room had been entranced, arrested by his voice and song that weaved through slow and sank in sure.
A quiet devastation.
A soundless, raging storm never expected until the moment it touched down.
Ravaging everything in its path. Stripping you bare.
I’d never felt so exposed.
Now, people vied to get closer. Austin exited to the right of the stage, and they circled him as if he were some kind of celebrity. As if they wanted to brush up against fame.
A profound urge throbbed. Urging me to go to him.
I knew the people surrounding him would be unwanted attention.
I could feel his distress.
The remnants from the stress of another text before he’d taken to the stage mixed with his need to remain in the shadows when his talent forced him into the light.
This boy who’d always believed he had so little to offer, his talent nothing more than a penalty.
Yet still he’d somehow managed to offer everything to me.
I fought my way toward him, elbowing through like some kind of fangirl who couldn’t get close enough.
Damian stood beside him, angled so he was almost in front, smiling and talking to the handful of girls who competed for Austin’s attention. Clearly, Damian was acting as interference.
It wasn’t a large crowd.
Not in a place like this.
But there was no missing the torment etched on Austin’s face.
Because his songs weren’t for them.
Especially the last.
It was for me.
Just like this boy was meant for me.
I shouldered past a brunette.
She shot me a glare.
I couldn’t find it in myself to care.
Because I knew…felt how badly this boy needed me. Through a break in the crowd, those flinty eyes caught mine. Impenetrable and translucent.
I moved toward him.
Drawn.
Energy pulsed.
Almost suffocating it was so profound.
Swelling and swelling until both of us were taken under by the wave.
The second I got close enough, he reached for me and dragged me through the ring of admirers.
He looked at me as if I was the only person in the room. Big, strong hands cradled my face as he lifted me toward him.
He kissed me in the midst of it all.
As if I was the center of his world.
And I knew without a doubt, this boy was the eye of the storm.
The eye of my storm.
Relief gusted from him on a wheeze. He barely pulled back enough to whisper his plea. “Edie…don’t know how to do this without you. Don’t want to. Don’t leave. Don’t leave. Don’t ever leave.”