ONE WEEK LATER

 

We’re sitting in with Danger’s speech therapist, and she’s doing a bunch of tests and stuff on Danger’s vocals that I don’t really understand. But by the look on her face she doesn’t seem overly enthused with Danger’s progress. Which has me on the edge of my seat. He’s been a little tense this past week. I think he knew that his voice wasn’t up to the standard it should be by now, but I’ll wait and see what she has to say.

They finish their exercises and she smiles at him which makes him reluctantly smile too.

“Okay Danger, so your vocal cord isn’t healing as fast as we would have hoped. You’re still breathy and it looks like there was some strain on the cord itself before the polyp developed so this may take a little longer to come good than we anticipated. Your progression isn’t coming as quickly as we had anticipated. Yes, your voice is back, but your range in your singing voice is lacking, and this is going to take time and effort. Unfortunately, it’s not going to be a quick fix.”

I stiffen as Danger tenses beside me and exhales. “How long are we talking here, Sarah?”

She winces and tilts her head. “The way the cords are still tense and with the breathlessness you have, I wouldn’t be surprised if this takes the full six months… I’m sorry, Danger.”

Danger slumps his body as I chew on my bottom lip furrowing my brows. This is horrible, my heart pounds for him.

He suddenly stands up grabbing a stapler from Sarah’s desk and hurtles it across the room, it smashes into a pot plant, cracking the pot as the dirt and plant cascade out onto the floor.

“I know this is not the news you wanted to hear, Danger, but with hard work and determination, it will come back. You just have to work on it,” Sarah continues.

“And fucking lose my career in the meantime?” he murmurs.

“It won’t be that bad,” I try to ease his temper.

He glares at me with such fierce intent it shocks me. “What would you know? You run a foundation from a hotel room, you know nothing about fame. God, Staked and Ella never had to go through any of this.”

Opening my eyes wide that he’s brought Ella up another time, this is getting beyond a joke. He must really be missing her. My chest tightens with the thought as salt water threatens to run over my eyelids, but I shake my head and stand up turning to walk out of the room. I don’t want him to see me cry. He isn’t worth my tears right now. I step out of the therapy clinic and down to the waiting car. Kane spots me walking out and opens the door for me raising his eyebrow as I try to keep the tears in.

“Everything okay, Lunar?”

Nodding, I fake a smile at him. “Danger will be out soon.”

He nods and lets me slide into the car. I wish Kane wasn’t shutting the door so I could slam it. I’m so pissed at Danger right now. I fucking love the prick, and he goes off sprouting about his mother fucking ex-fiancée all the time lately. Doesn’t he know how much that’s hurting me? Doesn’t he know that the mere mention of Ella’s name does my head in? Maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe he doesn’t feel the same for me at all. And the woman he really wants, he can’t have, so I’m the next best thing. A substitute. Folding my arms over my chest while chewing on my bottom lip trying my hardest not to cry. I know he’ll be here any second, and I don’t want to explain tears to him. Explaining why I left will be hard enough.

As if on cue the door opens and Danger slips in. I don’t bother looking at him as he slides in next to me and exhales. “Why did you leave?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He scoffs grabbing my hands and turns me to face him. “It does matter. Talk to me… honestly, Lunar.”

I pause looking into his eyes and figure I may as well tell him how I’m feeling. If he wants Ella, I may as well find out now rather than keep hoping he wants me. “It always comes back to Ella. What the fuck is it about her, Danger? Why can’t I compare to her?”

He furrows his brows and shakes his head. “You don’t compare to her, Lunar. You don’t even come close.”

I close my eyes as the hot salty water doesn’t evade me this time, pooling so harshly I can hardly see. “Right! Well, if that’s how you feel. I’m leaving.”

He gasps and swallows hard. “No shit! That came out wrong. What I mean is, you don’t compare… as in you’re so much better than her, Lunar. You don’t compare, because you’re in a different league, a different galaxy. You have my heart, you’re not Ella fucking Slade.”

I do a double take looking at his eyes, they seem sincere as the car pulls off down the street. “I have your heart?” I confirm wanting to make sure I heard right.

“Yes… I love you, Lunar. I don’t know where this leaves us and it scares me. I don’t do long distance, and when Recoil is finished in Australia we’re going back to the USA. I don’t know what that means for us. I certainly didn’t plan on falling for you.”

Smiling, I shake my head taking in everything he’s said. Mainly the first four words. “Well, I’m following you obviously. You go to the US, I go to the US, Danger. I’m not giving this up because… I love you, too.”

He smiles wide as his breath catches. “You do?” His hand comes up to caress my face.

“I do.”

He slides next to me completely wrapping his arms around me pulling me to him. “Look, I’ve been talking a lot about Ella lately because I’m finally getting her out of my system. Every memory I have of her is being replaced by something better of you, and I love it. I’m just trying to expel everything, and I didn’t realize I was hurting you with it.”

Cuddling into him, I look up into his eyes. “Can you not talk about her instead? It makes me uncomfortable.”

“Sorry, I should have known. You know the song Effa and I have been working on forever?”

I nod.

“We finished it the night of the gala. That’s why she was in my room, we were finalizing the last of it.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, and once my voice is back… the first show I can, I’m gonna sing it to you.”

Smiling so wide, my heart skips a beat. “I can’t wait.”

“I love you, I mean it.”

“I love you, too. And I mean it when I say I’ll follow you anywhere.”

He smiles leaning in, his lips just about to touch mine. “Good, ‘cause I never want to let you go.”

 

SEVEN MONTHS LATER

 

Danger’s voice is at his all-time best, and Luke wasted no time in getting the tour back up and on track. We’re in New Zealand at the start of a six-month world tour, which will end back in Australia in five months’ time leaving a month for the Australian leg of the tour. I’m so proud of how far Danger has come in the last six months with his recovery. It was rocky. We fought—a lot—but I never gave up on him, and now we’re stronger than ever.

He’s on stage now rocking it out, his deep gravelly voice came back I think even better than before. It filters through the stadium sending a wave of lustrous pleasure through me.

Suddenly a tight pair of arms wrap around me from the side and I turn to see Effa embracing me. I chuckle as she sways me from side to side.

“It’s so good to finally be back on tour. When I got the call that Recoil wanted to start up again and have Luminous as their backup, I was so happy. And now Danger wants to release our song finally tonight. I’m so excited!”

She lets me go and I look at her opening my eyes wide in shock. I had no knowledge of this. “You’re performing your duet tonight?”

She nods. “Yep, right about now… I’d say.”

Danger concludes the song he’s singing and the crowd erupts into a loud rant of appreciation.

“Now we have something special for ya’ll tonight, something Miss Effervescent and I have been working on for a long time, which is dedicated to my beautiful woman, Annalise. This one’s for you, baby,” Danger calls out. Effa runs up on stage and the crowd cheers as she grabs a microphone and waves out to the audience. My heart gallops thinking I’m finally going to hear this song he wrote for me so long ago.

Nate kicks in with the heavy drum beat, and the guitars and bass follow soon after as a slow rock ballad fills the room. It might be slow, but it still has that hard rock edge to it that sends a vibration through your soul. Smiling wide, I wrap my arms around myself knowing Danger and Effa wrote this song for me, and it fills me with such an adrenalin rush I can’t even describe it.

Danger looks down to the wings of the stage and gives me a smile, he winks then opens his mouth letting the lyrics flow.

 

You know how the story goes,

it’s boy meets girl.

But tales are never easy, and there’s always two sides.

There’s no doubt I was broken,

completely shattered and lost.

But then you came in, and the tables turned.

Seems you were the knight,

and maybe I was the one who needed saving from my own demise.

 

Danger’s words about being broken and me saving him ring true as Effa steps up to the mic and starts to sing the next verse.

 

I know how this story goes,

it’s girl meets boy.

It’s so easy to fall when you’re the one who can see,

that you’re the broken one in this story,

not me.

But I’m here for you, and I want you to know,

that even though you’re hurting,

I’m in this for the long haul, and I will be your Angel in disguise.

 

Effa’s words are exactly what I would have said to Danger, it’s like she knows me so well. My chest aches at the song they wrote together about him and me. They sing the chorus together.

 

Together we can knock down all the walls.

Together we can fly a mountain so high.

Together we can do almost anything.

You’re my light,

you’re my home.

Like a lunar eclipse…

You own my heart.

 

My chest tightens until it’s almost hard to breathe. He used my name in the song, and there’s no mistaking that this song is for me now.

 

The night you came into my life,

my world turned on its head.

I never knew anything could feel so good so soon.

I thought it was too good to be true,

and I pushed my feelings aside.

But they didn’t go, they didn’t even fade.

In fact, they grew with such a fierce intent,

that I stand here now with an open chest.

 

Danger’s gravelly voice oozes with adoration and devotion as he sings the words about me, about us, and I think I’m starting to realize that when he wrote this song, he loved me, even back then. He’s loved me all along.

 

The night I came into your life,

it spun my head.

I knew things would be so good and soon.

You thought it was too good to be true,

but I knew, I knew,

that this wouldn’t fade.

I’m in this.

And I stand before you,

arms open accepting you with nothing but an open chest.

 

Effa’s voice is husky and brilliant as she sings straight from my heart without even knowing it. How these guys wrote this song exactly how I see us together is beyond me, and hot salty tears well in my eyes.

 

Together we can knock down all the walls.

Together we can fly a mountain so high.

Together we can do almost anything.

You’re my light.

You’re my home.

Like a lunar eclipse…

You own my heart.

 

I just have three words to say to finish off this story.

 

Danger sings.

 

I just have three words to say to finish off this story.

 

Effa repeats almost overlapping him in harmony, it’s beautiful.

 

I love you.

My heart beats for you, and only you.

This is how our story ends.

Like a lunar eclipse…

You own my heart.

You own my heart.

You own…

my heart.

 

The tears fall down my cheeks as he sings words about me, that he and Effa wrote all that time ago, and I realize now that he’s loved me for this whole time. He wrote the song with Effa thinking about me, and knowing that he couldn’t express his feelings to me correctly and instead chose to do so through the words of a song.

And I had the audacity to tell him he wasn’t writing it about me. No wonder he got so funny about me hearing the song in the first place. And as they wind it up, I feel like I’ve finally found my missing piece.

Danger is the part of me that’s always been missing.

And right now I know he’s the best part of me.