Waves rolled against the sand. They came as a quiet thunder as the tide ebbed and waned. The familiar rhythmic lurch of the sea filtered in through my open window, and the flowy drapes framing it blew in the gentle breeze.
Peace.
It’s the one thing we all hunger for. The innate need to feel safe and protected against the storms raging around us.
Yet I felt farther from it than I’d felt in a long, long time.
Hugging my blanket a little tighter to my chest, I tucked my trembling body into a tight ball.
Still a prisoner to the night.
To the dreams that would forever keep me in their hold.
They were always there. But somehow they had shifted since Austin had made his unexpected reappearance in my life. As if the nightmares were taunting me with the moments of peace he’d provided. With the compassion and tenderness only he could provide.
Like tendrils of his comfort stretched out their spindly fingers, winding and whipping, just out of reach.
When I awoke?
I’d never felt so alone.
I choked over the sob I held in my throat, keeping my torment secret while the loss hit me like a silent hailstorm.
My heart thudded violently.
Torn in every direction.
Desperate for connection.
For the one person who’d ever truly understood.
I knew I shouldn’t go there—shouldn’t torture myself this way—but I found myself untangling my body from my twisted covers. Through bleary eyes, I leaned over to my nightstand and opened the bottom drawer, rummaged through to the back, knowing exactly where it was considering I found myself clinging to it almost every night. The second I held it in my hand, tears streaked free.
Unchecked but restrained by all the walls I’d had to force into place in order to protect the one thing that would always matter to me most.
Taking in a shuddered breath, I rolled onto my back and lifted it above me.
Let it dangle in the air like a silent promise.
Feathers danced in the breeze, and the colorful, shiny beads threaded on the leather strings glittered in the rays of sunlight that slanted in through the window.
The hoop weighed so little. Yet it felt anything but light.
Memories spun, just like the web that was supposed to catch my dreams.
You’re safe. You’re safe. Nothing can hurt you. I won’t let it.
How many times had he uttered that promise?
An old pain twisted through my insides. I’d always known I could never leave it behind. That it would haunt me like a ghost. I’d just never believed those ghosts would have the chance to catch up to me.
Two knocks thudded at my bedroom door. For two seconds, I clung to the sorrow, to the memories, to the hope that seemed nothing more than a dream, before I shoved the dreamcatcher under my pillow.
I did my best to push off the grief, to pretend everything was just fine, the way I always did, swatting at the tears I’d feign didn’t exist.
For so long, it just seemed the right thing to do. To put on a brave face and a fake smile. To shove it all into the past and forget, just like my mother had promised me one day I’d do.
Forget.
But I was beginning to wonder if striving for that distance made me nothing less than a fool. Because that distance was insurmountable. Unpassable. Just a girl looking up at a vast mountain range that could never be crossed.
The door swung open.
Blaire poked her head inside, giving me a wide, innocent grin that was every kind of devious as she entered.
Without an invitation.
Not that I was surprised or anything.
Barging in was kind of her MO.
Funny, it just made me love her all the more.
I donned a bright smile which never felt all that forced when I was around my best friend. She just had this way about her, pulling smiles and laughter from me with ease.
Her huge mass of brown hair was bundled in a messy bun on the top of her head, and she wore an old tattered sweatshirt with the neck ripped out that dipped off one shoulder, her shorts so short she didn’t appear to be wearing any.
“Hey,” I said. I cleared my throat when the word cracked. Doing my all to keep it cool and even, hoping it revealed nothing. Because the last thing I wanted was for her to worry. For her to dig and prod into the places I couldn’t allow her to go.
I sat up and crisscrossed my legs.
A rush of unease stirred. I totally recognized the look in her eye.
Blaire hopped onto the bottom of my bed, facing me as she mirrored my position. “Spill,” she ordered.
I crossed my arms over my chest. I hoped it appeared defiant, when in reality I was trying to keep myself from crumbling. “I don’t have any clue what you’re talking about.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I call bullshit. You are totally holding out on me, Edie Evans. And you know just how much I really hate being held out on.”
Subtly, I laughed, shaking my head. I’d been holding out for a long, long time. “There just isn’t anything to say.”
Her brows drew tight. “Did you know you’re probably the worst liar in the history of all liars?”
She cocked her head, edged a fraction closer to study me as if she were trying to decipher some kind of riddle.
“I’m not lying,” I mumbled.
The corner of my mouth trembled. Just a little.
“See.” She jabbed her index finger twice toward my mouth. “That. Right. There.” She swished her hand in front of my face as if she were offering it up as evidence. “You do this little twitchy thing every time whatever is coming out of your mouth isn’t the whole and complete truth. It’s actually kind of adorable.”
“Not true.”
Another tremble.
“Ha!” She pointed again, all too happy to be catching me in the act.
I bit my bottom lip.
Hard.
God. When did she start seeing straight through me?
She pffted, catching that too. “I seriously doubt that’s going to help. Just give it up and ’fess up. I know you better than you think I do. And what I know is you waltz around here with a smile painted on your face, pretending like you’re the happiest person in the world when it’s so obvious you’re missing something. You have a great job. You live on the beach. Not to mention you have a really freaking awesome best friend.”
Okay. So maybe humility wasn’t exactly her strong suit.
She kept right on talking. “And let’s not forget about Jed. You know, my big brother who’s been in love with you since the second he saw you, and you won’t even go as far as to throw the poor guy a bone? And considering just about every last girl within a hundred-mile radius would probably throw down to get a piece of my brother and you do your best to avoid him…” She circled her index finger around my face. “I know there’s something going on in that pretty little head of yours.”
“I like my job.”
No lip tremble. Let’s hear it for small victories.
The truth was, I loved my job.
So what if I’d basically ignored all Blaire’s other overt insinuations? The ones about her brother and my joy?
That wasn’t a topic I relished tackling.
Four years ago I’d come to Santa Cruz.
Lost.
Heartbroken.
Scared and alone and vulnerable.
Right back where I’d promised myself I’d never be again.
But at least I’d had the choice to leave. The choice to protect the little I still could.
I’d never allow anyone to steal my choice again.
Jed had hired me on the spot when I’d seen the Help Wanted sign tacked on the door of his shop. Blaire and I had become fast friends, and it wasn’t long until I was renting out the third bedroom of the beachside condo Blaire and Jed shared.
Blaire scoffed. “I didn’t say you don’t like your job. But you’ve been moping around for the last two days like you’re some kind of emo chick. And seriously, it’s not a good look for you. I mean, come on, you don’t even have black hair.”
Oh, the sarcasm.
She tsked. “Seems to me super-hot singer guy has your panties all in a twist.”
I struggled to keep my breath from catching with the blatant insinuation.
She sobered at my reaction, her voice softening. “You haven’t been yourself since, Edie.” She lifted a brow. I couldn’t tell whether it was knowing or accusatory. “Or maybe you’re really just acting like yourself because you found the missing piece.”
This time my breath did catch.
Sometimes she was a little too insightful.
But that was the problem. There were so many missing pieces I’d been left a hollowed out shell.
“And I totally dig the tats, by the way. It makes him seen so…dangerous.”
She had no idea.
“And those lips…did you see those lips?” She gave an exaggerated groan and waved her hand at her face as if she were overheated. “No man should have lips like that. That’s an injustice.”
Yeah. I’d seen those lips. Had felt them brush my cheek as they’d quietly sang me to sleep at night. Had felt their soft, tentative exploration across my skin.
Slowly I shook my head. “I told you…he was just someone I knew back in L.A. I wasn’t expecting to see him. We didn’t exactly part on the best of terms.”
“Lover?” She actually had the nerve to sound hopeful.
I sighed. “No.”
It was so much more complicated than that.
“Friend?” she prodded.
Resigned, I looked at her, swallowed around the lump so big I was sure it was cutting off air flow to my lungs. God knew admitting it made me lightheaded. “He was my best friend.”
She waggled her eyebrows. “So it sounds like you two need to kiss and make up.”
Ugh.
Only Blaire.
I shook my head. “Aren’t you supposed to be on your brother’s side?”
Nonchalant, she hiked a single shoulder. “Oh come on, Edie. My brother might follow you around like a lovesick fool, but neither of us needs to pretend he has any claim on you when all of us know he doesn’t.”
Guilt throbbed, and I rapidly blinked. “I’ve never been anything but honest with Jed.”
Brutally honest.
While still keeping all my secrets.
I’d done my all to keep Jed in the friend zone. Still, he’d pushed and pushed with zero pressure. Thinking one day he would wear me down.
He’d just never accepted the fact that day would never come.
She pointed at my door. “Night after night, my brother sleeps right across the hall. Not once have I caught either of you sneaking out of the other’s room. I bet you haven’t even done the dirty deed with him, have you?”
In discomfort, I glanced away, out the window to the toiling sea beyond, knowing she was just goading me. Trying to get me to open up. To tell her all.
Because she was no fool and, even though she’d become my closest friend, she was well aware I hadn’t let her completely in.
My brow pinched in something close to offense. “You know we haven’t.”
Her head tipped as she tossed out the accusation. “And why’s that?”
Digging deeper.
Shaking my head, I looked back at her. “I already told you. I don’t do flings.” Only I had.
Once.
And that fling had been my demise.
Then when I’d sought refuge in the Sunder house years later, I’d gone and gotten foolish. Tried my hand at love. Opened up and gave Austin the broken pieces that had remained and trusted him to hold them together.
Sadly, the only thing that’d managed was blowing the rubble to tiny bits of dust.
She threw up her hands.
“Oh come on, Edie.” Her expression morphed into something serious. “I know you’re not shutting my brother out based on virtue. Otherwise you’d have a ring on your finger and would already be riding toward happily ever after because you know my brother would one-hundred percent be on board for something more than just a fling. So you might as well concede and tell me the truth, because I know that ridiculously delicious boy with a guitar was not just some random guy you had a little tiff with and you parted ways.”
I twisted my hands, saying nothing.
Disappointed, she shook her head. “You’re my best friend, and I don’t even know you. I don’t know who you are, where you’re from, or why seeing some guy has sent you into a complete tailspin. But what I do know? I know you’re hiding and you’ve been since the second you came here. And despite all those things, I really care about you. And I can’t be there for you if I don’t know what we’re up against.”
Trust.
It was something I didn’t give easily.
Something I hadn’t truly granted in what felt like forever.
Not since Austin.
Fear closed in like a shroud. Chills skated down my spine. I fought it back, forced the words to form on my dry tongue, because maybe Blaire was right. Maybe it was time I gave her more than just tidbits into my past. God knew I didn’t know how to manage this disaster on my own. “His name’s Austin. Austin Stone.”
The broken boy who’d become my life. My safety.
But I should have known sometimes wreckage cannot be salvaged.
This was a crushed-up boy who’d been messed up in the kind of trouble that leashed you like a dog then led you down a path of destruction. A boy who’d filled his veins to cover up the pain he wore like a second skin, all in an effort to pretend his own demons didn’t exist.
Dark, dark demons.
By the time I met him? I’d already invented my own ruin.
I should have known combining the two would ravage and destroy the little bits we had remaining.
The admission cut to a whisper. “He’s Sebastian Stone’s younger brother.”
Confusion hovered around her as she tried to make sense of my statement, before her mouth dropped open. “Hold up. You mean the Sebastian Stone. Lead singer of Sunder?”
Warily, I nodded.
She slapped the heel of her hand against her forehead. “Oh my God. How did I not recognize it? I thought he looked familiar. I mean, he looks exactly like him. And that voice and the way he plays guitar? Oh. My. God.”
It was the truth.
I’d been a little bit taken aback, startled by the fact Austin had changed so much and now so closely resembled his older brother. Though somehow I wasn’t surprised at all that my beautifully broken boy would turn into a devastatingly gorgeous man.
Mine.
Hurt slammed me from all sides.
That’s what he was supposed to be.
And here I was.
Alone when I didn’t have to be.
Blaire was grinning, her excitement barely contained. As if she’d momentarily become completely oblivious to my turmoil. “Holy shit. This is huge. So huge. How the hell did you meet Austin Stone? I mean…have you met his brother?” She bounced on the mattress like an overeager groupie. “Oh my God, tell me you’ve met the rest of the band.”
Discomfort gripped me tight, my throat raw as I worked myself up to making the confession.
As I worked up the courage to let her into all those places I never let anyone else go.
I’d endured so much loss.
Every single thing I had loved.
Every person.
Family, hopes, and dreams.
All of it had hinged on one mistake.
One mistake I’d made when I was fourteen.
Just a naïve, stupid, foolish little girl.
Ash had just been another casualty of that fateful night.
One that had followed me like a landslide, devouring everything important to me in its path.
The confession came out choppy. “Blaire…Ash Evans is my brother.”
Blaire’s eyes went wide. Shocked and hurt. “What?”
My mouth opened, an explanation on my tongue, when a soft tap sounded at my door. Jed peeked in. He wore a gentle, hesitant smile on his face. “Can I come in?”
I swallowed hard, hoping the words didn’t crack as I forced a smile onto my face and said, “Of course.”
He sauntered in. Crossing to me, he placed an innocent kiss against my forehead, lingering just a little longer than necessary, his thumb brushing across my cheek. The kind of affection he always gave. Chaste but always hoping for more.
“How are my girls this morning?” he asked.
Sadness swelled around me.
Any girl would be lucky to be called Jed’s girl.
But I think I’d known it the second I’d seen Austin sitting on that stage.
Imperceptively, I shook my head, refuting my own damned lie.
Because I’d known it since the moment he’d crawled into my bed and whispered his ease. Since the moment his spirit had sank into my soul.
Even if I could never have him, I would always belong to Austin Stone.