Chaos

“No,” I say, and Shawn steps forward before reconsidering and staying put.

“Why?”

“You’re drunk.”

This is the night after our first performance all over again. I want him, but I can’t take another morning-after. I can’t take him regretting what he did, him choosing to forget it. I can’t be forgotten again.

I walk away from him because it’s the only choice I have. If I stay . . .

I can’t stay. Not with him looking at me like that. Not with every fiber of my body wanting to wrap itself around the softness of him, the hardness of him.

“Kit,” he calls after me as I retreat toward the door to the venue. Every step I’m taking hurts, like I’m resisting the pull of something I belong to. The farther I get, the harder it is.

I don’t turn around.

“No, Shawn. I’m not doing this again.” What I’m not saying is that I can’t . . . I can’t. Every time we do this, I lose another piece of myself, and another.

I hear his footsteps following me.

“Kit,” his voice pleads before I swing the metal door wide open.

“No. Talk to me when you’re sober.”

I don’t look back. Shawn’s presence behind me tingles at the back of my neck, but the whole walk to the greenroom, I pretend he doesn’t exist.

I’m not a toy. I’m not something he can just play with each time he gets bored and then forget about until he feels like it again.

“Guys,” I say from the doorway, flinching when a heavy hand lands on my shoulder. I turn my head to glare at Shawn, sighing when I realize he’s simply leaning on me to steady himself, staring down at his feet like they’re about to jump out from under him. “Shawn is drunk as hell,” I finish. “Can someone help me get him to the bus?”

A roadie walks over, clapping him on the shoulder so hard that Shawn is nearly knocked off his feet. The roadie laughs and dips his head under Shawn’s arm, holding him up while Adam attempts to crawl over the back of the couch, trips in the process, and proves he’s just as wasted as Shawn. Shawn starts giggling, and Adam lies on the floor laughing his ass off while I roll my eyes.

Joel is the one with enough sense to stand and walk around the couch instead of scaling over it. He stares down at Adam with glassed-over blue eyes of his own. “Dude, you are so trashed.”

When Adam holds up a hand for help, Joel is about to reach down and take it, but Mike jumps in instead to prevent both of them from ending up on their asses. “Alright, let’s go.”

“Are we taking the party back to the bus?” Victoria suggests in that annoying daddy’s-girl voice of hers, and my mouth is quick to open before anyone else’s can.

“Sorry, invitation only.” I shoot her an oversweet smile and wait for Mike to haul Adam off the ground.

Victoria is in my personal bubble before I know it, turning her big hazel eyes on Shawn, who still has his hand on my shoulder. “Can I come, Shawn?”

We’re both staring up at him, waiting for his response, when he starts chuckling again and challenges, “Were you invited?”

I’m still too pissed off at him to appreciate the support, but I do grin at the way Victoria’s face twists from the rejection. I turn my back on her without another word, my heavy boots leading my hot mess of boys back to the bus. They’re loud, they’re obnoxious, and on the bus, I can hear them even through the walls of my running shower.

Shawn’s kisses linger on my skin. His lips still tingle on my neck. His fingers are everywhere, and I brace my hands against the linoleum wall and let the water rush over the back of my head as I try to block them out.

Kale warned me that joining the band was a bad idea, and I knew it would be hard . . . I just didn’t know it would be like this. I didn’t know I’d kiss him in Mayhem. I didn’t know he’d kiss me back.

I lift my face into the water.

This time, he kissed me. And just like that girl who would have followed him anywhere six years ago, I let him. I kissed him back. I knew I shouldn’t, but still, I couldn’t not kiss him back. He’s like an addiction that’s always coursing through my veins, waiting to flare at the slightest spark.

It’s his lips. Those eyes. His scent. That touch.

It’s the way he looks at me in the dark. The way he kisses me when my eyes are closed—the way he kisses me when my eyes are open.

I don’t bother drying my hair. I tie it up in a knot on top of my head and emerge from the bathroom in an oversized band T-shirt that swallows up the silky pair of pajama shorts underneath. The guys are still trying to raise the dead in the kitchen, so I huff out a breath and make my way back there.

“Seriously?” I say, my eyes scanning over the shot glasses and liquor bottles decorating the table they’re at.

“I’m not drinking,” Shawn offers, but I ignore him and start rummaging through the cupboards.

“What are you doing?” Joel asks from where he’s sitting on top of the table, a bottle of gin between his legs.

“Making you something to eat.”

“Oh!” Adam pushes Shawn’s head out of the way so he can see me better. “I want . . . cheesecake! Can you make cheesecake?”

“Yeah, Adam, let me pull a cheesecake out of my ass for you.”

As I root through a cabinet, there’s so much laughter from behind me, I can’t even tell who all it’s coming from. I wish I was one of them, drunk off my ass and laughing about shit that’s not even funny. Instead, I’m a model of sobriety to prevent myself from soaking Shawn’s sleeve with my tears and asking him why he can’t just want me when he’s sober.