“No. Don’t even try to sell that shit to me.” He released her, took a step back, and let his hand fall to his side. “That’s not what this is about. This is about you being afraid. And making me the bad guy. Fine. I’ll be the bad guy, Tru.”
“You’re not the bad guy.”
“No, I’m not. But you overthink everything, Tru. Do you ever just let go and enjoy what you’re doing when you’re doing it?”
“Of course I do.” But he was right. She did overthink everything. “That’s who I am.”
“No, it’s who you think you should be. But, damn it, Tru, that’s not all you are.”
He grabbed her hips, pulled her flush against him and settled his lips on hers for a kiss that made her toes curl.
He didn’t let her up for air as he licked into her mouth, forcing her to breathe through her nose if she didn’t want to pass out. His tongue slid against hers, tasting, playing with her.
A rush of overpowering emotion threatened to make tears well as her hands clutched at his waist, trying to bring him even closer. His erection pressed against her lower belly, making her hips strain forward. The sensation made her even more desperate for him than she already was.
That desperation made her moan a little and made her rejoice when he kissed her harder, his fingers biting into her shoulders as he held her tighter.
She hadn’t thought she’d get to kiss him again and frantic anxiety bubbled up through her blood, making her lungs ache and her muscles tighten.
When he made the slightest move to draw back, she went up on her toes and wrapped her hands around his neck so he couldn’t get away.
Now he groaned a little deeper and he slanted his head to deepen the kiss even more.
When he finally drew back, she was breathing so hard, she thought she might hyperventilate.
Lifting one hand, he cupped her jaw and rubbed his thumb over her bottom lip, which felt puffy and had to be red and swollen.
“See you around, Tru. It’s been fun.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Man, you’re fucking pitiful. No wonder she dumped your ass. And what the fuck did you do to her anyway? Do we need to kick your ass?”
Baz gave Zach a lethal glare. “I didn’t do anything. She’d already made up her mind. She was out. Nothing I said would’ve changed her mind.”
“So you didn’t even try?”
Yeah, he had. He’d kissed her, had tried to show her just how much he cared for her. And she’d still let him walk away.
“You don’t know Tru.” Baz shook his head, tossing his Xbox controller after his character got lit up and died. “She wasn’t gonna change her mind. Look, can we please not talk about this anymore? It’s just pissing me off.”
“You don’t look pissed off, man. You look like someone ran over your damn puppy.”
“Fuck, man, that’s sick. Who’d run over a puppy?”
Sitting in Zach’s suite at Haven, they’d been chilling, playing Halo on Xbox. They’d finished rehearsals yesterday and were taking a day off before they started the full-court press of public relations for the new album. Tomorrow, the entire band had their first interview since he’d overdosed. The reporter had interviewed them before and they trusted her, which was why they’d agreed to it.
Baz didn’t expect her to go easy on him. He wanted to be treated exactly how he’d been treated before. Except now, he hoped, he had a little better handle on himself.
Hell, he’d nearly died and had his heart broken in the past year. That made you grow up pretty damn fast.
“And now you’re deflecting.” Zach paused the game and turned on the couch so he could look at Baz. The problem was, Baz didn’t want to be seen.
“Well, damn, look at you. You added a new word to your vocabulary.”
And as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wanted to take them back.
“Fuck. Zach, goddamn it. I’m so fucking sorry. You know I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
Baz forced himself to look up at one of his best friends and found Zach shaking his head, a wry grin on his face but no hurt. Zach had still been in high school when they’d gone on tour. He was the only one of them who hadn’t graduated and Baz knew that was a sore spot with him. And he’d intentionally needled the guy about it.
Fuck. He was a total asshole.
And Zach just shrugged it off. “No worries, man. Didn’t I tell you? I finally got my GED last year. Guess your overdose was good for something, huh?”
Baz barked out a quiet laugh, then shook his head. “Damn, that’s great, Zachy Bear. Seriously. I’m glad something good came out of my fuckup.”
“That wasn’t the only thing, you know. If you hadn’t taken last year off, you wouldn’t have gotten the opportunity to write that kick-ass score for Greg’s film. And you might never have met Tru.”
Yeah, the score was the one bright spot to come from his OD. But Tru . . .
Jesus, just thinking about her made his fucking heart hurt. Like it was trying to shrivel in his chest to get away from the pain.
Every time he thought about her, which was every other minute, he wanted to sit in a corner and bang his head against the wall. Or bang out stupid love songs on the piano.
The guys had gotten sick of hearing “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” and “More Than Words” the past few weeks during rehearsal. Hell, if he even made a move toward the piano now, they threw things at him before he sat down.
“She didn’t care about me enough to even try to keep our relationship going. Or maybe I just saw more there than there really was.”
“Nah.” Zach shot that down immediately. “We all saw how much she liked you. But you gotta admit, the lifestyle can be a problem. Especially for a girl like Tru.”
Baz frowned at Zach. “What? You think I should quit the band and score movies for a living?”
“I’m not saying you have to give up the band. I’m just saying maybe you gotta do more than tell her you love her. You gotta make the grand gesture and show her. She works in the movies, for chrissake. She’s used to a big finish. Like . . .” Zach’s brow furrowed and then straightened as he snapped his fingers. “Ooh. Like at the end of Valley Girl.”
Baz frowned at him. “You want me to go to her prom and punch out her boyfriend?”
Zach reached across the cushion and punched him on the shoulder. “No, asshole. You just need to do something like that. You know, show her you’re willing to do whatever it takes to get her back.”
“That’d be great if I actually had time to spend with her. We’re leaving for six fucking months.”
“I didn’t say it was gonna be easy, man. But you’ve gotta decide how hard you wanna fight.”
* * *
“Alright, Tru. I’ve had just about as much as I can take.”
Tru’s head shot up from where she was reading over the plans Talia had made for the opening night party. It was her second time through it, and for some reason, she couldn’t seem to retain any of the information.
She’d been like this for a week. She was attributing it to prerelease stress. She refused to believe it was related to anything else.
“What’s wrong?”
Greg dropped into the chair in front of her desk and lounged back into it, like he wasn’t going anywhere for a while.
“I’m pretty sure you know what’s wrong. You’re just ignoring the problem.”
Her breath caught in her throat. “I have no idea what you’re talking about?”
“Yeah, you do. So either snap out of this already or do something about it.”
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bullshit.” Greg shook his head. “Time to admit you screwed up, Tru.”