I waited backstage for them too.
Not once was I tempted. Not once did I break the code. Never was I compromised.
In five years on the job, Stone Zenith has been my only transgression.
One.
This should be easy, going back to basics. I can return to the man I was before.
Stone strums the last chord, holding it as the music reverberates across the theater. When it fades into the night, he shouts, “Las Vegas, I love you like crazy!”
Someone screams back from the audience.
The sounds are hard to make out. Maybe they’re saying New song?
He cups his ear. “What’s that you said?”
Someone else shouts again, then another fan, and another, until it becomes an echoing chorus throughout the theater.
“New song, new song, new song.”
Stone freezes for a few seconds.
Then he casts a glance to the side of the stage, and my heart springs in my chest.
He’s looking for me.
I’m sure he’s going to lock eyes with me, but then he snaps his gaze quickly back to the crowd.
My heart thuds. Stupid organ.
He’s not searching for me. Hell, he didn’t even fight for me in his suite. I told him I couldn’t do my job with the way I felt for him. What did he think? That I just liked him? That I had a simple crush? I said I’d fallen for him. Did he think I’d tumbled into the kiddie pool?
He’d have been wrong.
I fell into the ocean, and I’m drowning in the middle of the sea.
All he said was You’re right. It’s against your code.
My jaw clenches, and I grit my teeth. Tension skewers me. I will myself to shuck it off because I don’t deserve anything more. I didn’t ask for his heart. And God knows I can’t want it.
But still, Stone’s uncharacteristically quiet for a few seconds onstage, and strangely enough, his silence gives me a flicker of hope.
Like maybe he’s tormented too.
Maybe he feels this empty ache the same as I do.
Candi mutters under her breath, “Just sing it.”
I turn my gaze to her, desperate to know if the new song is my song. “He mentioned it on his Instagram, didn’t he? That he was writing a new song?”
“He said he was going to share it with them tonight. His fans went crazy. They’re dying to hear it. I am too.”
The crowd roars again, a collective plea for the tune. I get it—I want to stomp my feet and beg for it too.
Stone shakes his head. “It’s not ready yet,” he booms into the mic. “Maybe someday. Will you wait for me?”
That’s enough for his fans. They cheer a deafening yes.
“You rock! How about an encore?” Before they can answer, he dives into one of his most famous tunes, and that gets them to stop asking about the new song.
It’s a song I might never hear. A song he may never play.
But it’s the song the guy in the picture wants to hear most in the world.
Candi sighs. “He’s been teasing them with it. He should just play the damn thing.”
“You know how it goes with inspiration,” I say, all casual, like it isn’t eating me alive too. Like I’m not dying to hear his song.
To ask him to play it for me.
Just for me.
But that is definitely against the code.
And I’m following the code now.
When the show ends, Stone stalks straight to his dressing room, shuts the door, and doesn’t come out for much longer than usual.
Twenty minutes that feel like they last an ice age.
Candi’s tapping her foot, eager to go. “He’s got a VIP thing, and then a late-night interview.”
When he finally opens the door, his green eyes are cold, and they slay me. “I can’t do the interview tonight. Can you just reschedule it?”
She doesn’t protest, and that’s unlike her. She must be able to read the hard edge in him tonight. “I’ll take care of it for you, but you’ve got to do it tomorrow.”
“I will. I promise.”
Stone marches to the VIP room and does the meet and greet with smiles, grins, hugs, and pics. The same way he did the night before. And the night before that too.
And I’m howling inside. Missing him with every breath I take.
When he swaggers out of the VIP room, he yawns, big and long, like these are just more rock-star shenanigans and this day wasn’t a big deal to him after all.
Like I’m the only one who feels the void, the only one with this giant canyon of emptiness inside me.
“Go to bed, Stone,” Candi says softly.
He keeps his eyes on her, only her. “Yeah. Need to hit the sack. I had a shit day.”
I blink. That gives me another flicker of hope.
We both had awful days. He’s affected too, and that is awesome.
Except what the hell?
Why do I want to know he’s miserable as well?
Because it hurt that it seemed easy for him today when I ended it?
Then again, I made it seem easy for me. Like splitting up with him is as simple as rules and codes.
It is, but it’s also not. I didn’t simply fall for him, like I told him.
I fell in love with him.
Big, epic, messy, heart-wrenching love.
With a rock star.
God, I’m a cliché.
Candi reaches for his arm, ever the mama hen tending to her chicks. “Are you okay? Are you getting enough sleep? Are you doing your yoga?”
“I am. It’s not a yoga issue.” He doesn’t look at me at all, and I do my best to only look at him through professional eyes.
As we leave with Candi, I want to kick myself.
How did I ever think getting involved with my boss would be easy? I’m madly in love with the guy, and I can’t act on it. But I’ve never been able to act on it. This return to the old world order should be easy. This should be all I’ve ever known.
When we reach the elevator banks, Candi says good night and peels away. Soon we’re alone in the steel machine, shooting up several floors.
Stone barely makes eye contact with me. He leans against the wall and mutters, “Good show.”
“Great show,” I say, my voice wobblier than I’m used to.
He parts his lips to speak, but no words come.
He looks away and doesn’t meet my eyes again.
So, the way we were before we got involved is over too. The joking, the teasing, the poking fun at each other. That’s all gone.
And now we are this—quiet, tense, terrible.
We reach his room, and I say good night. He doesn’t look back.
33
Stone
Hell.
This is hell.
For six days in a row, I have woken up next to Jackson, and on the seventh day, I pat the side of my bed . . .
The big, empty, sad, depressing, awful, terrible side.
I pull the covers up, turn off my phone, and go back to sleep.
But the universe must hate me, because I wake twenty minutes later.
I drag my ass out of bed, order some food, and try to meditate.
But meditation hates me too, because all I can see, all I can think about, is Jackson.
Those hazel eyes. Soulful, caring, tender.
Those strong hands. Rough and loving.
His big heart. Steady and deep.