“The fuck you will,” Keith barks at Henry. “I will kick your ass from here to East Jesus.”
I snort out a laugh at that, but Keith throws me a sideways glare.
He points a finger at Henry. “You’re not going to touch, Eden.”
“How do you know I’m talking about Eden?” Henry challenges with a gleam in his eyes.
Keith growls. “Because you’re always talking about Eden. She’s the only one you ever mention. That shit is wrong. She’s too young for you. Too innocent and—”
“Hypocrite,” Henry barks out as a fake cough, and now Jasper, Gus, and I are smiling like fools, trying to contain our laughter.
“She’s a—”
“Grown woman, you were about to say,” Henry interjects sharply. “I might not have seen her since our tour a few years back, but she was… what? nineteen then?”
“Right. She was nineteen then. Not a grown woman. Nineteen is too young, and you shouldn’t have been talking about her.”
“So now she’s more like somewhere in between Maia and Naomi’s age.”
“No way you can be serious about her when you’ve decided never to be serious about anyone. She’s still in school, bro.”
Suddenly all eyes fall on me and the noise in the car turns to zilch. Because I was in school once and if things had continued on course, I would still be in school. Which I guess officially makes me too young for Keith to be serious about. Awesomesauce.
I look to the window, only to feel him squeeze my shoulder. I refuse to acknowledge it. Our mess is what it is and it’s too late to backtrack at this point.
I get it, though. That’s the point of all this, right? I’m too young so he can’t be serious. This can’t happen for real.
Got it.
“Oh look,” Marco sings out. “We’re here. Maia, you hooked us up good, girl. The Fairmont is glorious. Can’t wait to see how they’ve arranged our rooms.”
I throw Marco a grateful eye just as the car rolls to a stop and the doors are opened. We’re ushered immediately into a private elevator up to a private floor I’ve requested for the guys and all of our security as well as myself and Marco. But before I can slip my card into my door, Keith wraps his arm around my waist and throws me over his shoulder fireman style. He jogs us down the hall, despite my noisy protests, until I’m forced into his suite where he sets me on my feet and shuts the door behind us.
The suite is beautiful with large windows and gorgeous luxurious furnishings and once again I’m reminded just how far from Kansas, or northwestern Virginia, I’ve come. I don’t get much time to appreciate the digs as Keith gets right up in my face.
“I have five younger sisters, Maia. Five girls I helped raise while my mom worked graveyards as a nurse and my father worked days as a mechanic. That shit between me and Henry over Eden has been going on forever. He saw her a few years back and something shifted in him and it drives me up a wall. He knows it does, so he pushes it. It’s not in any way related to me and you.”
I want to believe him. I truly do.
“I think what you did for your sisters is incredible. They’re lucky.” He reads me clearly, but I mean it. I’m not one of those people who hate on others for having more. Everyone should have more, and no one should have less. But at the same time, I had no one to do that for me. “I’m twenty. How many times have you told me I’m too young? Too innocent. Too forbidden.”
“You are all those things. Why do you think I tried so hard to stay away from you?”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
He runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “You’re different in my head to me than my baby sister is. I don’t know how to explain that any other way. Your situation was shitty. I get it. And there is no limit on the amount of anger or bitterness you should feel for that. It’s the same for anyone, rich or poor, life is a motherfucker that doesn’t stop or care about whether or not you’re happy or your life is fair. I get it,” he repeats. “But so far, you haven’t needed me. Not the way my sisters did. You haven’t needed anyone because you’ve done it all on your own. You’re the strongest woman I know.”
He has no idea. I’m strong because I had no choice. I had to be.
I needed so many heroes over the years that I dreamt up all kinds of fairy tales. Hell, Disney is not nearly as creative as I was. But they’ve been never real. They’ve always been pretend. Maybe that’s why I love old movies so much. The happily ever after was guaranteed. And god, who doesn’t need that?
“You have no idea what I needed,” I tell him, resentment clouding my tone because I will not be told his sisters needed someone more than I did.
He walked into my life and tossed all my crap out the window like the trash it was and replaced the refuse with promises of better. And I believed him. I fell for it all. All of him.
It makes me feel stupid and restless.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t have said that.” He scrubs his hands up and down his face before grabbing my shoulders and staring straight into my eyes. “You’re twenty, but are you, Maia? Are you really? How long have you been taking care of yourself? How long have you been the adult in your world? You’re twenty, but you’re an old soul and it’s not the fucking same. Please see that. Please know that. I not only want you. I fucking need you. Don’t get your head full of shit that’s between me and Henry.”
I can try. But it’s difficult not to.
I was never so insecure about myself and my situation until he came along, and I don’t like the feel of it on my skin or in my head.
“I’ll see you at soundcheck.” I walk out of his room and he lets me go. And part of me thinks, it’s too early for this. But then I remember this is fleeting. And he does nothing to prove me wrong.
23
Keith
* * *
If Fuck-Up were a name, its middle name would be Keith. Or maybe that name would be Keith Fuck-Up. It seriously doesn’t matter the order because the sentiment is unchanged. I fucked up. Big time. Because that’s all I seem to do.
I fly out my suite door and sprint down the hall seconds after her.
Her hand touches her keycard to the door, and I snatch it from her hand, opening the door for her and leading her inside. She starts to argue, as she always does, but I have ground to make up for and I can’t do that and make soundcheck if I let her mouth start in on me now.
I peel off her T-shirt, followed quickly by her bra. Then I take off my shirt.
She’s yelling, even swatting a bit, but I can’t focus on that.
I’m a man on a mission.
Her leggings follow, my hands sliding them along with her panties down over her hips and legs until they hit the floor. I get a smack to the face followed by another to my chest before she takes my nipple and twists it hard between her fingers.
“Brat, that hurt.”
“It was supposed to, you asshole.”
I pick her up the way I did earlier and toss her on the bed with a heavy bounce, her tits doing the same and it makes my dick jerk in my pants.
“Stop looking for reasons to push me away,” I tell her, crawling over to her, hovering above her while she stares daggers into my eyes. She’s so hot when she’s mad, it’s almost impossible to get these words out. “I want you. I don’t know how many ways I have to keep telling you the same damn thing, but if I have to do it a hundred times a day, I will. I. Want. You. Too young. Too innocent. Too forbidden. Doesn’t matter. It’s you. All of you. Do you hear me?”