This storm is coming and it’s beautiful.
I likely shouldn’t be standing here any longer, watching from my balcony, staring out at the angry, raging sea, that will no doubt cut out my power, batter my windows, and rearrange my outdoor furniture as it always does.
But there is nothing good waiting for me inside my house.
My phone is there for one. Sitting on my kitchen counter, filled with texts from Florian Heart. Love notes. Poems. Sonnets and songs. Apologies and heartache and remorse and fuck him. I lost my baby. He lost nothing he wasn’t willing to lose.
My music room is another. I haven’t touched that duet since that scene with Gus in the bathroom, and now it’s like all my instruments are mocking me. Reminding me why I should have never said yes in the first place.
Gus. The stupid jerk I cannot stop thinking about.
It’s so goddamn ironic, right?
When life closes a door, it opens a window? Yeah, not so much. In this case, everything is flung open. Everything is exposed. I have no defenses. No recourse. I find a guy who makes me smile, who makes me laugh, who makes me feel seen and beautiful, and he’s not only in love with someone else, he tells me we’re just friends.
FRIENDS!
I start to find a place where I’m ready to put my ugly past behind me only for it to show back up again.
“I deserve a break!” I scream out. And that’s the moment the rain hits the beach and my back deck. A pounding torrent of water. A deluge that instantly soaks me, stealing my breath as I gasp for it.
I run my hands over my face, pushing my saturated hair back along with it. I’m smiling and laughing lightly at the shock and cold of the water. I’ve been in this house through several storms. If you live on the California coast, you get used to them. We lose power and the beach is a hot mess for a couple of days after, but we’re undeterred.
My hands clasp the thick railing as if I’m staking my territory, and that’s when I hear it. A loud, piercing sound that resembles a yell and a fight all bottled up into one. My eyes close, makeup likely smearing down my face in black rivulets.
But his voice.
Why is he here?
Strong arms wrap around my waist, hauling me back into an even stronger chest. Just the way he did on the beach the first day we met. He twists me around, my chest slamming into his with force, my head helpless as it finds the perfect crook between his shoulder, arm, and chest. His lips meet the bare skin of my neck.
“I’ve been ringing your bell and calling your phone for fifteen minutes.”
I smirk at that. Laugh a little too. “Most would have taken the non-reply as a hint.”
“Probably. But I’m not most, am I?”
No. Gus Diamond most certainly is not. “What are you doing here?”
“I was wrong,” he says directly into my skin, wet lips and wet tongue kissing and tasting at my even wetter skin. “I lied, I think too.”
No. Not this. Not now.
I shake my head against him. “I can’t, Gus. You should go. Back where you came from. The fact that you broke through my security and force field is terrifying enough.” And I’m not just talking about the perimeter of my house.
“Your lights were on and I knew you were home. You’re not one to ignore people. I didn’t plan on breaking into your house, Naomi. But I got worried and came down to the beach, just to see if I could look in and know you were okay. Then I heard you singing and yelled out to you. You didn’t respond, but your face…” He trails off, shaking his head against me, his mouth dipping deeper into my neck. “I knew your code. I saw you punch it in.” Now he grins into me like a sexy devil. “I think I’m stalking you, Naomi Kent.”
I huff out a harsh, ragged breath. “Why do you think I have all those measures in the first place?” Gus stiffens instantly, his smile dropping into a frown, but I take no relief in his reaction.
He jests about a stalker, but I had a man write me letters for months. Sexual, violent, and full of a passionate love that made no sense to me. I was fifteen. Fifteen! He broke into my parents’ home, into my bedroom, and got himself off in my bed.
I never slept in that house again.
That was the last time I knew what a home was until I bought this place after both my parents were dead, and my fiancé was gone.
What would you do if that were your teenage daughter?
People think invading your privacy is a celebrity rite of passage. A free rein. Something to mock and roll your eyes at when we complain about perpetually being followed and hounded by press. Stalked by deranged men. Brutalized by haters.
Don’t become famous. Don’t become a musician. Such a hardship in exchange for being rich.
I’ve heard it all. But at the end of the day, I’m still a person. A young woman. Because I have money and choose to sing as my profession, do I deserve to be attacked in my home? Lose my sense of privacy? Be exploited at every turn for the benefit of others? Have my personal life flashed across televisions and magazines and spoken about freely?
“Shit, Naomi. I didn’t… I’m just full of the wrong thing to say and do when it comes to you. I can’t think straight. You make it impossible to think straight.” His arms cling tighter and pull me against his wet chest a little stronger.
“Go home, Gus.”
“Not tonight, Naomi. Not unless you really mean it. Because I didn’t mean it. I don’t want to be your friend. I don’t want Florian Heart to so much as breathe in your direction. I’m jealous and angry and fucking crazy for you. I’m crazy about you, and I don’t know how to deal with that. I’m not good at it, but I think I want to try to be. I want to spend the night in this house, in your bed, inside of you.”
“And what happens tomorrow?” I manage, my voice thick with lust and apprehension and chaos. The storm engulfing us in its fury, mimicking my insides. “What happens when you decide you changed your mind? That I’m too much or not worth the effort? I haven’t told you all my baggage, Gus. I have so much it’ll fill every suitcase you’ve ever owned. And if you pick up my phone and take a look, you’ll see that my ex is just as determined, if not more so.”
“Jasper was kind enough to point out how I run in the opposite direction from real emotion. How anyone or anything that’s ever challenged me like that, I’ve surreptitiously pushed away. But I haven’t been able to do that with you. I’ve tried. I really have. I tried to make you my friend. I tried to play the professional-only card. I tried to keep my distance except for when we were working on the song. I tried ignoring you. Not calling you. But you never left my mind. Not once. You’re not the only one with baggage. I have plenty myself. And as for Florian?” He shrugs. “Well, he’s not here now. I am. And I’m not giving up on you.”
More lightning slashes across the sky, and in that second, I catch his pure, raw intensity. His determination. His lack of fucks to give when it comes to Florian or my past or my baggage.
“What about Viola?” I breathe the words because if I don’t get them out now…
His hands cup my face. “I never burned for Viola the way I burn for you. I never needed Viola the way I need you. All the things I thought I knew about love and life were wrong. You flipped everything upside down. Righted all my wrongs.” His face dips in closer, eyes searching mine as he infuses me with an unfiltered vulnerability that makes my chest quake. “All these years I’ve built up useless walls. No one got in because it was so much easier to keep them out. Tear them down, Naomi. Tear them down once and for all, and I’ll do the same with yours.”