pull out my phone and type out a text to the soph I met at UT Dallas back in January.
Tyler: Come over tonight.
I move through the pool house in the dark, dropping my phone on the bed. In the bathroom, I strip off my clothes and step into the shower. The spray washes away a day of frustration and anger.
Kellan’s lucky. He might not think so icing his face tonight, but he has no idea what I’d have done if he’d hurt her.
When I moved to Dallas, I hadn’t planned on being the rich kids’ fascination, but it made everything easier—catching up in school, blending in.
It’s easy to stay on top when people don’t know what you care about.
When they know how to hurt you…
You’re weak.
I can’t afford weakness. Not when I’m so close to making something of myself.
I want to get through graduation and leverage my work with Jax into session gigs in LA, New York. I’ll have enough to provide myself, enough to leave my shitty home life behind and be free.
“Spoken like someone who’s afraid.”
Annie’s wrong. I’m not afraid of fame, but I’m not dumb enough to think it’s for me. And even if it wants me… I don’t want it.
So, why does it bother you so much?
Because I don’t want to want it. I’m never going to make the same mistake my father did.
When people get a taste of that life, it fucks with their head, destroys them and everyone around them.
When the prospect of six figures turns to seven turns to eight… it stops being about the music and starts being about something ugly.
The spray goes cold, and I step out and towel off.
Despite my current surroundings, I don’t accept kindness easily. A favor is a debt in disguise.
The favor Jax did me by bringing me here isn’t a new debt.
It’s a payment on an old one.
I’m drying my hair when I jerk open the bathroom door and step out.
The hall light’s on. I realize it a second before the sharp intake of breath has me freezing.
Annie Jamieson’s in the doorway, her eyes round with shock. The dark bathing suit is painted on her slow curves. Her wet hair is the color of melted toffee, and she’s dripping on my floor. “Holy shit.”
Her attention isn’t on the puddle she’s leaving beneath her. It’s not even on my face.
It’s squarely between my legs.
I wrap the towel around my hips, taking longer than I should. “Hi.”
“Hi.” But her gaze lingers below my waist. “I needed a towel. The cabana’s… big.”
“It’s big,” I echo.
“It’s out! It’s out of towels,” she practically shouts, reddening. I don’t bother to hide my amusement.
“Did you want this one?” The way she’s staring, I can’t resist asking. My hands hover on the knot.
“No!” Her gaze snaps to mine as I swallow my first laugh all day.
She goes to the linen closet while I dig out a pair of sweatpants from the dresser.
“The lights were out,” she blurts over her shoulder, the flush lingering on her face. “I didn’t think you’d be here, and I didn’t think you’d be naked.”
“Two-for-two.”
The first time I saw Annie Jamieson three years ago, she was listening to music on her headphones on a bench outside school in Philly. Her eyes were closed, lips curved as if she were on another plane. Lost in a dream.
I didn’t know her name, but I wanted to know what it was like where she was because nothing in my world felt like that.
Over the next few weeks, I learned she loved music and books, both popular and the ones you need CliffsNotes for. I learned she was compassionate, the kind of person whose heart aches for animals in shelter commercials and who always stops to talk and joke with people living on the street even if she’s in a rush.
I also learned she was Jax Jamieson’s daughter.
To this day, it’s the only thing about her I’d change if I could.
“I thought you’d be at Big Leap.” Annie wraps a towel around her body, knots it at her chest.
I think of Jax’s former tour bus, converted to a mobile studio, in the driveway. “I’ve been dismissed.”
“Seriously? My dad thinks you walk on water.”
My attention lingers on her legs a beat too long before I look away. I tug on the sweatpants, leaving them low on my hips.
“No one walks on water except Haley.” Jax’s wife could burn the house down, and he’d just take her face in his hands and ask her who’d