pissed her off so he could bring them down. It would be ridiculous if she wasn’t so completely deserving of it.
I turn to see Annie working on a knot in the hair that hangs in wet chunks over her shoulder, ending at her breasts. She lets out a little growl, and against my better judgment, I close the distance between us. “Stop. You’re going to rip your hair.”
Picking guitar? No problem. Girl hair? Not my zone of genius. But I’ll try because my biggest pet peeves are celebrity couple names, people who can’t park without taking up two spaces, and watching Annie Jamieson hurt herself.
I expect her to fight me, but she huffs out a breath and drops her hands.
She was always cute, even back when she was a naïve fourteen and I was a worldly sixteen.
That changed when I wasn’t looking, because now she’s just the awkward side of beautiful. Her amber eyes reveal every thought, her pink lips are full in every variation of smiling and frowning, and the slight shoulders that curve inward when she’s lost in a book or listening to music on headphones make you want to hold her against your side.
Not that she’d stay there. The girl’s a live wire.
“Did you start the poetry assignment?” Annie asks, dragging me back.
Her voice is lower than most of the girls’ at school, with this little lift at the end that makes you do a second take. Like when a girl walks by in a long skirt and you don’t notice the full-length slit up the side until she’s passed you.
“My future is music, not essays. Suffering for your craft is legit, but I’m not gonna suffer for someone else’s.”
She turns that over. “I’m suffering but not getting anywhere. Norelli wants to give Carly the lead.”
Annie’s low admission surprises me.
“Why?”
“Carly gets in my head at rehearsal.”
Annie turns toward me as much as she can given my hold on her. Her gaze lingers on my chest—because it’s at eye level, not because she’s thinking about me naked.
“You’d never be in this position,” she goes on. “Not because Carly wouldn’t sabotage you, but because you’re too good to let it affect you.”
Pleasure unfurls in my gut without permission. Most girls who see me play get dreamy-eyed, but it has nothing to do with my abilities.
At least not with a guitar.
I force myself to focus on my task and not her flushed face. “Why do you want it so badly?”
Shit, this is impossible. I’m like Sisyphus if his boulder were instead a thousand strands of glorious tangled silk.
“Because on that stage, you’re everything.” Her voice is full and wistful, lifting the hairs on my arms. “A magician. A therapist. An artist. You have the privilege of an audience’s attention. They trust you to make them feel, make them believe. Name one place other than the stage where you become a god by falling on your knees.”
The knot’s almost free, but my fingers stop moving.
This. This is why I shouldn’t be a breath away from Annie Jamieson. Because no one moves through the world like her. She’s not afraid of its beauty and its darkness. She sees more, feels more, than anyone I’ve ever met. Spending time with her makes me believe I’ve witnessed something precious.
Precious things are dangerous.
“But I can’t do that unless I can get over this bullshit with Carly.”
I finish untangling her hair and lay it across her shoulder, the ends brushing the top of her towel. “Then be so good they can’t look away.”
“Thanks for the advice… and the hairstyling.” Her chuckle has me drawing a rough breath before she pins me in place with those amber eyes, the softness of her lips. The scratch on her cheek is fading, and I want to trace it but rein in the impulse.
I turn away, crossing to the dresser for a T-shirt because I’ve just realized there are way too few clothed body parts in this room.
“Kellan’s face was turning the color of rotten bananas in rehearsal,” she says as I’m pulling the shirt over my head.
I freeze.
Shit.
“I don’t know—“
“You’re so busted.”
I tug the hem down as I turn back to her. “I’m suspended until the weekend. Sat through a mind-numbing lecture from headmaster.”
She folds her arms over her chest, which makes my gaze drop to the little indentation between her breasts too close to where the towel’s knotted. “But you didn’t tell my dad why.”
I shake my head.
Annie crosses to me with deliberate steps, and I’m too surprised