He leaned down and pressed his lips to mine, gently, as if I were made of precious glass. Everything inside of me rocked. This wasn’t a kiss that hinted at a casual hookup. This kiss was trying to communicate things I wasn’t ready to hear, and it scared the shit out of me. All of my confusing feelings toward Silas and his bandmates rose up in my chest and threatened to erupt.
As Silas’s palms cradled my face and his soft, full lips moved against mine, my mind screamed at me to do something other than just stand there. It seemed important to show him that he couldn’t kiss me likethat.I crushed myself against his hard chest and deepened our kiss in an act of resistance. This was all this could be—a temporary madness fueled by raw desire that didn’t mean a thing.
Before he could respond, I tore myself away, out of his reaching hands and his soft touch. Panic flooded my veins. “What the hell?” I hissed at him and ran out of the room. He followed.
“Adeline, wait. I don’t know what happened. I thought—”
“You thought wrong,” I interrupted. “I work for you. You can’t just touch me and kiss me whenever you’d like. I’m not one of your groupies,” I seethed, hating myself more and more with every word I said. Some part of me knew that I was projecting, taking my own confusion and fear out on him, but what else could I do? Admit that I was drawn to him and all of his bandmates in ways that didn’t make any sense?
My gaze dropped to his bare feet on the carpet, I was unable to meet his eyes.
“Why did you kiss me back?” he asked.
“I…I don’t know. I didn’t mean to,” I whispered. There was a long pause.
“Okay,” he said. I could hear the confusion and hurt in his voice, and it killed me. “I’m sorry. I misread the situation. Of course, I know you’re not a groupie.”
At last, I lifted my eyes to his. The amber lines were gone. His expression was hard, his brows tense. I knew two things. I’d hurt him, and I needed to leave right away.
I grabbed my guitar out of the music room and packed it into its case. “Thank you for your help.”
He climbed onto a stool by the kitchen counter, the one his shirt had been draped over, his back toward me. “Sure, no problem.”
“I’ll see you Monday,” I said under my breath and walked out the door.
* * *
After work, I got home and locked myself in my room. My acoustic guitar stood perched against an old plastic stool, and my fingers itched to feel the rough vibration of the strings beneath them, but I was afraid to touch it. Afraid to hear what would come flowing out of me.
The kiss had shifted me off my axis. I tried to remember what chores I had intended to do, but it was as if the rational part of my mind had been wiped blank. I was spinning out, unbidden thoughts and visuals overflowing the confines of my brain and making me feel as if I were about to fall over the side of an unknown abyss.
Only after closing my eyes and putting on my headphones to listen to some music did I manage to step away from the edge. My name was Adeline. I had a sister and no parents. I was helping a famous metal band record their new album. After we finished, I’d go right back to my old, boring life, and eventually all of this would seem no more than a dream.
Despite grounding me, the affirmations felt hollow. Why had I let Silas kiss me? His every touch leading up to it had been a question I’d ignored. I had no answers for him or for myself. I could have stopped him, but I didn’t. Instead, I’d lashed out and put all of the blame on him.
The shame was so visceral that I had to bury my face under my covers and scream into the mattress, the sound low and guttural.
10
EZRA
“Ezra, I fucked up.”
Silas’s worried voice burst through my phone. I had been watching a new sci-fi show on Netflix, and his call caught me off guard.
“What’s going on?”
There was a pause.
“I kissed Adeline.”
I swore and sat up on the couch. “I’m guessing by your tone that it didn’t go in the direction you were hoping for.”
He groaned, and I could almost hear him pacing across the floor of his apartment. “She asked me what the hell I was doing and told me she isn’t a groupie that I can just kiss.”
Shit. My mind was already spinning, but instead of thinking up ways to get Silas and us out of this mess, my thoughts were squarely focused on Adeline and whether she was okay.
“Silas, what the fuck, man?”
