Page 27 of Librarian & the Rockstar

"Yeah," she says quietly. "I'm her only grandkid, so she left it to me. I lived in an apartment closer to downtown before."

"Were you two close?"

"We were." A wistful smile tugs at her lips. "She's the reason I got into reading. When I was little, she took me to the library every week to pick out books."

"I love that," I murmur, leaning a hip against the counter to watch her. She moves around the kitchen efficiently, mixing the sauce, then testing the noodles before turning off the burner and transferring them to a strainer in the sink. As soon as they're in a bowl, she's pulling bread out of the oven, then returning to the sauce.

"Your dad raised you, right?"

I arch a brow and then chuckle when she blushes. "Keep forgetting you're a fan," I mutter ruefully. "We never talk about any of that shit. Makes it easy to forget."

"I like this better," she whispers. "Meeting you as a person instead of a celebrity. It feels more real, you know?"

"For me too," I admit, not sure she has any idea just how real she makes me feel. I've thought about nothing else all day. With her, I'm not Ash Kilborne, lead singer of Midnight Mayhem. I'm just Ash, the motherfucker lucky enough to get to touch her, hold her, kiss her. That's more addictive than alcohol could ever be.

I've thought about that a lot today, too. When you've been through addiction, there's always this fear that you'll replace one addiction with another. I think maybe I've been doing that for a long time, working myself so goddamn hard because if I'm working all the time, there's no time for temptation. At least, that's what I thought until I was staring down a bottle of whiskey, realizing that maybe I'd worked myself into the very problem I'd been trying to avoid.

Now, I've met her, and a little part of me worries that, maybe, I'm trying to use her to replace all the other shit. Except…that doesn't feel right. This feels different than anything ever has. I don't feel like I'm running from anything with her. I feel like I'm running to something, like I'm precisely where I'm supposed to be.

And the longer I'm here, the longer I'm with her, the less I want to go back to the other shit or introduce her into it. I don't know what I'm supposed to do about that. I don't know what I should do about it. But I know I need to decide. Soon.

I glance up and realize she's staring at me, still waiting for my answer. "Yeah." I clear my throat. "My dad raised me. At least, I guess that's what you call it."

"He wasn't a good dad?"

"He tried. Here." I step forward, grabbing the bowl of pasta from her hands to carry it to the table. "He just had his own shit. He spent a long time in the military, had his own demons. He did his best, but a lot of the time, I feel like music raised me more than he did."

"He died right after your first album, right?"

"Yeah, cancer."

"I'm sorry," she says, placing her hand on my back. "Even if you guys had issues, I can't imagine losing him was easy."

"It never is," I murmur, turning to brush my fingers along her cheek, just to touch her. Just to watch her shiver and sway toward me. "What about you, baby? Where are your parents?"

"On a cruise ship somewhere in Alaska," she breathes, staring up at me with this look that makes me want to say fuck dinner, fuck conversation, fuck everything but her and the way I want to spread her out and devour her.

Christ, if this is an addiction, it's the best goddamn one I've ever had. But I don't think it's that. I think the tightness in my chest is something else altogether.

It's love, and it's burning a hole straight through me.

"Have you come to your senses yet?" Jess asks as soon as she picks up her phone on Tuesday, her tone rife with annoyance.

I smile despite myself, leaning back against the headrest, my eyes locked on the doors to the library. I can't see Loralei inside, but just knowing she's in there has my body lit up like a fucking firework. It's taking everything I have to keep from finding an excuse to head inside, just to see her again.

I stayed at her place last night, slept in her bed with her in my arms. Letting her leave for work this morning was hard as hell. Would she lose it if she knew I followed her here?

"I never lost my senses, Jess," I say.

"Could have fooled me. You realize you're supposed to be recording an album right now, right? Instead you're…where even are you again?"

"Santa Maria," I remind her, even though we both know she knows exactly where I am. She helped me secure a rental for Loralei on Sunday. And we talked again briefly yesterday.

She grunts. "You're in Santa Maria, doing god only knows what. I swear, if you're drinking again, Ash…"

"I'm not," I say quickly.

"Well, that's a relief," she mutters into the phone as an elderly man stumbles through the doors of the library, a book tucked under his arm. "Because when you failed to call me back on Friday, I was convinced you were on a bender."