Page 33 of Librarian & the Rockstar

"I'm sorry," I choke, fanning my face. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

"Yeah, you do," she says softly. "You fell in love with him, didn't you?"

I blink, her face blurred by tears. "What?"

"Ash Kilborne," she murmurs, her eyes locked on my face. "I saw you two sneaking away at the library the other day. I didn't realize that's who he was until I spotted him getting into his SUV in the parking lot. He accidentally dropped his sunglasses, and I recognized him. You've been seeing him?"

"I…" I nod miserably. "For the last two weeks."

She hugs me again, empathy written all over her face. "Want to talk about it?"

"There's nothing to talk about," I mumble, staring at the stained cement. "I thought we were hiding to protect his privacy. Turns out, we've been hiding because he doesn't think I fit in his world."

Sarah makes a sound in the back of her throat that's part shock, part anger. "He said that to you?"

"Pretty much," I sniff, swiping at my eyes. "He tried to play it off like he thinks I'm too good for his world, but we both what he was really saying, and it wasn't that. And you know what? Maybe he's right," I whisper. "Maybe I don't fit in his world. But it's not like he didn't know that to begin with, you know? It's not like I pretended to be someone else. So why let me fall in love with him if he was just going to keep me in some compartment that is never allowed to touch the rest of his life? Why let himself fall in love with me if he was just going to decide that I couldn't handle who he is?"

"I don't know," Sarah says softly. "Love makes you stupid sometimes."

I snort because she isn't wrong. It turned me into an idiot, didn't it? Even knowing he was going to break my heart, I kept going. I kept letting myself fall. I can stand here and blame him all I want, but at the end of the day, I made my own choices, too. That's not on him. That's on me.

And I hate how much I miss him already. I hate how much I wish I hadn't asked him to go to the gala with me. I hate everything about this.

"This sucks," I whisper, my bottom lip quivering.

"What are you going to do?" Sarah asks, squeezing me in another hug.

It's a good question. And right now, I don't really have an answer. I just know that, no matter how much I love him, I can't be with someone who looks at me and sees someone he has to hide. I can't be with someone who can't love me openly unless it's on his terms.

Maybe I am a boring librarian, but I deserve better than that.

If he isn't willing to give me that…what then?

Chapter Eleven

Ash

Idon't hear from Loralei after Book Club. I don't hear from her on Sunday, either. When I try to call her, my calls go straight to voicemail. When I stop by her place, she doesn't answer the door. And for the first time in my life, I think I know what dying feels like. It's this—it's realizing how fucking wrong you were…while simultaneously realizing that you might already be too late to fix it.

She's right. She's right about everything. I've spent all this trying to convince myself that she didn't belong in my world. I told myself that she deserved better, that my world was too much for her.

The truth is, it was never about her. It was always about me. My world—my life—has been too much for me for a long goddamn time. I feel at peace here because the stress is gone, and the constant need to be somewhere, to be doing something, is no longer a factor. There aren't cameras in my face at every turn. There aren't ninety people wanting ninety different things.

I got addicted to how that felt, and I've clung to it with both hands. I told myself that we could stop hiding once all the pieces of my retirement were in place, when no one would care about me anymore.

And I told myself that it's what she needed if I was ever going to be good enough for her. But I never really considered what hiding was doing to her or how it made her feel.

I was building a future, one that felt like home. She was crumbling, feeling like a secret. And I'm the one who made her feel that way. I told her she wasn't strong enough or good enough in a million different ways, without ever realizing that's what I was doing.

Every damn time I showed in disguise, every damn time I failed to take her out, every damn time I kept her hidden, I failed her. I broke her heart over and over, all while hoping she'd keep giving pieces of it to me.

"You are an idiot," I mutter to my reflection in the mirror early on Monday morning. I look like hammered shit. But I'm a little proud of myself too. Despite how I feel and despite how hard yesterday was, I never even considered reaching for a bottle. I never thought about escape.

That's Loralei's doing.

Because I've already hurt her once. Because I won't do it again. She needs me to step up and fix what I've broken, to prove that I can be the man she deserves, instead of the prick who decided he knew what she wanted and tried to write her future without ever consulting her.

I can do that. Hell, I'll kill myself trying if that's what it takes.