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It doesn’t have to be like this. I didn’t let her down. There are other record labels. She doesn’t need that fucker or his services.
“I’ll just go and say goodbye to Gautier and Gina,” she murmurs, walking over to them as they’re about to get into their cars.
They talk for a while, but they keep looking at me and they’re looking at me like I’m some beast who’s going to ravage an innocent angel. At one point Gautier grabs Amber’s shoulders, shaking her. Her hair flies around her delicate shoulder blades and she looks upset, like she doesn’t like what he’s saying.
My fists clench. That buzzing coming back.
Amber brushes Gautier off, coming back to me and I try to catch her eyes, try to force back that connection between us but she’s holding it out of my reach. She shouldn’t. When she gives me what I want, it tames me.
When she doesn’t, it makes me feral.
“Bye guys,” she calls. “Love you G. Love you, brother.”
Cut. Cut.
Lifting her chin, her face is apprehensive, like I’m not her perfect Stan anymore.
Fuck, I crossed a line tonight. I messed up. Bad...
9
Amber
He’s different now, he’s changed.We’ve decided to walk the long wayhome and he reached for my hand and I didn’t pull away. Maybe I should have. I don’t know what happened to him tonight.
His face looked like it belonged to someone else. I saw it the first time when he ambushed me in the bathroom at the concert. Only a flicker. I told myself it was nothing.
Then it came back again with full force as he attacked Davidos. His eyes reminded me of a shark.
Dead. Predatory. Territorial.
I shiver as I walk next to him and he tenses, looking down at me. He looks watchful, like he’s waiting for me to blow up or have a big reaction. But instead I’m just confused. He mistakes my shivering for me being chilly and brushes my arms with his hand.
“Better?”
Ruthless sometimes and considerate at other times. Is it any strange that he sometimes puzzles me?
“I don’t know,” I murmur. “I feel like everything has changed.”
He withdraws his hand, his lips pinching and he rubs his cracked knuckles with his fingers. “Between you and me?”
It’s clear that he doesn’t want there to be a rift between us. No matter how big or small. His voice sounds like he has barbed wire in his throat. Like he’s in pain.
I don’t want him to be like that but what he did tonight freaked me out. It horrified me and I should probably put an end to our relationship, or at least put some space between us and yet my hand keeps clutching around Stan’s, like I’m scared of losing him.
And I am. I don’t know what’s happening to me. But I know that Stan is the one responsible. He has done something to me.
Gautier snarled at me to break up with Stan. His request made my head spin. A life without Stan? A life where he doesn’t look at me with those eyes of his.
That look that makes me feel like I’m the center of his universe. Like everything he feels revolves around me.
Just the thought made me panicky. Frantic. I wouldn’t be able to handle Stan being gone.
“You’re the most important thing in the world to me,” Stan says, his voice grave. “You understand why I can’t let anyone touch you?”
The trees bristle in the soft night wind and I shiver again, vaguely remembering in the back of mind that I didn’t get any roses sent to me tonight from The Admirer. I return my focus to Stan and the streetlights highlight his face and everything about him looks sharper. Bigger. Vicious.
“But I don’t understand.” I bite my lip. “He was there representing a record label. And all he did was place his hand on my back...”
