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Ezra tilts his head, silently asking me to come closer, and I push off the counter before striding across the kitchen. I move toward him, and he reaches out for me with his leg, drawing me even closer until I hover between his strong thighs.
“I’ve been wanting to ask you something,” he murmurs as his guitar rests between us, forcing us to keep a respectable distance . . . mostly.
My eyes bug out of my head, my heart kickstarting as though it just received a potent shot of adrenaline. I’ve been waiting for this day for two long years. Twenty-four agonizing months. But realizing what he said and how I’ve very clearly interpreted it, he quickly rushes in. “Woah, Rae. Chill. I’m not talking about that,” he says. “I know I tend to toe the line every now and then, but I really don’t feel like having your brother beat the shit out of me today.”
“What about tomorrow?” I tease, my gaze dropping to the guitar pendant that hangs around his neck. He’s had it since before I knew him, a gift from his mother that he’s always cherished.
Ezra rolls his eyes and grabs the neck of his acoustic guitar before lifting it off his lap and placing it on the table behind him. “I wanted to ask you about a song,” he clarifies.
My whole body sags, the disappointment clear across my face. “Oh.”
“Well, shit. I didn’t realize asking you about my songs was such a boring topic for you.”
“Compared to what I thought you were going to do, uhhhh yeah. It kinda is. But go on then. I suppose I have a spare minute to unload my infinite wisdom on you,” I say, trying my hardest to keep a straight face before pulling out my best southern accent. “What seems to be the problem officer?”
Ezra waits a minute as if really considering the way he wants to approach this, and his lips twist with unease, which instantly puts me on edge. “Hypothetically, there was a girl,” he starts while sending my heart falling straight out of my chest and splattering into a million pieces on the floor between us. “And I’ve maybe been wanting to write a song about her, but wasn’t sure how you’d feel about that.”
I pull back just an inch, feeling my first true heartbreak coming on. I’ve been preparing for it these past few months. I know it’s been coming; I just never knew when, but surely there would come a time when Ezra realized I’m just some stupid kid. And I guess that day just came.
My jaw clenches, not wanting to fall to pieces right in front of him. I’ve always seen him as mine, as the other half of my soul, but technically, he never has been. Nothing has ever happened between us. He’s never touched me, never kissed me, never done any of the things I hear Rock, Dylan, and Axel brag about doing with the girls who come to watch them perform.
“A girl, huh?” I ask, my voice wavering, on the verge of tears.
“Hypothetically,” he reminds me, watching me a little too closely as I inch back again, only for him to pull me right back in.
“Well, hypothetically, who is she?”
He thinks on it for a moment. “She’s someone I maybe want but can’t have.”
God. Why can’t he just be straight with me? The more he dances around the answer, the harder it gets to keep my composure. “Why not?” I mutter, more than aware of the fire in my tone.
“Because she’s far too beautiful for an asshole like me,” he says as his fingers dance across my face, pushing my hair back behind my ear. “She’s got this thick auburn hair with eyes that somehow penetrate right through to my soul. Since the day I met her, everything that I am has belonged to her, but it doesn’t change that the one thing I want most in this world is the one thing I can’t have.”
Ezra holds my gaze as my heart races for a whole new reason.
How stupid could I have been? I’m the girl.
I swallow over the lump in my throat, not knowing how to respond, when his hand circles around the back of my neck and he pulls me in just enough to drop a kiss to my temple. “I wanna write her a song,” he continues. “But hypothetically, if I did, I’d want to know that she’s okay with me putting it out there.”
“I see,” I mutter, purposefully taking a long sip from my soda just to give me a moment to rearrange the wild thoughts racing through my head. “I think if you hypothetically really liked this girl with the soul-penetrating eyes enough to write a song about her, then you should have the guts to tell her what you’re really feeling instead of dancing around the topic. But I also think that if you were to write a song for her, that would be really sweet.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I say, “Though, I don’t know why all of a sudden this song has you feeling like you need to start asking questions. It’s not as though this hypothetical girl doesn’t already know that every song you’ve ever put forward to the guys has been about her. Hypothetically, of course.”
“Fuck. She already knows that, huh?”
I nod. “She does.”
His eyes glisten with silent laughter. “Even Scarlett Rose?” he asks, questioning the one song that’s a clear metaphor for all the nasty thoughts he’s ever had about me.
My cheeks flush, and I have no choice but to glance away, unable to take the heat in his eyes. “Even Scarlett Rose.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah . . .”
I can’t help but laugh, but as his fingers brush a searing trail down the length of my arm, a seriousness falls over us. “I wish it could be different, Rae,” he murmurs as those dark eyes stare so deeply into mine.
