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“That’s not what I thought at all.”
She lifted her eyes to his, trying to measure the intentions of this person she knew but didn’t know. A moment ago, she’d beenready to trust him without question. But the remark about her age knifed into a constant sore point in her ribs.
She grew tired of having toproveherself as a valid artist on the industry’s stage. Like she’d gotten everything because of luck or happenstance. Or worse, her success wasn’t hers but the result of someone else’s work on her behalf.
Was Asa one of those people who thought she hadn’t earned her spot? Who thought she was just a pretty face working someone else’s agenda?
He shifted so he was facing her more fully. His eyes met hers head on, dark and sincere and endless.
“When I was twenty-three, I was a little punk,” he admitted, voice rough like it was pulled over gravel and into the conversation against its will. “I was just a baby. Ask Nikki. I was stupid and impulsive. And I certainly wasn’t capable of running an empire.”
Some of her apprehension faded. He wasn’t misjudging her, he was comparing where he’d been at the same age. That made more sense. The knot that had started to coil in her stomach eased.
“How old are you now?” she asked.
“Almost thirty.” He blinked and a slow breath went in and out, his chest rising and falling. “In February.”
They shared a smile. She wondered how close their birthdays were.
“All grown up?” she asked.
His lips tipped up on the sides and his Adam’s apple bobbed with his swallow. Somehow the pause he gave said more than words could. He’d grown but not because he’d wanted to. Because he’d had to.
Her gaze dropped to the tattoos on his arms blurred by the darkness. His admission that he no longer wrote came back to her and she bit her tongue before asking about it again.
They weren’t good friends.
They didn’t have shared history.
But she couldn’t deny that there was something there. An elusive connection that underpinned everything that had happened that night.
He’d had no reason to step in between her and Logan. He hadn’t been involved.
But when she thought back to that moment, when Logan had once again said something cruel and unwarranted in front of her peers, her shame and anger had been eclipsed by Asa’s hand taking hers.
“I got you.”
She’d met his eyes and it was as if her heartknewhis.
And there in the dark, the thunder sending trembles through the ground and through her doubt, she felt it again. Clearly.
A knowing she couldn’t define.
“What happened to Winking Pete?” she asked.
Nikki had never said. But she knew Nikki was talented as hell, so it was safe to assume Asa was as well.
He didn’t speak for several minutes. His dark eyes focused on the window, his lower lip sucked in his mouth like he was scanning the contents of the memory. Trying to decide if he really wanted to share it or not.
“We were on our first overseas tour and our lead singer was…unhinged. She always had been. We just assumed she’d eventually get her shit sorted. Anyway, one night she showed up to the show drunk, high, late, and pissed off. I tried to get her to calm down, tighten it up. Most of the time I could convince her to get it together. But not that night.” He shook his head. “She shoved Nikki off the stage and Nik broke her arm. That was the end.” He made a ppfft noise with his mouth. “Done.”
“Oh,” Zara replied, a sick feeling twisting her stomach at the violence involved. “Was Nikki okay?” she asked.
He nodded, but his gaze drifted lower. “Yeah.”
Something heavy and sad filled the space around him. It pressed on her mind and heart.
“Were you okay?” she asked quietly.
