Page 12 of Before You Fell

Which, knowing her, she probably will.

“What did you think?” Damon asks her.

I ignore the chick sitting beside me, even with her body angled towards mine and her attention practically begging to be rewarded. My eyes stay honed in on Willow.

“The second verse of the ninth song dragged,” she says, aiming her gaze in my direction.

There it is. No warm-up. No soft little pat on the ego first. No, Phoenix, you were amazing, but maybe this one tiny thing.

The room goes quiet in that hungry, excited way people do when they think they are about to watch someone bleed.

They should know better. I never bleed in public.

I smile. “Did it?”

“Yes,” she says.

I don’t take my eyes off her as I speak. “The crowd loved it and knew every word.”

“The crowd would scream if you breathed into the microphone.”

Jax loses it.

Cruz laughs low. “She’s not wrong.”

The brunette beside me laughs and presses closer, her hand sliding over my stomach.

Willow sees and her face does not change, which irritates something ugly inside me. I want her to stare down at that woman’s hand on me and hate it enough to do something about it.

So I smirk at her instead. “What dragged, Wills?”

Damon sighs. “Phoenix, not now. We don’t need to workshop the show five minutes after you walked offstage.”

I don’t even look at him. “No one fucking asked you.”

His mouth shuts.

Willow shifts the notebook against her stomach. “The first half of the verse. You pushed too hard.”

“I pushed because the song needed heat.”

“It needed ache.”

I laugh under my breath, letting my gaze drag over her for half a second longer than it should. “You want ache, Wills? I can give you ache. I can make it slow, deep, and fucking unforgettable if you ask nicely.”

Her eyes narrow slightly.

There she is. Not so unreadable now.

“You can perform ache,” she says. “That’s different.”

The words hit harder than I let show.

I tilt my head, still smiling, because fuck letting anyone in this room see that she landed a blow. “You saying I sounded fake?”

“I’m saying the song deserved better.”

Jax mutters, “Oh shit.”