Page 24 of Before You Fell

Willow goes still. “Part of the band.”

I hate the way she says it. As if she cannot believe I have found a way to make her sound useful and unimportant in the same sentence.

“You know what I mean,” I snap.

“No,” she says. “I fucking don’t.”

Her eyes move over me slowly. The open shirt. The mark from her hand burning across my cheek. The lipstick on my neck while I stand here acting as if Marcus is the one who crossed a line.

For once, she doesn’t look furious. She looks tired. Disappointed. As if she is staring at the man in front of her and trying to find some trace of the boy who used to sit under a tree with a busted guitar

“I don’t even recognise you anymore,” she says.

I smile because that is what I do when something cuts too close. “Then maybe you should stop looking.”

Her face changes. “You’re such an asshole, Phoenix.”

“Yeah,” I say. “You knew that already.”

“No.” Her voice is quieter now and somehow that makes it worse. “I knew you were cocky. That you were selfish when you wanted to be.”

She looks at the room behind me, then back at my face. “But this? This version of you? I don’t know him. I knew the boy under the tree. I don’t know this.”

Something in my chest freezes and I hate her for causing it to.

Willow steps back before I can find something cruel enough to throw between us. She doesn’t storm out or give me the satisfaction of making this loud. She just simply walks away.

She crosses the green room and sits alone near the far wall, away from the couch. Then she pulls out her phone and looks down at the screen as if I have not just stood here and proved every ugly thing she has ever thought about me.

I notice the tight line of her shoulders. The way her thumb moves over her phone. How she makes herself look bored when I know damn well I just put another crack in her.

I turn and move over to the bar.

The room feels too loud now, which is fucking hilarious considering I just stood in front of seventy thousand people and let them scream my name until the whole stadium shook.

But this is different. This noise has edges.

I grab a bottle from the bar and pour too much whiskey into a glass.

“Jesus Christ,” Jax says beside me. “You are a dumb fuck.”

I turn my head. “Want to repeat that?”

Jax leans against the bar, his eyes cutting between me and Willow across the room. Jett is beside her now, talking to her, as if she is something fragile enough to need guarding.

Jax looks back at me. “I said you’re a dumb fuck.”

My fingers tighten around the glass. “Careful.”

“No,” he says. “You just acted like a territorial prick in front of half the crew because a roadie asked Willow if she wanted air.”

“He wanted more than air.”

Jax barks out a laugh. “Of course he fucking did. She’s Willow. Men notice her. Shocking fucking development.”

My jaw tightens so hard I might crack a tooth.

Cruz appears behind Jax with a drink in one hand. “What are we doing?”