Page 38 of Before You Fell

Instead, I take another drink, hoping the alcohol might find some sense buried in my head before I lean in and do something fucking stupid to her mouth.

“You know,” I say, because apparently getting high has loosened all the bullshit I usually keep locked behind my teeth, “you were scary pretty back when we were kids.”

Willow rests her head against the cushions and looks at me. Her pupils are blown wide, deepening the brown of her eyes. The high has softened her edges without stealing them. That mouth still belongs to the woman who will call me a dick the second I earn it.

Which should take less than a minute.

The sight of her hits me hard enough to make the room shrink.

One second, bodies crowd every surface, music punches through the windows, and some groupie is dry-humping Jax within regrettable view. The next, all that noise pulls back until there is only Willow’s knee pressed against mine and those dark, beautiful eyes holding me still.

“Yeah,” I say, dragging a smirk across the truth. “Terrifying. A little honey-haired nightmare under a tree.”

There she is. The girl beneath the tree, with skinny knees and tangled hair. I remember thinking she looked as if someone had made her from sunlight and secrets.

Her mouth softens at the mention of the tree.

“What?” she asks.

“When we were kids.” The admission keeps spilling out before I can choke it back. “You were scary pretty, with all that hair and those big eyes.”

Her gaze drops, but her smile lingers—soft and private enough to make the suite tilt beneath me. Maybe it’s the drugs. Maybe it’s the week. Or maybe Willow in a black dress, with tired eyes and that mouth, is a dangerous fucking combination for a man who only wants women he never has to keep.

Her knee remains pressed against mine.

The heat from that small touch crawls higher, dragging through my veins with a lazy want. I should get up and flirt with someone else. Call Cruz over. Find another Mickey with a willing mouth and a wet pussy.

Instead, I stay.

“Did you…” She stops, biting her lip, trapping the rest of the question behind her teeth.

Fuck me. She has no idea what that does to her mouth. That little bite makes her look soft for half a second, which is dangerous because nothing about what it does to my cock is soft.

“Did I what?” I ask.

She glances at me through her lashes. “Did you ever have a crush on me?”

The words hit harder than they should. My smirk stays in place because it’s well trained. But for one suspended second, the hotel suite disappears.

I am thirteen again, gripping a guitar with aching fingers as Willow leans over my shoulder, showing me where the next line should land.

Then I’m fifteen and furious because some asshole at school made her laugh harder than I could.

And finally seventeen and drunk on cheap beer behind a venue, pretending I don’t notice how good her hair smells when she steals my jacket.

I am every version of myself who wanted her before I learnt to bury wanting inside women whose names I never planned to remember.

The answer should be easy. I could tell her that every boy had a crush on her. Make a joke about always preferring women who know better than to bring notebooks to parties.

Instead, the truth slips out.

“Yeah,” I say. “Once.”

Her eyes stay locked on mine, and for one terrifying second, I see the real question behind them. Not the one she asked, but the one trying to figure out when I stopped wanting her and whether I ever fucking did.

My chest pulls tight.

Fuck this and the stupid ache blooming beneath my ribs as though it has any right to live there. I am Phoenix fucking Stone. I don’t sit on couches, confessing childhood crushes to the woman who writes my best songs while the room spins into a scandal. I don’t hand anyone a blade and show them exactly where to push it.