Page 20 of Librarian & the Rockstar

I don't want this to be over when she goes back to her life tomorrow. I want to keep seeing her. I want to keep feeling the way I do right now. I want her, goddammit. Any way I can have her.

"I had a problem with alcohol fifteen years or so ago," I admit, my hands flat on the tabletop. "I was young, dumb, and didn't have enough people around to tell me no, and I spiraled out of control. My publicist managed to keep the worst of it out of the press, but it got really bad for a while." I swallow hard. "She found me passed out behind the wheel in my driveway after missing a recording session. She sobered me up, and told me that I either get help or she was firing me as a client."

"You got help?" Loralei asks.

I nod. "I knew I could have killed someone had I actually managed to take off that night. I didn't even remember getting in the fucking car," I rasp. "That scared the shit out of me. So Jess, my publicist, had me in rehab in a matter of hours, and I haven't had a drink since. But I've been working my ass off for the last five years straight. We've put out two albums, gone on a stadium tour, and have another album in the works. A few days ago, I found myself sitting in the dark, staring at a bottle of whiskey, thinking about how nice it'd be to just…drink the whole goddamn thing."

Loralei makes a soft sound of distress, reaching across the table to place her hand in mine. I link our fingers together, grateful as hell.

"I knew I couldn't do that shit, so I told the band I was taking a hiatus, rented the first cabin I could find, and took off," I say, brushing my thumb across her knuckles.

"You needed a break," she says softly, empathy painted across her face.

"I've needed one for a while, but when everyone is counting on you, it's easy to put it off, you know?"

"I'm glad you didn't pick up the bottle, Ash."

"Me too."

"Do you still want to? Drink, I mean."

"You want the truth?"

She nods.

"It was never about the alcohol, beautiful. It was everything you find at the bottom of a bottle that was so fucking tempting—the silence, the numbness, the escapism." When you're too drunk to function, shit doesn't feel so heavy, at least for a little while. But when you come out the other side of a bender, it's always heavier than when you started.

I don't think I even realized when I started drinking back then why it appealed to me so much. It wasn't until I was two weeks into rehab that I figured that part out—it wasn't the parties or a lack of self-control that led me there. It was how fucking heavy everything had become.

I never intended to end up right back in the same goddamn place, carrying the same weight. I thought if I just worked hard enough and kept myself busy, I'd be fine. It's a fucking stupid thought to have when working so goddamn hard all the time doesn't silence the noise. It only adds more on top of it.

"Is it still?" she asks.

I stare at her for a moment, not entirely sure she's ready to hear the whole truth. And then I say fuck it and give it to her anyway. "Not since I almost ran over this sexy little librarian who likes to read filth and talk about possessed vibrators."

Her cheeks turn bright red, but the way she lights up tells me she's just as thrilled as she is embarrassed, and I can live with that.

"I mean it, baby. I feel better since meeting you than I have in months." I tip my head to the side, studying her. "You don't treat me like everyone else does. I'm allowed to just fucking be Ash for five minutes. That's some powerful shit right there."

I haven't been allowed to be him in a long time. I'm always performing, always putting on a smile, or a show, or faking my way through it for the sake of the press, the fans, or the band. There's someone in my ear, every minute of the day, asking for more, more, more.

"You want the truth?" she asks, and then waits until I nod before continuing, "I've been listening to you since I was a little girl. I wasn't really sure what to say, do, or how to act at first. I'm still not entirely sure I've got it right. But most celebrities who come through here act like celebrities. Those who don't, don't for a reason." She shrugs. "You rented a cabin in the middle of nowhere without an entourage. I figured that meant you just wanted to be ordinary for a while. And if there's one thing I know, it's how to be ordinary."

"There is absolutely nothing ordinary about you, Loralei."

Her smile is wistful. "I'm just a boring librarian. Unless we're talking about books, I usually don't say much."

"You aren't shy."

"I am."

"You aren't."

She quirks a brow at me. "I talked to like four people my entire first two years of college. And my freshman year was nearly over before I realized one of them was the janitor." She shrugs self-consciously. "I've never been very good at making friends, dating, or talking to people."

"You talk to me."

"You're easy to talk to," she whispers, glancing down at our hands. "You make me feel…like what I have to say matters, even when it's not important."