“All right.” After a beat of tense silence, Liam asks, “So, are you enjoying Lunar Cove?”
“Not particularly.”
He sighs. “Are you even doing tourist shit, or are you sitting in your cabin wasting away?”
“I didn’t come here to do anything,” I reply. “I came to write, and that’s what I’m doing. You’re interrupting, actually.”
“Oh, I bet.” I can almost hear his eyes roll. “Well, don’t shoot the messenger if you come back home with a million regrets, all because you didn’t want to leave your bed while you were away. Life moves on, whether you enjoy your vacation or not.”
I don’t want to leave my bed at any point of the day. Dragging myself from it is the purest form of torture; my body sags into the mattress each morning, desperate to return to my unconscious state, where the only things that hurt me are figments of my imagination.
It’s a wonder I’ve been productive during my stay so far, at all, when apathy hangs over me like an angry storm cloud, constantly coating my skin in its acidic rain.
We hang up a second later, and I stare down at the documents in front of me. Toying with the rings on my fingers, I skim each page again, reminding myself that this is the overall goal of being here.
Not to have fun, but to ruin.
And I can’t very well do that from inside my cabin.
She looks surprised to see me, which I find amusing.
It’s like she still isn’t grasping the severity of this situation.
If she’s my pretty pink pop star, I’m her rabid fan.
And rabid fans don’t give up until they’ve gotten something from the object of their obsession.
Situated in the back corner booth at Dahlia’s, Riley pauses scrolling on her laptop when I step through the front door.
Her eyes harden, a glare marring her brows, and I smother a delirious grin.
Under the fluorescent lighting, her scars are plainly visible. Harsh pinks lighter than the blush tinge of her hair, and my dick jerks to life behind my jeans at the realization that she’s following orders.
“Oh, my god, oh my god,” a shrill voice calls, echoing through the empty sitting area. “Oh, my god!”
Tearing my gaze from Riley, I watch as the silver door to the kitchen swings open, and a girl with chestnut hair bounces out.
She’s wearing the same uniform that the other waitresses wear—a long-sleeved black T-shirt and dark jeans—and has a name tag strapped to her chest that says Dahlia, but this is my first time seeing her since I arrived.
Coming to a skidding halt in front of me, the girl huffs a breath, rustling the bangs that cover her forehead. She slaps a palm on the counter, practically wheezing, and looks up at me with dark-blue eyes.
“Oh my god,” she repeats, clasping her hands against her chest. “Caleb said you were in town, but I swear I thought he was lying. But he wasn’t! You’re here! Aiden freaking James is standing in my diner!”
I wince, wishing she’d keep her voice down. Even though the diner is mostly empty, the need for discretion was bred into me, and this girl seems like the kind of person to spread a rumor before you’ve even formally introduced yourself.
“The one and only,” I force out, giving her what I hope is still a charming smile.
To be honest, I haven’t smiled at anyone in a long time, so it’s possible that the gesture looks as painful as it feels.
She squeals, lifting up on her tiptoes, and starts to reach out to touch me. At the last second, though, she seems to think better of it, and instead gets stuck with her hands extended, mouth slightly ajar.
I raise my eyebrows, then chance a glance over her shoulder, warmth flooding my chest at the expression I find on Riley’s face.
Jaw set and ocean eyes blazing, she’s the embodiment of jealousy. It radiates off her in waves, recognizable because I know the feeling.
The fact that she’s this affected bodes very well for me.
“This is your diner?” I ask the girl, taking a slight step forward so the tips of her fingers brush my chest.
Her eyes widen, and her chin jerks up and down. “Well, I mean, technically it’s my mom’s, but it’s named after me, and I’m working on buying it from her. And you’re just standing in it! Oh, my god.”
Spinning around, she waves at Riley. “Dude, do you know who this is?”
Riley snorts. “Unfortunately.”
I smirk, and Dahlia’s shoulders slump. “What do you mean, unfor—” Cutting off, she whirls back around to me, a wounded expression on her soft face. “Jesus, ignore her. Clearly, she’s going through something, otherwise I know she’d never disrespect a god.”
I’ve been called that a lot over the course of my career, even though I vehemently refute it at every turn.
Would a god go years without producing a single piece of music, all because he’d become consumed by thoughts of the girl who ruined his life and then left it, like none of what happened when they met mattered?
I suppose it depends on which god’s mythology you’re looking at, but I’ve never felt like anything but a mortal.
“Seriously, Herculean Effort got me through my mom’s chemo a couple years back,” Dahlia says, shaking her head. “I had tickets to go to one of your shows in Boulder, but it…”
She trails off, as if just remembering what happened to that show, and all the others scheduled after. Her face morphs into a mask of reservation, and she pinches her lips together.
“Got canceled?” I provide, and she nods, suddenly looking extremely uncomfortable in my presence.
I try not to let it bother me, and force my smile to remain in place anyway, but the sudden shift in demeanor is a serrated knife to my heart. It slices me wide open, leaving the eviscerated bits behind as blood pours from the open wound.
“Uh, yeah.” She rocks back on her heels, sliding a hand into her apron. “I was really sorry to hear about all of that.”
“All of that,” I repeat, blinking down at her as she now avoids eye contact. Irritation courses through me, and I glance back at Riley, who’s watching with a blank expression. “You know, they never proved those rumors true. The girl never spoke up, and no evidence was ever found. The police wrote it off as the incoherent ramblings of a scorned fan.”
I watch Riley as I say it, tracking the slightest movements in her face. Her left eye twitches, and her tongue darts out, swiping over the scar at the corner of her mouth.
The scar she left visible, all because I asked her to.
Instead of waiting for a reply from Dahlia, I push past her and head to the back. My cock swells painfully, pride washing through my veins as I stalk toward my prey.
She doesn’t cower, doesn’t move as I stop at her table, gripping her chin in my hand. Up close, the evidence of some sort of assault in her life prods at something buried deep inside of me, but all I can focus on right now is the even sound of her breathing.
The cerulean hues of her irises, crystalline as they stare up at me.
“You’re not wearing makeup,” I mutter, tracing the scar near her mouth with my thumb.
“Well, you said not to, and I don’t really want to be murdered in my sleep, so I—”
Pinching her lips between my fingers, I stifle her sentence. My heart kicks at my ribs, and I release a strangled sound.