Текст книги "My Soul to Keep"

Автор книги: Kennedy Ryan

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

I’VE TRIED THE SONG IN A different key. I’ve rearranged the notes. Adjusted the rhyme on the lyrics. I’ve done everything I can think of, but it’s still not working. My fingers fly over the piano keys, reverting to Chopin like I always do when I’m stuck. Something about the technical demand of his pieces forces my mind to work and maneuver around musical problems until I find the solution.

“Stuck, huh?” Marlon asks from the doorway.

“Nothing Chopin can’t handle.” I gesture toward the floor cushions scattered around my music room. “Pull up a chair.”

“So we working on my song today or what?” Marlon leans back, folding his hands behind his head.

“I’m kind of lodged in this song.” I pick out a medley using only the black keys. “Tomorrow?”

“Nah. I got shows. Leaving tomorrow.” Marlon grabs another cushion, sliding it behind his back against the wall. “Can you do next week at Wood?”

“Yeah, that works.”

“So what you working on?”

“My album actually.” I abandon the keys, turning on the piano bench to fully face him.

“Nice to see you writing again.”

“Yeah. Feels good.”

I can’t catch the grin that sneaks onto my face. I’m so fucking happy. Having Kai in my house, in my bed, in my life, makes me the happiest I’ve ever been. I’ve always been able to talk to Marlon about most things, but this not so much. He still doesn’t trust her, and if he starts talking shit about her again, it will shove a wedge between us. Nothing has ever separated Marlon and me. It feels weird to know a girl could come between us, but Kai isn’t just some girl. She is the girl. There was no “the” before her. And I don’t think there will be another.

“Please tell me that goofy grin is not because you’re writing songs about your girlfriend.”

“Matter of fact, I am.”

“I think my dick just shrank on your behalf.”

“Don’t blame me for your tiny dick. From what I hear, it’s always been underwhelming.”

He grips his junk through his jeans.

“Nobody’s ever been underwhelmed by this dick.”

We share a grin because that’s probably true.

“I’m gonna take your word on that,” I say.

“So am I.” Bristol strides into the room, eyes glued to her phone.

“Oh, you could find out for yourself, Bristol.” Marlon jumps to his feet, reaching for my sister, but she sidesteps, never raising her eyes from her phone. “And I promise you wouldn’t be underwhelmed.”

“Save it, Grip.” She finally looks up, zeroing in on me with a frown. “We got trouble.”

I’m never getting this song done.

“What kind of trouble?”

“Your new girlfriend kind of trouble.” She rolls her eyes. “That girl is a thorn in my side already.”

“I’m actually starting to like her.” Marlon gives me a wink and flops back onto a floor cushion.

About damn time.

“Maybe I’d like her too,” Bristol says, “If she weren’t cheating on my brother.”

“Cheating?” I try to hold my face together when my heart is screeching inside my chest. The word “cheat” anywhere near my girl makes my blood run cold. “What the fuck are you talking about, Bris? Talk fast.”

She doesn’t talk. Instead she hands me her phone. I take my time looking at the screen because what I see there could crush me.

It does.

It’s a series of pictures on Spotted, all featuring Kai and Dub. Eating lunch. Looking at something on a phone together at the table. And then walking down a sidewalk holding hands.

The sight of Dub touching her almost undoes me. Almost unravels all the carefully constructed fibers holding me together.

“That’s today.” Bristol jabs her finger at the screen. “Just hours ago.”

“There’s an explanation for this.”

I say it because there has to be. I can’t entertain the possibility that the most real thing I’ve ever had is counterfeit. That kind of betrayal by Kai would slice through me like glass.

“It’s exactly what it looks like, Rhys,” Bristol spits at me, hands on hips.

“Man, just when I was feeling her,” Marlon chimes in. “Don’t ignore what’s right in front of you. Maybe she wants you to put her on, but wants to see what Dub can do for her too.”

“You guys don’t know her.” I keep my voice strong, even though the longer I see the pictures, the louder the doubts scream in my head.

“Rhyson, that naïve bullshit was acceptable when you were seventeen and Petra fucked around on you.” Bristol grabs her phone, holding it up in the air like Exhibit A for a jury. “The stakes are higher now. You’re a global superstar. If you won’t protect what you’ve built, at least respect the team that’s helped you build it.”

“Rhyson!” Kai’s voice drifts down the hall. “Rhys, where are you?”

She walks in the room, and I want to be alone with her. She’s wearing the same outfit from the pictures. The thought of Dub with her sets off tiny explosives in my heart. I’d punch my hand through my piano if it wasn’t priceless.

“Oh, here you are.” She walks in farther, stopping beside me and tipping up on her toes until her lips touch my cheek. “Hey, Grip. Bristol.”

And she slams into their brick wall of silence. Marlon and Bristol are obviously waiting for me to lay into Kai. I don’t know if I can. I love her too much. I need her too much. If she denies it, can I believe her? If she admits it, everything else means nothing. I don’t want Bristol and Marlon to know how vulnerable I am to her. For that matter, I don’t want Kai to know.

Kai triangulates a confused glance between me, Marlon, and Bristol.

“Rhyson, is everything okay?” She presses into me, gripping my hand and tipping her head back to plumb my eyes with concern. “Is it your dad, baby?”

“Oh my God.” Bristol sucks her teeth and throws her hands up in the air. “I assumed it was her magic pussy that had you whipped. I didn’t know she used damn heartstrings. Insidious.”

“Bristol, shut up.” My words fight their way through tight lips.

“What’s she talking about?” Kai pulls back another few inches to look at me more closely.

“Did you actually think you could get away with it?” Bristol demands.

“Get away with what?” Kai frowns, looks at Bristol, and drops my hand completely. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“This, honey.” Bristol pushes the phone in Kai’s face. “You can’t go running all over town cheating on my brother. I know you’re used to living under a rock in Georgia, but here in LA, it doesn’t work like that.”

Kai scans the phone screen, her eyes going wide and flying to my face.

“Rhyson, you know I wouldn’t do this.”

“Well, looks like you’ve got some explaining to do.” Marlon’s laugh is harsh from his spot on the floor cushion. “You’re denying it when we’re looking right at the pictures. That takes balls. Gotta give you that.”

I hate this. I hate that we’re ambushing her with these pictures, almost as much as I hate the fact that the whole world assumes all the things Marlon and Bristol are saying. Kai’s eyes beg me to believe her when she hasn’t even offered an explanation yet. I have to look at the pictures again just to keep myself from giving in to those eyes.

“Do you know how this looks?” Bristol takes another step into Kai’s space, until only inches separate their faces. “Do you have any concept of who you’re dating? You’re some wannabe multi-hyphenate nobody. How dare you?”

Kai ignores Bristol’s insults and looks right at me.

“My only mistake was not listening to you, Rhyson.”

“Oh, you had to tell her not to fuck other people?” Bristol barbs the question with sarcasm.

“Bris, shut up,” I snap.

“You don’t know me, Bristol.” Angry fire lights Kai’s eyes. “You have no idea who I am or what I want. Rhyson and I were friends before we were—”

“Fucking?” Bristol cuts in.

“Shut the hell up,” I warn. “This is between Kai and me.”

“It would have been if she’d kept her secret lunch with Dub a secret and not broadcast it to the whole world,” Bristol says. “Now it’s between you, Kai, and everyone who has the Internet. And that’s everyone, by the way.”

“It wasn’t a secret lunch,” Kai says with a frown.

“I didn’t know about it.”

I can’t hold that back, even with Marlon and Bristol still here. Kai’s eyes meet mine, and the guilt I see there is like a cold fist upper-cutting through my heart. I know her too well to not know it’s guilt. What the hell does she have to feel guilty about if this isn’t what it seems?

“I know, Rhyson, and I’m sorry.” Kai shakes her head. “But you know I wouldn’t do what they’re implying.”

“These sites aren’t implying anything. They’re out and out saying you’re cheating on my brother. It’s damaging.” Bristol says. “He’s not Joe Blow. He’s a brand. He’s Rhyson fucking Gray.”

Kai snaps around to face Bristol, her face rigid with anger.

“You don’t get it, Bristol. I don’t care if Rhyson’s bagging groceries,” Kai says. “I fell in love with a man, not a brand, and I wouldn’t ever do anything to jeopardize that. Certainly not cheat on him in broad daylight. Or at all for that matter.”

Damn, I love this girl. I don’t know what the explanation is, but there is one. I don’t understand the guilt I saw in her eyes yet, but I will.

“Both of you get out.”

My words are quiet but fall heavy like a hammer in the room.

“Rhyson, we—”

“Shut up, Bristol.” I look at Marlon, still lounging on the floor cushion. “Out, dude. I need to talk to my girl.”

Marlon slides a glance between Kai and me, and raises his eyebrows, silently asking if I know what I’m doing. I just nod, needing them gone. Marlon stands and grabs Bristol’s hand. He’d use any excuse for that.

“Come on, Bris. You heard the man.”

“Rhyson, don’t fall for a line of bull and a good lay.” Bristol holds up her phone. “These pictures don’t lie.”

“She doesn’t lie.” I look at Kai, and I know I’m right. I know Kai like I know music. In my blood. In my heart. Woven into the fibers that connect us.

Bristol and Marlon leave a waiting quiet behind in the music room. I’m waiting for Kai to speak, waiting for her to explain. Waiting for her to touch me. To remind me of how perfect her skin is against mine.

I sit on the piano bench. She looks at me from under her lashes for a few seconds before sitting down beside me, leaving a space between us.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was having lunch with Dub.” Her quiet voice wavers. “I am so sorry I put you in this position. That people think I’m cheating on you.”

“I don’t care about that.” I pause, fighting the burning in my chest when I consider anyone thinking she belongs to someone else. “I mean, I do, but I’m more concerned about you keeping it from me than about what everyone else thinks.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“I was completely blindsided, Pep. I couldn’t even defend you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying you’re sorry and tell me why you did it,” I say, my words staccato.

She sucks in a breath, her cheeks flushed, her full pink lips pressed tight together.

“I knew you wouldn’t like it.”

“That’s a shit reason for not telling me. And you’re damn right I don’t like it. Videos and jobs are one thing, but meeting Dub outside of that, not cool.”

“This was work. What else would it be?” She turns on the bench to face me, folding one knee under her. “I know you don’t like him.”

“I don’t like him because he likes you.”

“We talked about that.”

“Oh, did you? So he admitted he’s using jobs to get closer to you?”

“He’s not, Rhyson, and for you to say that makes me think you don’t believe in my talent.”

“Bullshit.” I stand up and pace away from the piano. “I offered to sign you to Prodigy months ago.”

“You’d barely heard me sing when you offered, and warned me against being a dancer who sings.” Her eyes narrow and her nostrils flare. “So consider that before you accuse someone else of making me offers just because they want to fuck me.”

I won’t be sidetracked by logic.

“Why were you out with him?”

“He wanted to show me some of the finalized footage from the video and to talk about some other jobs he’d like to book me for.”

“No agenda there.”

“I knew you’d respond this way.” She turns to put both feet on the floor, dropping her head in her hands. “That’s why I didn’t tell you we were meeting.”

I hate her keeping things from me.

“So what happened?”

“We were done eating and all these photographers crowded around.”

“Shocking. That’s why I told you—”

“I know. To take Gep.” She looks up at me. “I should have.”

“So then what happened?”

“We took off for Dub’s car, and obviously he’s faster than I am. He grabbed my hand—”

“Sure he did.”

“So I could keep up, and that’s how they got those pictures of us holding hands.”

“His car? You rode with him?”

“He dropped me off at my apartment so I could pick up some things, and San brought me here, just like I told you.”

“You brought things to stay here?”

“Yes, of course.” She sits up, leaning her back against the piano, locking our eyes together. “I told you I would.”

I make my way back over to the piano bench, settling beside her and walking my fingers across the small space separating us until our hands clasp.

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” she says, eyes sorry and sober.

“I know, baby.” I pull my hand over her silky ponytail, passing my open palm over her shoulder. “But you have to remember, the stakes are so high at this level. It’s the cost of playing this game.”

“I don’t want to play a game. I just want to be with you.”

I smile at her, leaning in to drop a kiss on her lips.

“Same here, but it’s not that simple for me. You’ll see soon enough. It’s only a matter of time before things break for you.”

A wide grin spreads across her face.

“Speaking of, I’ve got some great news.”

“What news?”

“Dub said—”

“It’s already awesome.”

The look she warns me with threatens bodily harm.

“Dub said Luke’s team loved me in the video, and when he told them I sing, they invited me to audition for Total Package.”

Great. This just gets stickier and stickier.

“I don’t like that show, Kai.”

“Rhyson, come on.”

“No, Pep. I’m serious. I don’t like John Malcolm.”

“You don’t like anyone. That’s the guy Dub said wants to meet me.”

“I’m sure he does. They invited me to guest judge this season, but I turned them down. I didn’t want Luke to go on, and I don’t want you to do it.”

“You can’t make these decisions for me.” Her face falls, and she breaks the contact between our hands, clasping hers in her lap, a sigh leaving her lips. “You don’t get to map my career out like some Svengali.”

“I’m not.”

“No, you’re not.” She glances back up at me, a stubborn set to her mouth. “You’re my boyfriend, not my manager.”

“I want what’s best for you, Pep.”

“I bet that’s what your parents said to you too, right?”

“Don’t do that.” I clench my fists on the piano bench on either side of my legs so I don’t shout at her. “It’s not the same.”

“It is. You needed to make your own way, and so do I.”

“I know what this industry can do. How it can eat up people and spit them out. I won’t let that happen to you. I won’t risk you. You’re the most important thing in my life, Pep.” I pause before looking her in the eyes. “Do you know that? Can you say that?”

I immediately regret my confession. Little by little she has crept into even the broken places of my heart. She has taken me over, usurped even my music, and it shakes me how completely I love her. And there’s not a doubt in my mind that she loves me too, but not like that. Not over her career. Not yet.

“It’s not fair of you to ask me that from your position, Rhyson.” She runs her hands over the hair smoothed into a tight ponytail, looping her fingers at the back of her neck. “Like Bristol said, you’re already a star. A brand. You’ve got nothing to prove and nothing to lose.”

She swallows and drops her hands back to her lap.

“We both have an incredibly strong desire to perform. To create. The difference? Yours has been at full boil most of your life, and mine has been simmering. Delayed over and over. You can say I’m more important because you’ve had it. You’ve tasted it. I haven’t.” She quickly swipes at the tear rolling down her cheek, but not before I see it. “At least let me taste it before you ask me to choose you over it.”

“I would never ask you to choose me over it.”

She blinks at me through tears, wrecking me, condemning me because on some level, that’s exactly what I want.

“When you try to dictate to me, to tell me what I can and can’t do to advance my career, you ask me to choose. I want to please you more than anything, Rhyson, but I have to do this. I’m auditioning for Total Package and doing anything else I feel will give me a shot.”

This is a battle I can’t win.

Yet.

I know I’m right. John Malcolm is slimy and opportunistic, and the thought of him exploiting Kai makes me want to beat him like a piñata. But I have to be careful how I help her. If I push her on this, I’ll lose her. I know it, but everything in me wants to protect her from those who would hurt her, who would use her. I want to cut off those roads I know from experience have bridges that are out, but I can’t if she won’t let me. So for now, all I can do is love her, and show her in every way she’ll let me.

I pull her across the bench, settling her softly curved body onto my lap. She lays her head on my shoulder, pushing her fingers up into my hair. I kiss every part of her I can reach. Her cheeks, her chin, her neck. And she kisses me back, desperation in every touch between us. It’s taken all my life to find this, and there’s no way I’ll relinquish it. She grew up with unconditional love, but no fame. I grew up with fame, but no unconditional love. I don’t know when we’ll be in sync or when we’ll need the same things at the same time, but until we do, I’m determined nothing will separate us.

“I want to play something for you.” I intersperse the kisses I leave on her lips with my words.

She snuggles closer, pulling her knees up under her in my lap and running her nose along my neck.

“Let’s hear it, Beethoven.”

With my inspiration pressed against my heart, the song that’s been blocked all day flows out of me like I sliced a vein open and let it run out of my own body. My fingers find the notes that have eluded me. My lips find the words.

You’re hot like Pepper on my tongue

Baby, you’ve singed me

And everything that I’ve become

Is from this heat you feed me

You burn

You burn

You burn

A hole straight through my heart

And I yearn

I yearn

I yearn

For you to consume me

I keep playing the melody, oscillating from tender to sensual even when I run out of words. The notes speak for me, and I lift my eyes from the keys, waiting for her to hear. Hoping she hears.

“Pepper?” Kai pulls back, her eyes wide and awed. “Is that . . . is that song about me, Rhyson?”

How do I tell her my whole album is about her? That every song in my head, every lyric I conceive lately, grows out of the intimacy we share? The connection we have?

“Yeah, it’s about you.”

“I don’t know what to say.” Her lips tremble. She bites the bottom one, looking at me like she just saw her first sunrise. “Thank you.”

“Promise me something, Kai.”

“Anything.” She should be more careful with that smile because it makes my heart stop.

“No more secrets.” I brush a finger over her dark, straight silky brows. Over the high cheekbones. Over the lush line of her lips. “We choose to believe each other. To trust each other no matter what. Deal?”

Something flickers across her face before she shutters it. I don’t want to question it because questioning it would mean she may have more to hide. Questioning it may mean I have reason to doubt her when she nods yes. When she smiles before she finally speaks.

“Deal.”

I’ve never been a guy who fantasized much. By the time I fantasized about something or someone, I had it. I owned it. I fucked it. But this girl, her I didn’t even dream about because my subconscious didn’t think she was possible. What’s between us, I didn’t know was out there. And now it’s all I want.

I turn on the piano bench until my back is against the piano, ignoring the discomfort of the keys pressing into me. I reach for her, lifting her until she sits across me, one leg on either side, her chest pressed into mine. I push the small top with its built in sports bra over her head, leaving her breasts high and naked, the nipples tight and pink.

“That’s probably a platinum single I just wrote for you, young lady.” I bend my head to suck on one nipple and then the other, waiting for it to go hard in my mouth and for her to shudder against me. “I think you should thank me better than that.”

A wicked grin looks surprisingly right on her sweet mouth. She leans away from me, sliding off the bench and to her knees between my spread legs on the floor. She flicks my belt buckle open, eyes melded in a glance with mine.

“I think you’re right.” She slips her hand inside my jeans, squeezing and sliding me less-than-gently, the roughness of her touch exactly what I need. “I really want to thank you, and I have a lot to be grateful for.”

God, that feels good already. My voice scratches in my throat, but I manage to rasp out the last intelligible words I’ll say for a while.

“Well, Pep, you better get started.”