Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 103602 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103602 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
“Into unicorns, are you?”
“Ha. Stop deflecting.” Killian crosses his legs before him and keeps flipping through my songs like a geek who’s found a long-lost chapter of The Lord of The Rings. “Why didn’t you tell me you wrote songs?”
I lurch up and snatch them from his hands. “It’s something I did when I was younger. A hobby.” Something my parents made quite clear was a dead end.
“The last one is only a few years old.” His expression pinches as he watches me put the songs away and close the file box lid. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Libs.”
With a sigh, I press my hands on the box lid. “I know. Honestly, I haven’t thought about them in a while. Okay, after you told me who you really were, they did enter my mind. But I didn’t want you getting any ideas.”
“Ideas?”
I can’t look at him. “You rightly called me out on getting weird on you. No way was I about to say, ‘Oh, hey, I wrote these songs!’ Like some lame sales pitch. I wouldn’t do that to you, Killian.”
“Libs.” He touches my arm so I’m forced to meet his gaze. “I’d never think you were doing that.”
I nod. “At any rate, it really isn’t a big deal. It was for fun.”
His frown doesn’t ease, as if he still wants to ask a whole host of questions I don’t want to answer.
Panic clutches my chest. “I’m serious. Can we please drop this?”
Killian takes a deep breath. “Okay, Libby.”
He glances around, at a loss. I’m there too. But before it can get any more awkward, he shrugs and returns to picking through the records like nothing happened.
I’m so grateful, my vision blurs before I blink it clear.
“Oh, man, Nevermind.” He holds up the Nirvana album and flips it over to read the back. “God, I remember when Jax and I discovered the Seattle Sound. It was like this beautiful rage and perfect disdain. The power behind it, like a fucking wave of sound that crashed into, sent you tumbling.” He grins wide. “We’d listen, study, then make these horrendous attempts to copy it.”
Lying on my stomach, I rest my chin on my palm. Inside, I’m still a bit shaken, but talking about legends is easer. Comforting, almost. “You didn’t copy it. You found your own voice.”
Nirvana had “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Kill John has “Apathy”—our generation’s battle cry. “Apathy” drives just as hard and fast as “Teen Spirit” but there’s more pain in it, less rage. A question of why we’re here. A song of loneliness and feeling useless.
“When my parents died,” I tell him quietly, “I listened to ‘Apathy’ on a loop for a week straight. It made me feel…I don’t know, better somehow.”
Killian’s lips part in surprise, his gaze darting over my face. “Yeah?” His voice is soft. “I’m glad, Libs.”
He reaches out as if he’s afraid I’ll bite. But he’s a brave one. The tips of his fingers trace my cheek. My lids lower as he speaks, low and rumbly. “Had I been there, I’d have wanted to give you comfort.”
Warmth swells in my belly, spreading outward. I’d have wanted him to give it. I clear my throat and force my eyes open. “So it was just you and Jax at first?”
Killian sets his hand on his thigh. “Yeah. We grew up together and then both went to the same boarding school. We met Whip and Rye there.”
I have to laugh. “I can’t picture you in a boarding school.”
Killian makes a goofy face. “I was a right saint, you know. Good grades. Followed the rules.”
“So how did you become a rock star, then?”
He ducks is head, shaking it a bit. “I don’t consider myself a rock star. I’m a musician. I’ve always loved music, loved making music.”
“If you love to make music,” I ask him, “why are you here? Why not in a studio?”
His expression shuts down. “You don’t want me here?”
I want you any way I can get you.
“Here is the least likely place anyone on Earth would expect you to be.” I peer at him. “Is that why? Are you hiding?”
He snorts. “Jesus, Libs. What’s with the inquisition?”
“It’s not an inquisition,” I say calmly. “It’s a legitimate question. That you’re agitated only means I’m picking at a nerve.”
Killian lurches to his feet, his glare cutting. “Most people would stop picking.”
“Yeah, I’m annoying that way.” I stare at him, unwilling to blink.
He huffs out a breath, his hands linking behind his neck. “I don’t feel it, all right?” His bare feet slap against the floor as he paces. “I don’t want to sing. Don’t want to play. It’s just…a void.”
“When’s the last time you tried?”
He spreads his arms wide in an annoyed appeal. “I don’t want to try right now. I just want to be.” He pauses, glaring at me over his shoulder. “Is that okay with you? Am I allowed to just be for one freaking second?”