Page 43 of Our Deceptive Heat

I’ve seen the look on TV, on other people’s parents. My parents have never given me the look.

“Tell me what’s going on, Ryn. We’ve known each other for years, and this is the first time I’ve seen you this distracted and unhappy.”

I break down. The words are hard to say at first, but then they pour out of me, ripped from my soul. I tell him everything. Every secret, including how I feel about the band, my music, my father, and the plans for my future. I lay it all out for him, and Tony holds me in his arms like I dreamed my father would do, and pats my back, and tell’s me it’s going to be okay. Just get it out.

There’s only one thing I don’t tell him.

One secret that’s going to cost me everything.

Chapter thirteen

Ryn

Being your friend isthe reason I’m dying inside- Ryn Raines.

A tentative truce has crept up between the five of us. The open hostilities have ended, but we’re not friends, either. Things are awkward because I’m not sure where I stand.

I show Tyr the song I’ve been working on, and he sits with me, suggesting alternative lyrics, like we used to. It’s the most fun I’ve had in forever, and by the time we’ve finished in three cities, we have seven songs.

But they still haven’t given me a decision, and I’m going to need to make one myself sooner or later.

When we get to the hotel, they enter their room, and I go to mine. So, maybe I turn back and watch them. So, maybe I hesitate as if waiting to give them a chance to ask me in. There’s a hope that they will, just to stop the aching loneliness.

I enter my room each night, but this night is different. I go to my suitcase and pull out the soft fluffy blanket I bought and curl up on the bed with it, inhaling the smell that has invaded it.

Coconut.

I close my eyes and think about the pack. I miss my friends, and I miss those long, long nights of writing songs, of talking music, of philosophical discussions that turned into drinks and giggles, that turned into whispered secrets shared as the dawn slid up into the sky.

I miss hearing them be themselves. The way they’d laugh with each other, teasing and roughhousing. How I’d be dragged into it, laughing until I cried. Digs woulddrag me into his practical jokes, teasing me into silliness, and his world of casual touch, until I no longer flinched when his hand rested on my head or shoulder or thigh. Until I yearned for his touch. Until I’d lay in my own bed, weeping, because all I wanted to feel was his hand on my nape, his body pressed up against mine.

Tyr would pick me up and swing me around when we finished a song. His joy in making music was devastating and impossible to withstand. When he is creating, I can’t look away.

Mako would lean against walls, looming over me, that tiny smile playing on his lips as he listened to my arguments. I’d never been seen, never been listened to, before I met Mako.

And Envy. Beautiful, mysterious Envy who took so long to warm up to me, and then revealed this alpha who just blinded me with his beauty. His soft laugh as he watched his pack. The way his fingers would slide onto mine while we sat side-by-side on the couch. I can still remember the way my breath would catch, the butterflies and fear that if I moved, it would stop.

They ruined me.

And now I’m trapped, wanting what I can’t have. A single wall that I bitterly want to destroy, the only thing separating us.

A whine escapes me, and I slap a hand across my mouth, sitting upright in the bed.

Oh, no! What am I doing? Laying here, pining for them like I’m desperate and heartbroken. This won’t do at all.

It crosses my mind that they might see me as broken or damaged now, since the pack…I get up, put my shoes on, and rush out of the room, heading down to the bar where I can get away from my thoughts.

I can’t drink much, but I can have one. I order a glass of white wine and sit there staring morosely at the mirror behind the bar. There are only a few other people in here. The black carpet looks expensive, and the tables are all deep, dark wood with gold trim. It’s nice but like so many other hotels we’ve been to.

I put my chin on my hand and ponder life’s unfairness.

A chill goes up my back, and I catch a whiff of the ocean. I still, my eyes closing because if this is a dream, I don’t want to wake up.

Not now, not ever.

He moves closer, his body brushing my back before my hair is pulled over one shoulder. He plants a kiss on my neck and lingers there, while I shiver in response to his touch.

“What are you doing down here, Ryn?”

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