Page 12 of Saving the Rockstar

A muscle ticked in his jaw, his gaze cutting away from mine to fix on some distant point over my shoulder. For a long moment, I thought he wasn't going to answer, that I'd pushed too far, pried into things that were none of my business.

But then he let out a slow, controlled breath, his shoulders squaring like he was bracing for a blow. When he spoke, his voice was low and measured, each word dragged up from some deep, dark place.

"When I was twenty, a man I thought I could trust took photos of me with this much older professor, in compromising positions. Then he posted them online."

"Jared..."

But he shook his head, cutting off my half-formed platitude before it could fully leave my lips. "It was ugly. People I thought were my friends... they were making fun of me in the comments. And that was just the tip of the iceberg."

He swallowed hard. His eyes, when they met mine again, were bleak and haunted, a lifetime of hurt shining out of those impossible depths.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, the words woefully inadequate but all I had to offer.

His mouth quirked, a bare twitch of lips that held no humor. "I wasn't alone. Not entirely. I had my family, my real friends. The ones who stuck by me, even when it would have been easier to cut and run. They got me through the worst of it, stopped me from doing anything too stupid when the darkness got to be too much."

He squeezed my knee again. "That's what you need right now, Ash. Your people. The ones who know the real you, not the media circus version cooked up by the gossip rags."

I thought of Dylan, of his unfailing loyalty and stupid jokes, the way he'd refused to let me push him away no matter how hard I'd tried.

I blew out a shaky breath, letting my head thunk back against the wall as I squeezed my eyes shut. "You're right," I mumbled. "It's just hard. Feeling like this, like everyone is just waiting for me to crack so they can pick over the pieces. It's hardto remember that anyone could still give a shit. Could still want to know me, after."

"I do," he said simply. Like it was just that easy, that uncomplicated. "I still want to know you, Asher. The real you, beneath all the bullshit and bravado. I wouldn't be here if I didn't."

Slowly, I reached out to cover his hand with my own. Curled my fingers around his and held on tight, like he was the only thing keeping me from flying apart.

"Then I guess it's a good thing you're so fucking stubborn," I whispered, a wry twist to my mouth as I cracked one eye open to peer up at him. "Anyone else probably would have tapped out by now, figured it wasn't worth the hassle of dealing with the basket case rock star."

He huffed a laugh, small but genuine, his hand turning beneath mine until our fingers twined.

The ambush came out of nowhere. One minute I was stepping out of the studio, my mind still buzzing with lyrics and chord progressions, the next I was blinded by a supernova of flashbulbs, a wall of shouting voices crashing over me like a tidal wave.

"Asher, over here!"

"Is it true you were caught with a male prostitute?"

"How long have you been lying to your fans? Do you have anything to say to the kids who looked up to you?"

The questions came fast and furious, overlapping and aggressive, each one more invasive and speculative than the last. I stumbled back a step, throwing a hand up to shield my eyesfrom the pulsing strobe of cameras, my heart slamming against my ribcage like a caged animal.

I spun on my heel, intending to duck back into the studio, to barricade myself in the booth until security could disperse the vultures. But I'd barely taken a step before they were on me, a suffocating crush of bodies and grasping hands.

"Asher, what do you have to say to the parents who are calling for a boycott of your music?"

"Sources say you've been attending conversion therapy. Care to comment?"

I lashed out blindly, shoving at the bodies penning me in on all sides, desperate to break free. But it was like trying to fight the tide, the sheer mass of them bearing me back no matter how viciously I struggled.

My lungs seized in my chest, black spots crowding the edges of my vision as the panic dragged me under. This was it. This was how I died, torn apart by vultures in designer jeans, just another cautionary tale for the annals of rock n' roll tragedy.

"Back off!"

The roar cut through the noise like thunder, so fierce and commanding that even the most rabid paparazzi fell still for a beat. I blinked sweat out of my eyes just in time to see a force of nature in tactical gear shouldering through the throng like a battering ram.

Jared.

He burst into the eye of the storm, his face a mask of cold fury. He positioned himself in front of me like a human shield, his broad shoulders blocking out the worst of the camera flashes.

"This is your one and only warning," he snarled, each word dripping with barely leashed violence. "You have fiveseconds to get those cameras out of his face before I start breaking fingers. And trust me, you'll run out of fingers before I run out of creative ways to fracture them."

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