Starstruck (Heartstrings Duet #1)

46. ready to blow

[ 46 ]

READY TO BLOW

LENNON

Two Weeks Until the Concert

“SAY IT AIN’T SO” BY MOZELLA (COVER)

W e won.

Logan Jameson, the man who made the idiotic decision to drive drunk one night and T-boned my car, killing both of my parents, was sentenced to life imprisonment yesterday. DUI manslaughter is considered a homicide offense in Ontario, and all I can say is thank God for that. That, plus the four other DUI charges on his record in the past ten years, led to a life sentence.

Which suits this country just fine. There isn’t a single person I’ve come across who believed he was innocent. The bastard deserves to rot in prison until the day he dies, as far as I’m concerned.

And I’m so fucking relieved this is all over. Because now I can focus one hundred and ten percent of my attention on making this concert the best it can be, knowing everything that led us here has been resolved.

Baxter and I came back to his place after the trial last night, and we haven’t left since. He was acting a little strange after the trial, but I chalked it up to a mixture of shock and relief—the same two emotions we’ve all been feeling for the past twenty-four hours. Spending the night tangled in his sheets was the perfect way to clear our minds of the events of the past few days and celebrate.

I woke up this morning to find him in the kitchen cooking me breakfast, and now we’re sitting on his living room couch, a guitar resting in each of our laps. Baxter strums a few chords, and I mimic him, finally starting to get the hang of this thing.

“That was perfect,” he tells me with a massive grin.

My smile mirrors his as I look back down at my fingers pulling at the strings.

I’m still learning to play, but I’ve made some great progress since he started teaching me. Even better, learning to play seemed to be exactly what I needed to start writing again, which is what we’re doing now. The TV plays quietly in the background while he watches me with rapt attention. I can feel his eyes on me the entire time, and it makes me feel both extremely vulnerable and powerful.

“You’re magic, Lenny girl,” he compliments as I finish the tune I was playing.

I glance up at him with a smile on my face, setting the guitar he bought me back in its case on the floor beside me. Then I stand, walking over to him and placing one of my legs on either side of his to straddle him. I smile at him as he leans in, and I meet him halfway, crashing our lips together.

He grips me by the neck, positioning my head so I open wider for him, granting him access. He swipes his tongue over mine and groans as I grind down against him.

I pull my lips from his as he grows harder beneath me, a wicked smirk forming. He’s so fucking fun to rile up. “Thanks, Lover Boy,” I tease.

He tucks a stray hair behind my ear as he smiles, and I melt a little. He holds my gaze for a moment before his expression changes.

“I have to tell you something, Lennon. ”

A frown fills my face at his use of my actual name. “Is everything okay?”

His eyes flash over my shoulder, and his expression falls even more. “No. Everything is not okay.” A whispered, “ fuck ,” falls from his lips as he keeps his gaze set on whatever’s behind me.

I furrow my brows. “What is it?” I ask confused, turning to look over my shoulder.

I’m met with the view of the TV. It’s on a news channel, and though I can’t hear what the broadcaster is saying, there’s a photo of Baxter in the top right corner.

My eyes scan the screen, moving from his photo to the headline, which reads, Baxter James…or should we say Baxter Jameson ?

My confusion only grows, so I move off his lap to grab the remote off the table and turn the volume up just as the broadcaster says, “ …is the older brother of Logan Jameson, who just yesterday was officially charged and found guilty of DUI manslaughter resulting in the deaths of Audrey Rose and Brennan Thorne, who most know as musical rock duo, Thorned Roses. The couple died in a car accident a year ago in October, where their youngest daughter, Lennon Thorne, was driving when Jameson ran a red light and hit them. ”

My jaw drops as a photo of Logan appears next to the one of Baxter, and I take a step closer to the TV. The similarities between them are there—they have the same lips and nose—but even placed side-by-side like this, they don’t very much look alike.

Logan has a rounder face and blond, short hair compared to Baxter’s longer, dark-brown hair. His eyes are different—deep brown, a drastic change from Baxter’s ocean blue. Logan also doesn’t have a beard. There’s no way anyone would ever guess they were related based on looks alone.

Which explains how I didn’t figure it out.

Add to that the fact that Baxter has only ever been known to the world as James…the last thing I ever expected was for him to actually share a last name with the man who murdered my pa rents.

Clearly I’ve never been more wrong.

Because as it turns out, Baxter, the man I’ve fallen helplessly in love with but doesn’t know it yet, is the brother of the man responsible for the deaths of my parents.

Oh, my god.

That’s why he’s been so weird everytime I brought up the accident. Here I thought it was giving him bad memories from his mom’s death, but really, it’s because he was hiding this from me.

This massive fucking secret that changes everything I thought I knew about him.

I spin around to face Baxter, tears beginning to stream down my face.

He stares back at me with a look of pure agony, and I almost feel bad for him. If I know anything about Baxter, and I’d like to think I do, it’s that whatever his reasoning is for keeping this from me, it wasn’t out of malice.

But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s the person closest to the reason my parents are dead. And he’s been lying to me about it for months.

“Tell me it isn’t true,” I beg, hoping this is all just a bad dream I’m going to wake up from.

He shakes his head, a flash of anguish crossing his face. He looks like a broken shell of the man I thought I knew.

“I can’t do that, Lennon.”

He pauses, his throat working as he looks anywhere but at me. And just when my world was finally starting to right itself, he says four words that flip it upside down all over again.

“Logan is my brother.”