Write or Wrong (Common Threads #9)

Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

STATE OF THE ART

ZARA

Outwardly she was fine.

Quiet, but fine.

Inside, her head was a mess. A tangle of thoughts and feelings and so very many regrets.

Right now, she should be playing lemon mouth at the bar with her peers.

She should be proud of her win. Happy, celebratory, grateful. Those were the things she should be feeling. But those things were overshadowed by Logan’s bullshit. Again.

Any other time, any other night, any other place, and she’d still be there. Right by his side, quietly begging him to keep his voice down and agreeing to go home early.

It had been their first public appearance in months. After a lengthy and private separation, she’d agreed to try one more time. She’d deferred to his security instead of her own. She’d worn the dress he liked best; she’d kept her red-carpet comments to a minimum so he wouldn’t feel left out. Trying to prove she wasn’t what he accused her of. She could compromise. It didn’t have to be her way all the time.

And in return, he’d mocked her for her wins. Implied she’d performed sexual favors to get them and then laughed because that couldn’t be true. She was so bad at sex that it was comical. He had been joking. He was always joking.

He’d pointed out every woman who was more beautiful than her, every artist that should have won in her category. He grumbled about the entire thing being rigged.

But she’d held her head high, put on her best smile, and tried to tune out his negative remarks.

Until she couldn’t.

He said the Album of the Year was partially his since he helped her write it. He’d said it in front of important people. People she respected and who she wanted to respect her.

The rest of it twisted into a blur of anger and confusion. She remembered yelling but she couldn’t remember what she’d said.

And then all the swirling and confusion stopped when someone had grabbed her hand.

She knew his name now. Asa.

“I got you,” he’d said. His hand warm around hers, his dark eyes sure and confident.

Her stomach had already twisted itself into knots and she needed to get somewhere to be alone until it passed. Somewhere safe.

The bestie of my bestie is my bestie in-law. Maybe not the most logical of thoughts but it had made sense in her gut.

He’d gotten her away, taken her someplace safe. And now he was coming back into the room with bags of food.

She spread out a bath towel on the King-sized bed for their late-night picnic. Catching her reflection in the mirror above the dresser, she snorted.

“Looking good, Z,” she muttered to herself, getting closer to the glass. She leaned forward and dabbed at the puffiness under her eyes. Her hair looked like it had experienced a back alley mugging with no winners.

Her gaze drifted to a book sitting on the dresser. Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien. She tapped the cover lightly with her fingertips. “‘A chance for Faramir, Captain of Gondor, to show his quality,’” she muttered.

All those times in the studio they’d never spoken. Never chatted. Just half smiles and head nods. She hadn’t even tried to get to know him.

Looking back, she recalled her reasons. She tried not to make friends with many men. It made Logan suspect the worst and the tabloids to accuse it outright.

Immediately she was angry with herself.

How many times had she adjusted her life and her actions to accommodate the unreasonable demands of others?

Asa didn’t have to step in. They had no connection save through Nikki. No friendship of their own for him to feel any sense of duty or obligation.

And yet, if he hadn’t, she’d still be caught in the storm, with no allies in sight.

She faced Asa and watched him place the bags of food on the bed. He straightened and adjusted the glasses on his face.

“Thank you,” she said, wishing she could convey the sincerity of her gratitude.

His eyebrows dipped into a soft frown.

“For stepping in tonight,” she clarified. “You didn’t have to do that.”

He snorted. “Yes, I did.”

Oh. Well.

Why did that make her head feel fuzzy?

“Thank you,” she said again.

His mouth ticked up on one side and he nodded.

Maybe they hadn’t been friends before but maybe they could be now.

She let her gaze flick over his shirt and it made her smile again. While they’d waited for the food to be delivered, Asa had changed out of what was left of his tux into what looked like the softest pair of jeans she’d ever seen, and a white muscle shirt that said, “tattoos are stupid.”

The detailed artwork that adorned his arms from his wrists to his shoulders didn’t look stupid to her. They looked deliberate and beautiful and she wanted to look at them up close because she was nosey like that.

“This look okay?” he asked, gesturing to the bags of food on the center of the towel.

She nodded and climbed onto the bed. He joined her. They sat cross-legged, facing one another with the food between them.

“So, you were a rock star once?” she asked, taking the wrapped burger Asa passed to her.

Asa snorted at her question and handed over her vanilla shake. “Nikki tell you that?”

She nodded as she bit into her burger. Her vision flickered as the flavor took over all of her senses. Sooo , delicious. A noise came out of her that was somewhere between a moan and a growl and Asa chuckled.

“Good?” he asked.

She swallowed and took another huge bite. How long had it been since she’d had a burger?

The beef and cheese and onion and ketchup and mustard set off a thousand and one good memories in her mind of hitting the drive-thru with her dad. Of searching through couch cushions for change so they could get something off the dollar menu. Of picking up her brother and sister from school and treating them with what her tiny paycheck from the local coffee place would allow.

Back then a cheeseburger had been a treat. It still felt like one now.

“Ooh!” she said, taking the lid off her shake. “Do you do this? Are you one of these?” She dipped a couple of fries in the milkshake and ate them.

So fucking good.

It tasted like home and happiness and another h-word that meant good things.

“Doesn’t everyone do that?” Asa asked with a soft chuckle.

“Nope. Not everyone.” Zara dipped three more fries. “Some people don’t think it tastes good.”

“Well, some people are idiots,” he muttered.

She snickered.

This was exactly what she needed. She hadn’t known that an hour ago, but there it was.

She grinned at Asa and he eyed her warily.

Part of her understood his hesitation. She’d just been crying and puking not that long ago. But cheeseburgers and milkshakes soothed all wounds. Mostly. The rest—the long-term stuff— she’d take care of her other favorite way; by writing about it.

“What did you play?” But because her mouth was full it sounded like, “Whada oog progh?”

Some burger escaped and dropped into her lap.

Whoops. That was embarrassing.

Asa’s mouth curved into a full smile and he shook his head with a sigh. “You are a straight up menace right now. Act like you’ve been somewhere, Artist of the Year.” He handed her a napkin.

She swallowed despite her urge to laugh out loud.

“Sorry,” she said, wiping her face. “I asked what you played? In your rock band?”

He eyed her, amusement flickering in his dark brown eyes. “When you say that it doesn’t sound like you’re making fun of me at all,” he said with a touch of sarcasm.

“I’m not!” she protested. “I swear.”

“Sure,” he said, like he didn’t know if he believed her. But he answered her question anyway. “Bass guitar.” His cheek twitched. “And I wrote the songs and music.”

“Do you still play?” she asked.

He rubbed a napkin across his lips before answering. “Not really. I play piano a couple nights a week at this piano bar downtown.”

Interesting.

So he’d gone from bass guitar in a rock band to nearly nothing.

She tried to remember if Nikki had given her details about any of this but she didn’t think she had.

“What was the name of your band?” she asked.

“You’ve never heard of us,” he said, dipping his chin and shaking his head.

“Why do you think that?” She could guess but she didn’t want to. She wanted him to say it out loud that he thought she didn’t listen to his style of music. It’s what everybody thought.

It was strange to have so much of herself out there for public consumption and yet have people get so many things wrong about her. They had all the pieces but they’d chosen to put them together in a way that fit their own idea of who they thought she should be.

“Because we weren’t popular,” he said and added with a shrug, “And you weren’t our target audience.”

She put a hand to her chest. “Now I’m offended.”

He met her eyes and smiled slightly. “Wasn’t trying to offend.” He rubbed a hand along his jaw and the dark whiskers there. They weren’t long enough to call a beard, but they looked fuller than just a day’s shave away. It matched the dark hair on his head which was thick and black with a hint of a wave on top.

“What was the name of the band?” she asked again. Hoping, hoping, hoping she knew it so that she could rub it in his face. In a nice way, of course.

“Our band was called Winking Pete,” he replied, crumbling up his cheeseburger wrapper and tossing it in the bin nearby.

Her shoulders fell. “I haven’t heard of you,” she admitted grumpily.

He barked a laugh and something lit up inside Zara’s mind at the sound.

“Don’t feel bad,” he reassured her. “We weren’t worth hearing about.”

Somehow, she doubted that.

She was somewhat upset with herself for not knowing the band anyway, simply because she adored Nikki. And it had been Nikki’s band too. Even though Nikki hadn’t ever wanted to talk about it. Zara could have still investigated on her own for more information. Then she could’ve impressed Asa with all her intimate knowledge of his once upon a time rock stardom.

Rookie mistake.

“Do you still write?” she asked.

“Nah.” His eyes slid off to the side and she wondered about that.

She wrote all the time. Couldn’t seem to stop. She’d never met another songwriter who had just…stopped.

Weird.

She wanted to ask more about that specifically.

“What comes next for you? Another album of the year?” he asked, deliberately changing the subject.

Fine. She’d allow it. But she’d be coming back to this subject eventually. Maybe not tonight, maybe not soon, but she’d get to it.

She hummed, distracted by his assertion. “Maybe. I already have one finished?—”

“Do you live in a recording studio?” he asked, amused.

“It feels that way sometimes,” she admitted.

He shook his head, a flicker of something, maybe sorrow, hitting his eyes before he blinked it away.

Thunder rumbled ominously and they both glanced at the window, covered by heavy hotel curtains.

“Sounds like a storm.” He set down his fries and started toward the window. He was almost there when the lights dimmed and then came back. “Uh oh.”

He slowly turned toward her, an eyebrow lifted.

The lights dimmed again, and the room buzzed with labored electricity. They brightened once more.

She jerked her chin up. “Take a look,” she said, referring to the window.

He drew back the curtains just as a huge bolt of lightning seared across the sky. The lights in the room blinked one, two, three times, then stayed dark as thunder rumbled through the building.

Excitement flared in her chest along with a little squeal. Maybe she should have been embarrassed by that, but she just wasn’t. At least it wasn’t a full-on cackle like that one night in Barcelona. Her backup dancers said she’d sounded like a witch.

Oh well.

She lived in the moment.

“Was that a happy noise or a scared noise?” Asa asked climbing back onto the bed.

He’d left the curtains open and the strobe effect of the lightning against the dark backdrop felt… cozy.

Was that weird?

Probably.

It wasn’t a full blackout; she could see lights further off in the distance. But their little section of the grid remained dark.

Both of them shifted where they’d been sitting on the bed so their backs were to the headboard and they could watch the storm out the window.

Zara loved, loved, loved thunderstorms.

“When I was a kid,” she started, not knowing why she was revealing this part of herself to Asa. Maybe because it felt safe there in that hotel room. Maybe because he’d already told her she didn’t have to share anything if she didn’t want to. Maybe because he was connected to Nikki and as a consequence, she naturally trusted him. “Eating in the car with my dad while it rained was one of my favorite things.”

He grunted softly.

The rain pelted the window, running in thick watery lines down the glass. Thunder rumbled through the ground and into her chest. The combination echoed in her mind as an under riff and she hummed it to herself.

Asa chuckled beside her. “Are you writing right now?”

Yes.

She was always writing.

But she didn’t want to turn her phone on and risk being interrupted by the outside world.

“Can I use your phone?” she asked softly. He could say no and she’d be fine with that. She’d probably be able to remember what she was thinking for later.

But he didn’t say no.

She heard the quiet rustling of his jeans as he took it out of his pocket and the faint click of him unlocking it.

He slid the warm rectangle into her outstretched palm. They had the same phone. His didn’t have a case or a crack running through the screen though.

She opened the voice memo app and hummed the under riff. A melody started to form and her voice wandered into that area for a while. No words, just feelings. She tried to capture the atmosphere of the moment as best she could. When she’d exhausted her ideas for the time being, she set the phone aside.

“You’re the real deal, aren’t you?” Asa asked, voice deep and soft at the same time.

She glanced his way and tried to read his face in the dark.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she replied hesitantly.

He chuckled, the sound rich and warm, as he rubbed a black eyebrow with a knuckle. “I just mean to say…” He sighed and rested his hands in his lap. You’re what, twenty-five?”

“Twenty-three,” she corrected him softly. “Until February.”

“Holy shit. Sorry. I didn’t mean to say that, but holy shit.” Asa covered his mouth with a hand.

Her cheeks heated. It wasn’t the first time someone had remarked on her age in combination with her career. She never knew how she was supposed to feel. Was she supposed to feel bad about it? Or embarrassed?

So, she was twenty-three. Did that make her talent illegitimate?

“I’m sorry,” he said again, trying to catch her eyes in the lightning. “I was just surprised is all.”

She shrugged, trying to push the discomfort off her shoulders. “People assume because of my age that I don’t know what’s going on. Or that I don’t understand people or the world or business or what have you.”

“That’s not what I thought at all.”

She lifted her eyes to his, trying to measure the intentions of this person she knew but didn’t know. A moment ago, she’d been ready to trust him without question. But the remark about her age knifed into a constant sore point in her ribs.

She grew tired of having to prove herself as a valid artist on the industry’s stage. Like she’d gotten everything because of luck or happenstance. Or worse, her success wasn’t hers but the result of someone else’s work on her behalf.

Was Asa one of those people who thought she hadn’t earned her spot? Who thought she was just a pretty face working someone else’s agenda?

He shifted so he was facing her more fully. His eyes met hers head on, dark and sincere and endless.

“When I was twenty-three, I was a little punk,” he admitted, voice rough like it was pulled over gravel and into the conversation against its will. “I was just a baby. Ask Nikki. I was stupid and impulsive. And I certainly wasn’t capable of running an empire.”

Some of her apprehension faded. He wasn’t misjudging her, he was comparing where he’d been at the same age. That made more sense. The knot that had started to coil in her stomach eased.

“How old are you now?” she asked.

“Almost thirty.” He blinked and a slow breath went in and out, his chest rising and falling. “In February.”

They shared a smile. She wondered how close their birthdays were.

“All grown up?” she asked.

His lips tipped up on the sides and his Adam’s apple bobbed with his swallow. Somehow the pause he gave said more than words could. He’d grown but not because he’d wanted to. Because he’d had to.

Her gaze dropped to the tattoos on his arms blurred by the darkness. His admission that he no longer wrote came back to her and she bit her tongue before asking about it again.

They weren’t good friends.

They didn’t have shared history.

But she couldn’t deny that there was something there. An elusive connection that underpinned everything that had happened that night.

He’d had no reason to step in between her and Logan. He hadn’t been involved.

But when she thought back to that moment, when Logan had once again said something cruel and unwarranted in front of her peers, her shame and anger had been eclipsed by Asa’s hand taking hers.

“I got you.”

She’d met his eyes and it was as if her heart knew his.

And there in the dark, the thunder sending trembles through the ground and through her doubt, she felt it again. Clearly.

A knowing she couldn’t define.

“What happened to Winking Pete?” she asked.

Nikki had never said. But she knew Nikki was talented as hell, so it was safe to assume Asa was as well.

He didn’t speak for several minutes. His dark eyes focused on the window, his lower lip sucked in his mouth like he was scanning the contents of the memory. Trying to decide if he really wanted to share it or not.

“We were on our first overseas tour and our lead singer was…unhinged. She always had been. We just assumed she’d eventually get her shit sorted. Anyway, one night she showed up to the show drunk, high, late, and pissed off. I tried to get her to calm down, tighten it up. Most of the time I could convince her to get it together. But not that night.” He shook his head. “She shoved Nikki off the stage and Nik broke her arm. That was the end.” He made a ppfft noise with his mouth. “Done.”

“Oh,” Zara replied, a sick feeling twisting her stomach at the violence involved. “Was Nikki okay?” she asked.

He nodded, but his gaze drifted lower. “Yeah.”

Something heavy and sad filled the space around him. It pressed on her mind and heart.

“Were you okay?” she asked quietly.

He took a slow breath, like he was coming back from a memory he didn’t visit often. When he glanced at her, the self-recrimination made her lungs hurt.

“Yeah,” he lied.

They held eye contact.

She could call him on his lie, but what good would it do? He obviously blamed himself. And she knew from experience that when someone had decided who was at fault for something, it was difficult to convince them otherwise. Especially if you weren’t there. You couldn’t know.

But a deep ache opened in her chest for the man across the bed from her.

She wanted to help in some way but no words came to mind.

So she gave him what she always wanted when she was breaking inside. The same thing he’d given her just that night.

Presence.

She gathered their garbage and dropped it in the bin before returning to the bed. Instead of resuming her seated position, she laid down on top of the covers and put a hand behind her head. The other she rested at her side, nearest to Asa.

Rain filled the silence between them.

After a while he spoke. His voice a whispered rumble that reached into her ribs. “You ever just stay somewhere, even when you know you shouldn’t?”

“Yeah,” she answered. Because did she ever? Not just Logan but friends, business partners. “Staying too long happens to be my favorite bad decision,” she said, voice soft. “Is that what happened?”

She didn’t think she needed to be specific with her question. He hadn’t come back from whatever memory he’d gotten stuck in.

The bed dipped and moved as Asa adjusted to lay down beside her. Not close, not far. She could reach out and touch him if she wanted.

“I wanted it so much. I tried to hold it together with good intentions and duct tape.” His voice was soft but dipped in layers of cynicism and anger. “I didn’t leave until people I cared about got hurt.”

Light danced along the ceiling, making shapes in the shadows. The rain soothed the quiet conversation, insulating them from everything and everyone that might interfere.

“I should have left Logan years ago,” she admitted. She’d never said it out loud. Never confessed it to anyone, not her friends or her sister, no one. It was her own secret shame that she carried on her own.

Asa didn’t say anything for a long time but she could practically hear him holding back his thoughts.

“You can say something,” she said with a soft laugh.

He let out a hiss of a sigh. “I don’t get it. He was wearing sweatpants tonight.”

Zara groaned with the reminder. “He said because he wasn’t nominated he didn’t have to be uncomfortable.”

“There’s a reason he wasn’t nominated,” Asa growled back. “Sorry,” he muttered.

“You’re not wrong,” she replied. She’d never admit that to anyone else. No matter how many times Logan had embarrassed her in public or in front of her people, she defended him, excused it. Reasoned it away. Because it felt like they weren’t just judging him, they were judging her . But shouldn’t they? She was the one who never left.

But it was more than that. Logan had been there in the beginning. They’d grown up in the industry together. She cheered for him as much as anyone else. Even if he’d stopped cheering for her a long time ago.

It hurt to think about. But talking about it in the dark with this handsome pseudo stranger felt better. Like coming up for air after being underwater for too long.

“He was mad that I won so many times,” she said, anger and shame stirring in her belly. “He called it excessive.”

“He’s a jealous little bitch,” Asa muttered.

She snorted a surprised laugh. No one around her talked like that. Especially about Logan. They were all afraid it would damage them professionally.

“It’s the fucking job,” he said, disgusted.

“What do you mean?” she asked, swiveling her head his direction.

“Job is probably the wrong word for it. But if someone wants to be in a relationship with you, they’re gonna have to check their ego at the door. They have to be secure enough to step back and let you shine. They should be your biggest fan. I feel like that goes without saying.”

She didn’t know if the warmth that spread through her was embarrassment or validation, but either way, she was flustered. He spoke boldly, as if being wrong wasn’t an option he considered.

And his boldness bolstered her own.

“Right? Like…somehow, it’s my fault that I’m successful? For something I’ve worked my whole life to do? I should apologize or be ashamed of those things? Oh, but he wouldn’t want to give up all the perks that come with my job. The houses and the parties and the invites and the people,” she rattled off, not realizing how much she’d been wanting to express these frustrations. “It feels like there’s this expectation that I should be successful, but not more than him. That I should leave ‘Zara Lorna’ at the door and be his doting girlfriend. Encourage him and baby him and tolerate his fuckups for the sake of his happiness. But you know what? I’m pretty sure he still wouldn’t be happy.”

“Yeah, he’s not the one for you,” Asa agreed.

“Maybe I can’t have both,” she said thoughtfully. “Maybe love and my job can’t coexist. Maybe I have to choose one or the other.”

“Nah,” he dismissed her words easily and it made her smile in the dark. “I would have probably agreed with you a few years ago but not now. You just need the right person. You know Sunshine and Sabine, right?”

He was talking about Sunshine Capone, the hip hop artist and his wife. They’d met at an awards show a while back and became instant friends. It was through Sunshine she’d met Nikki.

“Of course.”

“Take them for example. They are both very much individuals but committed to each other in a way that’s inspiring. You know damn good and well that if Sabine asked Sunshine to quit the biz so she could pursue her lifelong dream of being the world’s greatest teacher?—”

Zara snorted a laugh.

“I don’t know. Probably not that, but you know what I mean. He would do it. He’d drop it all and fall at her feet and be fucking elated to do it.”

She nodded, seeing what he meant. “But she’d never ask.”

“Of course not,” he agreed with her. “But we allll know she could. She knows she could. And it’s that kind of security that I’m talking about. Where you need to be with someone you would do anything for, but also know they’d never ask you to do something that would hurt you.”

Her heart pinched at the idea of someone loving her like that.

“That’s rare,” she said, her voice suddenly rough.

“Fuck, yeah, it is.” His voice equally rough.

“Feels impossible,” she whispered, her nose stinging.

“I can imagine.”

Her thoughts drifted with the thunder. She was okay. She’d always be okay. She had the love of her family and the gift of being able to do what she loved for a living. And while, yes, it could be lonely, she was sometimes gifted with moments like this one. With being able to share a moment, a personal connection, with another human. That’s why she wrote and sang in the first place. Because it was her way of connecting her heart to others. So maybe she didn’t need a life partner or soulmate or whatever. Maybe it was enough to have these moments that felt bigger on the inside.

“Maybe I’ll start a wildlife refuge for rabbits,” she said softly. Unable to keep herself serious, she snorted. “Not fancy rabbits. But like, regular ones. I could lean in and get real weird with it. Make them hats. And a reality show. Like The Bachelor . Imagine the drama.”

The silence lasted for maybe four seconds before Asa busted up laughing.

“Oh, my God,” he said around a chuckle. “Fuckin’ rabbits,” he muttered.

She joined in his laughter, the bed vibrating with their mutual amusement.

“It’s a solid plan b,” she concluded.

“It’s a million-dollar idea for sure,” he agreed.

She grinned up at the ceiling, pleased with herself for getting such a great laugh out of him. And what a laugh. She liked it more than most laughs. It felt like someone hugging her brain.

In that moment she decided she was going to be spending more time in Chicago. She missed Nikki anyway.

“Can I ask you something?” His deep voice turned soft, curious.

“Sure,” she replied.

“How are you still so happy?” he asked.

She glanced his way and realized he wasn’t looking at the ceiling but was on his side, facing her, one arm tucked beneath the pillow under his head.

“What do you mean?” she asked, rolling onto her side to face him.

His black eyebrows dipped and his mouth pulled into a frustrated line. “How has this world not ruined you?”

She wasn’t sure how to answer that. “It’s nice that you think I’m not ruined,” she said.

“Are you joking?” he asked. “You’re joking. Have you met you, Zara?”

She laughed and tucked her hands under her cheek.

“Look at you, still smiling away,” Asa said like he was disappointed in her, and she laughed some more. “Like you didn’t just have a messy fight with your boyfriend?—”

“ Ex- boyfriend,” she corrected quickly.

His lips tilted to the side. “Right. Like you didn’t just have a messy fight with your ex-boyfriend in front of literally everyone in the industry.” He stopped speaking for a beat like he was withholding additional commentary. “You ruined your dress,” he went on, voice pitched lower. His eyes drifted over her face and her chest got tight under his slow examination. “This could not have been how you pictured spending tonight. You should be celebrating.”

She swallowed as heat crept into her eyes. Hadn’t she just been thinking those exact thoughts?

“How do you put it all aside and not lose yourself?” he asked.

He wasn’t asking for pity’s sake. No, this question came from a place deep inside him that needed an answer she couldn’t provide.

But she’d still try.

“They’re always going to get it wrong,” she said. “By tomorrow there’ll be a dozen stories about tonight. But no one really knows, do they? My whole life I’ve had to hear about all the shameful things I’ve been a part of. I could go out there and defend myself, try to explain things that don’t require explanation. But that would be it. That would become my new occupation. I’d never be able to stop because they never stop.”

She chewed on her bottom lip as she thought about all the times she’d compromised on who she was and what she wanted for the sake of Logan, or a record’s release, or the threat of bad press.

No, she hadn’t always made the right call.

But even in those times, a part of her had known better.

“Maybe being happy is my own type of denial,” she admitted. “Maybe I use it as a way to ignore what I actually need to change. I don’t know.”

“I don’t see that about you.”

Her gaze flicked back to his.

“Maybe you’re so adept at growth that you give others around you the opportunity to do the same.”

“You make me sound like the kind of person I want to be,” she said softly, the thunder rumbling through the building and her bones.

These were the kind of conversations she never had. So often she was surrounded by cameras and microphones and people looking for an angle. She’d learned to guard her words and her mind from being too honest.

But there, in the dark, across from Asa, she felt her soul relax its cautious nature. She wasn’t the Artist of the Year there in that hotel room.

She was just Zara.

“Logan Black is beneath you,” Asa said into the quiet.

She held his gaze without flinching.

“It’s not my place to say, but I hope you know you’re too valuable to be in that kind of a situation. No one should ever speak to you the way he did.”

Her heart stung with the truth in his words. “Are you still trying to rescue me?”

“Maybe.” His eyes narrowed briefly. “You can write a song in a thunderstorm and find meaning in a ruined dress and give too many chances to someone who doesn’t deserve it. It’s reckless and amazing and distressing to someone like me. What makes you live life like all of it is a gift?”

“Because it is,” she replied simply.

It’s not like she ignored her feelings. Or pretended like it didn’t hurt. Sometimes it hurt beyond the telling of it. But she also wasn’t afraid to feel it. Every emotion had a purpose. She’d learned long ago that the purpose wasn’t to harm her, but to teach her. It’s what made it possible for her to write music that touched others, that spoke for them when they couldn’t speak for themselves.

Taking a breath, her heart caught in her throat, knowing she was about to admit more than she usually did. “Life is a frustrating, terrifying, beautiful act of defiance,” she said. “My dad always says that I was born already in love with life.”

His frown deepened and his eyes moved over her face like he was trying to read something beyond what he saw.

But there wasn’t anything more there. It was just her. It was always just her. She lived her life fully exposed and fully alive because she didn’t know any other way to be.

“I get to live for a moment. I’m a flash of pain and joy and breath. I’ve known that my whole life. Tell me why that isn’t the most terribly wonderful gift someone can be given?”