Write or Wrong (Common Threads #9)

Chapter 25

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I KNOW PLACES

ZARA

She could feel Cas and Devan’s worry like another member of her security team. They tried to hide it but they’d been with her too long. The whispers they thought she couldn’t hear. The way they gave her space but really created a wall of protection around her like a human prison.

Addressing it would only cause them to get defensive and ultimately feel helpless.

She understood it, on a fundamental level. They had a job they took very seriously. And it was good for her that they did.

But it was a constant reminder that her life wasn’t normal.

And sure, maybe “normal” was subjective. Like a goldfish in a bathtub, her life had grown to fit its container. The container being Earth. Which made her little goldfish career enormous.

It had gotten to a point that it was difficult to feel normal anymore.

Except for these few stolen months she’d had in Chicago with Asa.

For the first time in her life, she didn’t feel entirely alone at the center of the hurricane that was her life. She had someone with her. A partner who was both a best friend and a lover who really saw her.

Asa was this incredible anchor, keeping her tethered to reality. But he was also a source of freedom that existed so far outside the limitations she’d been trying to survive in.

How could a person be both?

She didn’t know. But he was.

It made her simultaneously thankful and apprehensive.

Because while she was mostly used to her life being insane and gargantuan, he had only seen glimpses of it. Small flashes of crazy and massive.

And that was probably her driving principle in wanting to keep things from being upended.

She wasn’t ready to be without him. But in the back of her mind, she knew it was unreasonable to ask him to stick around when this wasn’t a life he wanted. He’d expressed that many times. The anxiety that being in the public eye brought out in him wasn’t a joke. And it wasn’t something she could fix or pretend not to see. She wasn’t going to stop being Zara Lorna, Pop Star , and he wasn’t going to magically become comfortable being judged and analyzed by strangers.

Which meant the worst heartbreak of her life was just on the horizon.

So she was going to grab his hand and run in the opposite direction for as long as she could.

And that direction was to her happy place—the studio.

Because at the absolute very least, she’d have the best music she’d ever made to look back on and say, “That was real. That really happened. I loved and I was loved and this is what it felt like.”

The door to the control room opened and she lifted her head to see who it was. She’d been lying on the couch, her head in Asa’s lap, as they ran through different lyrical shifts for the song they were working on.

Nikki entered the room and eyed their physical proximity to one another. It wasn’t just that they were on the couch together. It was also how Asa was touching her. One hand was tucked into her hair while the other lazily traced a line from her neck down the center of her chest, stopping just between her breasts and then back up again. It was both soothing and sensual. She absolutely loved it.

But it was more intimate than they had been in front of others. Something about that morning’s unfortunate discourse had shifted them. They’d left their secret bubble and had walked casually into the open, hand in hand.

“You ready to do the bass track?” Nikki asked, her eyes skating over them. She sat down at the control board, her expression neutral.

Asa nodded and Zara sat up so he could go. But he didn’t leave right away. Instead he curved a hand around her jaw and held her eyes for a beat, not saying anything. His gaze moved over her face in a slow perusal, like he was memorizing it.

She leaned into his touch and he brushed a thumb over her lips. His eyelids dropped halfway and a lazy smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Be right back,” he promised needlessly.

He let her go and left the control room. She sank back into the sofa and wrapped her arms around her middle, trying to hold all of her feelings inside.

She loved him like she loved breathing. The same way she loved music. Like he was a part of her soul, both innocent and imperative. The rest in her sleep, the sweet in her dreams.

“So you and Asa, huh?” Nikki asked too casually, flipping switches and twisting dials.

Zara chewed on her bottom lip and waited. What was she supposed to say? Nikki and Asa had been friends for years. Maybe they should have told her first?

Nikki laughed softly to herself. “I guess I’m not surprised.”

“You’re not?” Zara asked.

Nikki shrugged and glanced at Zara over her shoulder. “Not really. I fully expected him to fall in love with you. You’re almost impossible not to love.”

Zara rolled her eyes even as she smiled at her friend. She knew she’d been pushy with Nikki. Basically forcing her to be her friend and then to produce her record (which won them all the awards so she wasn’t even a little sorry).

“But Asa…?” Nikki continued. She looked out the control window at him. “He’s a little more difficult to fall in love with. It takes a minute. He keeps his heart well hidden under that grumpy old man exterior. But once you’ve had him in your corner, there’s really no going back. You can’t buy loyalty and devotion like that. He’d fight a bear in a typhoon with one hand tied behind his back for someone he loves.”

Zara didn’t correct Nikki’s assertion that they were in love. She did love Asa. Even if she hadn’t told him yet. He hadn’t said it in so many words but she could feel it, see it, touch it, every time she was with him.

“I don’t know,” Zara said thoughtfully. “I think I started falling in love with him the moment he grabbed my hand at that afterparty. It wasn’t difficult at all. Staying away from him, pretending not to have feelings? That was difficult. But loving him is easy.”

Nikki’s smile was like pure sunshine and Zara rolled her eyes.

“Stop it.”

“Nope.” Nikki shook her head. “I’m happy and I’m not about to hide it.”

ASA

The soft launch of their relationship seemed to be going well.

After they’d finished recording the bass track, Nikki cornered him in the supply closet where she hugged him and then threatened him. And then hugged him again.

Honestly, it was on the subdued side of what he’d expected from Nikki.

It was early evening when they decided to call it a day. Mostly because they’d already accomplished so much. They had enough songs recorded for an album. Two actually. All that was left was mixing and mastering.

But also, Zara had waylaid him in the hallway with a kiss so scandalous he was surprised he didn’t burst into flames on the spot.

Getting home and getting her naked became priority one.

Nikki wanted to go home anyway. Baby Amber had developed a bit of a fever after her shots that morning and Nikki wanted to snuggle her baby.

They headed for the exit, talking and laughing about something banal and forgettable. Nikki walked backwards in front of them, Asa had his arm around Zara, Devan brought up the rear, Cas had gone to get the SUV and pull it around back.

It was the familiarity of being at the studio where he worked, of being surrounded by people he knew and trusted, of being so blissfully distracted by Zara’s hand in his back pocket as they walked out the backdoor that made him so incredibly stupid.

Nikki laughed as she crossed the threshold outside. She turned around and stopped suddenly, a choked gasp coming out of her. “Demon!”

Asa and Zara kept walking, bumping into her. Asa hadn’t even processed what was happening before Nikki was using both hands to push him and Zara back towards the door.

“Nikki, what on earth?—?”

“Gogogogogogo,” Nikki hissed.

“Oh wow. I’ve missed you too, Nikki.”

Asa’s blood ran cold. He knew that voice. He hadn’t heard it in a long time and not without it spewing drunken curses at him. But he knew that voice. His arm tightened around Zara and his eyes darted around Nikki, finding the last person he wanted to see.

Shelby stood with her back to the passenger side door of a car he didn’t recognize. Casually posed with one arm crossed over her middle, the other holding up her phone like she was taking pictures or video.

Asa moved Zara behind him and backed toward the door. He glanced over his shoulder to see Devan who had assessed the situation correctly and already had hold of Zara and she was speaking into her wrist. She pulled Zara back into the studio and Nikki followed, shutting the door.

Leaving Asa alone with his sister.

She was in skintight black jeans and a black tank top. Her hair was the color of old rust because she’d bleached and colored it so many times, the ends brittle and broken off. She was only two years older than him but she appeared to be so much more. Her skin was lined by her life choices and a thousand too many cigarettes.

He’d feel pity for her if she wasn’t such an asshole.

“I didn’t realize they moved the location to the gates of hell,” Asa said by way of greeting.

“Hello, little brother. Miss me?”

“Almost as much as I miss having the stomach flu,” he replied.

She narrowed her eyes at him and ran her tongue over her teeth. He glanced at her phone again.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, though he had a pretty good idea. “Is there a used port-a-potty support group in town?”

She curled an unamused lip at him. “I had a hunch and I followed it.” Her expression turned devious. “I was right. You’re fucking the pop star.” She waved her phone at him and arched her eyebrows. “And guess who caught it all on video?”

Squealing tires announced Cas’s arrival and Asa could have kissed the man if he thought he wouldn’t get punched.

Cas brought the SUV to a lurching stop and came around the vehicle, angry gray eyes leveled at Shelby.

Shelby didn’t even flinch.

Cas grabbed her phone out of her hand and threw it on the ground, smashing it.

“Ooh,” Shelby said, dripping with sarcasm. “Scary. C’mon, beefcake,” she said, addressing Cas. “Like they’re not already in the cloud.” She rolled her eyes.

“What do you want, Shelby?” Asa asked taking a step toward her, his hands clenched into fists at his side.

“Money.” She spit out a number that was so astronomical and ludicrous he almost laughed out loud.

“Shelby, I don’t have that kind of money.”

“Ask your little princess for it.”

Asa stared at her, his mouth opening and closing in disbelief. She was the living worst .

Shelby looked around the parking lot and back at the studio. They’d recorded Winking Pete’s first and only album behind those doors.

He wondered if she regretted any of it. If she was sorry for anything she’d done.

Probably not.

But he still wondered.

“Must be fucking nice to get everything you want and nothing you deserve,” she said with a sneer. “You have an hour to let me know. And then they get sent.”

She winked at Cas and got into her car and drove away.

Asa stood in the parking lot trying to breathe through the urge to throw up.

His fucking, shithead sister.

“We have to tell Zara,” Cas said, as if he didn’t already know.

The big man followed him back into the studio.

The photos hit the internet ten minutes later.