Page 82 of Hard Rock Muse

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All the air left my lungs. A vise closed around my chest, as if cold fingers were gripping my heart and squeezing.

“What—” I choked out. I pulled back from Julian, yanking my hand away like his touch burned. I brought my hand to my chest, clenching it into a shaking ball. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve changed, Ev,” Julian said. “We both know it. And it’s not a necessarily a good change.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I turned from him and viciously tugged on my shirt, not bothering with my bra, and slipped into my jeans, ready to run.

Julian put his hand on my shoulder, stilling me. I held my breath. He came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, holding me to him, my rigid back to his bare chest. He wasn’t hard anymore.

“You go along with whatever I want,” Julian said. “You have no preferences for anything anymore. You always defer to me. That’s not the Ever Darling I knew.”

“That Ever never existed,” I said. “She was a lie.”

“But Everly Davis does exist,” Julian countered gently. He tightened his arms around me. I stood there, stiff, unable to relax against him. “Talk to me?”

“That’s a rich request, coming from you.”

“I know,” he said. “I’m a hypocrite. But that’s not going to stop me.” He turned me around in his arms and cupped my face in both hands. “What happened in those years you were with Keith?”

I met his eyes. They were distressed, anxious, but so earnest and caring at the same time.

“I don’t—” I pressed my eyelids closed. “I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want anyone to know. I just wanted to forget it all happened. I wanted to put it behind me.”

“I get it,” Julian said. “Believe me, I get it more than you know.”

“So you want me to spill all my secrets when you won’t tell me yours?”

He cast his eyes down, shame-faced. Then he firmed his jaw and looked back up at me.

“I told you I was a hypocrite,” he said. “But I want to help you. I want to help you get back to the person you used to be. Whether you think that’s Ever or Everly, to me you’re just Ev. And I want to see that Ev again, happy and whole.”

A small piece inside me broke. Tears pricked the back of my eyes. I blinked rapidly. I sat down on the bed and pulled my knees to my chest. Julian sat next to me, putting an arm around my waist.

“I thought he was working in my best interests,” I said slowly, reluctantly.

Julian’s eyes narrowed, turning darker. “Keith?”

“He was older than me,” I began. “Older than all of us. He was wiser. He had more experience, in life and in the music industry. I thought, surely he knew what was best for me. I thought I should listen to him. I thought he knew better than me.”

“That doesn’t sound like the Ev I know,” Julian said gently.

“I was alone,” I said. “I was lonely. I had no one to turn to. And he was right there. It was so easy to turn to him.”

“So you relied on him,” Julian said thoughtfully.

“I had started second guessing everything. The band had broken up. You and Seth had left. I started wondering if maybe I didn’t know what I was doing after all. I’d lost that confidence. And Keith was there with all this advice and guidance. I started doing everything he suggested. I started going along with whatever he wanted. But…”

I trailed off, ducking my head and feeling small. I hated this part. I hated the person I had become. I hated that I’d been weak enough to fall for his shit.

But I couldn’t pretend it hasn’t happened.

“But?” Julian prompted, sounding perturbed.

“It stopped just being about the music. It was little things. Telling me what to wear. Telling me what to eat. Telling me who I was and wasn’t allowed to talk to.”

Julian took me in his arms and tucked my head under his chin.