Page 69 of Next to Everything We Wanted

My gaze went to Oliver, who was still breathing heavily as he rubbed his back. “Sheesh, did I scare you that bad?”

“Um, yes!” He glared at me, his usually friendly eyes full of anger.

“Sorry. Is your back okay?”

“It’s fine.” He sighed. “Listen, don’t tell anyone about that, okay? I don’t need everyone to get any big ideas. Especially Dallas.”

My brows furrowed. “What do you mean? You were just hugging.”

“Sorry.” He shook his head. “I’ve been a little jumpy.”

I blinked, not sure what to think. He and Kami had a little thing back in February until she rejected him, and he hadn’t hadany luck with getting a girlfriend since. For someone who always had a girl on his arm, it was shocking to all of us.

“What’s been going on with you?” I asked.

“It’s nothing,” Oliver muttered before walking past me to leave the room, slamming the door shut.

He was always reserved, but what the heck was his problem? Was this how I’d been coming across to my friends when I didn’t tell them things?

I shook my head before making my cup of coffee. This weekend was the strangest weekend of my life.

When I got home from volunteering, I had no idea what to do. I’d done my best to focus on my tasks, but thoughts ran wild in my head about my conversation with my friends. The voices in my head were so loud, they started creating a specific sound. Something that sounded like . . . a melody.

For the first time in weeks, I took my sketchbook out of my purse and opened it to a new page. I wrote down the first thing that came to mind.

The world stops

With your lips on mine

But then the clock strikes twelve

Am I out of time?

My hand stopped gliding against the page. That was it? That was all I could come up with? Gosh, there had to be something else.

I remembered Dallas and Hayden telling me that dumping all their emotions onto a page helped them write song lyrics, so I turned to a new page and started writing about my feelings. Yeah, I’d die if someone found this, but right now, all thatmattered was getting my emotions out. My hand traveled across the page again and again until it ached.

When I finished, I looked up what rhymed with ‘mine’ and ‘time’. From there, I wrote potential lyrics out of order, my hand reminding me that it’d already had too much of a workout. I grinned as the song unfolded in front of me, pride welling in my chest. It wasn’t the best thing, but it wasmine.

CHAPTER 17

Gavin

“Earth to Gavin, where are you?”

“I’m here.” Well, maybe physically, though my brain was elsewhere. If I told myself that Mrs. Moody’s strawberry ice cream was distracting me instead of the daydreams of the best concert of my life with a girl who I’d kissed—a girl who wasn’t Celeste—then maybe it could’ve been true.

Yeah, horse crap.

Forrest rolled his eyes. “Please, you’ve been out of it since you came home from the concert last night. Did you meet someone there or something?”

I swallowed. You see, I may or may not have told the rest of the bandmates that I’d gone to the concert alone. They’d completely bought it, especially since it was something I’d done before.

But my tingling lips knew I was a huge liar.

“You know he loves Whiteout,” Phoenix said, coming to my rescue like the knight he was. “The worst part of sharing a wall with him is hearing him belt ‘Midnight Kiss’ on repeat. That song’s probably the first thing I’ll hear if I go to hell.”

I snorted, despite the warmth that spread through my stomach at the mention of “Midnight Kiss.” “Are you sure you don’t mean heaven?”