Page 35 of Pretty When It Burns (When The Lights Go Down #1)

Chapter thirty-two

"Provider" - Sleep Token

Grayson

Iknow there’s something wrong the second Mia slips out of the common area without a word. Normally, she’s the first to keep Jake on track during one of his clipboard rants. She definitely isn’t the type to just ghost, not when we’re all still buzzing from the beach club high.

I give it a few minutes, not wanting to be totally obvious, before muttering something about heading to bed and sliding out of the booth. Thankfully, the rest of the group is too drunk or too dazed to try to stop me.

The back of the bus is dark and quiet past the bunks; all you can hear is the hum of the tires on the asphalt and the occasional creak from the beds. I open the door to the back lounge, unsure of what I’m going to find on the other side.

I see her curled up on the small leather couch with her favorite blanket from our bunk wrapped around her like a safety net. She stares out the window, but her expression is blank. Her phone sits on the cushion beside her, the screen still lit up.

My heart rate speeds up, stupid fast. For a second, my mind goes somewhere it has no business going—somewhere ugly and insecure.

Is she second guessing everything? Us? The band? The life I’ve so conveniently thrown her into?

“Mia,” I say gently while bracing myself for the possibility of something horrible coming out of her beautiful mouth.

She turns her head to face me, and the second our eyes meet, I see it—the hollow look she gets in her eyes when she’s fighting herself and it’s too hard to hide it. I cross the room wordlessly and drop down on the couch next to her.

All I want is to scoop her up in my arms, hold her tight and never let her go. But instead I wait, giving her the chance to say something first. When she doesn’t, I reach out and let my knuckles brush against her knee lightly.

“You’re scaring the shit out of me, sweetheart,” I say under my breath. “Talk to me. Whatever it is… I can take it.”

Still not saying a word, she picks up her phone and hands it to me.

Missed call.

New Voicemail.

Byron Alexander.

Fucking hell.

“Your dad?” I confirm, my voice low.

When she nods, I feel my whole body tense.

I don’t know the whole story. Mia never volunteers much when it comes to her father, but I know enough.

I remember hearing the gossip around town when he walked out on their family.

The town’s favorite judge being revealed as the town’s biggest martyr had been headline news at the time.

He’d left his wife and daughters to patch up the wreckage he’d caused, and now he wants to waltz back into her life like nothing happened? Like she owes him a goddamn thing?

Over my dead fucking body.

“What did he say?” I growl, trying—failing—to keep my voice from sounding as lethal as I feel.

Mia lets out a bitter laugh and looks up at the ceiling. “He saw the videos from one of the shows. Said someone at his job showed it to him, that they didn’t even know he had a daughter. He didn’t even recognize me at first.”

She shakes her head. She’s trying so hard to keep it together.

“Said to call him back if I wanted. If I wanted!”

The urge to break something—preferably Byron’s goddamn face—thuds in my chest. Mia doesn’t need that, though. She needs me to be steady. She needs me here.

I can’t take it anymore. I take the blanket and wrap it around both of us tightly, holding her together as if she can’t do it on her own.

“You don’t owe him anything, baby,” I murmur into her hair. “Not a fucking thing.”

She trembles against me, and it takes every fiber of my being not to go hunt this fucker down and make sure he never sees Mia, or the light of day, ever again. I’ve never seen her like this, and quite frankly, it’s killing me.

She’s always the one holding me together. It’s my turn to do that for her.

“You hear me?” I ask, putting a finger to her chin and tilting it up so she’ll have to meet my eyes. “He doesn’t get to show up now and demand to be in your life. Not when you’ve created something brilliant and amazing without any help from him.”

“I know,” she says quietly.

She quickly wipes at the corner of her eye before any tears can fall.

I hate that.

Hate that he’s doing this to her and he probably has no idea.

Hate that I can’t fix it for her like I so desperately want to.

Hate that I can’t punch this guy right in the fucking nose.

“You’re not doing this alone, sweetheart,” I promise.

“You want to tell him to fuck off? I’ll be right beside you.

You want to never speak to him again? I’ll help you block his number.

You want me to hijack this bus and drive it through his perfectly manicured front lawn?

The guys will distract Jake and I’ll do it. ”

I feel her laugh against me through the tears. “You’re such a menace.”

“Only for you,” I whisper, brushing a kiss against her temple. “Always for you.”

She buries her face into my chest and inhales, trying to calm herself again. At this moment, I swear, it doesn’t matter how, but I’m going to make damn sure her father never gets close enough to touch her.

“I thought… I thought I didn’t care that he wasn’t part of my life,” she murmurs. “I didn’t need him. I made it this far without him, you know? And, what, now he hears my voice in a damn viral video and suddenly I exist to him? It’s ridiculous.”

I close my eyes for a second, resting my chin lightly on her head, breathing her in and willing myself to stay calm. This isn’t about me. This is about her.

“You did make it, baby,” I say. “It is ridiculous. He doesn’t get to just invite himself to a front row seat now that you’re successful, especially when he had nothing to do with it.”

I pull away just enough to cradle her face in my hands and place a kiss on her nose.

Mia tucks herself back against my chest, her breathing finally steadier.

I don’t say anything else. I don’t need to.

I just hold her, my arms still wrapped tight around her like I can keep the whole fucking world out if I have to.

“Gray…” she says sleepily against me.

I love the way my name sounds when she says it.

“Yeah, baby?”

“I’m so in love with you.”

I close my eyes again, feeling the weight of those words settling deep in my chest.

“I’m so in love with you too, sweetheart.”

Minutes pass, maybe more, as the steady hum of the road continues beneath us and the soft sound of her breathing slows evenly. She’s finally asleep.

I tip my head back against the wall and let out a deep breath.

I should be tired, too—exhausted, really.

Should crash out right here, but instead, I keep my eyes open, my hand running slowly up and down her spine underneath her shirt.

I just need to feel her, keep her close.

Protected.

Safe.

My mind keeps replaying her words: I’m so in love with you.

Even in her exhausted state, I can tell she’s hanging on to me for dear life, and God, I hope she knows she isn’t the only one who feels like this.

I hope she knows she isn’t the only one with something to lose.

If Byron Alexander thinks he can waltz back into her life like he belongs here, he has another thing coming.

Mia isn’t going to lose anything.

Not if I have anything to say about it.

The first thing I feel when I wake up is Mia, tangled up with me like she belongs here. Spoiler alert: she does.

We’d stayed on that tiny leather couch in the back lounge all night last night, away from the rest of the group.

The second thing I notice is the way my hand rests comfortably underneath her shirt—which is actually my shirt—fingertips just underneath her breast, like even when unconscious, my body doesn’t know how to let her go.

Her skin is warm, soft, and the faintest shiver runs through her as I brush my thumb across her ribs. She makes this tiny, sleepy whimper that hits me like a freight train and tucks herself closer, her leg sliding between mine like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Jesus Christ.

If we didn’t have a show to play tonight, I would stay right here, making her feel good all damn day.

I press a kiss to her forehead and breathe her in. My whole world, right here in my arms, smelling like vanilla, honey, and a damn dream.

Mia stirs beneath me, blinking up at me with her sleepy, just-woke-up kind of beauty that always makes my heart trip over itself. She smiles like she has no idea how dangerous she looks right now.

“I could stay like this forever,” she purrs, her voice still covered with sleep, her hand already sneaking under the waistband of my boxers.

My girl is needy this morning, and I’m all for it.

“Careful, sweetheart,” I murmur, nipping her ear lightly. “You’re not exactly known for being quiet.”

“What if I don’t want to be quiet?”

Fuck me.

The tension from last night is definitely gone, only to be replaced by something hotter and hungrier.

Before I can pull her on top of me and finish what she started, my phone buzzes obnoxiously on the small side table next to the couch. I groan into her shoulder and reach for it one-handed, still keeping the other possessively on her bare skin.

New Messages: Catastrophic Dumpster Fire (12)

Our extra-chaotic group chat is blowing up, but the initial message from Eric catches my eye.

Eric Anderson

Bruh. You need to see this before Jake has a coronary.

I move to the edge of the couch. Attached is a link to Entertainment Daily. Immediately, I can see why Jake will lose his shit as soon as I see the picture that goes with the article. To be honest, I almost lose my own.

The photo—a damn good one, thanks to someone’s long range lens—is of me standing outside the Jeep last night, Mia in the passenger seat with her legs wrapped around my waist and my hands buried beneath her skirt, both of us looking like we’re about five seconds away from being banned from public spaces.

Fucking fantastic.

I run a hand through my hair, already hearing Jake shrieking about “brand image” and how I’m a “band front man, not an amateur pornstar.”

“What’s going on?” Mia asks from behind me.

“Hold on, baby,” I mutter as I scroll down to read the article before deciding how I want to spin this.

Mia Alexander (@miaalexandermedia) and Her Boys—Catastrophically Charismatic’s Grayson Harris (@catastrophically_gray) and Eric Anderson (@charismatically_eric) Go Acoustic in Folly Beach.

We’ve got it on lock that not only did front man, Grayson Harris, of Catastrophically Charismatic and his girlfriend/photographer, Mia Alexander, light it up on stage at a small club on Folly Beach last night, but they also shared an electric moment (pictured above) behind the club.

Fans were already buzzing about this power couple, but now they are downright obsessed, especially as Harris teased the band’s most intimate, emotionally-charged album yet on stage with Alexander during the show.

Alexander was radiant beside her man and the band’s lead guitarist, Eric Anderson, as she continues to be praised for her stellar vocals and onstage chemistry with Harris.

Their intense connection both on and off stage keeps them securely at the top of our Couples to Watch list. Stay tuned for updates!

It isn’t terrible. The picture is easily the worst part. They’ve been more vicious before. But we aren’t going to hear the end of it.

“Okay, give it up,” Mia says, sitting up and wrapping her arms around me from behind, resting her chin on my shoulder. “What is it?”

I hold up my phone. “So… we made the news again.”

Her brows furrow adorably as she takes the phone and scans the headlines, her cheeks flushing bright red when she sees the accompanying photo.

"I told you we weren’t alone," she laughs, half-mortified, half-delighted.

"What can I say?" I grin, flipping around and pinning her down on the couch. "I needed you."

"And now?" she teases breathlessly, her hands already in my hair.

"Still need you, baby," I growl against her lips. “Maybe even more now.”