Page 7 of Pretty When It Burns (When The Lights Go Down #1)

Chapter five

"Let The Flames Begin" - Paramore

Mia

Iwoke up aching—the kind of ache that lingers on your skin and pulses deep in your core. My mind immediately drifts to the man sleeping in the room next door.

Grayson.

The fact that he’s just a few feet away, completely unaware he’d starred in the most vivid, shameless dream I’ve ever had, makes me feel insane. Not in a cute, flustered kind of way. In a rip-the-sheets-off-and-take-a-cold-shower kind of way.

It doesn’t matter how hard I try to shove him out of my head—he always claws his way back in.

The way he looks under stage lights—magnetic and untouchable.

The heat in his voice when he sings, smokey and low, curling around me like something dangerous.

The way my camera adores him. The way I adore him.

The way his gaze lingers—just a little too long.

Just enough to make me wonder if I’m imagining it. Just enough to make me hope I’m not.

I try to distract myself, to think about whatever plans Rylee has for the day.

But I can’t focus long enough to remember what she’d said.

Not when he’s right there—tattooed, brooding, and carrying his rough voice that makes everything sound like a secret.

Not with the look in his eyes that says, I know exactly what I’m doing to you.

Dragging myself out of bed, I stumble into the bathroom. Maybe getting ready will help give my mind something—anything—else to focus on. But as soon as I catch my reflection, I freeze.

I’m already thinking about him again. About what he’ll think of what I look like today. If he’ll even notice.

As I brush out my hair, my fingers linger at my neck—longer than they should. Imagining his hands there again instead. Slow. Certain. Possessive.

I apply my eyeliner with delicate care. Swipe the blush across my cheeks, admiring the color it gives. I even gloss my lips before cursing myself out loud.

I know exactly who I’m doing this for, and it isn’t me.

And I hate it.

I hate how badly I want him to see me. To want me. To get pulled under by this tension between us the same way I’m already drowning in it.

But he’s married, and I’m not the kind of person to go after the guy with the girlfriend, let alone the guy with the wife.

After watching my father leave my mother out of nothing more than boredom and what he thought was a better offer, I never wanted to be that girl.

My mother, the classy, proud, but kind, Rebekah Alexander, would have lost her mind if any one of her three daughters had decided to go after another woman’s husband. She raised us better. Stronger.

But standing here looking in the mirror, lips glossy and cheeks flushed, my heart pounding harder than it ever has?

The last thing I feel is strength.

I just feel reckless.

Yet, I can’t stop wondering what would happen if I opened my door, and he was right there—shirt rumpled, hair a mess, eyes dark with something unsaid, waiting for me like I’m the only thing on his mind.

Because as much as I hate it—really hate it—he’s the only thing on mine.

I emerge from my bedroom and into the hallway, and sure enough, just as Grayson had said—I notice Rylee coming out of the room that I was told belongs to Eric.

“That’s not the guest room,” I smirk.

“Okay, so maybe Eric and I had sex last night,” she admits, rolling her eyes.

Despite my best efforts, my jaw drops. I solidified that something was definitely going on between them after Grayson’s comment at the diner and the way they’d acted at the show the last two nights.

How is there this whole other side to my closest friend’s life that I have no idea about? Why wouldn’t she just tell me?

“Come on,” she says, brushing past me. “Go finish getting dressed and we’ll take Brandon’s car into town to get some breakfast, away from Johanna and all the testosterone.”

She disappears down the hallway to the living room while I go back to my room to throw on a carefully selected pair of distressed boyfriend jeans and a cropped vintage band tee. When I wander back into the living room, I accidentally catch Rylee and Eric deep in conversation.

“Come on, Ry,” Eric whispers. “You know I’m not doing this with anyone else. You know I’m serious about you this time.”

“How do I know, though, Eric? It’s not like I live here. I don’t know what you’re doing when I’m not around. It’s not like I haven’t caught you literally in the throes before.”

“Move here, then! Just, please, stop being ridiculous and move in with me. We’ve been doing this long enough.”

We’ve been doing this long enough?

I guess it did make sense. Rylee never went out with guys back in Dallas, although plenty asked her.

I never asked why—I always assumed it was because she simply wasn’t interested.

Now, though, I’m starting to understand how complicated her love life is.

But how can she stay so loyal to someone who clearly doesn’t offer her the same courtesy?

“Yes, Eric, let me just pick up my whole life for you, because it’s just that easy,” Rylee huffs. “God, where is Mia?”

I walk out from behind the wall, trying my best to not give off the impression that I’ve been listening the whole time.

“I’m right here.”

“Good, let’s go,” Rylee says hastily before whipping around to face Eric. “We’ll finish this later.”

Eric watches us in distress as we walk away towards the garage. The car ride is silent and awkward to start, two things that normally aren’t associated with Rylee. She doesn’t say a word until we’re halfway to the restaurant, only after I’d initiated the conversation.

“So,” I begin warily. “You gonna finally tell me what all that was about?”

“I’m sure you gathered that last night wasn’t a one-time thing,” she replies dryly, clearly unimpressed that I’d been eavesdropping on her conversation.

“I did.” I nod. “I can’t believe you’ve never told me about this!”

“I was going to tell you, but it’s not necessarily something I’m proud of,” she sighs.

“Eric and I have been a thing for years. Off and on. Messy. Beyond complicated. He’s cheated.

Lied—a lot. When I caught him in bed with Johanna last year, I told him I was done. I haven’t seen him since… until now.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

Part of my heart aches for Rylee, as she clearly cares so much for Eric, more than I’ve ever seen her care about anything or anyone in the year that I’ve known her. Admittedly, in his own way, Eric seems to care for her, too.

But catching him with his bandmate’s sister?

I would’ve walked away, too.

I wished there was something I could do to help her figure it out, but I’m clearly neck-deep in something I can’t understand.

“Why wouldn’t you?” I ask, trying not to be too judgmental and say the first thing that comes to my mind. “Stay here, I mean?”

“Uncertainty,” she says simply. “What if it’s all for nothing? What if he cheats again? What if I pick up everything for him, bring my whole life here, and it all falls apart?”

“Has he been with other women since then?” I ask.

“According to Brandon, no,” she replies. “He said Eric’s been really trying to get his shit together.”

“I’m not going to pretend to try to understand your situation, Ry,” I begin. “But perhaps there’s something to be said for following your heart, even if it might lead you down the most reckless, uncertain path.”

We’re parked at the restaurant at this point. Rylee turns and looks knowingly at me. She knows exactly what I’m talking about, and it isn’t necessarily just about her relationship with Eric.

“You’ve really got it bad for him, don’t you?” she murmurs, as if maybe she hadn’t understood completely before.

“It’s not like I saw this coming,” I sigh. “I’ve wished every minute since I found out about Lily that I didn’t feel this way, but I just can’t shake it.”

“I know you can’t,” she smiles in understanding. “Grayson hasn’t looked happy in a long time. He’s not a cheater, either—in fact, he’s loyal, sometimes to a fault. So I’m not sure what’s going on. But he deserves better, and we all know it.”

I want Rylee’s words to make me feel better, but they don’t.

They only make me want to be with him more.

Why would Grayson stay with someone who makes him unhappy, who isn’t right for him?

If my mother could see me now…

As we walk inside the restaurant, the pit in my stomach grows larger. When the waitress brings our food, I pick at it, uninterested, while I watch Rylee eat.

I have to get out of this city and back to my life, before I start to forget what normal feels like.

Rylee and I stand backstage while the band does their soundcheck for tonight’s show.

I had wanted to stay at the house, but Rylee wouldn’t let me.

Besides her usual “if I have to go, you have to go” excuse that she uses frequently back home, she said it was better for me to act like nothing’s wrong, because the sooner I do, the sooner it will be true.

I’m not sure I believe her, but at this point, I’m willing to give anything a shot.

From the moment we get into Brandon’s Bronco to drive to the venue, I can tell something’s up with Rylee, and I’m absolutely certain it has something to do with Eric and the rest of the conversation I’d overheard this morning.

“Did you and Eric finish your talk?”

“Yeah, we did,” she sighs, still looking unsettled. “It wasn’t going well for a while. Actually, most of it was yelling, so I’m surprised you don’t already know how it went.”

“Shit, Ry,” I breathe, shaking my head. “Did you work it out? What happened?”

Rylee tells me about how angry Eric had been that she continuously wouldn’t agree to move to LA.

She explains that she feels there were more cons than pros, and how Eric thinks the exact opposite.

I begin to wonder how healthy this relationship is, if it’s worth all the arguing and the guilt Rylee feels, especially after what I’ve learned about Eric today.

“I finally convinced him that I care about him,” Rylee continues. “But in order to do it, I said some things I don’t think I really wanted to say, but if I didn’t say them, I would lose him.”

“Well, what on earth did you tell him?” I demand, knowing my friend well enough to know she could have done something completely irrational. “That you’d marry him or something?”

“Listen, Mia,” she huffs. “Eric told me he loved me maybe a year after we started this whole mess, but I never said it back. When we talked after we got back, he kept saying things like tell me what I mean to you. The only way I knew how to convince him that I meant what I was saying was to say it back, so I did.”

“He’s been waiting for you to say it back for two years?” I glare, deciding that holding back my opinion isn’t the answer right now. “And now you’ve said it and you don’t even know if you meant it? Rylee...”

“Don’t act like he’s all lonely and sad, Mia.

I haven’t told you much about this because neither one of us is particularly innocent here, but Eric has slept with plenty of other girls since he said that.

One of them was Grayson’s sister, and I haven’t spoken to Eric since I found out about her a year ago.

He most definitely has not just been sitting around waiting for me. ”

“Okay, fair. I don’t know a lot about you two, but you’ll have to talk to him again, and it won’t be easy. And honestly, Ry, did you mean what you said?”

“I’m only scared because I think I did,” she says.

The music on stage fades as the band finishes their runthrough of Shatter Me Louder for soundcheck.

Once Eric reaches us, he wraps an arm around Rylee’s shoulders and kisses the side of her forehead.

He walks with her to the dressing room, high heels and heartbreak echoing behind them.

Watching them walk away, I wonder if the only thing more terrifying than falling in love is admitting you already have.