Page 9 of Seven Lost Summers (Broken Oasis #3)

Her smile flickers, barely visible, but still enough.

I catch that shift in her eyes—the quick flash of jealousy she tries to hide but can’t.

She covers the slip with fake, bored indifference, but I recognize the glare.

I’ve seen the same thing every time Nate’s attention drifts away.

That bitter, shitty edge of desperation clawing its way out.

“Theo’s looking for her,” he says, the lie sliding off his tongue so smooth it might as well be the truth.

“Oh,” she says, her voice rising sugary and bright.

Her fake-ass smile snaps back into place like nothing happened.

She’s trying to convince herself she didn’t stumble, didn’t get knocked off balance by the thought that Nate’s focus isn’t on her.

She leans in, pushing her chest out, tits begging for his attention.

I grit my teeth and move forward so she can’t see me flinch from her cold cutting stare. But every step drags harder with all those fucking eyes behind me, Lydia’s crew watching, pressing in, trying to strip me bare, tear me apart piece by piece.

“Yeah, she went into the music room, I think,” Lydia’s voice sounds behind me, her voice soaked in that fake sweet shit she thinks works on guys. All purr, no soul. “You wanna hang later?”

“Nah,” Nate says, already walking away.

A moment later he’s next to me, slipping into step the way he always does.

He’s a dick to chicks.

Doesn’t fake a thing, doesn’t care. Fucks around, forgets their names, and moves on. Yet still, they smile at him like he’s some gift they didn’t deserve.

We head for the music room, footsteps heavy in the quiet. I wonder if the new girl’s into music. Not that it matters. Music’s the only thing that doesn’t fuck you over. Music doesn’t lie or leave. The sound is the only thing that makes the noise in my head shut the hell up.

Nate’s a natural on the drums. Doesn’t even have to think. It’s in his bones. The sticks move and the rhythm follows. Like breathing. Like he was born with a beat under his skin.

Wes and Rose gave me a bass for my sixteenth birthday.

A brand-new black Fender. Shiny as hell.

Too shiny for a kid like me, the kind who grew up sifting through pawn shop leftovers.

They offered lessons, said they’d cover it, but I couldn’t take more than I already had.

A roof, food and safety. That was enough. So much more than I deserved.

So I taught myself.

Spent nights in the garage, fingers torn up, skin split open from the strings. Played until the noise finally turned into music. Kept going until the pain dulled and the sound became something real.

I remember watching Nate and Scarlet go at it on the drums. Beat battles that sounded like war.

Loud, relentless, like they were throwing punches with sound, trying to say shit only the other could understand.

There was nothing soft about it—only fire, only fight.

I wanted that, too. Something real that was mine.

So I claimed the sound, note by fucking note. And for a little while, when I’m alone with my guitar, I can almost believe I belong. That maybe I’m not as broken as they all think I am.

We reach the music room and I freeze. My heart is on a rampage, slamming into my ribs like it's trying to break free. I fucking hate the feeling. Hate how my chest locks up like I’m walking into a war no one else can see.

Same old shit. That sense of never fitting, of being too much and not enough at the same time.

Nate doesn’t even blink. He just pushes the door open, calm as ever. It’s always easy for him.

“You coming or what?” he throws back.

I step inside, and, like always, the room shifts. It tilts straight toward Nate, pulled by that quiet, magnetic thing he carries without even trying.

We move to the back, and I let out a breath, my pulse still uneven. I force my eyes up.

And that’s when I see her.

The new girl.

She’s sitting, untouched by the noise, the chaos never reaching her. She’s calm, unbothered. Her posture says she doesn’t need to prove anything, proof she’s been through worse and walked out the other side without breaking.

Her hair falls in waves down her back, long and dark, catching the light. Her face is sharp and soft in all the right places, a kind of beauty that grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go.

And fuck, it hits me right in the chest. My heart trips over itself and I hate that it does.

She’s beautiful. The kind of beauty that screws with your head. The kind that makes you forget your own name for a second.

I stand frozen, barely breathing, pulse stuttering in my throat. My gaze lands on the guitar in her grip and something shifts.

She doesn’t just hold it—she commands it.

That guitar belongs to her in a way that makes the rest of us look like we’re playing pretend.

Her fingers settle on the strings with this quiet confidence, shoulders loose, posture unshaken, as if she could tear the roof off this place with one chord and still look bored doing it.

There’s an awe, sure, but it’s wrapped in something real and fucked up. I need to hear her play. Need to know if the sound she makes feels as dangerous as the storm she’s already kicked up in my chest.

She’s talking to Quinn Thomas—one of the few girls Nate’s never managed to crack. And fuck, has he tried. Every smirk and smooth line. Every well-timed joke he usually pulls to get girls falling at his feet. He threw them all at her.

Quinn didn’t bite.

She never does. Never even looks twice. Doesn’t laugh, doesn’t flirt, just stares him down with those unreadable eyes and that deadpan voice that slices through the bullshit. Like she’s already decided she’s not here for anyone’s games. Especially not his.

I’ve always respected that. Not that I’d say it out loud. But while the rest fall over themselves to hand Nate whatever the hell he wants, Quinn holds her ground. She’s solid. Real. The kind of girl who knows who the fuck she is and doesn’t give a shit if anyone else does.

The new girl tilts her head, looks up at Nate, and her face doesn’t move.

No fluttering lashes. No nervous smile. Not a single fucking flicker that says she gives a shit who he is.

She has a steady calm, watching him like she’s running the numbers, working out if he’s another loudmouth with pretty hair and nothing underneath.

Her gaze moves, locking onto me.

And fuck.

The world jerks sideways.

Time warps.

My lungs forget how to work.

There’s this weight in my chest, like someone jammed their fist straight through and started squeezing. I can’t fucking breathe.

Her gaze pins me. Cold, steady, sharp as glass.

Not judging—just seeing. Not my face alone, not the hoodie pulled low, but what’s underneath. The shit I bury. The cracks I pretend aren’t there. She doesn’t look away. She sees me, as though she already knows what’s hiding behind all the silence.

I fucking hate what’s happening.

Hate how fast that panic claws its way up my throat and strips me bare. That stare—I’ve seen the same expression before. The second the truth creeps out from behind my eyes they always pull back. As though I’m less because I’m broken.

I want to drop my gaze. Disappear into the wall, the floor, anywhere but fucking here. But I don’t. I stay.

Even though every instinct is screaming at me to vanish, I can’t tear my eyes off her. She’s all I can see, and for once, the noise in my head goes quiet.

It’s just her.

She has a pull no one’s ever had over me. Not once. After everything that happened, all the ways the past fucked me sideways, I’ve never craved closeness. Never wanted someone in my space, under my skin.

But her…

Fuck, this isn’t only the urge to touch her, though even that thought sparks through me like a live wire. What I feel goes deeper. Like my body’s wired to her somehow and I can’t figure out how the hell to shut the pull off.

Her lips twitch into a smile. It’s small, fleeting. Maybe she doesn’t mean to. But fucking hell it lands, right in my chest, and its cares the shit out of me.

But as quickly as it comes, she turns away. That smile disappears, gone like it never existed.

Her head drops. She zeroes in on the guitar, fingers wrapping around the neck with the grip that says she’s done this a thousand times in the dark. Her thumb brushes the worn wood, slow and sure, and the moment shifts. Everything pulls tight.

Then she plays.

The first note lands and everything inside me stutters.

It’s not gentle. The next note follows, fluid and sharp, like a secret slipping from her mouth without permission.

She plays as though she was born for the music.

Fingers dancing over the strings with a deadly kind of grace, every chord pulled from somewhere buried deep.

The sound isn’t practiced. The rhythm isn’t polished.

What drives her is instinct—pure, wild instinct.

Every move is precise but messy in the best way, all emotion and ache, like she’s pouring pieces of herself into the sound and letting the music destroy her.

And fuck, she’s good. So fucking good the sight hurts to watch.

Her eyes are closed, brows pulled in, lost to the music.

She doesn’t even realize we’re watching or she doesn’t fucking care.

The rest of the world could burn and she’d still be in that chair with the guitar, still spilling her soul into the strings like the sound is the only thing keeping her upright.

I can’t breathe. What guts me isn’t only her talent—it’s everything I’ve never had the courage to say, everything I’ve never let myself experience, pouring out of her hands like the music was made for me. My chest hurts under the weight of the sound.

I’ve never wanted anything so fucking badly.

Not only the girl. But the feeling. That goddamn freedom.

“Fuck me,” Nate says beside me, voice low and rough, like the words ripped out before he could catch them.