Between Never and Forever: Part 2 – Chapter 23

The next day, Dex wasn’t even there for breakfast at 5:45 after I stupidly woke up early. Instead, I talked to my dad and then got a call from Mitchell telling me I could take my time with the engagement, that he was following Dex’s lead. “He’s such an asset, Keelani, and has been really accommodating. His assistant was able to work with our PR. It’s been great. Just make sure he doesn’t dig too deep into our contractual stuff. You know how that goes.”

“I got it, Mitchell.” He always reminded me but he didn’t need to. Dex didn’t talk to me.

“Oh, and Ezekiel and I discussed your engagement. He wants to see you.”

My stomach curdled at the thought. “Discussed what?”

“That this is more for show, right?” Mitchell was prying and I guess I hesitated too long, because Mitchell laughed with relief. “Right. So, it’s more of an engagement for PR purposes. Ezekiel understands, and he just wants to discuss it.”

“What for?” I murmured.

“You’re a large part of Trinity, Keelani. He’s a major shareholder. It’s just business,” he soothed but then dropped it.

I hurried off the phone without agreeing or disagreeing.

Instead, I focused on my schedule. I needed to tell the team I was switching up the last half of everything. I needed to rehearse it, learn it, and be comfortable with it. Yet, by the next rehearsal, I’d done nothing.

People found comfort in routine, and my routine had been going with the flow, letting my management control it all, and operating how they wanted me to.

I stared at all my clothes still in boxes and suitcases in the closet. Unpacking wasn’t something I did well, not after I’d moved away from everything I loved so long ago. Since then, the label had moved me around over and over. They kept me busy on tour. I usually hopped from show to show.

I normally just gave in without feeling a single thing. Self-preservation masked itself in disconnecting and not making a fuss. But without feeling anything, I was disgusted with the idea that I was missing so much of my life. What would happen if I started to make a fuss? What would happen if I started to feel everything freaking thing?

I went to bed unsure of myself and of what to do. My life was changing so fast and I wasn’t sure I could keep up.

The very next morning, I woke up to numerous texts from Olive and even my father mentioned the engagement on the news when I called him. Of course, something new had gone viral with Dex’s post and the whole world was talking about us even more now.

Yet, the resort’s security and Olive blocking my notifications had kept me out of the loop. I sighed and finally searched us online to see.

“Our Sweet Keelani in Love Again.” There were people commenting how happy they were for us, how he would make me better, how I would have such cute kids with him.

All of it felt like a dagger to my heart because it was all something I’d once dreamed of that I’d lost. And what if I was falling in love with him but he wasn’t with me?

He’d posted that picture and as I stared at it, I wasn’t sure why he’d kissed me right before he had. Was it for the post? Was it because he wanted to?

Suddenly, that feeling of disgust for not making a fuss catapulted back into me. I was furious that I didn’t know and that I hadn’t tried to find out. Furious that they’d written I was so in love again, as if they knew who’d I’d been in love with before. It wasn’t Ethan.

It was only Dex. I had been in love, but I’d never acted on it, never done what I wanted to do.

I shoved my blankets off, yanked all my clothes out of the boxes and suitcases, and then stomped over to the dresser.

I’d agreed to getting engaged to Dex because feeling everything was what I wanted. It would either heal or ruin me. I grabbed a small black dress and changed before I opened the drawer.

I took a deep breath. I stared at it for a minute before looking up exactly how to put it in online. I was determined to master this on my own now. I grabbed the small, smooth ball of metal and slowly worked it into me. My body shivered at the sensation, my nipples tightening, my sex pulsing at the feeling.

I straightened and smoothed my dress down. I was handling it. No one else would handle me anymore. I was going to do what I wanted.

I even pulled up Dex’s number and wrote:

I couldn’t believe I wrote that out and pounded the send button. Yet, I needed to know. It was a small step but also a colossal first one in pushing for what I wanted, in changing who I was, in becoming who I wanted to be.

Seeing that text settled my nerves. It made me believe just a bit that I could push myself, that I could get answers, that I could be who I wanted to be even if I’d suppressed that person for so long.

He didn’t text back, but I didn’t care. I was following through with furthering my life that day.

It’d only be a few hours of making changes, I told myself. And a few hours of the ball inside me.

After just one, I was sweating.

“Let’s take it from the top again.” I whirled my painted fingernail round and round in a circle because this would be the fifth time.

Something was off. Or maybe everything was. My body was more in tune, coiled and wound up tight around a tiny little smooth piece of metal that somehow seemed to magnify every emotion I had.

My vocalist, Janice, was sitting in one of the chairs and she shook her head. “Well, you have a lot to say today, Keelani. I agree, though, the drums aren’t working in this theater. The echo is overpowering.”

She didn’t say it to me. She said it to Frankie, who was at the side of the stage. He’d been the creative director now for most of my shows, managing all aspects of them. He rubbed his bald head before scratching it and nodded. “We could just have the music play instead of doing it live and have her dancers—”

They discussed my show like I wasn’t there, like I was a prop to their show. I’d been so malleable before, flowing like water in the direction they wanted that they would have never expected a shift in the current. I felt the need to be present now, the need to be heard.

“I don’t want dancers,” I blurted loudly. The words fueled a liberation within me. “I don’t want drums either. And my music will be live.”

“Keelani, do you need a break?” Janice said like she was talking to an overtired child.

“No.” And I saw how Janice’s gaze flicked to Frankie’s. My body was on fire with irritation now, my mind going in overdrive. The Ben Wa ball intensified everything, and I was too sensitive, too emotional, too in tune to hold back.

It was all wrong. The set was wrong. The music. The heart of it. When someone came to my concert, I wanted them to feel like the songs were alive, that they were living entities, breathing and moving and rushing through all our veins. Didn’t my creative team want that too?

“Let’s take a small break.” She waved everyone off. “Be back in five.” Immediately, she beelined toward Frankie, and I saw the dancers who had been hired start to back away from me.

“Hey!” I called out to one of them. She smiled softly at me, but her eyes flicked toward Frankie before she meandered over. “What’s your name?”

“Winter,” she said quietly, but I saw her fear and instantly knew this was like other times. Frankie always got me new dancers and most of them never talked with me.

“Were you told not to talk to me?”

“I just…” She cleared her throat. “No. Of course not. We don’t want to bother your process and… I love my job, okay?”

“Of course you do.” I patted her arm, and she nodded meekly.

“Also, congrats on the engagement if it’s… Well, um, congrats.”

There was speculation it wasn’t real. We hadn’t been seen together outside of Dex’s post. Most people knew I went up to the penthouse, I was sure, but I didn’t wear a ring to the rehearsals.

“Winter,” Frankie bellowed, and the girl practically jumped out of her skin. “Let Keelani have a break.”

I think that was the final straw. He’d spoken to me that way for years, but he never should talk to anyone else like that. Never should my dancers be scared of me. Never should my set list have gotten this far off of what I wanted it to be.

I’d let things go for too long.

“I want nothing but my voice and the instruments for the second half of the concert. The dancers flow in the background with the music, and I’ll be changing my wardrobe and the songs.”

“Keelani,” Frankie started softly, like he was going to try to accommodate me. “Let’s think about this—”

Suddenly, I didn’t want to be accommodating or compromise. He was going to listen to me. “Pull the lights back. I want to perform the songs we’ve been working on, but only with violins and piano. I can play my guitar if—”

“We don’t have time for this.” He stood up and huffed, his blue eyes narrowing on me. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Why would I be?” I lifted my chin and took a deep breath because I knew I was about to really piss him off.

His bright white veneers clenched together. “We’re not showcasing your voice here. We need to entertain these people.”

“I’m aware.” I felt the anger building, the frustration, the lack of confidence in me that propelled me to prove them wrong.

“It’s not happening.” He rolled his buggy eyes and pointed to the dancers. “Let’s take it from the top.”

I turned to my dancers and saw them all listening to him, listening to a man who never asked my opinion as the headliner, didn’t bother to greet anyone when he walked in, and wasn’t on stage with them ever. The energy in me was building. “No.” I said it softly first and then let the words escape from my lips loudly. “No. That’s not how I want to do my show.”

“I’m sorry. What?” His question was full of surprise but also anger as his eyes widened to double their size.

“I don’t want my show to be this way. We still have time to change it. So, that’s what we need to do.”

“You think you get a choice? This is Trinity’s production, and we’re doing it how they’d want.” Frankie’s voice cut through the space in agitation now. His face had turned blotchy with red spots as he stalked up to me. Frankie was a large man, large enough to tower over a woman and make her feel small. In heels, though, I could stand my ground. I didn’t back up, not even one step. “Mitchell would be—”

“It’s not Mitchell’s or Trinity’s show.” I heard Dex’s voice from the back of the theater before I saw him. It rolled across the space smoothly but with a rumble of power, even if it sounded effortless.

How long had Dex been standing there? Watching me? Watching us? He stood there so quietly that we’d all missed his presence. Had he seen everything?

His hands were in the pockets of his navy suit pants, and he rocked back on his heels as if we were all having a casual conversation. Even from afar, though, I saw how straight he held his shoulders, how his chin was raised, head up tall, and how his eyes were locked on Frankie.

Frankie squinted out past the velvet seating and chuckled. “Sorry. We’re rehearsing here. If—”

“I’m here for the rehearsal.” Dex walked down the aisle slowly, and a few whispers were heard across my crew. “I want to hear my fiancée sing the second half of her show. I’d say that’s what? Six songs. Violins and piano only. In my resort.”

“So it’s true?” someone murmured, and then the dancers’ eyes flew to my hand. I think most of my team thought the social media post was a PR stunt because I didn’t talk about it and they didn’t ask. None of us were that close. We’d all been pushed together this last month for the concert because Trinity didn’t believe in flying dancers around with me.

I hadn’t worn my ring to rehearsals and never mentioned the engagement.

Until now.

Frankie nodded like he knew all too well what was going on. He rubbed his large belly while he scoffed and then shook his bald head before he stumbled over his words. “Mr. Hardy, so good to meet you. Mitchell has told me great things. Congratulations, by the way. On the engagement.” I noted that Frankie hadn’t congratulated me, even though Mitchell must have told him. He waddled over to the side stage where stairs that would be blocked off during the concert were located. He hurried to shake Dex’s hand like the man was a god.

My fake fiancé didn’t extend his hand though. He just stared at Frankie. “You’re aware that I own this resort?”

“I am.” Frankie dropped his hand and shuffled on his feet awkwardly.

“You’ve been informed of our engagement?”

“Well, yes. We’re all very happy with—”

“Good.” Dex walked over to me and extended his hand, signaling me to hop off the stage. When I did, he murmured in my ear, “Go with it.” And then he said loudly, “Missed you too much not to come see you today.”

He wrapped his arm around my waist, and I saw his smile before his lips descended on mine. He kissed me. Softly. Poetically. Like he loved me. And I kissed him back the same way because when Dex Hardy kissed me, my soul melted. I wanted the man who took care of me, who remembered my breakfasts, who’d saved me from that car wreck, who’d save me from anything.

He was doing it here too—saving me—even if he probably wouldn’t admit it later.

All I felt was him and the cocoon he wrapped me in. His full lips slid over mine, and when he stepped back, I whimpered because I didn’t want to let him go. He made a point to pull my engagement ring from his pocket and murmured, “You forgot to put this on this morning. Here.”

He slid it on slowly and then rubbed my knuckles with his thumb after. It’s when I saw that on his left hand, he now wore a gold band too. We hadn’t discussed it, but it was there, clearly showing everyone he was taken.

Then his gaze turned hard as he spun to face Frankie. “So, you’ve been informed of our engagement?”

Frankie nodded as he gulped.

“Good. It means you’re aware that my fiancée and I decide what happens in this theater. She has complete control if I’m unavailable, and towering over her while she’s making a decision won’t be tolerated ever again. She has the authority to fire you and replace you in seconds. You understand?”

“Mr. Hardy, let me explain.” His tone was cajoling. “As the creative director of Trinity’s artists across the globe, they have all had hit—”

“Is this a joke?”

“What?” Frankie squeaked.

“Do you think I have time for this? Because I don’t. I’ve had a long, frustrating day. I was in and out of meetings about the security measures we’re taking for all of you to stay here. I had to make a decision on investing in two more properties. Then I had to sit down with the Armanellis. Do you think I want to hear about the title of your job, Freddie?”

“Frankie.”

One of the dancers murmured, “Oh hell no,” to the other as Dex’s gaze turned lethal. It was like the theater’s lighting even dimmed with his mood as he took a step toward Frankie. He didn’t have to say a word. The tension all around us crackled with his frustration.

Maybe I hadn’t seen it with my best friend because he was just that to me. I didn’t see Dimitri exert his power, but here in this resort, I saw what the Hardy name meant, what Dex Hardy meant.

Power.

Fear.

Dominance.

How was I going to handle all that?

“Or you can call me Freddie,” my creative director corrected himself.

“Yes, Fred. Do you know my fiancée told me just days ago that she wanted a new sound for the new person she’s become, and I told her she could have it. You know why?”

“Why?” Frankie asked.

“Because she can have anything she wants.”

“Of course.” The man didn’t even bother arguing. “It’s just… I wanted you to understand that I provide Keelani with a scope of—”

“You don’t provide my fiancée with anything. She’s the talent. She provided you with a job. So, she gets what she wants. You understand? For this Vegas residency, and honestly”—he looked at me pointedly—“it should be for the rest of the time you’re employed by her, you do as she says. No arguments. No pushback. If my fiancée wants to sing on stilts while elephants weave through her legs, you make it happen. You say yes and find a way. You don’t question her vision. I don’t give a fuck what your title is. Got it?”

Frankie nodded but didn’t open his mouth.

Dex smiled and rubbed a hand over his jaw like Frankie had annoyed him further. I watched how his hand slid across his face. I listened to how the scruff scraped against his skin. Everything he did for me here right now pulled me toward him as he stood up for me.

Then he said, “How clear have I made myself?”

“I… But… You—” Frankie floundered while I sat on the edge of that stage to watch them both. I was the only one to move as everyone else stood stock-still, their eyes glued on the interaction. Frankie was used to getting his way, and I think we all knew that he wouldn’t be here.

Dex had put him in his place. For me.

Dex, who seemed to not want to care but who’d arrived at the rehearsal and stood up for me. Dex, who wanted me out of his system forever but came to my aid.

He leaned in and murmured, “The answer you’re looking for is crystal, Fred. I’m making myself crystal clear.”

Frankie’s whole face was blotchy now as his mouth snapped shut and he glanced around.

“Say it, Fred,” Dex prompted, making an even bigger fool of my creative director.

“Yes, Mr. Hardy. It’s crystal clear.”

Dex nodded once and then glanced around the theater. “Good. We’re all on the same page. Now, I’d like to enjoy my fiancée’s voice for the rest of her rehearsal. In private.”

“Dex—” I started, trying to stop the inevitable.

“You can all leave.”

There it was. If everyone left, I’d be alone with him, my body already in overdrive, I wasn’t sure I could resist. The Ben Wa ball felt so heavy now, and my pull to him was almost like gravity. I couldn’t avoid it forever.

Still, I tried to make people stay and turned to tell them, but everyone was filing out. They didn’t hesitate to beeline toward the exit, not even Frankie, who punched numbers into his phone rapidly as he walked.

As the doors at the front of the theater closed, I murmured, “You’re going to hear about that later from Mitchell.”

Dex sat down in the front row, parallel to where I sat on the stage. My feet dangled, and I swung them back and forth as he said, “No I won’t. Your boss would be stupid to call me about something so trivial.”

“Trivial?” I side-eyed him. “It’s my whole life.”

“What? Fred bossing you around?”

I smirked at his name calling. “You’re being childish, Dex.”

“Or I’m meeting him on his level.” He stared at me before he continued, searching for something. “Has he talked to you like that before?”

“Like what?” I gripped my thighs, and his eyes trailed my legs, stopping on where my fingers indented my flesh, where I felt the pads of them digging in so tight I might explode with that feeling alone. “Like him bossing me around? Sure, but it’s not something I haven’t endured time and time again.”

“You’re handling it, it seems.”

“I’m flying by the seat of my pants,” I confessed. “That’s not something you ever do.”

He leaned close. “You don’t need to be like me. You never were. Don’t you remember? You ran my ass down to the lilacs more than a time or two in the middle of the night without even a jacket on to tell me about some random thing.”

“I don’t run to you about any random things anymore though.”

“No. You’re bottling up your whole life in there, aren’t you?” He studied me then, his green eyes scanning my face like a laser looking for clues, like suddenly he could tell me all about myself. “Just be how you were before.”

“How I was,” I emphasized. “I’m not that way anymore. I can’t be…”

He leaned back in that seat and folded his hands in his lap. “What way are you now then?”

“Honestly? I hate to admit it, but I’m a doormat,” I confessed. “I can’t be anything else when there are a million people walking all over me to make sure I do what needs to be done for my career. I go with their flow and let them do what they’re trained to—”

“I didn’t sign the contract for them. I wanted you. I agreed to this for you.” He shrugged. “So change the trajectory.”

“Right.” I chewed on my cheek. “I am. Well, I did. For now. But for how long? You know Frankie’s going to call Mitchell and this is going to blow up in our faces.”

“You don’t seem to realize…” He stood then, and my eyes gobbled up the sight. I’d looked him up and down too many times over the past few days, and still, I wanted to gaze at his appearance for so much longer. “I own this resort. I own your contract and you. They cannot and will not ruin their relationship with me, Kee.”

“Why?” I whispered now, because Dex was unbuttoning his navy suit jacket. His hands worked so effortlessly that I had to squeeze my thighs together and try my best not to focus on what other tasks those hands would do well at.

I knew.

My body knew.

The freaking Ben Wa ball in me probably knew.

“Because I control my destiny and now yours.”

“You’re saying now like you didn’t always.”

He smiled down at me, but his eyes swam with turmoil. “How could I control you? You were sparkling bigger than my life in that small town. And I would have done just about anything to keep you there, including…”

He let his statement trail off, but I knew where he was going. “That car wreck wasn’t your fault, Dex.”

His hands went to my hips, and his forehead fell to mine as he whispered, “When you’re with me, it’s always my fault, Kee.”

I gripped the lapels of his suit jacket to pull him closer so he’d feel what I felt then, so he’d understand like I understood. “I went to therapy for that night. I racked my brain on how it would have turned out had I not had another drink, had I kept you in the woods, had I not pushed Gabriella on you. None of it mattered. We can’t change the past and we can’t dwell on it, especially when we were all kids—”

“I was nineteen.”

“And I was almost eighteen.” I slid my hands to his shoulders and shook him. Did he not get that? “You weren’t going to control me from getting into the car that night. We were all going with or without you. Don’t you see? You didn’t cause that car wreck at all. If anything, you saved us from it.”

His eyes squeezed shut so hard I knew the fight inside him was barreling around in his mind, trying to find its way out. I wanted to hug him, to pull him close, to make him see that trauma shouldn’t have blame. Yet, he placed all that blame on himself.

I saw it now, and I was starting to realize why he’d told me he would control this relationship.

“You can’t control everything, Dex,” I whispered.

His hand slid up the bare skin of my arm and then down over my dress to my thighs. He gripped me there while he kept his eyes closed. His hand shook just like my whole body shook at his touch. Did he feel me tremoring, my breath coming faster? He gave no sign of it other than how his muscles bunched.

“Everything in my life I can and do control, Kee. That’s why you’re normally not in it. For these next couple of months, you’ll have to learn that.”

“I don’t want anyone controlling me anymore, Dex.”

“I know, heartbreaker. We need you wild and reckless again. But not with me. I don’t think I can endure it again. It’s the one thing I can’t do.”

His other hand went to my cheek, and he breathed in and out with me, like he could take my oxygen and I could take his. We’d gone so long without each other, yet I sat there with him between my legs on that stage like he’d never left.

Like I never wanted him to leave again.

Maybe it was what he wanted too. He kissed me then, his full lips pulling mine into his mouth and tasting me slowly and softly. He took his time relearning how I felt. We weren’t rushing at all.

I had the wood floor of the stage under my thighs, but I hung my knees from the edge and swung my legs back and forth. The audience’s seating was lower than the stage at just the right level that Dex could step between my knees easily. And maybe it was him being right there or the fact that I’d been holding metal inside me for over an hour, but I couldn’t stop from whimpering and wrapping my legs around him. His cock grazed against my panties, and I felt his length so solid, so close, and so big against me.

“I want you,” I admitted, pulling away so I could tell him, but he took the opportunity to step back.

He practically yanked himself away from me, out of my reach, while combing a hand through his thick dark hair before he shook his head and sat back down on the front-row chair to look up at me. “Sing me the song you want to sing the most on opening night, first.”

Everything was too sensitive. My body was too tuned in. “I don’t want to sing right now. I want—”

“Is that blush you’re sporting because you’re mad I’m denying you, heartbreaker? Or because you don’t think you can sing right now?” He pointedly looked at me.

“Excuse me?”

He didn’t miss a beat as he responded, “Is it in you today? Your pussy holding it like it should be?”

“Honestly.” I knew the blush on my cheeks was deepening because the heat that traveled to my face was enough to burn through my skin. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Show me then.”

Jesus. Was he playing with me? While I was trying to connect with him? Fury made me stand up and scramble back fast. I straightened my dress and stomped to the middle of the stage in the sneakers I’d used to dress down my outfit, my body vibrating with a newfound emotion.

I saw each seat in the theater. There were only a thousand of them, empty but waiting to be filled with a person ready to feel what I felt. Even if Dex wouldn’t. Even if he was only playing games.

When I sang, I needed my audience to connect. I may not have had confidence in much else, but I knew I could do that. I’d grown up with this, felt it from when I was a freaking baby.

I tested the mic by humming a tune, and my voice traveled through the speakers, filling the theater. All I needed was that. All I needed was to be a part of the music. Closing my eyes, I let my heart take over as I let the words flow out. Each note was a memory, an escape back to where the lilacs grew and our love did too.

Did you want me then?

Didn’t you love me too?

I’d have bled for you in a field of flowers

I’d have waited for you in the dark

We weren’t too far from each other

How could we be when you already had my heart

I’d have bled for you in a field of flowers

And I did because you left me

Left my heart broken and torn apart.

I held the last note as I opened my eyes and caught his gaze staring back at me. I couldn’t read what he felt right then. Instead of running through the forest-green of his eyes, they were solid emerald, so cold and distant I wasn’t sure if they were ice.

My voice was my superpower. His superpower was closing me off to his emotions. My heart was bleeding out in front of him as I ended the note, but still my voice echoed around us both, ricocheting off the walls and into our bones.

Music was our journey, leading us down a path of thorns and obstacles to the darkest parts of our emotions. Standing there, letting him see me breathing heavily on that stage, was the most vulnerable I’d felt in years. He had to see the love I held for him in the past, the pain I felt in how we ended, how broken I was when he walked away.

Did he feel it? Was he moved too?

“You’re truly breathtaking, heartbreaker,” he whispered, and those words alone coming from him almost moved me to tears.

“Thank you. I think it’s coming along.” I didn’t know how to take his compliment about such an intimate song that shared my heart. “I’m thinking maybe if I get a few props…maybe a chair like you have in the room of my suite. Do you think it’ll work for everyone?”

Yet, it must have been the wrong thing to say because he stood abruptly, and his tone came out clipped. “Yep. Of course it will for everyone. When did you write this?”

“After you left.”

“You’ve never sung it on stage.” His words were stilted, and his movements were too. Instead of walking toward me, he backed away, up the aisle toward the theater doors.

“How do you know that?”

“Because I know too fucking much about you, Kee,” he bellowed and threw up his hands. “Jesus, you wrote our love into so much and fucking skyrocketed to the top, didn’t you?”

“What?” The harsh accusation was the opposite of what I’d thought we’d be discussing right then. “I never used this song to—”

“It’s on an album, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but not like this, not just me and the—”

“Then you used it.” He pulled at his neck and looked toward the crown molding of the theater, so beautiful and ornate in its architecture I was sure his brother had designed it. “It’ll be good for the show. Hell, I almost cried listening to it even if I don’t give a shit about it anymore.”

“It’s not for the show, Dex. You think I sang that for…” I couldn’t even finish. “I lost you just like you lost me. Don’t you see that? Your pain isn’t isolated or singular. I’ve been broken since the moment you left.”

“Do you think I wanted to leave?” His voice cut through the air, his eyes blazing with agony. “Jesus, I didn’t know how to cope with losing you again, so I walked away that time. And you were leaving, Kee. Don’t fucking tell me you weren’t. You were going back to your career whether you begged me to stay or not.”

“I…” How could I respond when he was right? “My heart has always belonged to you, Dex. But I have responsibilities to—”

“A career? Your fans?”

To my family. To my mother. To my father. To problems I didn’t know how to make him understand, nor would they be problems I would use as an excuse. Plus, I knew how I allowed my father to continue doing what he was doing showed how spineless I’d become. “Something like that.”

He hummed like he didn’t believe me, like it wasn’t good enough even if he did believe me. Then, he nodded over and over. “I don’t know what’s real and what’s not with you, Kee. You’re larger than life, and then you’re still…”

“Me?” I grabbed at the end of his sentence, wanting him to understand. “I’m just me.”

Wiping one of his hands over his face, I saw how he tried to wipe away his emotions too. “But I don’t know you anymore. You’re hiding too much.”

“Okay. Fair. I don’t know you either,” I threw back, and suddenly I felt anger at that statement. “Because you left too. And I was broken just the same. I still am!” I gasped at the words and felt the tears sting my eyes before I blinked them away. “I can barely breathe when I think of what you went through and how I couldn’t go through it with you. Kyle was—”

“Kyle was irresponsible, and he shouldn’t have—”

“He was your friend, Dex. You lost your friend that night, and I know you blame yourself, but you saved me and Dimitri and you looked for Gabriella. Have you talked to anyone about—”

“There’s no need.” He stepped back as he blinked hard, and I saw how all the emotions drained from his face. “I’m aware of what happened that night, Keelani. We’ve grown up with trauma like many.”

“That doesn’t mean we should ignore it.”

He looked up at the ceiling and then around the space, keeping his gaze anywhere but mine. “I’m not ignoring it. I’m moving on.” He said it in a way where I knew he was packing it up in a box to put away. “Do you have everything for your concert?”

“That’s what you want to talk about now?” I crossed my arms.

“I’ll be busy over the next few weeks. Don’t expect me to be available. Your show should be taken care of.”

“You won’t be there?” I didn’t know why my voice sounded desperate. It wasn’t like he’d ever attended just to see me. There was no reason for him to do so now either I supposed.

“Keelani Hale, you’re a star. You don’t need me in the crowd. You have your fans, your career, everything you wanted.” With that, he spun on his heel, walked up the aisle, and shoved through the doors. They slammed shut behind him, closing me off from what I thought our relationship could become.

I stared at those closed doors for much too long and whispered out later, “Everything I wanted was you.”