Which meant he was doing a shitty job, and Fosters didn’t punch below their weight. The Colonel would cuff him for mooning over his protectee, even if all he was protecting her from were raw feelings.
And Liana, a perfectionist to the point of harming herself, deserved nothing less than his best.
He wouldn’t put his selfish desires above what was best for her.
Right now, what she needed was for him to get his eyes off her ass and back where they belonged—scanning her surroundings and keeping her in a safe, secure bubble, away from the toxic reach of her ex.
They got the five-minute heads-up from the stage manager, and the band slid to one side, knowing the performers on stage would be filing past them in a minute. Liana reached her hands out and wiggled her fingers. He’d watched them do this yesterday, but today West didn’t reach past him. Today Dean was right in the way, and on one side West took his hand and on the other, Liana closed the circle.
What was Dean going to say?Nope, not my thing?For the next six weeks, he was her shadow. Her things were his things.
So that meant her hand in his hand. Cool, slim fingers, squeezing tight. An extra pulse as she whisperedamenin that slight, melodic twang of hers. Like it had three syllables.Ah-ma-en.
His blood felt like sludge as they broke apart, making his limbs heavy and his chest hurt. It was a day for painful revelations, clearly. He wanted to want her. Resented that his brain thought it best to shut down this feeling when it was unlike anything he’d ever felt before.
She was radiant, all the energy pulling tight inside her like the start of a nuclear reaction, and as soon as she hit the stage, she turned on that power and blew him away.
He watched her set from the shadows. The night before he’d circled around to the front, watching the crowd, watching her face, but tonight he stayed in one spot. Most of the time she was in profile. He hadn’t realized how often she looked up at the sky.
Singing to the heavens. Like an offering, a plea. Except for when she started River Bed Lullaby, and she looked into the crowd, as if she was actually looking for that listener from earlier, and she softly said the woman’s name. “This one’s for Ashley, and everyone else who needs a little extra hope tonight.”
He couldn’t get over the power of her voice. Of her.
The way he was drawn to her talent, her spark, her vulnerable softness…he didn’t want Liana in the way he usually wanted women. This felt different because it was different. It wasn’t like seeking like, it wasn’t the casual happenstance of mutual chemistry.
They weren’t even in the same solar system. She was a star, a goddess in more ways than one, and he was a regular Joe.
It was just a crush.
Damn. For the first time since Dean was a teenager, he had an honest to Godcrush. The kind where everything the other person did was magically special, where he got flustered and embarrassed over nothing more than the fear that someone could look at him and see all these feelings, these big,specialfeelings.
He was fourteen again, and full of ridiculous hope.
This couldn’t end well, but just for tonight, he couldn’t turn it off, either.
Chapter Eleven
THEY leftWashington in the middle of the night to avoid traffic snarls and were in Raleigh, North Carolina by breakfast.
In the end, the night before had gone just fine, much to Liana’s surprise. She’d pasted on a smile and made her way through the VIP tent after the concert. Dean stood between her and Track, who’d clearly decided to give them a wide berth. And then it was over.
Somehow the lack of confrontation hadn’t brought the relief she’d expected.
She actually never slept that well when the bus was on the highway, so once they arrived, she hung her do-not-disturb sign on her door and slept for a few more hours.
When she woke the second time, everyone was gone.
Except for Dean.
She found him sitting on the couch in bus’s small living room, reading a worn paperback.
“Good morning,” he said, closing the book and tucking it into the little lip where the couch met the window.
She glanced at the clock on the wall. “For another forty-five minutes.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Where is everyone?” She glanced around. Even their driver was gone.
