“It was the sound.”

“The music to the preview? I thought One Direction was your new favorite band.” My ploy at joking didn’t work. No smile.

Nothing. Not even a blink.

Right.

“The sound of metal hitting metal.” Her lower lip quivered.

She bit down on it hard and looked at her feet as we walked.

I suck. Seriously, how did I not get that? Shit. I didn’t know what to do. I was so out of my element. I was like my own broken Humpty-Dumpty, still trying to put myself back together. How the hell was I supposed to glue her pieces together when I was still trying to find mine?

“At risk of sounding like a complete loser and making you pissed, I think you should talk about what happened, or just talk about him.” God, how I hated him in that moment. What the hell did he do to her?

She was silent for a while. I grabbed her hand as we reached the first bridge and crossed over. She stopped right in the middle and leaned over it.

“Brady was perfect.”

Okay, so maybe I lied. I don’t want to compete with a ghost.

I mean, how do you compete with perfect? I can’t even compete with Alec. Hello, insecurity, thy name is Demetri.

“Perfect how?” Seriously, the guy was dead, and I still wanted to kill him. How terrible of a person was I? I knew I was going crazy. I mean, if he was standing right here all I could imagine doing was pushing him off the bridge and telling him to stay the hell away from Alyssa. To stop hurting her so that I could have her. Selfishness, thy name is also Demetri.

It’s not about me. It’s not about me, I chanted in my head as she smiled and shrugged. “He was the best quarterback our town had ever seen.”

I bet he was.

“He drove around in a beat-up old van that he and the football team finally turned into a tailgating van. They painted a Seagull on the side of it and everything.”

“A Seagull?” I laughed. “Lame.”

“Um, Demetri?” Alyssa pointed to my sweatshirt. “It’s kind of the mascot.”

And I’m an idiot. “Wow, I guess I never noticed. As Alec said, I did spend half the school year high.”

Alyssa cracked a smile and exhaled loudly. “Anyway, everyone loved him.”

“Did you?” I knew I was basically setting myself up for being hurt, but it seemed important. I didn’t want to be that guy anymore. The one that chases a girl he can’t have. The guy who wants the girl to fill in the gaping holes in his life.

“I do.” She shook her head. “I mean, I did.”

And there’s my answer. Shit.

I know guys aren’t supposed to get all emotional about this stuff, but again, up until the past six months, I’ve basically been hiding my emotions behind drugs and alcohol, so right now everything just feels raw.

Instead of pushing the rejection away or hiding behind a cocky grin and walking away, I could only stand there and tell myself it was better that way. Better to know before I got too involved.

But I couldn’t lie to myself. I couldn’t lie to her. I was way in over my head, and I hated that the guy who had her heart didn’t even have the decency to allow her to let it go. I knew it wasn’t his fault he died, but the ass in me kinda blamed him. Because I couldn’t compete with a star quarterback. I mean, I’m famous. But someone who’s dead? Someone who this perfect girl held in such high esteem? Yeah, it wasn’t gonna happen.

“I’m sorry, Lyss.” I put my arm around her and memorized the way it felt to hold her. Most likely that would be my last time.

Not because I was going to go crazy and try to kill myself, but because there was no way I could win this.

None.

“It was my fault you know,” Alyssa said against my chest.

“Everyone blamed Connor for so long, but no one else was there.

No one else knew what happened.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear any more. I rubbed her back and cursed in my head as she kept talking. “He told me he loved me. We’d pulled over because he wanted to kiss me and was excited about our future. I mean, that’s what we were talking about. Our future. I didn’t know that within the next fifteen minutes it would get stolen from us.”

“How is that your fault, Lyss?” I whispered in her hair. It smelled like coconut. I closed my eyes an inhaled.

“Because I’m not stupid. It was raining and Highway 101 always has accidents because of all the curves. We should have kept driving. Instead, I kept kissing him and distracting him.”

What a way to die. I mean, I’m not trying to be insensitive, but wow. I can only imagine how much she would distract me while driving. “I’d probably pull over too.”

“You would?”

“Huh?” Crap. Did I say that out loud?

“You’d pull over too?”

“Well…” Shit, shit, shit. “Sorry, Lyss. I’m just being honest.

If you were my girlfriend, and we were kissing and talking about exciting stuff, I’d probably want more time with you. I probably wouldn’t have even made it to the car, because I would have locked you in your room until graduation.”

“Really?” She perked up.

“Lyss, look at me.”

She swallowed and looked up, bright blue eyes shining with tears. I kissed each cheek and sighed. “To me, it doesn’t really get better than this.”

“Than what?” She scrunched up her nose.

I pulled her hand into mine and kissed her lightly across the lips, then on each cheek again and then each hand, taking my time inhaling her skin as I licked its smoothness and memorized the way it felt against mine. “This, Alyssa. It doesn’t get better than this, than you.”

Her eyes welled with tears.

Great. Must I always make girls cry?

While I was sitting there berating myself for being an ass, her eyes lit up. She wrapped her arms around me and kissed me hard on the mouth.

I wanted to kiss him away. To make her forget him, to make her heart beat in tune with mine.

And suddenly, as her mouth worked its way down my neck, I realized for a split second what life would be like without her in it. Empty. Maybe I couldn’t compete with a ghost, but I could sure as hell try.

Chapter Nineteen

Alyssa

I didn’t deserve him. I was sitting there sobbing my eyes out over a guy I just told him I still loved, and he treated me like I was his princess. He treated me like I wasn’t broken.

And I was. So incredibly, irrevocably broken.

His mouth did crazy things to mine as he tilted my head back and kissed my neck. Brady never kissed my neck much. I really liked it. I liked how his lips blazed a possessive trail near my chin, how his eyes hooded when he watched me. It would be impossible for me to get tired of the way he makes my body ache, the way he makes every part of my skin feel more sensitive.

And again I’m reminded, as he pulled away and kissed the top of my head, I didn’t deserve him. He was shattered enough without adding me to the mess. We would destroy each other. How do two people heal together when they can’t even heal apart from one another?

“We should talk.” I told my mouth to stop moving, to throw my arms around his neck and tell him I love him. I mean, I wasn’t sure if love was the right word, but when I thought about being apart from him, the darkness seemed to close in around me. I needed my sun. I needed him. But it’s like keeping a shiny toy you know doesn’t belong to you. You give it back, so it can be enjoyed by someone more deserving. I didn’t deserve two amazing boys in the span of two years. I certainly didn’t deserve a rich rock star who wrote songs about me.

“We are talking.” He pulled me into his side, and we continued to walk.

“About us,” I said it fast, like ripping off a bandage. We only had about a mile left to go, before we would be back to where I took the turn for my house.

I felt his arm tense around my shoulders. “What do you mean?”

“I mean —” Crap. I don’t know how to do this. “Maybe it’s just not the right time, you know?”

He stopped and pulled me in for a hot mind-blowing kiss then set me back to my feet again. “It’s always the right time.”

With Demetri, that could very well be true. And again, why did his kisses make me forget everything?

He grinned and leaned down for another kiss. His lips pressed against mine; the warmth of his mouth made my knees weak. Damn. I needed to get away from him before I made things worse. I stepped away and sighed. “Look, I just think I need more time to work through some of my issues. It’s not you.”

Demetri’s eyes widened and then closed for a painful two seconds in which I almost took back what I’d just said. When he opened them again, I saw a different Demetri, one that I’d never seen before.

I kept talking. “It’s me. Like I said, I have a lot of stuff I’m still dealing with, and I’m just dragging you down, and well, I just I don’t want to get involved with anyone. So can we just like hang only sometimes and not be anything more?” There I said it. He could walk away without feeling guilty. I didn’t need to be fixed.

Not when I saw the same look in his eyes that I saw every day in the mirror.

His eyes darkened. I took another step back. He shook his head firmly. “No.”

“No?” Whoa! Where did easy-going Demetri disappear to?

This guy looked more intense, more like his brother. Did they do some mind-changing thing I wasn’t aware of? Crap. It’s like telling a lost puppy just to go home, but instead it follows you until you cave. Why was he making this so hard? I needed him to leave. If he didn’t leave, I would break, and if I broke I would never have any hope of being whole again.

Making a snap decision, I kept walking and refused to turn around…

I felt him behind me. Finally I stopped once we were in the middle of downtown.

“What?” I snapped.

“No.” Demetri shook his head slowly. “I won’t leave you alone. I won’t abandon you. I’m sure as hell not going to listen to you, and you can damn well know that I’m going to fight for you.”

I think my heart just faltered. I blinked a few times to see if he would start laughing or break out of whatever insane mood he was in. Instead, he very politely walked me the rest of the way to my house, said goodnight, and left me at my door.

What just happened? I walked to my room and slammed the door behind me. I’m pretty sure he just told me no, as in, No. I’m not going to allow you to self-destruct and push me away. What guy does that? I mean, his speech was hot. It was the type of thing you see on TV or read about in books. The prince pursues the princess and they live happily ever after.

Silly Demetri. He of all people should know that Happily Ever Afters didn’t exist. It made me sad. I wanted to be a part of his life. I wanted so many things, but I couldn’t see a world where we could both exist without ending up hurt, and I was done with being hurt.

**** Demetri I walked home pissed. I slammed the screen door and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. I knew Alec and Nat were probably just getting out of the movie. I dialed Alec’s number and waited.