Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 112917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
I ignored him and shot straight to the bed, where Zane was fighting against tangled sheets, fully dressed in the same pajama bottoms and hoodie he’d put on before his friends had arrived.
“Hey, hey,” I said, reaching for him and holding his upper arms. “I’m here. B… fuck. I’m here, Zane.”
I’d almost fucking called him baby. As if he were mine to comfort. Mine to care for with love instead of a professional close-protection strategy.
“Bear! Bear.” He alternated between frantically crying and whimpering my name. The sound of his terror squeezed my fucking chest until I felt like I couldn’t breathe. “I need you. Bear.”
“I’m here.” I pulled him into my arms and held him tightly. “Zane. I’m here. You’re safe. Wake up.”
His eyes, half-opened, looked around without focusing until his gaze landed on me. Then, his entire face crumpled as he began to cry in earnest. He lunged into my arms more fully, wrapping his arms around my neck and burying his face in my neck.
He smelled sleepy and warm. The faded scent of his shampoo mixed with faint traces of minty toothpaste. I held the back of his head and murmured soothing words into his ear.
“You’re okay. It was just a bad dream. You’re safe.”
His lithe body hitched as he struggled to catch his breath, and I felt the warm damp of his tears against the skin of my neck. Movement out of the corner of my eye reminded me Landry was there.
Suddenly, I felt very awkward. “Landry’s here,” I murmured to Zane. “Do you want—”
His arms squeezed around me tighter. “No.” It was barely audible. Only I could hear the word. But when he added, “Just you,” Landry must have picked up on it.
“Should I go?” he asked hesitantly. I could see the worry in his eyes from the lamp he’d turned on in the corner of the room.
I shot him a look that hopefully expressed my own confusion over the situation, the eyeball version of a perplexed shrug. Landry nodded and tilted his head toward the outer room of the suite before exiting and closing the bedroom door behind him.
Leaving me alone with Zane.
“Want to talk about it?” I asked after a few more minutes.
I tried to pull away, but Zane wouldn’t let me go. Instead, I moved over to lean back against the headboard and let Zane relax against my front.
This had happened before. Once. And neither one of us had ever spoken of it again.
We’d been in New Orleans for a show. Zane had wanted to walk around Bourbon Street late at night just to get a feel for the sights and sounds. We’d shoved his hair up in a ball cap, thrown some dummy eyeglasses on him, and headed out of the hotel. There’d been several suspicious people down a nearby alley, and it was obvious at least a couple of them were high on something. I hadn’t paid particularly close attention to them, other than ensuring Zane’s safety, but I discovered later, when Zane woke up screaming for me hours later, that seeing the junkies on the street had brought back terrible childhood memories from when he’d still been with his mom.
That night, I’d held him in my arms as he’d filled in some details about the way he’d grown up, with parents who cared more about their next fix than his next meal and being left alone in dark, empty buildings while they tried to score. Or worse, left him with people they shouldn’t have.
Zane had admitted between sniffles that when he’d found himself in those situations, he’d closed his eyes, clapped his hands over his ears, and started singing to block out the fear.
“If Garth Brooks could stand outside the fire, then I could, too,” he’d said, letting out a little laugh. “Any song I knew about being brave, I sang it. Pat Benatar’s ‘Hit Me With Your Best Shot,’ Starship’s ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now,’ and ‘Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow’ by Fleetwood Mac. You name it, I sang it to myself. Gran had this little plastic radio out on her porch, and it was always tuned to the same station that said they played hits ‘from the seventies, eighties, and now!’ Those songs were like my security blanket.”
It had explained why he seemed to disappear onstage when he performed music. He went somewhere completely away in his mind, to a place safer and more welcoming than this cruel world. When he sang, his entire body relaxed into the music, and his face took on this dreamy expression that made me love him even more.
Zane Hendley was a precious treasure. He wasn’t fragile, but fuck if I didn’t want to wrap him up in bubble wrap anyway and protect him from any more cruelty in this life.
“It was a stupid nightmare about a roller coaster,” Zane said now, shifting against my chest until his head rested under my chin. I ran my fingers through his hair, gently pulling out the tangles as I came to them.