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  CHAPTER 4

  ~TRYSTAN~

  “Are you going to tell her?” Mari asked. Her big brown eyes remained fixed on his face, waiting for an answer that he couldn’t give.

  It doesn’t matter if I tell her, she won’t believe me. You see Mari, it’s you. You’re the one I can’t stop thinking about. You’re the one who makes my heart race and my mood soar. You’re the reason that I can’t sleep, can’t eat. The pain inside my chest, that ache that longs for your touch, devours me.

  Trystan thought these things. They raced through his mind like a swirl of wind. The words were stuck to his tongue. He couldn’t tell her. It had to be something she saw for herself or she’d never believe him.

  Shaking his head, Trystan leaned back against the couch, “No, I don’t think so.”

  Mari twisted toward him, her slender hand extended forward. When she placed it on his knee, Trystan nearly crawled out of his skin. As she spoke, he stared at her hand, mesmerized by how much power she held over him. The simple act of patting his knee was too much. Being in the same room as Mari was too much, and here they were alone. Again.

  I did this, he thought to himself. I’m the one who sent Seth away. His gaze was still fixated on Mari’s hand. She lifted it slowly, like she’d made a mistake. When he looked up at her, their eyes locked. Trystan was completely screwed. He couldn’t hide it much longer, and telling her would only make it worse. Ironically, she was sitting there telling Trystan to confess, but she didn’t understand. She didn’t know it was her.

  Trying to put some distance between them, Trystan stretched and looked up at the ceiling. Mari’s gaze was burning a hole on the side of his face, but he’d kiss her if he looked at her again. His heart raced inside his chest. He couldn’t slow the frantic pace. She was too close.

  When he spoke, his voice caught in his throat, “If she realizes it, I won’t deny it, but I can’t tell her.” He managed not to look at her as he said it. He knew she had a puzzled look on her face, like she didn’t understand, especially since she could tell how miserable he was. Nothing slipped past Mari. At times Trystan thought she could see right through him, but right now she was blind. And he intended to keep things that way.

  The thought of her rejecting him after confessing how he felt about her made him feel sick. He couldn’t bear it. As it was, he could barely bear this. Thank God Mari didn’t date a lot. If she did, there’d be no way to hide his feelings. They’d come rushing out.

  Trystan looked at Mari again, resisting the urge to run his finger across her cheek. He blinked, clearing the thought from his head and sat up. “Come on,” he sighed. “Run lines with me. Help me forget about her for a while.”

  But running lines didn’t help him forget about her. When they started, Trystan was acting like his character, seeing his lost love. But as they got into it, as they headed toward the end of the act, all he could think about was Mari’s lips on his.

  CHAPTER 5

  ~MARI~

  Trystan knew his lines. He sat on the edge of the couch, facing me. Everything from the tone of his voice, to his inflections, to his expressions was perfect. Trystan had a way of looking at a girl that took her breath away. He used every skill he had in the scene, making it difficult to remember that it wasn’t real—that the words weren’t his. Before I knew what was happening, our eyes locked. Every muscle in my body tightened. While we were practicing, he moved closer to me. His knees faced mine. He was close enough to touch me, but he didn’t.

  Still running lines, he continued, “Then when I saw you again, I couldn’t believe it was you. I watched you that night, trying to get up the nerve to talk to you. After everything that happened, after everything ended the way it did, I—” he breathed in and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he lowered his lashes and looked up at me, “I couldn’t risk ruining that moment. But it was a mistake...”

  “Why?” I said the line, unable to look away. My pulse was racing even though I knew it wasn’t real. Trystan was so intense, and when he looked at me like that it was impossible to notice anything but him.

  His eyes were dark as sapphires. They drifted to my cheek and a moment later, his hand was there touching me lightly. “Because it haunts me. Every moment of every day is filled with regret. I wonder if I said something, if we could have had another chance…” his voice trailed off. He brushed my cheek lightly with his thumb before pulling his hand away. Looking down, he breathed, “But I didn’t. I was a coward.”

  Our gazes locked, and Trystan was so close to my face that I felt the warmth of his breath on my lips. My voice barely came out, “If you had it to do over again, what would you do?”

  This was the spot where he messed up yesterday. The scene had no passion and he totally bumbled his lines. There was no connection with the actress. But today it felt so intense, so real. Heat flushed my body. I wondered what he would do, when he would stop. The scene ended with a kiss and Trystan didn’t break character. Instead he leaned closer to me, slowly, hesitantly. His lips were a breath from mine.

  He whispered, “I’d do this.” The sound was soft and seductive passing over his lips, making butterflies erupt in my stomach. My body felt hot. Every inch of skin seared like it was on fire, pleading for his touch. He lingered, withholding the kiss, watching me through lowered lashes.

  There was nothing but him and me in that moment. We weren’t in a dank prop room, we weren’t running lines. The way he looked at me, the way his eyes pinned me in place and stole my breath, made my heart race faster. It banged into my ribs as his lips moved painfully slow toward mine. When his hand touched my face and slid back into my hair, I thought I’d die. Every part of my body was on fire.

  Trystan’s lips brushed lightly to mine. The soft caress sent a spark through me that kept me from pulling away. Instead I savored the sensation, the feel of his full mouth against mine. The heat from his lips, the softness of the kiss would be burned into my mind after that. That kiss would come unbidden when I least expected it.

  After he swept his lips across mine, he pulled back just enough that the sensation of his lips on mine ended. It pulled me toward him like a magnet tugging wildly at my insides. Shock held me in place as it crashed into me in a relentless wave. His kiss was bewitching. It felt real. The way my body responded to him—to his voice and his words—was real. I’d denied it over and over again. I didn’t want to be like every other girl that was infatuated with him. We were friends. There was nothing there. I kept telling myself that, but right now, the way my stomach twisted to have him so close, I knew it was a lie. I liked him.

  Trystan sat there watching me, his eyes locked on mine. His palm rested against my cheek as he gazed at me. It was like he was too stunned to move. At least I thought he was. When the door clicked open above us, he winked at me. His hand slid away from my cheek. The air felt cold with it gone. I repressed a shiver, and slumped backward like he had no effect on me.

  A voice called down, “On stage, Scott!”

  Trystan stood and looked down at me. I stared at his shoes, wondering what kind of crazy I had to be to let him kiss me.

  “Be right there,” he replied and the door shut again. “What’d you think?” There was a question in his voice. I glanced up at him.

  “Better than yesterday,” I replied, trying to sound normal. “Assuming Brie doesn’t jump on you when you kiss her like that, you’ll be good.”

  He grinned, “I thought that scene needed some tension. That worked, right?”

  “Yes,” my voice came out in a breath. “It worked perfectly.”

  CHAPTER 6

  ~TRYSTAN~

  That kiss. He didn’t want to stop. Her lips tasted like strawberries and when he pressed her mouth to his, Trystan felt whole. There wasn’t another word for it. He needed Mari like he needed air. When his hands tangled in her hair, she didn’t protest. As he kissed her, he waited for her to pull away. When she didn’t, when she ran the lines through the end of the scene, he didn’t ques
tion his good fortune. Instead he concentrated on the taste of her lips and the shape of her mouth, the smoothness of her skin and the softness of her hair in his hand. It would be like this, he thought, if we were together. His body burned hotter than it should have with such a chaste kiss, but it was the closest he’d ever gotten to Mari.

  Reluctantly, he ended the kiss by pulling away slightly. He tried to control his breathing, still holding her face in his hands. Her breath rushed over his lips as he lingered there. Trystan didn’t want to stop. He had no idea why Mari let him do it. It should have gotten him slapped. When the door above them scraped open, he released her face. Immediately his hands felt empty, like they’d been holding the most valuable thing they’d ever touched and now it was gone.

  “Be right there,” he replied. He waited a beat for the door to click shut. Heart racing, he looked at Mari and asked, “What’d you think?” It was brazen, especially after deciding not to tell her, but he had to know.

  “Better than yesterday,” she said coolly. “Assuming Brie doesn’t jump on you when you kiss her like that, you’ll be good.” She smiled as she spoke, like she wasn’t affected by his kiss. Like it hadn’t meant anything to her. Swallowing hard he realized that he wanted it to mean something. He didn’t want to touch her, taste her, and kiss her—no, he wanted more than that. He wanted her to want him. He wanted more than the physical act. Inwardly he cringed. That thought was so unlike him, so foreign, but as he gazed at her, he longed for it. He wanted something with her, but her reply made it obvious that the feelings weren’t two directional. Swallowing hard, he forced down a lump of regret that was nearly choking him.

  He grinned to cover his real feelings, putting on the fucking mask that hid his real thoughts. He didn’t want things to be like that with her, but that was the way things were.

  Playfully, he said, “I thought that scene needed some tension. That worked, right?”

  “Yes,” she said softly. “It worked perfectly.” Her dark curls were fanned across her shoulders. It was impossible to look at her and not touch her. Every instinct in his body was wrong. She didn’t care for him, not like that.

  He nodded toward the stairs, “I better get going.” Without another word, he turned and walked away from her. It felt like something inside of him ripped.

  I shouldn’t have kissed her, he thought, climbing the stairs two at a time.

  When he walked out onto the stage, he acted. Trystan was everything he was supposed to be, and no one knew any different. None of them knew him at all.

  CHAPTER 7

  ~MARI~

  “You let him kiss you?” Katie asked. Her mouth was hanging open, her burger positioned in her hands like she was going to take a big bite, but instead it just hung there. A piece of lettuce fell to her plate. Finally she cocked her head to the side, which is Katie’s look for are you crazy?

  Pushing around the fries on my plate, I shrugged, “We were running lines. I thought he’d stop, but he went to the end of the scene.”

  Katie and I had made plans to meet up at the diner for dinner. There was a scattering of people surrounding us and Katie’s voice was a little too loud for my taste. There hadn’t been many other kisses to report, but this one seemed to blindside her. It was completely unexpected and according to her, completely stupid.

  She blinked big brown eyes at me, “But he kissed you.”

  “But nothing. It meant nothing. He was practicing,” I said, raising my hand and pointing a French fry at her. “It’s called acting.”

  Her mouth was still suspended open. She snapped it shut, shaking her head and put down the burger. Her hands tugged at her long dark hair when she said, “This is going to screw with you. I can’t believe you let him do that. You can’t get him out of your head when he smiles at you and you frickin’ let him kiss you!” I knew that she only acted like this because she cared about me.

  Katie was the only one who had a clue about my feelings for Trystan. I hated that I liked him that way. He literally had a gaggle of groupies that followed him around. I didn’t want to be one of them, but the guy got to me. There was no way to ignore it. I leaned back in the booth and looked around the diner to make sure no one we knew was near-by. This was my biggest secret. If Trystan found out, I’d die.

  “Shhh!” I hissed, whipping my neck around. The movement made my hair fall over my shoulder and into my ketchup. “Awh, man.”

  Katie swallowed a laugh and tossed me a bunch of napkins. I dabbed the condiment out of my hair. When my brown curls seemed okay, I tossed my hair back over my shoulder again. Finally Katie asked, “So how was it?”

  Her question took me by surprise. I glanced up at her with that deer in the headlights look. Squirming, I replied, “Fine, I guess.” Better than fine. He made me feel every inch of my body. I flushed thinking about it.

  She shook her head and picked up her burger again, muttering, “Yes, I can see that it was marginal at best. You’re such a bad liar, Mari.”

  “Fine.” I leaned closer to her and lowered my voice, “You know how I told you he gets to me? Like we can be standing there talking, and it’s like he can read my mind or something?” She nods. I’d told her this before. Trystan had a weird way of knowing what I was going to say before I said it. When his gaze bore into me, I felt exposed, like he could read my mind. I avoided eye contact with Trystan, which was part of my mistake today.

  I continued, “It was like that, but more. It felt like he could see through me in that moment, like all my thoughts were just spread out for him. And his lips were so soft. The way he did it made me want him even more.” I grabbed the sides of my head, placed my elbows on the table and leaned forward. With closed eyes, I uttered, “What a disaster.” When I look at Katie again, she’s grinning. “What?”

  “You did this to yourself, you know. You’re the one who says a kiss has to mean something for it to be real, and it seems like this fake kiss made your brains blow up.” She sips her soda and leans back in the booth. If someone else had said it, the words would have felt mean. But the way Katie mentions them, made it as confrontational as saying, please pass the milk.

  But I won’t back down on this issue. I was right. “A kiss is supposed to mean something. I just—”

  Katie cut me off, “Do yourself a favor and stay away from him. You know he’s a love them and leave them kind of guy. That’s not your kind of guy. Hanging around with Trystan is just going to get you hurt.” Her voice was beseeching, like she doesn’t want me unhappy.

  I can’t avoid Trystan. He’s at the theater every day with me, but I know what she means. “I’ll try.”

  “Good,” she said, smiling. She plucked a fry off her plate and popped it into her mouth. For a moment neither of us said anything. Before taking another fry, she said, “Did you see that video, yet? The one on You Tube of that guy singing?”

  I shook my head, “What are you talking about?” I’d been at practice all afternoon. It was after 7:00pm and I was eating dinner on the way home.

  Katie always knew what was going on. She pulled out her phone, flicked a few buttons, and handed it to me. A video loaded. It’s hard to make it out, but a guy was sitting on a stool with a guitar on his lap. His fingers moving up and down the instrument as he played. There was a strong light behind him obscuring his face. The only thing I could tell was that he’s young, maybe my age and a little taller than me, with dark hair. The song he was singing wasn’t something I’d heard before. It was a love song about a girl that doesn’t know he’s alive. He sounded so bewitched by her that I couldn’t look away. The tune was catchy, but it was the haunting lyrics that mesmerized me. When the song ended, I stared at the phone immediately wanting to hear more.

  Blinking, I looked up at Katie, “Who is that?”

  She grins, “No one knows. He uploaded the song last night and it went viral.”

  His voice echoed in my mind. The lyrics said he was completely taken with a girl who didn’t know he was alive. She called to hi
m like a siren, and he couldn’t help but love her. It was tragic and beautiful. I wanted to know who the singer was. I glanced at the phone again and pressed play. The words flowed through the tiny speakers.

  Someone passing by stopped and said, “Great song, right?” It was a senior I’d seen around but never spoke to before.

  Katie beamed, “It really is. Have you heard anything? Did they figure out who he is?”

  The girl shook her head, “No, but it won’t be long. I bet the guy goes home tonight and sees that his video got all those comments today and we know his name by tomorrow. At least that’s what I’m hoping for.” She laughed and Katie told her thanks.

  “God, I hope so,” she said, turning back to me. “I can’t see a damn thing with that light in the way.”

  “Me neither,” I said, staring at the screen after the video stopped. “Did you see all these comments? There are thousands and this hasn’t even been up for a day yet.”

  Katie snapped the phone away and scrolled through the comments, then handed it back to me. “That one is mine,” she said, tapping at a spot on the screen.

  I read it and gasped, “You did not type that!”

  “Yup,” she said, grinning, snatching the phone back. “He’s too hot not to.”

  “You can’t even see him!” I laughed. “How do you know he’s hot?”

  “I just know. With a voice like that and the way he sings about her…” Katie sounds like she has a bad crush on the mystery guy, which wasn’t like her.

  “It could be anyone. This guy could be a troll. Or a stalker.”

  Katie’s eyebrow darted up, “You really think that a stalker made a video?”