Beautiful Musician Read Online Free PDF

“Will
you?”
    “ Yes.” I knew I shouldn’t,
but the thought of losing her made me want to tug her into the
shelter of my arms.
    She inched closer, and I reached for
her. When she put her head against my chest, I thought I might die.
Her messy blonde hair tickled one of my flat brown
nipples.
    I’d done some edgy things in my time,
but this felt like the wildest moment of my life.
    Full-blown torture.
    If she attached screws to my thumbs or
stretched me out on rack or burned me at the stake, I wouldn’t have
known the difference. Her nearness grazed my heart.
    A bewitching. A painful
enchantment.
    “ We should sleep like this
every night,” she said.
    No, we shouldn’t. Not unless I was
going to peel that virgin-white dress off her delicate little body
and make balls-deep love to her.
    I squeezed my eyes shut. What I needed
was to get stumbling-ass drunk and erase her from my mind. Or maybe
I needed to start fucking other women again.
    Be a rebel. Be a rocker. Get
raunchy.
    But here I was instead, being a
pussy.
    Unable to help myself, I put my arms
tighter around her. Possession was nine-tenths of the
law.
    And at least for tonight, Abby
belonged to me.

Chapter Eight
     
    The following day, I arose in a surly
mood. I got out of bed and sat in the chair beside the window,
watching Abby sleep. How could I keep doing this? I should just go
back to Room 105 for good. Because, really, who gave a shit if I
got stranded there? Or if I got attacked by monsters?
    Abby gave a shit, I reminded myself,
and that was primarily the problem.
    A few minutes later, she woke up, all
rumpled and pretty, and smiled at me. “Hi, Seven.”
    “ Hi.” My voice was
deliberately devoid of emotion, the tone painfully dry. I wanted to
scoop her onto my lap and kiss her forever.
    “ What’s wrong?” she
asked.
    Fucking everything, I thought.
“Nothing. I just think that you should go about your day without
me.”
    “ But I want you to be
there. I need you.”
    “ That’s crap, Abby. You’re
supposed to be learning to manage your disease, not be relying on
me for false support. You need to take the initiative on your
own.”
    “ It isn’t false.” She
clutched her pillow to her chest. “And I don’t have a disease. You
know as well as I do that I’m not crazy.”
    I should have told her the truth. That
she was ill, and I didn’t exist. But I shoved those words to the
back of my throat and swallowed them.
    The very best I could do was, “Just
hurry the fuck up or you’ll miss breakfast.”
    She looked like she might cry. I
prayed that she didn’t. I couldn’t handle her tears.
    She climbed out of bed, and much to
her credit she held it together, keeping the waterworks at bay. But
that didn’t ease the devastation that penetrated her eyes. I could
tell that I’d just broken her heart.
    I wanted to fire a bullet through
mine. A full metal jacket. But it was better this way. She had to
stop depending on me.
    “ Breakfast,
Abby.”
    “ I know. I know. I’m
getting ready.” Her voice vibrated. She was walking in circles,
searching for shoes. She went after the first two she saw, an
orange flip-flop and a red tennis shoe.
    Holy fuck. I should help her. I should
make it all right. But what was the point? I would only be enabling
her.
    Then again, how could I send her out
there like that?
    “ Damn it,” I said. “Look
at yourself.”
    She took my statement literally and
studied her reflection in the mirror. A wrinkled dress and
mismatched shoes. She didn’t seem to know how to fix her
appearance, so she turned to me for help.
    I went to her dresser and grabbed a
pair of jeans and a T-shirt for her. This was the last time, I told
myself. From here on in, she was on her own.
    She managed to put them on, but her
shoes were still a dilemma. I dug around in her closet and found a
pair of combat-style boots similar to mine. I even tied the damned
laces for her.
    Before she left the room, she stood in
the doorway and stared at