Chapter 54
LIVELY
Hailey Baleman has seen me buck naked. Desperate. Pleading. Pathetic.
But none of that compared to the way her eyes watched me now, as I strummed the guitar. Shit, what the hell was I doing right now? Was I really about to… sing for her? To her?
All my songs sucked. Hell, they were even worse than my poems. I’d never made it past two verses before chucking them into the void, or worse, my trash bin.
But how could I say no to those eyes?
Those beautiful, warm, honey-brown eyes—twinkling with something soft and open and terrifying as hell. Longing . How the hell was I supposed to say no to that? To say no, period? Yeah, there was the answer. I couldn't .
Even now, my fingers were just strumming the same four chords I’d learned from a YouTube video over and over again; the only combination I’d ever managed to turn into a half-decent melody for the cringe as hell lyrics playing in my head.
And Hailey…she was just sitting there. Legs crossed on my bed.
That shirt draped down her body to flirt with her thighs.
She was just watching me, anticipation in her brown eyes thawed off all that frost. I loved her icy, standoffish gaze, but my God, being the center of her warm gaze was a whole other experience. It was like a hearth, lit right in my belly.
And, if I was being honest right now? It still felt so damn surreal. Like I was in a dream sequence. Like I’d gotten stuck in one of my many fantasies where Hailey Baleman confessed to me and kissed me and…it was real. This, right now, was real .
Hailey Baleman really confessed to me. She said she loved me. She loved me .
And I…I was terrified.
My heart was pounding so hard I could barely hear the guitar anymore. Just this wild, stupid drumbeat in my ears, like the inside of my chest was trying to crawl out through my ribs.
Still, the first line left my lips before I even realized I’d said it. “ I saw you first like lightning—quick flash, gone in a blink ,” I murmured, voice low, uncertain, “ didn’t know then you’d be the spark that set the rest of me on fire .”
Hailey didn’t move. Her lips parted slightly, but her gaze never left mine, like she knew if she looked away, I’d stop. My brain was screaming at me to shut the hell up, and I had a feeling she could tell.
“ You walked like winter ,” I continued softly, “ but you burned hotter than anything I’d ever touched .”
My voice shook. My fingers slipped on the strings. I muttered a quiet curse and started the strumming over again, cheeks flaming.
“I told you,” I said with a shaky laugh, “it’s not… it’s not good. I know it’s cheesy. Just forget it—”
“Don’t stop.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. But it snapped through my panic like a blade. “I like it. I like your voice,” she added, softer now, “Keep going.”
I did. I could deny her nothing. “ Every time you pushed away ,” I sang, quieter now, more sure, “ I still held the space you left behind .” My throat was dry. My fingers were trembling again. But I kept going.
“ You are the storm that ruins me ,” I said—not sang—like it was something I needed her to know, “ and I’d still choose to get drenched every time .”
She sucked in a breath. Just a hitch in the silence, but it sliced through the air like glass cracking. And that’s when I saw it. The shimmer.
Tears . Hailey Baleman, proud, stubborn, strong, was crying .
No . My hands froze on the strings, the chords falling apart beneath my fingers. The guitar slipped from my lap and thudded against the carpet, but I didn’t even look at it.
Because I was already moving, my body made the decision for me before my brain could even catch up.
I was crawling on my hands and knees, frantic and aching all over with the need to be close to her…
to comfort her. I didn’t care that my knee knocked into the edge of the bed frame.
I didn’t care that my breath was coming too fast or that my palms were slick with sweat.
“Hey,” I said, my voice a raw mess of nerves. “Are you okay?”
She didn’t speak at first. Just looked up at me, eyes wet and shining and unbearably warm. I reached out, cupping her face with both hands, my thumbs brushing the tears from her cheeks.
“Come on, Hailstorm, please tell me what’s wrong.” I said again, the urgency raising welts on the inside of my throat.
I mean, I did make her promise not to laugh, but I totally hadn't thought she'd cry .
Hailey smiled then, and it ruined me all over again.
“You…” her voice trailed off, but she cleared her throat and tried again, voice wobbling. “You are so weird, you know?”
My heart skipped a full beat. “Wh—What?” Panic rose in my belly.
Did she hate it? Oh God. Oh God. I knew I shouldn’t have—
But she was shaking her head, wiping at her face. “How could you just… like me that much? Even after I…lost it and…and choked you and everything…”
I stared at her, stunned. Then, slowly, the panic began to unravel into something softer. Aw, was my Hailstorm worried about… that ?
"Aren't you forgetting that I wanted it?" I asked softly, letting my lips curve in a soothing smile. "And it was so much more than I'd dreamed, you know. You're so beautiful when you're mean to me."
She scrunched her nose up into that adorable grimace that made me want to bite her nose. Argh, so cute .
"And…even after I…after I peed all over you?
" Her cheeks turned a deep, deep red before she slapped her palms over her face, hiding her eyes.
"Oh God, I'm so sorry…I've never…lost control like that before.
You must have thought I was peeing all over you…
and I couldn't even stay awake to clean up the mess—"
"I didn’t think for a second you were peeing." I said, cutting through her panic, pulling her hands away to kiss each trembling knuckle. "I've never had anyone squirt for me before, and I thought it was fucking hot."
Hailey winced, still trying to avoid my eyes, but I tugged at her fingers, aching to have her eyes on me again.
"Listen, I fucking love everything you do to me, okay? And, if that's how you 'lose control', just know that I'm gonna be fucking insufferable from this moment onward just to see you lose it again."
Her eyes found mine then, vulnerable and searching. " Why? "
God, she was killing me here.
I cradled her face in my hands, voice barely above a whisper as I said, “Because you’re my Roman Empire, Hailey Baleman. The singular, most devastatingly wonderful thing to ever happen to me.”
She blinked, clearly caught off guard, her brown eyes shaking inside their sockets. Her cheeks were slowly pinking, a process that made my pulse kick as I watched, but she didn’t look away.
“I loved you from the first moment I saw you,” I said, each word deliberate. “Like there wasn’t a better choice I could’ve ever made. And I will always choose you. Always .”
Hailey’s breath caught, and those gorgeous eyes held mine for an eternity of a second before she launched herself at me.
The hug hit me like a truck, and I barely managed to catch us both before we could tumble backward.
My arms locked around her, holding her so tight I was sure she could feel every frantic beat of my heart.
“Thank you, fuckface,” she whispered into my neck.
My fingers spasmed around her shoulders, pressing her even closer. My lips were in her hair; my heart was in my throat. “That’s my line, Hailstorm.” I murmured into her hair, then pulled back to press a kiss to the corner of her right eye, right where that beautiful freckle was.
She pulled back slightly, just enough to meet my gaze, her face scrunched up in confusion. “What was that?”
And I grinned. “Do you know you’ve got the prettiest freckle right here?” I rubbed the pad of my thumb over it. “I’ve always wanted to kiss it.”
She stared at me like I was some crazy hobo before her lips split into a shit-eating grin. “What, did you write poetry about that, too?”
My cheeks flamed. “ Hailstorm .” Oh God. I was never going to live this down, was I?
"Why do you even call me that?"
"Huh?"
"Why do you call me Hailstorm?" She asked, curiosity in her pretty brown eyes. "If you’re going for a pet name, maybe pick one that doesn’t sound like a natural disaster, you know?"
The sudden question floored me, but only for a second. Then I smiled, because this was easy; literally the easiest thing I'd ever had to explain.
"Because you wreck me," I whispered, my thumbs still tracing her cheekbones.
"My whole life has been this suffocating heat…
expectations burning me alive from the inside out, my every breath like swallowing fire.
" I drew a breath like I was pulling her into my lungs.
"But your existence is like a cold compress for my soul.
In fact, you don't just cool the burn, you drown me in the storm completely, and I love being full of you. "
She stared at me in total silence for a second that felt so long, I started to get self-conscious, but her face soon broke into the cutest smile I'd ever seen. “Wow, I guess practice does make perfect.”
“What?” I definitely sounded like I was drunk on bath salts or something. Shit, this was real, right? Everything happening right now?
“Everything you just said…and that song,” she said, a teasing glint in her eye. “It’s way better than those poems.”
I let out a choked laugh, cheeks heating. “You think so?”
She nodded, turning her head toward the guitar propped against the desk. “Hm, then maybe I should let you sing for Mallory. She’ll definitely like it.”
At the mention of her sister, my chest tightened. “Shit. I never did get to dance with her, did I?”
Hailey’s eyes softened. “She was pretty bummed you left early.”
Guilt twisted in my stomach. “Is… is she okay?”
“She’s okay.” Her smile dimmed just a fraction. “She’s been discharged from the hospital. She’s back home now.”
I hesitated. Then asked, carefully, “And what about you? Are you back home?”
Her eyes snapped to mine. And the look there; a mix of vulnerability, strength, rawness, made me hold my breath.
The moment broke abruptly when she looked down and nodded. “Yeah,” she whispered. “Yeah, I’m back home. After I thought about what you said and realized that I wasn’t being fair to them. I…don’t want to hurt my parents anymore.”
Something bloomed in my chest. She’d called them ‘her parents’. I knew just how big of a deal that was for her, and pride swelled in my chest for her. God, she was so adorable, I thought I would die from it.
“They’re… just so kind ,” she said, her voice breaking a little. “They weren’t even mad at me. And I…” she tightened her grip, eyes shining again, “Lively… I’m so sorry.”
My heart leapt to my throat now, panic surging through my veins again. “Why… are you apologizing now?” I asked, barely managing to keep my tone under control.
“For… the way I acted last night. At the fundraiser. For sticking my nose into your personal business.” She exhaled shakily. “I know I crossed the line.”
I opened my mouth to interrupt but she barreled on.
“I don’t regret everything I said to your parents… but I do regret putting you in trouble with them. I’m sorry if I—” she started to apologise, but I couldn’t let her. Because she didn’t need to do that. Not for them. Because my parents…they weren’t worth her worry.
“Hey.” I cupped her cheeks again, smiling down at her, trying to reassure her the best I could. “It’s fine—”
“No, it’s not okay.” She shook her head, gaze stubborn. “What if… what if they really do what they threatened you with?”
And I knew immediately what she was talking about.
My father’s threat to pull our program funding.
Cut me off completely. Of course, I knew my parents very well, knew that it was not above them to do just that.
But it was also because I knew my parents that I knew that they wouldn’t dare to do that. Not after…
“Not after the scene you pulled, they won’t.” I said with a shrug.
Her brows furrowed, confusion slowly bleeding into her eyes. “What?”
I rubbed my thumb in soothing circles on her cheek.
“My parents care a lot about appearances. And what you did last night…the things you said about them… You hit them where it hurts—in front of donors, in front of people that matter to them. They won’t act rashly now.
Not when they know everyone’s watching.” I said, my lips curving slightly.
Hailey stared at me, realization dawning across her face. “Oh,” she said.
I grinned. “Yeah. Oh .”
Her lips twitched and her brow lifted in that regal arch. “So I saved your ass?”
“My Hailstorm always does,” I said, pulling her into another hug. “Turns out it’s not so bad being in the eye of the storm.”
Hailey reeled back immediately, face contorting. “Ugh, I take it back!”
“What?” My grin was so wide, so fucking goofy, it literally hurt. But I couldn’t stop.
“That was cringe as hell!” she declared, shoving at my shoulder.
I burst out laughing, head tipping back. The sound tore free from me like it’d been waiting years to escape. I felt so lighter. Lighter than I’d ever felt in my whole damn life.
"Hey, Lively?" Her voice was small, hesitant, and I leaned in closer on impulse.
"Yeah?"
"I-I'm not good with…poems and songs and all that stuff," she said, those brown eyes holding me captive with the sincerity shining in them, "but I want you to know this, too.
You say I'm the cold compress for your soul but you…
to me, you're…you're like standing in direct sunlight after years of winter, and…
it's so warm, Lively. It's so warm I can't remember what it was like before you were lighting up everything around me. "
I think my heart fucking stopped somewhere in the middle of all that. Hell, I couldn't breathe .
"You... shit , Hailey." Words failed me completely. My throat constricted around anything meaningful I might have said, crushing syllables before they could form.
My arms locked around her with desperate intensity, as if I was afraid she might evaporate.
"Say it again," I choked out, my voice a shattered thing within the ruins of my throat. My lips pressed against her temple, tasting the salt of her skin. " Please . I need to hear it again."
I felt her laugh vibrate against my body, shaking my heart inside its cage. "I love you, fuckface," she whispered against my collarbone, and the contradiction of the harsh nickname wrapped in such tenderness undid me completely.
Hot tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, and I didn't even have the strength to be embarrassed by them. God, I loved her.
I loved her . So much, it scared me. But not enough to stop.
Never enough to stop. Not now that I knew she loved me right back.
I was ruined for anyone else.
Forever .