Chapter 28
Lucky
I wake to warmth.
A heavy arm around my waist, a slow, even breath against the back of my neck. Ethan sleeps like someone finally allowed to. Limp, unguarded, warm all along my spine. The sheet is barely hanging onto him — draped low across his hips, leaving his chest bare against my back.
I turn slowly to face him.
God, his chest.
All hard muscle and quiet strength, the kind you don’t get from the gym but from actual life — from years of carrying gear and carrying grief.
The black ink over his heart is half-covered by the angle, the Latin script curving toward his shoulder, the chain worked into the design disappearing underneath his side.
I trace the letters in my mind even though I can’t read them; I’ve learned the shape of them by now.
His skin is warm and tanned, lightly freckled, smooth except for the scars only someone like him would call “nothing.” His hair — short, ark, always disciplined — is a total mess right now, sticking up in directions he’d pretend don’t exist. And that stubble…
dark, rough, sinful. The kind that scrapes in the best possible way.
The kind that makes a man look like he’s been through hell and came out hotter.
His mouth is parted, soft, the opposite of the controlled, clipped lines he uses when he’s awake. He’d die before admitting he sleeps like this — vulnerable, undone, almost beautiful.
For a second, I let myself look. Really look.
At the man I somehow ended up wrapped in.
And then the fear starts to seep back in.
I slide backward carefully, inch by inch, trying not to disturb him. His arm tightens around me on instinct, a low warning rumble in his throat, and then—
He snaps awake.
Eyes sharp. Body tense. Like I’ve tripped an alarm inside him.
“Hey,” I whisper immediately, turning in his arms. “It’s okay. I’m not going anywhere. I just… need to call Banks.”
His shoulders drop. The tension melts, replaced with exhaustion so thick it practically drips off him. “Mm.” He presses his forehead to my shoulder, letting out a breath. “Right. Banks.”
It’s the middle of the morning, and he still looks wrecked — not from last night but from everything. The days of watching me, guarding me, barely sleeping, holding himself together with discipline and duct tape.
I kiss his head. Just once. Because if I do it twice, that’s a confession.
He’s already falling back asleep as I ease out of the bed, mumbling something that sounds like “don’t disappear.” My chest does a weird fluttering thing, like a bird trapped under my ribs.
I pad into the hallway. The alarm panel glows on the wall — the one he installed yesterday after checking every lock three times. He showed me the passcode, slow and deliberate, as if he were handing me a key to something sacred.
I type it in. The system chirps, then quiets.
Downstairs, the kitchen is painfully still. Morning sunlight spills across the floor in wide golden strokes. It should look peaceful, but with all the reinforced locks and new motion sensors, it feels like a home prison.
My lake house jail.
The one he built because he’s terrified something will happen to me. And he’s probably right.
I make coffee, mostly so I have something to do with my trembling hands. The smell helps. Kinda. Not enough.
I lean on the counter and stare out at the lake — sun glittering on the surface, a soft breeze making ripples. It’s stupidly beautiful. One of those mornings you see in postcards and assume are fake.
I should want to go outside. Feel the air on my skin. Sit on the dock like a normal human.
But every time I picture the trees, the open space, the path leading back to the road… all I can think of is him.
Michael Sheifer. Out there somewhere.
Watching.
Waiting.
My breath catches, just a tiny hitch, but enough for me to notice. I rub my wrists. Pace once. Twice.
Then stop, because pacing makes me feel trapped.
The irony is hilarious in a deeply unfunny way.
Outside: danger.
Inside: safe but suffocating.
Inside my head: worst of both.
I sip my coffee and let the heat ground me. A small smile pulls at my mouth because Ethan is usually the one up at dawn, fixing something, patrolling the yard, or doing whatever stoic men with trauma and too much discipline do to avoid thinking.
And me?
I wake up at noon. Rockstar hours. Rockstar chaos.
But after the last two nights… God. He was running on borrowed energy, and I took the last of it.
My cheeks warm. Not from shame — from the memory. From how he held me. How he said what he said.
Nobody’s ever confessed feelings to me without wanting something in return. Not a contract. Not publicity. Not access. Not sex. Not my persona.
But Ethan looked at me last night like he saw the broken parts and wanted them anyway.
Like he wanted me.
Not Lucky Pink.
Not the brand.
Me.
The thought terrifies me.
And also… lights something inside my chest. Something I haven’t felt in a long time. Hope, maybe. Or danger. Or both.
I take another slow sip and keep staring out at the lake — beautiful, calm, golden.
Safe.
And I think, for the first time in a long while:
Maybe I could be safe too.
I take another sip of the coffee. Just one.
Then something hits me — like a jolt behind the ribs, like someone flicked on a light in a room I forgot existed.
A line.
A melody.
A pulse.
I freeze with the mug halfway to my lips.
No. Not now. Not after everything. Not after weeks of feeling hollow and raw and gagged by silence.
But it’s here. It’s here, banging on the inside of my skull like it’s been trapped and clawing to get out.
I set the coffee down so fast it sloshes over the rim.
“Okay, okay—hold on—” I mutter to no one, already scrambling for the battered notebook Ethan picked up off the floor last night before he carried me upstairs. The one with water stains and ripped corners and pages full of half-thoughts and breakdowns.
My pen hits paper before I even sit down.
She needed to lose herself…
just to hear the echo…
just to find her name again.
The words pour out messy, uneven, raw. Not polished. Not “Lucky Pink?.” Just… me. The me I buried under stage lights, tabloids, and managers who told me who I needed to be.
I grab my guitar next — the one that still smells like cedar and home — and I strum a chord. It doesn’t sound like anything I’ve played before. Softer. Lower. Hurt and hope tangled together.
A melody forms under my fingers, hesitant at first, then sure, sharp, honest. My foot taps the floor. My breathing steadies. Something inside me unclenches that’s been tight for years.
And then — like lightning — I know.
This isn’t Rebel June.
This isn’t Lucky Pink.
This is me.
Just me.
Music without the noise. Without the spotlight. Without the brand.
Music that feels like waking up after drowning.
I sit there in the quiet kitchen, morning light spilling across the floor, the lake glittering outside like nothing bad ever happened, and for the first time in… God, forever…
I feel alive again.
Not famous.
Not hunted.
Not broken.
Just alive.
I keep writing. Keep playing. Keep breathing. Every note feels like a piece of me I get to reclaim.
I don’t know where this goes. I don’t know what it becomes.
But I know what I want now.
My music.
My voice.
My way.
And that feels like the first real truth I’ve had in a long, long time.
My hand lands on something cold under a pile of notebook pages — my phone.
It vibrates against my palm the second I pick it up — like it knows it’s been abandoned.
No new calls this morning, but the screen still shows what it showed last night:
81 missed calls. 123 messages.
All Banks.
I talked to him yesterday, tried to calm him down and reassure him, but, of course, he’s still spiraling. Banks doesn’t relax. He paces, he plans, he catastrophizes like it’s his cardio.
I scroll through the messages anyway.
CALL ME.
LUCKY ANSWER YOUR PHONE.
I’M CALLING OFF SECURITY LIKE YOU ASKED, BUT YOU NEED TO CHECK IN. EVERY FEW HOURS. NONNEGOTIABLE.
I swear to God, Lu, if you disappear on me—
I exhale slowly, guilt clawing up my ribs.
He’s worried because he actually cares. Because he’s seen me break in real time — backstage, on tour buses, in hotel bathrooms with paper-thin walls.
I told him we were “handling it.”
Ethan made me say it, that low commanding voice of his cutting through my panic:
Tell Banks to stand down. I've got my man on Sheifer. Less noise. Less attention. Trust me.
And I did. God help me, I did.
But now Banks wants check-ins every few hours like I’m a runaway teenager.
I open the contact.
Banks: You alive? Check in, Lu. It’s been 18 hours.
Okay. I deserve that.
I type back:
Me: I'm alive. I'm safe. Promise. Didn’t want to wake you at 3am. I’ll call soon.
Before I can even lock the screen:
Banks: LUCKY VALE I SWEAR TO GOD—
A laugh slips out before I can stop it.
Because it’s him.
Because it’s familiar.
Because for a second, it makes me feel like the world isn’t tilting.
But the second I look out the window, the reality hits me again.
The lake looks calm. Beautiful. The sun cuts diamonds across the surface. Birds skim the water like it’s a scene from a life I don’t belong in.
And yet… I won’t step outside.
Not with every door wired by Ethan.
Not with motion sensors around the deck.
Not with cameras in the trees.
Not with a psycho stalker, maybe already in the damn state.
This isn’t a lake house anymore.
It’s a luxury cage.
I wrap both hands around my mug, grounding myself.
Yesterday, Ethan stayed up wiring the entire house like a man possessed — even after he admitted how he feels about me. Even after what we did. Even after we tore each other apart and held each other together in the same breath.
And that should terrify me.
But it doesn’t.
I still feel the echo of last night on my skin — his hands, his mouth, the way he looked at me like I was something worth breaking his rules for.
No one’s ever… chosen me like that.
Not for fame.
Not for money.