Fuck.
This is not how this was supposed to go.
I was just pushing her.Testing her, because something about that moment at Nocté told me I should.Hell, it was probably the whisky.
But I wasn’t supposed to be here, alone in my room, replaying it over and over like some lovesick idiot.
I mean, I’m Joel fucking Price.Rock god.Legend.
At least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself as I build by career.
But Anna tears that all away, stripping me back to that stupid kid who just loved the music.
I let out a slow breath, willing my pulse to settle.But the second I do, my mind slides into dangerous territory.
Because a flicker of recognition tickles at the back of my mind.
None of this is new.
This feeling—the way my body reacts to her, the way my chest tightens when I remember the look on her face—it’s not the first time.
I just never let myself sink into it before.
And now, I’m back there.
I had just turned seventeen.
It was a random Saturday.Nothing important.No big moment.
I had crashed at Ethan’s the night before, as I had a thousand times before that.
I’d just gotten out of the shower, towel-drying and barely paying attention to anything except trying to shake the water out of my ears.
Anna was sprawled out on the Ethan’s bed—Ethan, of course, nowhere in sight—watching something on Ethan’s laptop.
She was almost fourteen—still had her hair in those half-braids she always used to wear back then.
I was half-distracted thinking about who the fuck knows what.I was hardly aware of her as I walked by to grab my phone.But when I leaned down, my arm brushing against hers, and something shifted.
The shift was so small, so barely there, that if I hadn’t been standing right next to her, I might’ve missed it.
But Ididnotice.
The air between us changed.
She didn’t move away.Didn’t roll her eyes or huff dramatically like she normally did whenever Ethan or I got too close.
She just… stopped.
Completely still.
Like she was waiting for something.
And that’s when I became acutely aware of myself.Of the way water still clung to my skin, trailing slowly from my hair down my chest.Of the way the towel hung low on my hips, the only thing between me and a whole lot of awkward if my grip slipped.
For the first time, standing there, half-naked in Ethan’s room, I suddenly felt hyperconscious of Anna’s presence.
It wasn’t like before, when she was just Ethan’s annoying little sister, tagging along because she had no one else to hang out with.