Young Love Dies Hard: The Young Brothers, Book 1 Nikki Lane (books for students to read .TXT) 📖

the song was over. I forced my eyes open. Back up high on the pole, I could see clear across the room, straight to the front entrance. Guys drinking whiskey and eating their steaks. The door opened, and when I saw who walked in my hands slipped a little against the cold metal. My heartbeat skipped in my chest. I was too high to risk losing my grip.

Jacob stood by the front door. He looked around a little until his gaze fell on me. I’d never wanted teleportation to have existed so badly. What I would have done to be able to blink my eyes and disappear out of the room. I tried it, just for the hell of it. But when I opened them again, I found myself in the very same spot.

I grasped the pole with my legs, turned upside down, and slid back to the stage, feeling my dignity slipping away from me. He must have made his way through the room because for the last thirty seconds of the song, he sat by the side of the stage, wedged between two other guys throwing money my way, and just watched me—an unreadable expression on his face.

I was paralyzed on stage, caught in Jacob’s stare. The music blared on and the tangerine lights still illuminated the space. It was the longest thirty seconds of my life. And the most shameful. My heart battered against my chest. I would die of a heart attack right there on that money-littered stage. Tears pricked my eyes. Confused looks spread across the crowd. Some guys looked back at the DJ, like he’d done something wrong. Jacob refused to look away.

Breathe. I couldn’t breathe. The tears couldn’t be stopped. They streamed down my face, and I bolted off the stage.

“Maeve,” Sarah said, following me to the dressing room. “I saw him come in.”

I hunched myself over the makeup table and covered my mouth with the back of my hand, feeling like I was going to be sick. Sobs wracked my body. I clutched the table to keep from collapsing to the floor.

Sarah grabbed both of my hands and held me up. “Go out there and say something to him.”

The door swung open. “Get your asses out there,” Sal shouted.

“We’ll be right there,” Sarah shouted back.

I swiped under each cheek with the back of my hand, the mascara leaving black streaks on my skin. “I’m okay.” I took a deep breath and straightened up. “I’m okay.” Maybe if I said it enough times out loud I’d start to believe it.

“What are you going to do?” Sarah asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. The pain still twisted my insides, and the tears wouldn’t stop. “But it can’t go any worse than this.”

When I went back out on the floor, I couldn’t find Jacob. I speed-walked from every corner of the room, trying to find him.

Sarah and I practically collided in the middle of the crowded room.

“I just saw him go outside,” she said, holding on to my hands. A sympathetic look settled in her eyes.

I couldn’t break my hands away from hers; my stilettos felt glued to the floor.

“Maeve, what are you doing?” Sarah said.

“I-I don’t know.”

“You have to go after him.” She dropped my hands. “Now!”

“I can’t face him like this.” I looked down at my outfit.

“You have to catch him before he leaves,” she said. She grabbed my shoulders. “You can do this.”

I nodded and she nudged me toward the door. This was it, face him or pretend like this never happened. Either way, it probably wouldn’t end well.

As I got closer to the door, the panic became a little stronger. A slow crawl turned into a quick walk. My body barely registered the cold night air.

When I didn’t see anyone in the parking lot, I started to jog, as best I could in the shoes I was wearing. I rounded the corner of the building, feeling like my world was minutes from crashing down.

The yellow glow of a streetlight spilled down over a few cars. A silhouette walked near the edges of the light. Normally, I wouldn’t ever dare approach someone in the parking lot at night and alone. But all my senses were overtaken, and the risk didn’t faze me at all.

I trotted a little closer and squinted my eyes.

“Jacob!”

The silhouette stopped and turned, allowing me to close the gap between us.

The relief of seeing his face was short-lived. The hood of his sweater was up on his head, and his hands were shoved into the pockets of his jeans. Most of his body was cast in a shadow, but his eyes were so bright they almost glowed behind the thick, black frame of his glasses. His smoldering gaze made me cower back just a little.

“Where are you going?” I said, out of breath.

“Leaving.”

“Don’t you want to talk about this?”

“What’s there to talk about?”

“How about what you’re doing here?”

He looked down at the ground. “I followed you.”

“You followed me?” I scoffed. “Jacob…I don’t know what—”

“It’s not the first time.”

“What isn’t?”

He scratched the scruff around his jaw. “That I followed you.”

I felt the ground roll underneath my feet. Was it an earthquake? No—just everything crumbling around me.

“You...you’ve followed me here before?”

“Yeah,” he said. He couldn’t look at me. His gaze preferred the puddle in a pothole. I couldn’t blame him. I felt just as dirty as that murky water. “Once before, right after our fight at the restaurant. I followed you to work a few days after that and sat in the parking lot.” He paused for a few seconds. “I couldn’t bring myself to go inside.”

My mouth hung open. “I can’t believe this.”

“Do you think I’m stupid?” he sneered. “That I didn’t know something was up?”

“Of course not,” I said. “Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

“I wanted to give you the chance to tell me.”

“I wanted to tell you. I was going to but—”

“You lied to me.” His gaze met mine, and I could almost hear his heart breaking. It took