Part 1
“I’m not screwing you against a tree in the woods, Kee.” Dex Hardy’s voice was restrained as he pulled back to glare at me. His piercing green gaze didn’t waver even when I frowned at him.
“Live a little, Dex.” I ran a hand through my tousled waves and pouted in the moonlight. The cool breeze whipped between us, and he tightened his jacket over my long-sleeved dress.
“Live a little? You dragged me to this underage party in a dress that’s two sizes too small for you—”
I looked down at the stretchy violet fabric that hugged every one of my curves. “You don’t like it?”
“You know I like it. Too much. It’s the only reason I’m here tonight.” He grunted. “I don’t need twenty guys also liking it and taking advantage of you when I’m not around.”
I leaned against the trunk of the tree to stare up at him. “Then take advantage of me instead.”
“Kee, I’m not indulging in your recklessness tonight. It’s not happening here.” His eyes were determined now, hardened dark emeralds shining brightly in his decision. Dex never wavered once he made up his mind.
“It’s better out here than somewhere someone might catch us.”
He sighed, and I saw how his muscles relaxed a bit under his dark T-shirt. “I don’t really give a fuck if someone sees me with my girlfriend.”
The way he emphasized the label made the butterflies in my stomach flutter and then immediately scatter from the whoosh of fear I felt. “Don’t call me that when you know we can’t be together.”
He shook his head, his dark hair long enough that it fell over his forehead before he combed it back. “Then we shouldn’t be out here in the woods.”
I crossed my arms. “You agreed to keep us a secret while I figure things out with the record label, Dex.”
“It’s been a whole damn year, Kee. A year of me loving you, and a year of you wanting me to keep it a secret. For what?” The question flew from his mouth just as thunder rumbled in the distance. The clouds were rolling in for the night just as clouds were rolling in for our relationship too.
“Trinity Enterprises wants me to look like that all-American girl, okay?” Even as I said it, I hated the reason.
“Is Ethan the all-American guy?” He lifted a brow as he threw Ethan’s name in my face.
“He’s…” I didn’t know what to say, honestly. Trinity Enterprises definitely wanted us to date. They had us perform together every chance they got. We attended award shows together, galas, magazine cover shoots, everything. “We don’t want each other. It’s just for the press.”
His jaw ticked. “Imagine seeing another woman on my arm.”
“I already have. Gabriella was all over you tonight.” My stomach twisted in knots, the butterflies in it now curdling with the acid of jealousy flowing through my veins.
“Kee.” He turned away from me and stormed off. Then he spun back and strode up to me to point his finger in my face. “You set us up. You wanted me to date her.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying so hard to find the strength to keep this charade up. “You’re right. And you should be with her. She’s great.” She had long auburn hair, a nice smile, and she was a good friend to all of us. She wasn’t messy like me, didn’t come with a million pieces of baggage that Dex shouldn’t have to deal with.
“I don’t want anybody but you.” His dark eyebrows dipped low as he tipped my chin up and rubbed it with his thumb, back and forth, back and forth.
“You can have me here,” I whispered. “Just not out there.”
“I want you every-fucking-where.”
“You have me. Here. In private. It’s just for now. We’ll have each other forever soon enough.”
He just shook his head at me and tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “In private. How is that supposed to be good enough? Especially when in public you’ll have another man all over you?”
I took a shaky breath. “It’s only for a while.”
“Remind me. How long is your contract with Trinity, Kee?” He crossed his arms.
“Three more years.” I sighed.
“Yeah.” His square jaw worked up and down. “Exactly.”
“Look, just… I’m not stopping you from being with others.” I tried to be fair, even though the words felt stilted as I said them.
His jaw worked again, over and over. He stared at me like he wanted me to understand this wasn’t a good idea, like he was trying to see if I knew it wasn’t. When I didn’t show weakness, he said, “Fine. You know what? Fine. Let’s go.”
We both stomped through the woods, branches under our boots cracking and breaking like I thought my heart might. We traveled back up the hill to our friend’s home. Her parents were out of town, but the white ranch house was lit up with life. We saw Gabriella and Dimitri, Dex’s younger brother and my best friend standing there.
Gabriella squealed as we approached them; she’d obviously had more than one drink in the time I was gone as she screeched, “Where were you?”
She’d been a good, longtime friend but one I kept at arm’s length. No one had learned much about me in high school except Dimitri. I’d been a loner, throwing my songs on social media and running around the neighborhood with Dimitri and Dex as a freshman. My junior year, though, Trinity Enterprises had caught a video of me and signed me as an artist.
Suddenly, everyone at school wanted to be my friend, but Dimitri and Dex were the only ones I trusted. They were the only ones who’d been there before everyone else.
“Don’t make it so damn obvious next time. Gabriella’s been looking for you both for the past twenty minutes,” Dimitri whispered, “I’m not going to cover your asses just because you’re my best friend, Kee.” Yet, his glare was softer than Dex’s as he chastised me—nicer, sweeter. Dimitri would always be there for me even if the dynamic had shifted when I’d finally admitted to him that I had a crush on Dex.
Dex’s eyes locked on mine as Gabriella gave me a hug.
“Oh, I was just taking a call from my agent,” I answered fast.
She leaned into Dex. “Ugh. Isn’t Keelani amazing? I’m waiting for the day that I get a call from a freaking record label.”
I shook my head. “It’s not all rainbows and butterflies, Gabriella.” I might have been talking to her, but I held Dex’s gaze.
“Right.” She shrugged, and when the thunder rumbled again, she waved us all inside. We weaved through the crowded living room and found some space in the kitchen, where Gabriella continued on. “It must be nice, though, Keelani. You don’t have to hang out with us all the time. Instead, you’re hanging with celebrities like Ethan Phillipe.”
That comment had Dex’s neck flexing and the words in my throat catching. A silence that crackled with tension filled the space. Thankfully, Dimitri laughed right as Dex’s friend, Kyle, meandered up to us. His lopsided smile was full of delight as he lightly slapped Dex on the back. “Slumming it at home when you’re in college now, bro?”
“Just here to see my brother and apparently you.” Dex shrugged and then leaned against the island countertop even though his eyes were on me.
“And me!” Gabriella snuggled close to him, their hips side by side, her head against his chest, and her hand smoothing the T-shirt that I knew was thin enough for her to feel his six pack.
Dimitri swung an arm around me and then whispered, “You need a drink.”
“I need four,” I grumbled and disappeared with Dimitri into the basement where I knew there was a whole bar.
Dex didn’t follow me. I knew he wouldn’t. I walked away from the love of my life as my friend hung on his arm like she belonged there.
That night, we all drank too much. I remember offering Dex drinks, but he continued to say no, continued to say that we should leave.
Instead, I turned back to the oak bar counter and hopped onto it. “Who’s ready for a dance party?”
“You’re being reckless again,” Dex growled as he stared up at me.
“I’m letting loose.” I swayed my hips and smirked down at him. “You should try it.”
“We need to leave,” he said, but I ignored him. “You’ve had too much to drink, Keelani.”
“I hate when you call me that,” I whispered to him because he knew it was my formal stage name and I didn’t want to be that here. I didn’t really want to be her anywhere. The label was suffocating, the responsibility was draining, and the rules were binding. The last thing I wanted was a lecture from him now.
But I needed one. I was too stirred up in my emotions and too immature to think of the repercussions.
I poured alcohol down everyone’s throats, was the life of the party, and tried to enjoy myself so much so that I wouldn’t have to consider the realities of my situation. When Dex had finally had enough, Kyle offered to drive us all home.
Laid-back Kyle who’d drank just about as much as me. Kyle who was so sweet and genuine. He’d wanted to help.
Dex said no. Even Dimitri looked wary, but Gabriella and I were too far gone to listen to reason. We ran through the freezing rain and folded into his car without looking back at Dimitri and Dex, laughing like we were getting away with not obeying a parent.
We just wanted to have fun, but it wasn’t as fun when Dex followed me into that car, unwilling to let me go on my own and gave me a look about as stormy as the weather.
“It’ll be fine,” I whispered to him because Gabriella was between us, giggling still.
Yet, the night was dark, the roads slippery, the rain heavy on the windshield.
How safe did you feel on a bridge in a vehicle going seventy on a highway in icy rain? Safe enough to text? To tell your friends in the back seat you’re fine, you’ve got it under control?
“Kyle. You’ve got to slow down,” Dex yelled right as Dimitri swore from the front seat.
But it was too late.
Kyle’s confidence that night cost him his life. When he looked up from his text, he was veering into oncoming traffic. He overcorrected, yanking the steering wheel straight towards the railing.
The vehicle crunched all around our bodies in a way I never expected.
I vaguely remember the sound of the collision into the siderail. It was deafening, so booming it rattled our bones as the front of the car scraped, metal on metal, against the side of the highway. It all happened so fast.
And so slowly.
The car almost seemed to halt. The air was pushed out of my lungs at the slicing pain of the seat belt. But the sound I’d never forget was that of Gabriella’s screams. They pierced through the air, filled with fear. She hadn’t been wearing her seat belt, and the momentum carried her forward as we were jerked back.
The car flipped off the edge of the highway. Flipped over and over. The impact and her screams were loud, but the silence as the car fell and tipped upside down was louder.
Down, down, and down.
Into the dark depths of the water.
When we hit the lake, our fragile bodies jerked all around in the dark, and the lights of the car immediately went out.
It was probably only a second of us floating there, suspended on top of water before it began to sink, but it felt like forever before I heard Dex’s voice, pointed, direct, and determined—“Do not panic, Kee. You hear me? Don’t fucking panic.”—but it held fear.
We were too young. None of us knew what to do in a life-and-death situation.
“I can’t… I can’t swim well.” I wiggled as the blood rushed to my head. We were all hanging upside down by our seat belts as water crept toward our heads fast. I reached for the button but found it harder to press with the pressure of my body against it. “I can’t get—”
He reached around me and undid my buckle as he yelled to his brother, “Unbuckle and get the hell out.”
I hit the roof of the car that was now sinking and the water’s freezing temperature immediately made me gasp. Dex was there to catch my gaze.
“I got you, Kee. I got you, okay?”
I shook my head, trying to glance around and see where everyone was. I saw Dimitri struggling with a door, but Kyle wasn’t moving. Dark liquid was dripping from his head. Was it water or blood? And then I saw the hole in the windshield.
So big that a body could have fit through it.
Shattered.
Water rushed in, and my eyes widened.
“Kee.” Dex’s hands went to my face. “Focus. You’re going to follow me, okay? I. Got. You.”
“No. What?” I whispered before I screamed, “Don’t get me. Get her! Get Gabriella! Where is she?” I tried to yank my face away in a panic, but he was pulling me forward. “Where is she?” I think shock was taking over as I started to shake, my clothes soaking in the inky black liquid that was rising faster and faster. The car was sinking, which meant we were about to be under water, under a sheet of ice in the dark.
No one heard about people surviving car crashes in freezing water. They heard about the tragic results, and we were about to be one.
“Fuck,” he swore over and over as he pushed at the door. It didn’t budge. “Get ready to swim. We’re going through the windshield—”
And then his face disappeared as we went under. I don’t remember taking a breath or grabbing back on to his hand. I don’t remember how he and Dimitri somehow got the door open or if we went through the hole in the windshield once we were fully submerged by them pulling me through it.
I don’t remember swimming out. I don’t know if I even did. He probably dragged me the whole way. I saw how his eyes held so much determination, so much fear in that moment that he would have been propelled to do almost anything.
I put my life in their hands because a body shifts into survival mode and trusts who it must. Deep in my bones, I knew I could trust Dex.
He found the hole in the ice the car had broken through, and they maneuvered me up onto it. We were lucky it didn’t break under our weight. Others weren’t as lucky.
So fast a life could be taken.
So fast a person could become a hero, a victim, a survivor, or a villain.
Dimitri pulled me close as I shook from either the freezing temperature or the adrenaline coursing through my veins but he grabbed Dex with his other hand. “You’re not going back in.”
“I’ve got to find them.” Dex’s eyes were wild. “I’ve got to.”
He dove back through that hole in the ice as I heard blood curdling screams all around us.
They were mine. Me, screaming for him to come back, screaming and crying and fighting Dimitri as he pulled me to safety and lifted me up to carry me away from the lake.
Lightning struck and thunder rumbled over the sound of sirens approaching. When the cops and ambulance got there, they had to sedate me.
I remember the icy rain on my face, the lightning in the sky, and the rumble of that thunder before I blacked out.
“Keelani.” My dad’s calloused hand was in mine as he took me home from the hospital the next day. I heard the disappointment in his voice. “I’m glad you’re okay but the local news is starting to trend.”
Right. He wasn’t glad. No one sounded that dejected when they were happy. “Last night was—”
“A complete tragedy. You shouldn’t have been…” He took a deep breath and pulled his hand out of mine to turn into the driveway. He didn’t move to get out once he shut off the ignition, and instead, his hands tightened on the steering wheel. He put his forehead against it before he looked up at me with his tired brown eyes. “You’re so lucky to be alive, Kee.”
I glanced away when I saw the tears in his eyes. My father didn’t cry much. He was too big of a man, too stoic in the collared shirts and flannel tees that he wore with his khakis every day. “I know I’m lucky.”
“The town’s reporting on you and Dex, though. I won’t ever be able to thank him enough for saving you, but the media is painting a picture of the two of you as a couple now. He’s the hero who saved you, then went back for his brother and his friends. Your manager… Mitchell at Trinity Enterprises thinks the narrative will spread to national outlets and hinder your brand if they don’t intervene.”
“Dad,” I whispered, my eyes cutting to his fast. “You can’t…”
“You all had a high blood alcohol levels. Kyle lost his life, and Gabriella is in a coma. If she comes out of it, she won’t be able to walk for months, Kee. She was dating Dex, but he saved you?” He asked the question like he already knew the answer. My heart beat rapidly as my mind scrambled for a response. He tsked. “You’re a public figure. You’re contractually obligated to be with…”
It wasn’t in writing, it was only a verbal instruction, but we all knew the truth. Trinity Enterprises wouldn’t allow me to be with anyone other than Ethan.
Gabriella was supposed to be the one Dex saved. Not me. And because he did that, he’d outed us to the world. They painted him as a hero at first, as the boy who dragged the girl he loved out of that water to save her. They said he loved me, that he risked his life for mine.
“Trinity is working on changing the narrative,” my dad concluded.
“Dad, what does that mean?”
“It doesn’t matter, Kee!” He smacked the steering wheel in frustration and then put his forehead against it. “They get to do whatever damage control they want. And you need to agree because otherwise you’re in breach of a very big contract that we can’t pay back.”
I stayed silent. The contract and record label were things I didn’t want to work out, but I knew what the money meant for the family.
“I spoke with Mitchell.” Of course he’d spoken with my manager. “They’re willing to give us a bit of a bonus if you move to Nashville—”
“Nashville?” I screeched. “Dad, I can’t leave you and Mom. What are you talking about?”
“I’ll take the bonus and work on some things. Get you back here as soon as I get a bit more money.” He mulled over his options, but I knew what it would come down to. My dad always tried to save everything by going to visit the casino or by placing a bet with a bookie that never worked out.
“What if I just do more shows?” I asked even though I didn’t want to do that.
He shook his head and looked out the window at our small house. “We need this for your mom, Kee. The stroke she had… She can’t work anymore, and with the bonus, I can get her some medical care.”
“Dad,” I whispered, “please don’t make me go.”
“We’ve agreed that it would be best for you and your career. You’re almost eighteen. It’ll be great. Your image will be safer there. We’ll have you paired up with the best in the industry. You’ll give us some breathing room too for Mom to heal.”
“Breathing room?”
“Keelani.” He turned to me now, his eyes hardened to make the point. “You know the mental toll of all we’ve been through? And then you were at a party drinking with men you shouldn’t have been with.” His voice was cajoling but his words struck at my heart.
“Men? They’re my friends. They’re our neighbors, Dad. Dex and Dimitri—”
“They don’t know about our financial struggles or how much your job means to our family, do they?” He lifted a brow. “They may be friends, but we’re family. We stick together. This bonus will help. I can make it work.”
His tone sounded so hopeful with that statement. Even though I knew time and time again that we lost money from his gambling, I still wished he’d win big one day, if only for the happiness it would bring for a moment. The times he’d come home with a few winnings this past year, he’d smiled so big. Yet, the rest of the year hadn’t been so good.
“I’ll get you back here in a few months if Nashville doesn’t work out,” he promised as if he could. My father had lost his office job years ago but had somehow stretched our money out since my mother’s stroke. I knew he’d made some shady deals by just the looks of some of the men who now came around our house, but I didn’t question it. We were family, just like Dad said.
“Dad, I was going to go to college here,” I tried. “I really want to be close. Other kids’ parents are—”
“If this is the worst thing I do to you as a parent, you can thank me, Keelani,” my father cut me off, his tone hardening. “You can take online courses.”
“That’s not the point.”
“The point is your plane leaves next week. Don’t give a statement to anyone. Your new contract has an indemnity clause, which means you can’t refute anything released from Trinity about this car wreck.”
Had I fucked up that much that he sounded so disheartened, so disappointed? I hated that. “Dad, I just want this all to work out.”
“I know, Kee. I know. It will. Your mom will get better.” He said it with conviction, and I heard the love he had in his voice. “We just have to do this for her. You understand?”
I nodded because he was my dad, and I’d have done just about anything to take away the pain I was causing.
“And, Kee, if you’re sneaking around with that Dex who saved you, end it. End it now.”
