My Heart's Beat (Hard Love & Dark Rock #2) by Ashley Grace Read Free Book Online Page A

armored myself with apathy, escaping pain by losing myself in numbness.
    But tonight, tonight I'd felt a glimmer of hope.  And my heart had moved toward it.  And now all the despair and self-loathing that had been lying in wait beyond my armor—like a beast hiding just beyond the campfire's light, waiting for the coals to turn to ash—it had all come rushing in to swallow me whole.
    I bent forward, covering my face with my hands, trying to block out the hallway light.  I didn't want to see anything.  I wanted blackness, nothingness.  I wanted to lose myself in it.
    No.  I couldn't allow myself to sink back into despair, not yet.
    It was three in the morning, and Anne was out on the street.  Maybe she'd hailed a cab, maybe she was back in her apartment already.  But what if she hadn't?  What if she'd run out to the darkness without checking to see if she had enough money for cab fare?
    San Francisco isn't a particularly dangerous city, but even harmless cities have a sinister contingent, and usually that contingent is most present in the streets at night.
    If Anne was out there in trouble, if another girl came to harm because of me, while I slept—I'd never forgive myself.
    I swung by my room to make sure she hadn't gone there after all, which she hadn't.  And then I caught the elevator down to the lobby level, and walked out into the cold night air.
    Even if Anne had already gotten home, even if my search was unwarranted, I still preferred the night-time streets right then.
    The darkness called to me.  It matched my mood.
     

Chapter 7
    Anne
     
    There's something about San Francisco that makes a person feel colder than they ought to feel.  I don't know if it's from the fog thickening the air, or from the wind always blowing off of the ocean, but a normal night anywhere else in the area feels ten degrees colder in the City.
    And that night was even worse than normal.  It wasn't just the damp fog across face that chilled me, or the wind turning my tears to icy streaks.  It wasn't even the ridiculous little dress Becca had made me wear, which left more of my skin uncovered than actually clothed.  It was more than that.  I felt chilled deep down in my soul.
    Trace's last girlfriend had died in his bed beside him.  And Sara said he looked at me just like he'd looked at her.
    Talk about serious relationship baggage.
    I'd been listening to the Belletrists since I was twelve.  I used to put my headphones on and go to sleep with Trace LeBeau's voice in my ears.  I'd felt like I was in love with him before I ever even met him.  And now I'd actually met him—the real him, with all of his pains and sorrows—and if anything, I'd felt even more drawn to him, like a moth being pulled toward a flame.
    But the flame wasn't just a glittering light.  There was heat there, too, and pain.  I'd felt it radiating out from Trace.  And suddenly I was worried that the pain and the heat would burn me to a crisp.
    It's one thing to have a crush on a man you've never met, to listen to his songs of longing and heartbreak, to memorize the beautiful lyrics he's written about his intimate thoughts and feelings, even to be drawn to those songs because of how they resonate with your own life.  But it's another thing entirely to actually get close to the man himself, close enough to feel his pain, and then to learn that something about you connects to the pain he's felt.
    For the hundredth time that night, I felt like I was in way over my head.  And, to put it plainly, it scared the shit out of me.
    I hardly even noticed the lobby.  It was just a bright golden blur in my tear-filled eyes, all mirrors and marble and gold-leaf molding.  I wouldn't have recognized it even if I hadn't been crying—I'd certainly never been there before.  It wasn't until I'd shoved my way through the revolving door, and ran past the valet station and down the curving drive to the street, that I started to get a sense of where I was.
    I was up high,