Page 101 of Dirty Like Zane
“Thankyou.”
“Yeah,” Sophie agreed. “Zane is so sweet. I feel so bad forhim.”
That made me pause and smile. I didn’t often hear a woman describe Zane Traynor assweet. But Sophie was pretty sweetherself.
“I didn’t get much sleep the last couple nights, so I’m just gonna rest for a bit,” I informed them. “We’ll talk later,” I told Talia, before disappearing into mybunk.
I put on some music in my earbuds and lay down. I’d barely been up for two hours, but the day feltlong.
Maybe because I kinda felt like I’d been run over by a very large truck the other night, and I still hadn’trecovered.
I’d been so fucking worried aboutZane.
I’d never been more relieved than when he walked into Brody’s hotel room… just to see him in one piece. I was mad, too, but so relieved to find out he’d been with Seth in the desert. That he didn’t drink or do something elsestupid.
Like fall into the arms of some randomwoman.
It kinda stunned me, actually, because when he’d walked out of my hotel room after I told himI can’t do this with youandLove isn’t enough, the look on his face… It was kinda like he was in shock. Like he definitely didn’t want to hear what he’d just heard. Like he needed to find somewhere to sit down—somewhere far away from me—and lean on something for awhile.
Like maybe a case ofbooze.
If I’d ever truly and deeply feared that Zane might pick up a bottle, that moment wasit.
I’d asked him to sit back down, because honest to God I thought he might pass out or something. He was in a weird kind of daze… kinda like what happened before he went onstage sometimes. Like this private, mini panic attack, where he disappeared inside himself and wentblank.
It scared the shit out ofme.
When he didn’t stop, when he left the room despite my protests, I decided it would be better to let him go, give himspace.
But then Jude called me looking for him. He told me Brody was flying out to talk to me and Zane, and I quickly discovered that no one could find him… and Ipanicked.
For the next few hours, I ran through every horrendous possibility in myhead.
He was fucking someoneelse.
He wasdrinking.
He’d beenarrested.
He wasinjured.
Each scenario just got worse and worse, until I actually feared, when he didn’t answer his phone the umpteenth time I called, that he might bedead.
That all our bullshit had pushed him to drink, and now he wasgone.
Forever.
When he came back, and I hugged him in Brody’s hotel room and I felt his warmth, smelled his familiar smell and felt his heart beating against my chest, so strong… I didn’t want to let go. I never wanted to let him goagain.
But I knew—that wasn’t up to meanymore.
I wanted adrink.
Hearing Zane say those words… it crushedme.
Because of me, because I’d hurt him, he could’ve gone on a bender that ended in some horrendous tragedy… A tragedy that might’ve been avoided if I’d stopped fighting him. If I’d just let myself lovehim.
But he didn’t drink. Instead he came back and told us whathappened.
