Sinful Magic (Book 3 of the Ink series)

Chapter 22

"This is your mom right?" Slade asked looking through a photo album that I didn't know was lying around our house. He made himself at home on our couch and sifted through parts of my life I wanted to forget about.

I sat down next to him. "My mother and my little brother." I smiled at the thought of my little brother, but looking at my mom I couldn't produce an ounce of happiness towards her.

Slade was watching me. "What?"

He shook his head and flipped the page. "You're different when you talk about your family. I can see it in your eyes."

I focused on the next photo. "That was Christmas; my parents loved family photos once upon a time."

Slade touched my smiling face. "You were happy. And young."

I rolled my eyes. "So much for that right?" I tried to keep it together.

"You look like her," he said.

I swallowed. "That's what I've always heard. Who do you look like?"

Slade stopped what he was doing. "Definitely my dad."

"What was his name?"

"Charles Andrews," he said lost in thought. "I still remember the first time he heard me sing."

Slade closed the book.

"I bet he was amazed," I said with a smile, I was happy to reminisce with him as long as we weren't talking about me.

"He was worried," Slade said. "Music was his life; he knew how much of an asshole I was already. He thought music would ruin me."

I laughed. Slade raised an eyebrow at me. "Are you laughing at me? I'm being serious and you think it's funny?"

I laughed more once he smirked. "I like this side of you."

He moved in ready to steal a kiss. "I like every side of you."

I wrapped my hands around his neck and accepted his soft kiss. He pulled away.

"What's the matter?" I asked him.

"I wanted to finish my story." He leaned back on the couch and pulled me close. "When I first started singing I became just that, an asshole. I was hell on wheels."

I rested my head against his chest. "How so?"

Slade ran a hand through his hair. "I got kicked out of Ashwilder; just about every girl at that school was pissed off at me for one reason or another. And I partied with people three times my age."

I believed it. "You got around is that what you're saying?" I imagined the plethora of girls in and out of his life. It was so easy for him to have anyone he wanted.

"No, what I'm saying is even at my best nobody else has ever made me feel the way you do when I'm at my worst." He touched my face, his fingers skimmed my lips.

"Slade," I said lost for words.

"Before you came to Cherry my life was singing, pretending to enjoy partying and sleeping. That night you came into the park was the first time I saw something real." He kissed my forehead and let me wrap my arms around him.

"I don't know what you mean by real," I said. "I was just trying to escape the fact I was forced to move to a new place. I was trying to get as far away from reality as I could."

"You weren't like everyone else trying to fit in. You were wearing pink for crying out loud. I was intrigued, so I saved you," he said.

"Thanks for not letting me get trampled to death," I told him, kissing him on the cheek. "Things would have been way different if that would have happened."