I won’t let anything hurt her.

My dad is still stalling on the divorce and paying her alimony. Makes me wonder if that’s why he’s so eager to throw money at me. Less for her to have when it’s all settled.

But Markus is right. I’m playing with fire, and it sort of makes me nervous. I know how my mom gets when she sees my dad. She isn’t over his betrayal, and I don’t blame her. But there has got to be a way to keep my mom happy and take my dad for all he’s worth. Hell, he owes it to me. To all of us. He ripped apart our family. So yeah, I’m going to take his money and his gifts—anything to make life a little easier since the last two years have kind of sucked. Or maybe I’m making excuses for being a spoiled brat who doesn’t want to work for what he needs.

Who knows, but before I can answer Markus or tell him I’ve got this, my phone dings with a Facebook notification.

Avery Rose accepted your friend request.

“Ha! She accepted me.”

“Well, she did sleep with you. It’s sorta protocol. And hey, means you were good in bed.”

Rolling my eyes at him, I click on her picture and then I’m full-out Facebook-stalking her. She doesn’t have much on her page. No pictures of anything but herself and her guitar. When I find that she has no tagged photos, I think that’s weird, but what she does have are thousands of videos.

“She has a YouTube channel.” I click on the link. Markus comes onto the floor with me, and then we are watching video after video of her. She’s amazing and so damn talented. I love music—I mean, who doesn’t? But I swear I could listen to her smoky voice all day long. It’s just mesmerizing, and I love watching someone who is passionate about something. It’s obvious that music is everything to her, and it’s a beautiful thing to watch.

Leaning my head back, I click on the newest video, which was uploaded thirty minutes ago.

“Hi! Avery Rose here, and thanks for watching!”

She looks hot and makes me feel like a lovestruck, idiot kid. Her hair is in a pile on her head, and she has little to no makeup on while in a cute little black dress that hangs off her shoulder. She looks like she did this morning when she woke up beside me. Her cheeks are rosy, her eyes bright, and I swear, I’ve never seen someone as beautiful as her.

“She is cute.”

He says it like it’s a bad thing and I smile. “Gorgeous is more like it.”

Markus shrugs then as the video of her goes on. “So I wrote this song this morning, like total word vomit, and I have to share it. So here it goes. It’s untitled right now. Nothing really fits it, you know? But if you listen to this and think you’ve got something, please comment below. So, yeah, enjoy and thanks!”

And then she is singing.

And I’m a goner.

A fucking goner.

I don’t care what anyone says, but this song is about me and there is no doubting it. The words describe our night together and even the way she traced her tongue along the curve of my hip. It’s our song. Our night together, and holy shit, she sings the hell out of it. It’s one thing to experience something so special with someone, but to know you inspired them to write a song this beautiful and this meaningful is something else.

Something I can’t even put into words.

“So, I got a name for the song.” I don’t look over at him since I can’t take my eyes off her, but I know he is smiling, his voice full of humor.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, my night with Jace Fucking Sinclair.”

Seems about right.

But I have something better.

When she finishes, she sends one last grin that I swear it hits me straight in the gut. Why does one little smile feel like scoring the winning goal? Jeez, she is something. Biting into my lip, I hit comment and log in to YouTube before typing out what I think the name should be.

“Oooh, good one,” Markus comments.

“Right?”

Laughing beside me, he says, “And I get it. She’s sorta cool.”

I chuckle at his understatement as I go to her Facebook page. “She’s more than cool. She’s fucking amazing, and I have to know everything about her.

“Okay, stop all that girlie shit. I said, I get it.”

I knock my shoulder into his, and he laughs as I grin, going to her wall and leave her a post:

Jace Sinclair > Avery Rose.

Heya, Avery Rose. I checked out that video you posted and I got a name for you.

Beneath Him.

Yeah, I know it’s amazing.

Almost as amazing as you.

Can’t wait to see you tonight.

Love, Jace.

Before I can post it, though, Markus says, “Dude, take the ‘love’ off. You seem like a stalker-ass loser.”

“Screw you!”

But I delete it.

Just in case.

I have turned into a Facebook-stalker.

Or creeper?

Or something along those lines.

Because I’m officially obsessed with Jace’s Facebook. I mean, there is so much to look at. He has billions of funny posts, and I’ve decided the dude is hilarious, but I kind of already knew that. I mean, he was throwing lame-ass lines at me left and right on the fly, but the stuff on his page is gold. Really. For a week, he did the adventures of his left sock. His left sock was found all over the place: on the ice, on a girl’s butt, in Markus’s hair, and I swear, it has been the highlight of my day.

Well, minus the time I spent with him this morning.

Along with his funny posts and goofy profile pictures, he has more pictures of his family on his Facebook than I think I’ve ever taken of my family—in, like, my whole life. That’s doesn’t mean much though in my case, but it’s obvious he loves his family. Like, really loves them. He’s a momma’s boy; there is an album just for pictures of him and his mom, which is downright adorable. There are a lot of pictures of who I am assuming is his sister. She looks just like him, but the pictures are usually of her with a small little girl and then some of her flipping the camera off. She seems like a hoot in my opinion.

And then, there are the pictures of him and his brothers.

Holy. Shit.

Mekena wasn’t playing when she said the Sinclair brothers were hot. Hot isn’t even the right word to describe the three pieces of man meat I’ve been staring at for more time than I’d like to admit. Smoldering. Blazing. Shit, they are all so beautiful. They are like Greek hockey gods or something. So hot. There is an album of a vacation they took to Florida that includes a lot of shirtless pictures of Jace. Easy to say, that’s my favorite album.