I wanted to believe him, I really did. Maybe I was too damaged from my own parents or maybe it would be different if Jared and I could be together openly, but it was just so hard for me to trust him. He said he’d changed, but how could I know for sure?

He must have seen the hesitation on my face because he sighed. “In freshman year, I caught my girlfriend in bed with our first bassist. Between that and the thing with my parents, I just lost it. I did whatever I could to forget, to feel nothing, to escape myself. I slept around, I drank too much, I got in fights. It was so much easier to be the villain, and after a while, everyone just expected me to be that guy. Girls started coming to our gigs or hiring us for parties because they thought I’d sleep with them, and the band grew more popular as long as I kept up that image. But after Becca, I knew I needed to get my shit together.”

He’d never mentioned any of this before, and it made me ache for him. Suddenly I understood his obsession with villains and the meaning of the band’s name and the lyrics in “Behind the Mask.” He was wrong; the band wasn’t popular because of his image, but because of how much passion he put into everything he did.

I wrapped myself around him, dropping the covers, my breasts pressing against his bare chest. “Jared…”

He touched my lips to silence me. “That night at the party, when I saw you playing my guitar, there was something so raw and honest about the way you sang my lyrics, like you really felt them. Not like the girls who came up to me after a show and said they loved my music but didn’t know what any of it meant. You got it.” He circled his arms around my back, holding me tight against him. “From that moment, you were the only one I wanted.”

His words ignited something deep inside me. I did understand his lyrics. I knew all too well what it was like to keep a part of yourself hidden for years, pretending to be what everyone else wanted while you died a little inside. Jared had freed me when he’d invited me to join his band.

I lightly traced his forehead, his dark eyebrows, his jaw with its permanent five o’clock shadow. He was so beautiful, and I couldn’t believe he’d had feelings for me all this time.

“Jared, I’ve been crazy about you since I saw you perform at the Battle of the Bands. Or even before that, from the first time I heard you sing, when Kyle gave me your album. That’s why I know how to play all your songs.”

His eyebrows jumped up. “Really?”

“Oh, god, does that make me sound obsessed?”