Page 27 of Always Been His

“What would you do to a snitch?” I laugh despite myself, stuffing my hands into the front pocket of my jeans.

“I make them sing ‘Ave Maria’ a cappella in front of the spring recital crowd,” she says serenely. “The fear of God lives in those girls.”

“Miss Flack.”

“I am asking you to sit with some young girls who love you.” She tilts my chin up with one finger, the way she used to when I was thirteen and trying not to cry through a difficult vocal test. “That is it. I’m not asking you to perform. I’m not asking you to sing. I am asking you to sit.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” I whisper, my throat tight.

“That is all I want.”

Her eyes scan my face again. The same thing they did when I came to lessons sixteen years ago after my parents died, or when she spotted a tear track I hadn’t quite wiped off, or after Radien broke up with me on the dance floor at prom. It’s a slow, careful sweep that misses nothing, and that’s somehow worse than if she had just asked me outright what was wrong.

“You okay, Sienna?” she asks, her voice quieter now.

“Yeah,” I lie, automatic and unconvincing.

“Mm-hmm.” Her hand doesn’t move from my chin. “Because the internet has been losing its mind about you for almost five weeks now. Every time I open my phone, I see another grown woman crying on TikTok asking if you’re okay.”

“I needed some time,” I mumble, my eyes on the toe of my sneaker. “And PR teams are dramatic. I can’t just need a break. I need to have a complete breakdown, so no one questions anything.”

“Hmm,” she hums again, lower this time, her eyebrow going up the way it used to go up when I tried to tell her I’d practiced an étude I clearly hadn’t touched in a week.

She doesn’t believe me. But she isn’t going to push it standing on a sidewalk on Cottage Street with tourists drifting past us toward the harbor. But she is also Miss Flack, which means she has flagged the lie, filed it, and will come back to it the second she has me in a room alone, and we both know it.

She lowers her hand from my chin and squeezes my shoulder instead.

“Tell your people you are okay sooner rather than later,” she says softly. “Not for them. For you. Carrying around all those strangers’ worry is heavier than you think it is, and you have enough to carry.”

The guilt presses on the center of my stomach. I haven’t touched a phone since I got here, and as much as I know my fans love me, I haven’t really thought about what my absence was doing to them. They’ve had five weeks of fans crying on the internet. Five weeks of Henny probably texting Iris every other day asking if anyone has heard from me, and I’ve been holed up in a guest room across the hall from Grayson Douglas feeling sorry for myself instead of sending a single sentence to the millions of people who love me enough to be scared. Again, I am a terrible role model. Echo is nowhere in me.

“I will,” I promise, my voice scraping. “Soon. I will say something soon.”

“Good,” she murmurs.

And then her whole face splits open into a grin, and she takes my hand in hers, threading our fingers together, her tray of coffee in the other hand. She tugs me toward the door.

“Now. Mason is in the back doing inventory and he is going to lose his mind when he sees you.”

“Miss Flack, wait⁠—”

“Come on, Nervous Nelly.” She laughs, pulling me forward. “No need to be nervous, it’s just Mason.”

And before I can pull away, she pushes me inside.

8

GRAYSON

“Shots for the birthday boy!” Iris cheers, shoving a shot glass into my hand and another into Dominic’s, the tequila slopping over her thumb as she lifts hers up between us.

“To the future shark of New York,” I add, lifting my glass into the air. “Law school won’t know what hit them.”

“Fingers crossed NYU won’t suck,” Dom groans, tipping his head back and swallowing the shot.

“If New York sucks it’ll only be your fault,” Iris counters, mid-swallow. “You can’t blame you being boring on the greatest city in the world.”

I down mine. The tequila burns clean down the back of my throat and lands warm in my stomach.