Free A Seductive Melody (The Kelly Brothers Book 5) by Crista McHugh

a wave of relief flowed through him.
    She understood him better than he thought she would.
    “Yeah. But when it became my muse, it robbed me of the simple pleasures of playing. Now, every time I pick up a guitar or sit down at the piano, the craving consumes me.”
    “And I suppose asking you to stop being a musician is out of the question.”
    He tried to picture spending the rest of his life doing something different, but it would be like having the joy robbed from his soul. “No, I love music too much to quit playing.”
    “Then there’s your answer.”
    “Maybe, but it still doesn’t change the fact that I haven’t been able to play since he died.”
    “Why?”
    His stomach churned, and sweat coated his palms. She was treading on delicate ground here and digging up issues he wasn’t ready to face yet. “I’ve already told you why.”
    She picked up on his unease and threw it back at him. Gone was the quiet listener from the other night. In her place stood a mirror reflecting the cold, hard truth. “No, you’ve told me that you were able to write music that got you to Tin Lily without ever touching heroin, and that you were a dumbass for trying whatever he offered you.”
    “That still doesn’t change the fact that he’s gone.”
    “He’s gone because he was a selfish asshole who only thought of himself.”
    Her accusation touched a nerve in him, and he curled his fingers into his palms. How many times had he thought the exact same thing over the last month? And yet, he felt obligated to defend Ty. “Don’t talk about my best friend like that.”
    “Some best friend. Let me guess—he was the one who gave you wings?”
    His spine grew ramrod straight with annoyance. “Shut up, Bec.”
    But she didn’t back down. Even though she never touched him, she stripped away his defenses. “Did you get sick to your stomach when he sank the needle into your vein? Did you cry like a baby from the head rush?”
    His voice rose to a growl. “Shut. Up.”
    “Why did you do it, Ethan? Were you so desperate for his approval that you agreed to do anything he suggested? I bet he laughed his ass off when you were so high you couldn’t even get up to take a piss.”
    Each question inched his anger level up a notch not because she was wrong, but because she was right. His temples throbbed with boiling rage that exploded with him shouting, “I said shut the fuck up.”
    As soon as he saw people around them staring at him, the blood rushed from his head, leaving a chill of fear behind. Jesus, he was cracking up. He staggered back a few steps before he turned around and headed back toward the city.
    “Ethan, wait!” The click of her high heels on the pavers told him she was following him, but he refused to look back. “I’m sorry.”
    He drew to a stop and spun around, pointing his finger at her. “You have some nerve.”
    “Why? Because you’re too chickenshit to hear the truth?”
    His head started pounding again, this time from the storm of emotions raging inside. He squeezed his temples between his palms, willing it to stop, but the chaos grew stronger. Memories mixed with the craving and blurred his idea of reality until he felt like he was falling into a bottomless abyss.
    “Let’s sit down,” a calm voice said over the noise in his head, followed by a gentle touch.
    His feet stumbled in the direction she steered him, and he didn’t resist when she guided him down to one of the nearby benches. The cool metal soothed him like ice on a bruise, but what finally brought some semblance of peace was the small hand that held his. The world came back into focus.
    Becca squatted in front of him, worry tugging down the corners of her mouth. “Did I push you too far?”
    “Yes,” he said, his voice still raw from everything she’d unearthed.
    “I only did it to help. I had to do something to erase the rosy glow you associated with getting high. I had to make you see the evil side of it, too. Until you come