Deer in Headlights (Hearts and Arrows 1) (Good god series) by Staci Hart Page A

She was just too good.
    Apollo watched as Dean’s pencil flew across his notebook page. Dean had been more inspired in the few short hours than he had ever been.  
    “Ugh, what am I doing?” Apollo said aloud in his empty apartment and sat back on his couch, pouting. He wanted to give that inspiration to Dean, and to Lex too, but it cultivated the obsession in both of them. He didn’t know if he should try to have his cake and eat it. It seemed stupid to try, although he didn’t know if he could stop the stream of inspiration even if he wanted to. At that point, it could easily be beyond him. Muses worked that way.
    He glanced in on Lex, who sat sketching on her couch as Travis tried to talk to her. She looked up, confused, and he laughed.
    “Yeah, I didn’t think you were paying attention.”
    “I’m sorry, Trav. What did you ask?”
    “It’s okay. I should know better than to try to talk to you while you’re sketching.”
    She smiled up at him. “What’s up?”
    “I was going to pick up something to eat. I know it’s late, but I’m starving.”
    “Ooh, how about Mai’s?”
    “Excellent. The usual?”
    “Always.”
    He kissed her cheek and left the apartment, leaving her alone in the quiet room. She ripped a strip from her blending stump and went to work on Dean’s jawline. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach, and she told herself to stop swooning like an idiot. It was just that he had to be one of the most beautiful men she’d ever seen, though it was more than that. There was something about him, she thought as she looked over her drawing, something in his eyes, his brow. He was unattainable, closed off, but with a detached sort of confidence. The combination of that and his good looks were like some deadly concoction, and she could see why girls threw themselves at him, past the whole rock star element.
    Her cheeks went hot again as she thought of him singing, playing his guitar like one was an extension of the other. The band was better than she thought they would be, even though her expectations were low to start. She loved music. ‘Loved’ probably wasn’t strong enough. She was a zealot, obsessively looking for music, listening to new bands and albums on loops until she knew every note by heart and memory.  
    With Travis being in a band, they were always at shows, and she knew a lot about the local music scene. Paper Fools was elevated from most of the bands they saw, and she wondered what they could accomplish with a producer and the PR they’d get from their record deal. They appealed to her love of blues and rock from the seventies, and she was ultimately very, very impressed.
    She closed her notebook and traded it out for her laptop, popping open YouTube to search for their videos. There was only one that wasn’t a live show, which looked like it was recorded by the guys on a camcorder. They walked around Central Park, messing around. She usually hated those kinds of videos, but that one didn’t bother her, probably because she just watched Dean. When the video was over, she fell into a rabbit hole of Googling, getting lost in the image search for a while, specifically a professional shoot that they did for a local music magazine, before scouring their website and streaming their songs.  
    When she heard Travis’ key in the door, she jumped and snapped her laptop shut. She laid it on the coffee table and hopped up, making her way into the kitchen to get plates.
    Apollo looked away and ran his hand across his lips, feeling more than a little defeated as he realized he could easily be fucked.

IN DITA’S DREAM, SHE stood at a tower window looking out across the gray ocean, watching the waves crash against the rocks below her. She leaned over the ledge, feeling gravity shift with the horizon as she fell, the rocks rushing toward her, her heart pounding. Her arms spread wide, and she closed her eyes, feeling the wind through her hair. As she neared the ocean, her arms turned to wings,