I hadn’t selected a song to play, yet, so I was rather confused when I heard the soft, delicate strains of a guitar being played.
“Home,” Michael Bublé.
Wait, what?
I checked my phone, but it wasn’t coming from there.
Where was the music coming from?
Granted, I’d slammed almost half a bottle of champagne in less than ten minutes, but should I be hallucinating music?
Oh. It was coming from outside. Next question: how? Or rather, why?
Shit, the tub. I ignored the mystery for a moment longer and shut off the water, because it was in danger of overflowing, even despite the overflow preventer.
Back to the front door, bottle in hand. I was just tipsy enough to be aware and not give a shit that I was bare-ass naked as I opened my front door, standing in full view, framed by the storm door. Hair loose and wild and kinked from being a braid all day, no makeup, naked, champagne bottle in one hand.
I must have been quite a sight.
For Titus.
He was parked in my driveway, tailgate facing the door, front end facing the street. Tailgate down, sitting cross-legged on it. He had his favorite acoustic—a famous guitar, that one; it was his first guitar, a Yamaha he’d bought used at fourteen years old, and it had been old then. It was scratched and battered, covered in bumper stickers, and did not have a strap.
One leg hanging off the tailgate, foot kicking in time as he picked the melody. Wearing faded blue jeans cut off below the knee with fraying white threads, unlaced black combat boots, wearing a plain black ribbed tank top, and that stupid fucking beanie. Aviators. The rings on his fingers, tattooed and pierced and rocking a now-unkempt beard. Beautiful. Rugged and imperfectly perfect.
He wiped his sunglasses off his face with his fretboard hand and tossed them aside without missing a beat. Began singing the lyrics in that rough, dark, beautiful voice. His eyes never left me. He barely blinked as he sang the song to me. I leaned against my doorway and sipped, my own gaze never leaving him.
When he finished the song, the last note still hanging in the air, I nudged open the storm door with my foot. “Maybe you ought to finish the serenade in here,” I said.
He clutched the instrument by the neck and hopped off the tailgate, pausing to reach back with his free hand and grab something. He kept it behind his back, hidden from view as he approached the front door—I backed away, toward the bathroom, as he entered, staying out of reach as he prowled for me.
Into the bathroom, where I stopped my retreat from Titus as the back of my knees reached the tub. My heart hammered for some unknown reason, as he stalked and swaggered toward me.
Bought his free hand around, and held out a single perfect red rose. Didn’t say a word.
I took the rose. Pressed the silky petals to my nose, inhaled its scent.
I couldn’t contain myself any longer—I threw myself into his arms, the champagne sloshing in the bottle. He dipped at the knees and I heard the humming thunk of wood and strings hitting the marble floor, and then he had me, held me aloft, my thighs clenching around his waist, one arm around his neck.
I gazed down at him. “Hi.”
“Missed the shit out of you, Laurel,” he murmured.
I kissed him, by way of answer. When our lips finally parted, both of us were breathless. I brought the bottle between us and touched it to his lips, tilted. He took a sip, then pulled away.
“Rather be drunk on you,” he growled.
“Well, if you don’t help me with this, I’ll be drunk on champagne and you.”
“Fine by me.” He kissed me, and then slowly lowered me into the water.
I hissed at the heat, holding on to him as I descended under the bubbly surface. “Gonna get in with me?” I asked. “Room for two.”
He grinned. “I was gonna serenade you some more.”
“How about a Titus Bright song? I’ve always liked his music.”
He grinned. “Have you really?”
I nodded, dead serious. “Absolutely. I’ve been a secret fan for years.”
He blinked. “Wait, you’re serious?”
I giggled, sipped. “Yup. I saw you in concert, Bright Bones I mean. One of the last shows of your last tour.”
“I wouldn’t have pegged you as a heavy metal fan.”
“Don’t you know by now that nothing about me is what you’d expect?” I shrugged, grinning at him over the rim of the bottle, my voice disappearing into the glass. “I have as many layers as Shrek.”
He cackled, and hopped up onto my vanity, guitar propped on his thighs. “Here’s a little song I’m actually still working on. I started it last week. I was on the last leg of the pop-up tour, going from Billings to Butte, in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere in the middle of the fuckin’ night, couldn’t fuckin’ sleep for shit.”
I slid lower in the water, letting the bottle dangle over the side; I realized I’d had enough, now that Titus was here, so I leaned out and set the bottle on the floor. “Is that fuckin’ right?”
“Sure fuckin’ is.” He started a melody, low chords in a slow, melancholy progression. “Laying awake in that big-ass bed in my trailer, all alone, staring at the ceiling. And I was thinkin’…”
He seamlessly transitioned into song:
“There’s this girl,
Don’t really know her,
But I think I’m in love.
Montana’s got mountains,
Plains of Texas, sun and heat
Nebraska’s got corn
Maybe it’s wheat,
New Orleans, New York, New Jersey,
Philly and Fargo in winter and fall,
I’ve been to ’em all,
Seen everything everywhere a time or two.
But there’s this girl,
Sorta just met her,
Don’t really know her,
But I think I’m in love.
She’s got these eyes so bright
They’re not really blue
Unless the sun hits ’em right
Not really gray
Unless she looks at me a certain way.
Hair like the sun,
Shines like gold loose or up in a bun.
She makes my heart sing,
Gives it a song,
Sends my soul on a wing
Makes right what was wrong.
You see
There’s this girl.
Sorta just met,
Don’t really know her,
But none of that matters,
Because I think I’m in love.”
The last notes quavered, his voice and the guitar fading, echoing in the beautiful acoustics of the bathroom.
“Still a work in progress,” he muttered. “Some of the lines are dumb as shit, like real first-grader rhymes. But lyrics were always Tommy’s strong suit, not mine.”
I couldn’t answer, because I had my hand over my mouth, eyes shimmering. “Titus,” I whispered. “You mean that?”
“Yeah, I usually did the music, and Tommy—”
“No, you big dumbass. The song.” I tried to gather myself, but didn’t really succeed. “What you said.”
He laughed, raked fingers through his beard. “Oh, right.” He slid off the counter, set the guitar down, and knelt beside the tub. “Yeah, Laurel. I meant it.”
I swallowed hard. “How do you know?”
“Spent my whole life on the road. Started touring full time at sixteen.” A hard sigh. “Never looked back, you know? Home has been tour busses and hotels, my whole life.” He cupped my jaw in a rough hand. “How do I know I love you? Because now when I think home, I think of you.”
I whimpered, a sad, pathetic sound. “Titus.” It was a sob.
“Talk to me, Laurel.”
“I’ve seen Dr. Hines twice a week since you sent her to me.”
“I was half sure you’d never speak to me again, after that.”
I huffed a laugh. “Me too. I was so shocked that you’d send me a
fucking therapist. Like, who does that? Am I that fucking broken?”
“Only because I am, so like recognizes like, you know?”
“It was something I needed so badly. I don’t think you can understand.”
“So you’re not mad?”
“No, Titus, I’m not mad. I’m grateful.” I grabbed his beard, which was just long enough to tangle my fingers in, now, and pulled him to me. “I am so scared, Titus.”
“Of what? Why?”
“You—this. Us.” I touched my lips to his. “Dr. Hines, in our last session, talked to me about how being in love with you is no different than loving Lizzy as my best friend. The only difference is sex.”
“Like, gender, as in orientation, or sex as in sexy times?”
“As in sexy times. It was this whole long thing, but it helped me realize my issue isn’t with you. You’re incredible. You’ve been nothing but incredible since I met you. My issue is trust. My issue is men.”
“Understandable, considering.”
“But unless I want my life to look the way it’s always been, I have to choose differently.” My fingers, still dangled in his beard, dribbled suds down the soft curly black tendrils. “I have to choose you.”
“Easier said than done, though, huh?”
I nodded. “Yeah, it is.” I blinked tears. “I’m sorry about the last time we saw each other.”
He frowned. “Why?”
“I was avoiding…this.” I sighed, tugging gently on his beard. “Avoiding intimacy. And you deserve better.”
He nodded. “Thank you. I don’t want to seem like I’m not grateful as fuck for every moment I ever get with you no matter what it looks like, because I am. But, that day—I really did want…more. Something more than just…fucking, I guess. I don’t know how else to put it. That day at the house you showed me. That didn’t feel like a typical hookup, to me, and that’s how I knew…” he trailed off. “It was different, it was more, and that was the moment I knew this whole thing with us was going to be different. I wanted different, Laurel. I want different now. I wanted different that day here. But you didn’t, and I could tell, so I just…” A sigh. “I don’t know how to say it. I guess I just let you turn it into something else. Don’t get me wrong, it was fucking hot, like…seriously fucking hot. I still think about it. But on an emotional level, it’s not what I really wanted.”
“I know.” I closed my eyes. “I know. I knew then. But I was too scared.”
“I won’t hurt you, Laurel.” But even as he said it, I thought I saw a flicker of shadows in his expression; it was there and gone so fast maybe I dreamed it.
Maybe I was projecting. Because I myself still had one last secret I wasn’t ready to let go of.
He took my hands in his. “I have a kind of crazy idea.”
I laughed, a tear-sodden sound. “Okay?”
“What if we don’t have sex for a while?”
A shocked cackle burst out of me. “What?”
“Well, you said being in love is just friendship but with sex.”
I frowned. “I mean, I guess that’s the gist of it, yes.”
“I don’t have many friends—Tommy is one of the very few truly close friends I’ve ever had. Rick and Froot Loop weren’t really my friends, they were my bandmates. You’d think after twenty-some years together we would be like brothers, but…it just never happened that way. I know them better than they know themselves, but we never bonded the way Tommy and I did. There’s Seven, and a few others that I’d say I’m close with, mostly other dudes in the industry.”
“Okay?”
“I’ve never been friends with a woman. Alaina is my assistant, and she’s thirty years older than me. We’re not friends—she’s my employee. And Bex, Jeremy’s wife…” A sigh. “She’s my manager’s wife. I care about her, but I have to be careful. I’ve got a reputation, both deserved and not, but still, a certain reputation, you know? One out-of-context photo, one snippet of conversation, and things could blow up. So I can’t be her friend.” His eyes met mine. “You’re my friend, Laurel. And if what you’re saying, if what Dr. Hines told you is true, then maybe the best chance we have of making this relationship work is to take sex out of the equation so we can focus on being friends.”
“That sounds really fucking difficult.”
He snorted. “You’re telling me? You’re the one who answered the door buck-ass fucking naked.”
“We could take sex out of the equation after we have sex one more time? I missed you, Titus. I missed you a lot, and I thought about you literally all the time.”
He growled. “It’s been a month. I want you so fucking bad. I’ve jerked off two or three times a day, thinking about you. Thinking about these fucking gorgeous tits of yours. How they looked wrapped around my cock.”
I moaned, lifting up out of the water so the bubbles streamed down my curves, leaving them covered in a thin scrim of white froth. “Titus.”
He stood up, backed away. “Much as I fuckin’…want isn’t the right word—need, I fuckin’ need you, Laurel. But as much as I need you, want you, can’t bear not touching you, I want this to work. I’ve never wanted that before. I’ve never loved anyone, ever. Except Tommy, and he was my brother in all but blood. Not my parents, not anyone. You’re it. And I want it to fucking work. So that means we have to learn how to be friends.”
I was sitting up, blinking at him. “You mean it.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“How is it even possible?” I scraped bubbles off of my breasts. “How can we see each other every day or however often, and not fuck each other senseless? I’m this close to literally assaulting you right now, you do realize that? I’ve jilled off every day and sometimes more than once, thinking about you and all the things I want to do with you. My poor vibrator has gotten more use the past month than in all the years I’ve had him.”
“Him?”
I grinned. “It’s big and purple, and his name is Grimace.”
“Like the weird-ass fuckin’ purple potato with arms thing from McDonald's?”
“Yeah.”
“You masturbate with something you call Grimace?”
“Yep.”
“You’re so fucking weird.” He grinned. “I love that about you.”
“You really want to do this?” I sank back down in the water, if only to make it easier for Titus to have a conversation with me. “You really want to try to have a friendship without sex?”
“Yeah.” He sat with his back to the tub, and his chest lifted, shoulders broadening, and then he sighed. “I mean, do I want to see you every day and not have sex with you? Fuck no. My dick already hates me for having the idea. But…it just feels like the right thing to do, if you and I are going to have a real legit shot at a successful relationship.”
“And that’s what you want. With me.”
He nodded. “I do.” He plucked at the strings at the hems of his shorts; I heard his teeth clicking against his lip piercing. “The last month I was…” He laughed. “I was about to say on tour. Old habits die hard. I don’t want to call it a tour, but I don’t know what else to call it. Anyway, the month I was gone doing the pop-ups, I had a whole lot of time alone to think. I’m forty-one, and I’ve never had a home. Never owned anything. Never had roots. Never had family, except Tommy, and without him, I…” A choked breath. “I’ve been half alive, since I found him. That shit really fucked me up. I’ve been going through the motions, you know? Like, I spent those years in Brazil, but eventually I just got so bored I had to come back and make music again, because if I didn’t, I was gonna…” Another sound, almost a sob; I twisted in the tub and wrapped my arms around him from behind, soaking his shirt with sudsy water. “I almost killed myself. I sat on a hill in the forest overlooking Rio, a gun in my hand, contemplating suicide. To this day, I don’t know what stopped me. Cowardice, maybe, or call it courage, I don’t know. Some weird combo of both. I just couldn’t. I had more music to make, and it was the idea of never…ne
ver being on stage again, never seeing my fans go fuckin’ nuts when the lights hit me up…that’s the shit that brought me back. But even then, I was just surviving.” His hand covered mine. “And then I saw that ad on Jeremy’s Instagram.”
I laughed. “Wait, what? The Ad? It was the fucking ad? I thought you…” I wasn’t sure how I felt. “I thought you saw me for the first time at the wedding.”
But then I remembered the words he’d said to me that day, heard them in my head as clearly as if it was an audio recording: You’re even more fuckin’ stunning than I’d imagined you would be, Laurel McGillis.
“The fucking ad.” I laughed.
He seemed puzzled. “Why do you sound pissed-off?”
“I didn’t post that. It’s a thing with the girls.”
A snort. “Oh. So…”
I pressed my nose to his ear, inhaled his scent. “So you did see The Ad.”
“I was hanging out with Jeremy and Bex and the kids. Jeremy was scrolling through Instagram as we talked. I was sitting next to him and he passed the ad. Scrolled past it without even seeing it because I mean, he’s got Bex, and he loves the shit out of that woman. I grabbed the phone from him and went back to the ad.”
“I haven’t actually seen it. I just know what it says.”
“I’m confused.”
I laughed. “It’s a long story. It all started with Lizzy—The Ad is how she met Braun, and it’s how Autumn met Seven.”
“I see. Well, I saw the ad. It’s a photo of you, probably an older one, from a few years ago. It’s a naked selfie, but not showing anything, know what I mean? The arm-bar thing, turned to the side. You look so fuckin’ sexy, so beautiful. And I saw that, and I was like—in my head I was like that girl is going to be mine. It was this thought, clear as day, and I’ve never ever in my life thought anything like that about a woman, ever. Not even remotely.”
“So, how’d you end up at the wedding?”
“Through what Jeremy calls social media stalking. You, Lizzy, Autumn, the other girls are all the only people that account follows, and Jeremy went to the various pages for all of you girls, and discovered that Autumn had Seven all over her feed. And I’ve been buddies with Seven for twenty years. Every so often we connect here in LA and hang out for beers or whatever, and every year around the first week of summer we all meet down in Moab for some off-roading, a whole big group of us. So, I saw Seven on Autumn’s feed, or rather Jeremy did, and was like, you have Seven as a mutual friend. So I called Seven and asked if he knew you, so I could figure out how I could meet you. And he was like, funny you called me, because I was legit about to pick up the phone to call you. He was about to get married and wanted me to play their backyard wedding. So I was, of course I will. Just curious, though, will your girl’s friend Laurel be at this wedding? Because I have to meet her.”
Laurel's Bright Idea (Billionaire Baby Club Book 3) Page 17