by Lizzie Fox
“Yeah… I think I do.”
“Me too,” he agreed.
I smirked. “Living together already though? Some might say that’s a bit too much, too fast.”
The tip of Seth’s tongue slipped over his piercing as he regarded me. “That’s how I roll. All in from the get go.”
“It’s better that way.”
“Yup.” To prove his point he crashed his mouth against mine, probing my lips with his tongue and tasting me. I gripped the bottom of his shirt as the intensity increased, making me breathless and dizzy with lust.
When we parted, he slid his arm around my waist and pulled me under his shoulder close as we left the garage for the house, not caring that his friends were all inside and they’d react to the open display of affection. And they did, with wide grins and teases. While my ex would have been embarrassed, he ate it all up happily.
And I knew without a doubt that yeah, with Seth? I was all in. There was no longer any doubt.
I just hoped I wouldn’t lose my already fragile heart in the process.
25
Seth
Having the band here in Jessie’s house… with me… laughing and talking like that’s the way things had always been? It felt like home.
I hadn’t felt that in years—if ever—totally. The last time I really remembered was one of the only decent times my family had: Christmas, years ago. I was very young, Lily was just a baby. This was before my father totally lost his shit, and my mother lost her marbles. We didn’t have much, but we decorated a tree, and had presents… sort of. Nothing big, but it was impressive to a young kid who’d never received much at all.
Sometimes I wondered if I just imagined it all; I was so young. Maybe I did, because it certainly never happened again.
This I wasn’t imagining. Jessalie’s bright smile and big laugh as she chatted with my friends was genuine. Basically, the members of Night Addiction were family. The only family I had. The fact that she fit in so well without trying, and like she’d always been there was… amazing.
And it was making my brain do… scary things. Like think about truly scary things like “love” and “commitment.” It felt like it should be too soon for thoughts like that but I didn’t give a shit.
Right now, she was currently talking animatedly with Shane and Anthony about—well I had no idea. I was standing back against the cabinets, diving into my third helping of lasagna, after being scolded yet again by Shane as to “where the fuck I put it” because I was still skinny as hell. It didn’t even bother me, it was true. Truth be told, I liked it a little. My father was larger, stockier, and any amount of ways I didn’t resemble him, the better.
Beginning to feel myself frown, I pushed that thought out of my mind, especially when Quin sided up to me, holding a can of pop and began to speak to me quietly.
“So help me, Archer. If you don’t marry that chick I’m going to kick your ass myself.”
I rolled my eyes. “Come off it, man. It hasn’t been that long.”
He snorted. “Do I need to remind you…?” He motioned across the room at his wife affectionately, even though Christi was currently bitching about how she hated Quin right now for giving her swollen ankles, a sore back, and a waddle.
“Yeah, well… come on. Your situation is different,” I insisted, though I wasn’t entirely convinced of that. “You’re not a mental ticking time bomb, waiting to implode at a moment’s notice,” I said dryly, stabbing my fork into my food on the plate I held in front of me as I stood.
Quin took a long swig of his drink and grumbled under his breath. “Man you need to quit using it as an excuse because you’re afraid.”
I glowered at him severely. “I’m not using it as an excuse.”
He rose one of his pierced brows, looking to me skeptically. “Aren’t you? If you didn’t have these issues, what would you do right now? Would you even hesitate… anything?”
I bit my lip abashedly, turning away.
“Yeah, I figured.” Quin sighed, shaking his head. “Are you at least bringing her on Saturday?”
“I hadn’t asked her yet, honestly.”
“Why?”
“I don’t really know?” I replied with a shrug. “I guess I was wanting to see if she liked the music first?”
Quin narrowed his eyes at me. “Come on. I think it’s pretty obvious you could sing fucking elevator music and she’d love it.”
“What-the-fuck-ever, man,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“Dude. Maybe she is scared, maybe you can’t see it, but she totally digs you. Look at all she did—for fucking band practice? For you, mind you, you fucking prick,” Quin said, with a smirk.
Scoffing, I shoved at him. “Dude, she’s used to doing this sort of crap. Her ex was like some sort of business person or something.” I scowled, not really caring what he was, but hating that he existed.
“Keeping that in mind, why would she still be doing that for you, when she left him because he was a cheating dick?” When I was silent, Quin punched my arm lightly. “Told you.”
“Whatever.” But secretly, I was internally thrilled by the idea. “Did you know she supposedly sings, and writes poetry too? I haven’t heard her, but…”
“Oh really? We’ll have to work on that.”
The sound of a cell ringing interrupted all of us: Jessie’s laughter, Christi’s whining, all of it. Shane shoved everyone aside, more or less, and motioned for everyone to shut up.
“Yeah, this is he…uh-huh…uh-huh…well great, I’ll let them know. You’ll send me all the details? Great. Thank you.” Shane grinned widely the second he disconnected the call. “Y’all are in. Wisconsin Summerfest. It’s all set. The other band scheduled backed out.”
I nearly choked on the bite I was swallowing, and there was a general titter of cheering that waved over the group. “Are you shitting me?” The idea suddenly made me very nervous. The largest venue we played was around fifteen-hundred people, and this was so much bigger.
“Hey. You okay?”
Quin had wandered away; in my shock I barely noticed, and Jessie replaced him at my side. Her green eyes looked up at me with concern, and she slid one of her hands over my stomach and leaned into me.
“Oh, I’m fine. Just… a bit stunned,” I replied. “It’s a big place, lots of people go there. Headlining, even one of the lesser stages is…” my eyes widened some.
“Hey.” She poked a finger into my ribs. “You’re going to be amazing. Anything I can do to help, you just let me know.”
Blinking in astonishment, I regarded her quizzically. “You’re anticipating being around then?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Maybe my insanity will scare you off by then,” I retorted, only half joking. I felt her hand grip my chin firmly, turning my face to hers as she glared at me sternly. If she’d been wearing her glasses, I probably would have been instantly turned on with her no-nonsense look… despite the fact that she looked like she wanted to smack me.
“Stop saying that stuff,” she demanded, eyes narrow and mouth furrowed into a frown. “I knew all about Blake’s ‘insanity’ and I didn’t walk, I didn’t run. I stayed for the whole thing, until the bitter end. So unless you’re planning on leaving yourself in one way or another,” she said, staring pointedly and I knew exactly what she was getting at, “I’m not going. Unless that’s what you want.”
“No,” I said quietly, feeling her words hit me directly through my stone-cold heart. “It’s not.”
“Okay then.” She snuck her arms around my waist and pressed herself against me, leaning her cheek against my chest, pulling me tight to her.
I swallowed gently. She faced opposite of the guys and their spouses, and I caught a glimpse of Shane eyeing us with a big smile on his face, winking at me knowingly.
Not caring who saw, I wrapped her arms around her shoulders and kept her held close, feeling a bit like I was holding for dear life; like maybe if I let go her words declaring she’d
always be here for me would fade away in the air.
“Archer? Fuck where you at, bro?”
I shook myself out of a haze and spun around. Clearly I’d missed my cue.
From behind me on drums, Anthony tapped out a little rim-shot. “His head’s in the gutter, guys. Go easy on him.”
Daring to sneak a glance at Jessie who was sitting on the sofa next to Shane, holding a can of pop and smirking at me widely. Okay, yeah, my head was in the gutter, but he didn’t have to announce it to the world.
“Fuck off,” I retorted, letting my guitar hang by the strap at my neck as I moved my hands in back of me, middle fingers raised. That only made the guys laugh and snort even louder. Blushing, I caught Jessie’s gaze and rolled my eyes. Fuckers… I mouthed. She just giggled quietly.
“All right, serious time guys,” Ian spoke up, interrupting the tittering and laughter. “Summerfest is coming up. August is going to sneak up on us before we know it. We’re going to need new songs or make some of the shit we have much louder. What do you think, Seth? You’re the one that’s singing them. Which ones do you think? Do you have anything else?”
I grumbled, scrubbing a hand over my face. With thirty-some-thousand pairs of eyes possibly on me, the pressure was on.
“Hey,” Shane stood, after patting Jessie’s shoulder and walked up to us. “Why don’t we do a poll on social media and see which songs are favorites? New things are good too, but if we don’t have anything to tease people with it might not be as popular. But at least if we have an idea, besides sales of course, of what people are going to want to hear…”
Sabrina, who’d been relatively quiet spoke next. I anxiously and quietly strummed my fingers over the guitar I held; nervous habit. I needed something for my hands to do. “That’s good, gets people involved. But teaser clips from new stuff will help too.”
“Fuck. So I need new things. Great,” I retorted dryly.
“Don’t you have just tons of unused shit?” Anthony asked, and I shrugged.
“Yes, and no. I’m not sure a lot of them will work for anything as loud as we need it to be.” I sighed lengthily, feeling my shoulders start to tense.
“What about a couple of covers?” Jessie suggested, and I looked at her gratefully. “Songs people easily recognize that are loud and get people’s attention… right? Is that possible?”
“Probably,” Shane said, snapping fingers at her.
“It’s something anyway,” Jessie said with a shrug.
“For now let’s just stick with our normal set,” Quin said, eyeing me carefully. I frowned; I knew that look. They were all apprehensively watching to see if the mental case was going to lose his shit. I hated that. They didn’t mean to do it, it just… happened.
“Hey can you give me five minutes? I need to run to the bathroom.” Without waiting for a response, I peeled my guitar strap off my neck, handed the instrument over to Anthony who was nearest, and attempted to stalk to the bathroom as casually as I could. I caught Jessie’s eye as I walked off, gently raising my brow—it was inadvertent, really, but suddenly I just felt like I really needed a moment with her.
And honestly? That sort of scared me and delighted me at the same time.
She clearly got the hint and she followed along after me after I exited the garage. I didn’t even make it to the house before she caught up with me, grabbing my hand to stop me in my tracks.
“Seth. You don’t need to use the bathroom, do you?” Her gaze was knowing and despite my sudden surge of anxiety, my lips twitched into a gentle smile.
“No, not really. I just needed a breather,” I said, with a sigh, pushing my free hand through my hair to get it out of my eyes. “Damn I need to cut this crap,” I muttered, totally off topic.
Jessie gave me a small smile. She brought her hand to my forehead and smoothed my hair over my ear since she couldn’t reach higher to push it back. “First things first. What is it?”
“It’s stupid.”
Jessie glanced down at our joined hands, and back up at me expectantly. “It’s not that stupid. You’re grabbing my hand so tightly it’s turning blue, and your knuckles are white. So you’re obviously upset.”
“I am?” I tried to pull away sheepishly but she wouldn’t let go. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Just tell me what’s wrong.”
I exhaled tensely. “Okay. I used to have a lot of stage fright.”
She squinted, her forehead wrinkling in the middle. “That sounds pretty normal. You seem to do okay with it now.”
“Well now, yeah. I got over it by finding a light or something I could stare into. Something that looked like I was staring at the audience but really it was just above them. I’d put in earpieces, so I could only hear the music behind me, not the crowd. I was able to beat it like that. I took one earpiece out at one gig, and the other the week after… and I got over it,” I explained, biting down on my lip, trying to avoid the panicky, weird feeling that was suddenly roiling inside.
“Sounds reasonable.” She still absentmindedly traced her fingers over my ear as she waited for me to continue. “Does this have something to do with Summerfest? You seemed to get all…” She cocked her head, noticing my discomfort.
“Five times as many people there. If we’re headlining that stage it should be at night, which is good, but it’ll be the busiest time of night.” I laughed awkwardly.
She nodded sympathetically, but she didn’t speak. And I appreciate the fact that she didn’t give me a line of “It’ll be okay” or something equally as well-meaning but not helpful.
“It’ll be fine, really,” I insisted. “But coming up with new songs and… just a bit overwhelming. It’s not really enough time for a bunch of new material to be proficient at it. Just a bit of pressure.”
Jessie dropped my hand and slid her hands over my stomach. I arched a brow as one of her fingers dipped dangerously low into my pants. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
I grinned devilishly, draping my arm casually over her shoulder as I tipped my head towards hers. “I could think of something.”
She chuckled lowly from the back of her throat. “I can do that too. But I’m talking about the performance,” she persisted, trying to feign a very serious expression.
“Sure you were.”
“I was!” She pretended to pout.
I chuckled, turning my face until it was buried in her hair. It smelled floral, like the sweet perfume of roses. “Well… you can be there. If you’re there I know I’ll be okay.”
“I can definitely do that. That’s so rough, watching some black-haired hottie who taunts me by wearing those stupidly low pants—” I laughed loudly as she poked gently at the waistband; they were low, she was right. I didn’t have much to keep them up, “—and is nice to have in bed, sing with that amazing damn voice of his looking all hot and sexy up on a stage? That’s going to be…hard.” Her hand slid slyly lower, over the bulge forming in my pants and gave a gentle squeeze. I tried not to groan out loud.
“Shit, Jess…” was all I said. “What was I worried about now?”
“Don’t know. But why don’t you get back in there and finish your band practice so we can go to bed early, huh?” She said, with a rather exaggerated wink of her sparkling, jeweled eye.
“Hell yes.” I threaded my hand through her hair and brought her face to mine, capturing her sultry lips in a kiss until she quietly moaned into me. Feeling satisfied I’d tortured her enough, I broke away, and laughed tauntingly as I gripped her hand and walked back into the garage.
The guys were all talking low when we re-entered. Ian smirked instantly but I just flicked him off, and all the trepidation and the feeling of them standing on eggshells around me faded away.
Anthony handed my guitar back to me and with my anxiety faded and some new-found confidence I began playing the chords of one of my favorite songs. “Mind if we do this one, just for fun?”
“You got it.” Quin started drumming the familiar beat to
“Heart of Fire," one of my favorites to sing that was just rebellious to be cathartic and Ian took over the complicated riffs when the verse began.
I smirked playfully at Jessie as she tapped her fingers on her thigh in time to the music—she seemed to know this one. She replied with a smirk of her own and it was then I knew that for sure I’d be all right as long as she was there.
26
Jessalie
I sat on my bed that evening after Seth’s band practice with my laptop in my lap, surfing through some of my old poetry files while Seth was in the bathroom, taking a shower.
Shuffling my hands, I mindlessly started twirling at the little white gold band on my right hand that I had gotten so used to wearing. Without realizing it, I had fiddled with it constantly as a nervous habit, and now that it was gone, I felt a little… strange and empty.
Of course I told Seth I had forgotten it after washing my hands, but I actually had made the tough decision to take it off and set it in my jewelry box. I couldn’t very well move on if I was still hanging on to Blake. I always would to some degree, I supposed. I’d never forget him, regardless. He was bright, passionate, loving, loyal and devoted. But it was time. It was more than time.
It was damn risky being with another man with the same issues. But, Seth seemed to have them pretty well under control. At least, I hoped. He was trying, anyway. It’d have to be enough, because it was blatantly clear I was falling for him. Hard. He was magnetic, open and honest, so amazingly talented and sexy as hell. Thinking about him nearby in the shower, not more than fifteen feet away, totally naked like he’d been last night in bed was nearly driving me to distraction. I was determined to give him space, though. Watching Seth get a bit panicked at the thought of a bunch of new songs broke my heart, and I hoped maybe something in these files could help him, though. I wasn’t sure if they were any good, but I was at least going to try.
The thought soon floated away, when Seth emerged in nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist, steam pouring out of the bathroom into the room. I cocked a brow and flashed him a sultry grin; his skin glistened with moisture from the shower and his cock was already half at attention. I knew exactly what he was thinking, and I liked it.