One More Promise

by Samantha Chase

  “I did mention them,” he argued, his grin fading.

  “No, you didn’t. Trust me. I was sitting here listening the entire time. You talked about world tours, Shaughnessy’s catalog of songs, and who your favorite superhero is! And you know what you didn’t talk about? Books! Any books!”

  His expression hardened. “Okay, fine, so I went a little off script today. But don’t you think building a relationship with the kids is important too? Now when they see me on TV talking about the importance of reading, they’ll remember this day and how I was cool with them, and they’ll listen.”

  “You’re impossible,” she murmured and gathered up her things. She was halfway to the door when Dylan caught up with her. She immediately spun out of his grasp. “What!”

  Rather than say anything, he simply glared at her for a minute.

  “We need to go. The library needs this room for another meeting,” Paige said and walked out of the room. Dylan was right behind her; they had driven together and as much as she wanted a little space right now, she knew she was stuck in the close confines of the car with him for at least an hour.

  They were in his car, and the first fifteen minutes of the drive were spent in total silence.

  “Look,” he began calmly, “I get that you’re passionate about your job and I respect that. But everything can’t go your way all the time, Paige. Sometimes you have to go with the flow. No one was harmed there because I didn’t talk books.”

  “It’s why you were there,” she said wearily, her head turned away to look out the window.

  He sighed, and she knew he was as frustrated as she was. “Even if I say I’m sorry, it’s not going to change anything. I can’t call all those people back and read from your script, so you need to move on.”

  The urge to haul off and punch him was almost too great to ignore. “Move on,” she repeated. “Awesome. Thanks.”

  Dylan briefly looked at her. “You can keep harping on me and bitching at me, but like I said, it’s not going to change anything. I’ll read from your damn script next time—word for word. And I’ll ignore any questions anyone has that doesn’t pertain to books and reading, okay?”

  It was his tone that was pissing her off. So cocky. So arrogant. “Do whatever you want, Dylan. I think from this point on, you can go to these things without me.”

  He gave a snort of disgust as he wove through the late afternoon traffic. “Wow, so I finally graduated to not needing a babysitter. Thanks.”

  It was right then and there that she knew any other exchange of words would be pointless. She was upset, he was defensive, and they were simply at an impasse. It was sweet relief when he seemed to come to the same conclusion and turned on the radio.

  When they pulled into the PRW parking garage, Paige couldn’t get out of the car fast enough. Dylan parked and she was surprised—she figured he’d pull up to the door and let her out. When she climbed from the car, he did the same. She certainly didn’t want a confrontation here in the middle of the garage, but if that’s what it was, she’d deal with it.

  He came around the front of the car and stood in front of her. “I’m sorry,” he said solemnly.

  She let out a slow breath. In the moment, she knew she had been right to be upset, but Dylan had also been right—him going off script hadn’t been the end of the world. “Me too.”

  He wrapped her in his arms and held her. Dropping her purse on the ground, she wound her arms around his waist and held him too.

  And they stayed locked like that for a long time.

  * * *

  Music was flowing. The words, the melodies, everything. Dylan couldn’t remember a time when he was this creative musically, and he was loving the hell out of it. It was giving him a sense of purpose again, and on top of it, he felt great.

  Healthy—mentally and physically.

  Everywhere he turned, people were praising him. Mick lined up several interviews for him with different media outlets—Rolling Stone magazine was one and Savannah Shaughnessy’s former employer Rock the World. Then he had one television interview with a major network. They were all scheduled for after his completion with Literacy Now, so he could focus on finishing that up along with his community service hours. Mick thought it would be a good angle for the interviews because it would show that he took his commitments seriously.

  And he did.

  Like right now, he was committed to writing this song that he was anxious to share with the guys. The record label had given him access to one of the studios to record some demos for use once Shaughnessy was officially back from their hiatus, and it felt good to know he’d be making a major contribution to the band for the first time since their early days together.

  Yeah, it was an amazing feeling.

  Professionally, he felt like he was back on top.

  Personally, he was floundering, and he knew it. This thing with Paige had been so good, so perfect for him…and now? Now he knew he had let her down. It had seriously been all downhill since that damn lunch day. It pissed him off because he felt, on some level, that she was still holding it against him, like no matter how hard he tried or apologized, she wasn’t fully willing to let it go.

  But he also had to accept the fact that he had screwed up, and since that point, he’d also been very distracted. They weren’t spending the time together like they had in the beginning, and he missed that. Missed her. But this was how life was, right? They both had demanding jobs and they couldn’t spend every day in each other’s pockets. That wasn’t good either, right?

  Questions like this swirled in his brain a lot lately. Relationships were never his thing, and he had never given them much thought. But for some reason, Paige made him think—about her, about them, about…a future.

  And it scared the heck out of him.

  When this all started, he figured it would be casual and fun and then…over. He never saw them lasting beyond working together. But now, when things weren’t going great, he wanted to try to make it better.

  He just didn’t know how.

  Putting down his guitar, he got up and walked across the room to get something to drink. Bottle of water in hand, he walked onto his balcony and looked out at the city. Between rehab and now, this was the longest he’d stayed in one place. Granted, rehab was in Colorado and this was LA, but normally he didn’t stay in any one place for very long. The road was always calling—in the past, a trip to get away and party had always been calling, but now it was just the music that was calling to him.

  And Paige.

  Sighing, he opened the bottle and took a long drink.

  Her life was here in LA and he couldn’t imagine her being away from her family, no matter how much he thought that would be the best thing for her. And on top of that, could she handle dealing with him once the band did get back together and went into the studio to record and then on tour? Would she be willing to understand that he couldn’t stick to her schedules and timetables?

  And would he be able to stand having that argument over and over and over?

  Probably not.

  This was why he never did relationships—he was too wrapped up in himself and what he wanted to care about anybody else and their needs and wants. The last two months with Paige had opened his eyes to how good it could be to care about someone beyond the physical and be cared for in return in that same way. But was he feeling like that because he was feeling like that or because there was nothing else going on in his life?

  He needed help. He needed direction. He needed a friend to talk to.

  He could call Matt, but he wanted a face-to-face conversation with someone. Riley was a good option. Last Dylan heard, he and Savannah were in town but…their relationship was always solid. Even when they were broken up in the beginning of their relationship, everyone knew they’d work it out because Riley was a commitment kind of guy.

  Wa
lking into the suite, he picked up his phone and called Mick.

  “Hey, Dylan,” Mick said distractedly. “I’m getting ready to board a flight to New York. You okay?”

  “Oh, um…yeah. Yeah, sure. Everything’s good. I just hadn’t talked with you in a while and wanted to catch up.”

  Mick chuckled. “How about one night next week? I’ll be back on Tuesday, so any night after that should work.”

  “Sounds great. I’ll call you when you get back.”

  When they hung up, he decided to call Julian, not that he was holding out much hope there. Julian was reclusive on a good day and not one to talk about anything other than music. But…he decided to give it a try.

  The main thing with Julian was… Well, Dylan loved him like a brother, but he was also in complete awe of him too. Julian was intense and brilliant and…always in control.

  Bottom line, they were complete opposites.

  Maybe this wasn’t the best idea.

  “Screw it,” he murmured and hit Julian’s number before he could second-guess himself any more than he already was.

  An hour later, they were sitting opposite one another in Dylan’s suite over a chessboard. For whatever reason, talking over a game of chess was easier than having a regular conversation.

  “Can I ask you something?” Dylan began.

  “Sure.”

  “What was it about Dena that made you want to…you know…make it a thing?”

  Julian lifted his head and quirked a brow at him. And that was another thing about Julian—he was intimidating as hell, built like a linebacker, eyes so dark they were almost black, and hair so black it was almost blue. Dylan was always glad they never clashed over anything because there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Julian could crush him with minimal effort.

  “A thing?”

  Oh, and his voice was scary too—deep and gravelly and always so unbelievably serious.

  “Yeah. You know, like that you wanted to marry her.”

  “But I haven’t married her.” He moved his rook, scratched his stubbled chin, and let out a sigh that was almost a growl. “Why?”

  “You met Paige.”

  Nodding, Julian stared at the board. “She’s nice.”

  “I know. Almost too nice for a guy like me and yet…”

  This time Julian did look up. “Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Don’t pull that ‘aw shucks, I don’t deserve to be happy’ crap. It makes you sound ridiculous. And annoying.”

  Dylan rolled his eyes. “Dude, how long have you known me?”

  “Too long.”

  “And have you ever seen nice girls come around me? Ever see me date one?”

  Julian chuckled. “All kinds of girls come around you. You’ve just never been interested in the good girls. You always needed someone who was willing to be wild with you. You scared the nice ones away.”

  “Okay, fine. Maybe. But…I didn’t scare Paige away. If anything, she was the aggressor in the relationship.”

  Another quirked brow. “Nice.”

  And Dylan couldn’t help but smile at the memory. “Yeah, it was. But two months ago, I had nothing. I was barely leaving the house, and now? Now I’m starting to engage in life. Our schedules are crazy, our personalities are opposites, and yet…”

  “And yet you still want her,” Julian finished for him. “So? What’s the problem?”

  “This is all foreign to me, man. Like seriously foreign. Am I latching on to her because it’s convenient? Or because she’s safe?”

  “How is she safe?”

  Dylan moved his pawn and sighed. “She didn’t know me before,” he said gruffly. “Don’t get me wrong, she knows what I was like—she researched me when I tried to sign on for the campaign—but she didn’t know me then. With her, I almost have a clean slate.”

  “D, if this thing the two of you have is solid, then your slate shouldn’t matter. Clean, dirty, shattered, none of it. Is she harping on you about staying sober?”

  Dylan shook his head.

  “Does she throw your past back in your face?”

  He shook his head again.

  “Then what’s the holdup? Is it her, or is it you?”

  “That’s just it… Right now, I feel like it’s both of us. Like we’re drifting and I don’t know if I’m supposed to keep fighting for it.”

  Julian looked down at the board again and moved his knight. “Yeah. I get that.”

  “Which brings me back to my original question—you and Dena.”

  With a curse, Julian reached for the can of soda Dylan had given him earlier and took a drink. He put the can down, but Dylan could almost feel the rage vibrating off him. “In the beginning, it was all lust. I know that now. I was so hot for her, and the things she did with me? Man, it was like living in a fantasy.”

  Settling in his chair, Dylan waited to hear the rest.

  “Then she started talking about music and how she was interested in it—all aspects of it. And I found we had a lot in common. So here was this beautiful woman who was my every fantasy in bed and who also held my attention with intelligent conversation out of it. It was a heady combination.”

  “I’m sure,” Dylan said, doing his best not to sound too jaded. None of the guys in the band liked Dena. None of them. They all felt she was using Julian, and everyone saw it—except Julian.

  “Then she tried making a go of a music career for herself as we were finishing the tour. I had been working with her on it, but as soon as she knew I was going to have time off, she decided to up her game and record an album, and she wanted me to give it to Mick and the label and…” He raked a hand through his hair. “I hated it. I hated being put in the middle, and the thing is, she wasn’t very good. I did everything I could to polish that project—I wrote the music, the lyrics, I played on the demo, but she’s not a strong performer, and I could tell no one was interested. That’s when things got really bad.”

  It was on the tip of Dylan’s tongue to remind Julian how bad it was long before then, but again, he kept it to himself.

  “She started using sex as a bargaining chip. She began flaunting her relationships with other guys in the music industry, and I was blown away by who she was becoming. And not in a good way. But we’d been together for so long that I thought we could overcome all of it. So I proposed, thinking it was what she wanted. She liked the ring. She liked the attention and the thought of a million-dollar wedding. It was me she didn’t like.”

  Okay, this time he couldn’t stay quiet. “So if you know that, why do you keep trying?”

  “Honestly? I hate admitting defeat.” He let out a mirthless laugh. “I’m convinced she’s going to come to her senses and realize she’s been screwing with me for no reason and we can get back to where we used to be. That’s the couple I want to be.”

  For a minute, Dylan could only stare. Had he really thought Julian was closed off and unwilling to talk about stuff? This was almost more than he even wanted to know. It was one thing to go along and think that his friend was clueless and being taken advantage of; it was another to know he was willingly torturing himself with a crappy relationship.

  Damn.

  “So…you’re just going to wait her out and hope she comes to her senses?”

  Julian shrugged. “I’ve got nothing else to do.”

  “Jules, come on!” Dylan cried. “That’s ridiculous. Do you know how many women out there would kill to be in Dena’s shoes? Do you have any idea how much time and energy you’ve put into this relationship and it all might be for nothing? You’re wasting your life on something that maybe isn’t even meant to be.”

  Another shrug. “I think it could be—that in the end, she’ll see I’m what she wants. And I think it’s something worth fighting for.”

  Well, that was…insane. Dy
lan knew he had feelings for Paige and he enjoyed standing up for her and working for what they had. But it hadn’t been work, and he hadn’t done all that much standing up for her.

  Basically, he was a slacker.

  Could he possibly do all the things Julian was doing? Was he willing to put in that kind of time and energy into a relationship?

  He looked over at Julian, who was studying the board, and almost felt sorry for him. Dylan missed out on a lot of living because he was drunk to the point of oblivion most of the time. Maybe missing out wasn’t the right term, but he hadn’t appreciated his life. He was living, but he was living dangerously. But Julian? Julian was alive, but he wasn’t living. He was in a constant state of limbo, and Dena was the one playing with the height of the bar.

  He hated that bitch.

  All that being said, it brought him back to the same question—was he willing to put the time and energy into a relationship, especially now that he was living his life cleanly and clearly for the first time since he was a teenager?

  “Your move, man,” Julian said.

  Unfortunately, it was. He hadn’t been paying close enough attention to Julian’s moves, and there was no way for him to win now.

  Julian laughed quietly. “Yeah, man. You’re screwed.”

  Yeah, he was. And not only on the board.

  * * *

  The next night, Dylan showed up at Paige’s with Chinese food. They’d talked earlier in the day and made the plans, and at the time, he’d been excited by the thought of seeing her. Now, as he stood at the door, he felt more than a little nervous.

  Actually, he felt like nothing about this whole thing was natural anymore.

  He had to think about what to do, what to say, how to act. Maybe it was just him putting pressure on himself and overthinking everything. Like now that the thought had been put in his head that you have to work toward making a relationship…work, he felt he couldn’t relax and be himself.

  “Totally overthinking this,” he muttered and knocked on the door.