by Neve Wilder
He gave me a sharp glare, one he probably hoped would morph into acid and melt the skin from my face. Then he straightened, swiping the back of his hand over his mouth, and damn, I swear it felt like he could see straight through to the part of me that ached with how much I wanted him, even right then when he was being an obstinate, insulting ass. I liked dick, but I didn’t typically enjoy a guy acting like one, so I was annoyed that the intensity of his expression sent a flinch of heat rocketing through my groin even as I wanted to shrivel away from it.
“Why is it impossible for you to go a night without someone on your cock?”
“I’ve gone strings of days without screwing someone. I told you I was sorry. I tried to hang out with you after. You wanted nothing to do with me.” I shrugged.
He rubbed the knuckle of his thumb between his brows, then closed his eyes and exhaled a long sigh.
“Leigh broke up with me.”
“Blameshifting much?”
He grunted something that sounded like maybe, but I didn’t respond immediately because I was chewing over this news. Even though they’d been together a while, Evan never really seemed all that into Leigh. I mean, he seemed like he liked her well enough, but not to the degree that her breaking up with him should turn him into the troll he was currently. I’d never heard him talk about a future with her. I added, “I’m sorry, though. That sucks. I guess?” I honestly couldn’t tell if he was angry at me, Leigh, or both of us.
“Fuck.” Evan blew out a harsh breath, raking a hand through his hair until it stuck out at odd angles in an annoyingly sexy tousle of blond. His shoulders curled inward a little as he pushed his plate away and started unfolding bills from his pocket, counting out a dozen twenties—much more than was needed—and laying them under the check the waiter had dropped off minutes before so stealthily Evan didn’t notice him. Which had probably been the point. I didn’t blame the guy. “You remember the first time we went to the cabin?”
I tipped my chin in a short nod when he glanced up for confirmation.
“It was just about making music. About making something good. No label on our backs, no personas to live up to, or unspoken quotas to meet. The crazy thing is, though, I knew that all of this was what I wanted. The success, the money. Like, I was actively working toward that, and now it’s here and I’m stuck on this hamster wheel of wanting it to be the way it was, but wanting the financial stability, too. And I can’t have it both ways. I get that. They’re interconnected.” He wet his lips and stared at me, and behind the brightness of blue was the shadow of an ache I recognized. Loneliness. Exhaustion. “But it gets to me sometimes. All this shit around us is so meaningless and empty. The photo shoots and interviews, all the free shit we’re given just because of our name. It’s not real. And I feel like an ass complaining about it. It’s not really a complaint even, but I need… I need something to ground me. Someone to ground me. I thought someone removed from all this bullshit would make me feel that way. And it worked, kinda. When I was with Leigh, I was still just me. She knew the me before the person I am now. Being with her was like being home again.”
A melancholy note plinked in my chest and harmonized with jealousy. So he was really upset about Leigh. “Why’d she break up with you?”
“She said there wasn’t a spark. We were more friends than anything. And she’s right. ” He put his forehead to his palm and shook his head from side to side, seeming dejected as he continued. “The last time she was here, the sex was just… mechanical. We might as well have laid next to each other and masturbated. I screwed it up.”
I tried to focus on what Evan was saying and stop imagining him lying on a hotel bed jerking off. He’d rarely ever even used the word sex and himself in the same sentence, but boy it was having an effect on me. Shit, he was right. I couldn’t go two seconds without my mind free-falling into the gutter. I sucked in a breath and attempted to muster up a more convincing expression of sympathy. He was hurting, and I didn’t want him to hurt, after all.
“I’ll hang out tonight, dude, I promise. You, me, wings, and some Call of Duty. Mars got the new one. I saw it last night.”
But we didn’t do any of those things. Because after we got offstage that night—our last show on the tour—he out-of-the-damn-blue hopped a red eye and flew back to Nashville by himself.
Black Dove hasn’t done as well as your previous two albums.
Les: It’s a flop, you can say it. It’s the truth.
Anything you’d attribute that to? Any changes in how you guys approached the writing and recording.
Les: I think it’s just one of those things that—
Evan: No. Next question.
Chapter 13
I was the first to arrive in Gatlinburg, which came as absolutely no surprise. I’d texted Les earlier that morning and had gotten no response. I’d heard from him once in the four days we’d been off, which was probably fair turnabout since I’d jetted without warning after our last show. I knew he thought it was either his fault or because I was upset about Leigh, and it was a little of both, but not in the ways he’d probably thought it was.
As I pulled onto the downtown strip to pick up the keys to the cabin, my phone buzzed with a message from our manager, Byron, saying Les was on a flight from Vegas and Blink would drop him off at the cabin that afternoon. I wondered how much money he’d lost, how much alcohol he’d funneled into his system, how many people he’d fucked. Les never did anything half-assed, and to be honest, I was a little surprised to hear he’d actually made it onto his flight in the first place.
Evan: What kind of state is he in? Do you know?
Byron: You should probably pick up some Pedialyte.
So my next stop after picking up the keys was a Walgreens, where I roamed the aisles until I found the Pedialyte. I stood in front of the colorful display next to diapers and baby food, debating the different flavors and which one he might like until I stopped, wondering what the fuck I was even doing. I left without buying anything because maybe he could do with a little suffering. I was tired of cleaning up his messes, tired of picking him up, dragging him out of hotels, being responsible for him. All the peace I’d found over the past few days being back in Nashville in my own place, with my own sheets and plenty of room to roam around, started to disintegrate and my stomach knotted up all over again.
It eased up once I arrived at the cabin, got out of the rental car, and stood in the gravel drive, looking at the little placard hanging next to the door that read “Tune Out.” Memories poked holes in my foul mood like sunlight through clouds: the first time we came here, our gear jammed in my beat-up SUV, Les wedged in the front seat. The cabin was set into a downward slope, its rustic face framed in logs, a couple of tidy flower boxes beneath the windows crowded with a few plants I recognized as geraniums. It was homey and inviting and looked like it would smell clean and lemony inside.
“So quaint,” Les had said, unfolding from the car and stretching his long legs. His T-shirt had risen up over his stomach, revealing the tattoos that banded his torso. “You think it has a heart-shaped tub?” He’d waggled his brows at me playfully.
“If it does, you’re free to start a lonely-hearts club in it.” I’d smirked at him, and he cracked up. We used to do that more. Banter back and forth like we did onstage minus the bitter edge that seemed inherent in our conversations nowadays.
A dull pang rattled around my chest, and I took a deep breath, then went to the back of the car and started hauling my gear inside.
The inside of the cabin smelled as it had the last three times we’d come, and like I’d predicted it would that first time. Clean and lemony, faintly of bleach and pine. It reminded me of growing up, and though this cabin was pretty small, my childhood homes—because there’d been a few—had been even smaller. Still, there was something comforting and cozy about it. Peaceful, and I was glad the wildfires that had devastated the area a while back had spared it.
Two bedrooms and a bathroom off the shor
t hallway opened into the living room kitchen combo. Down a steep flight of stairs, a basement opened onto the wooded slope outside. The music room was down there, too, so I dropped my guitars there first, then jogged back upstairs and claimed the same bedroom I always claimed, with a view of the forest— currently a thick canopy of green. There was a TV with local channels we rarely used, and Wi-Fi, so I set up my laptop in the kitchen and checked our numbers. Still unimpressive. Byron sent me the SoundScans to look at every few days at my request, even though he’d promised me time and time again he was keeping a close eye on it. It drove Les crazy that I fixated on them.
When I turned to grab a bottle of water from the fridge, Les’s voice coiled and curled seductively around my ear so acutely I almost looked over my shoulder to see if he was there. Make him feel good, sweetheart. The echo of his words that night rolled through me, and my heart hammered in my chest, blood rushing to my cock so fast I should’ve been light-headed. I gripped the edge of the counter, but that was no good either because I immediately thought of how my nails dug into the underside the last time we were here.
Fuck, maybe this had been a bad idea.
It was a quarter past nine when Blink hammered on the front door and the two of them stumbled inside. I looked up from where I was flipping through an old copy of Rolling Stone on the couch at Les dragging his suitcase behind him. Blink saluted me, then turned and hurried back out.
My gaze lingered on Les, assessing him, and he knew it. A stare down ensued. I took in the four-day scruff along his jaw, the circles under his eyes, and the dry crack in one corner of his mouth. Les was universally attractive in a way that a human of any orientation would agree. He had an enigmatic allure, like he carried around his own atmosphere with him, and the closer you got, the more he’d absorb you into his world. I’d been trying to pinpoint it for years—whether it was the deep set of his eyes, the thick black lashes over muddy green, the dark brows and carved cheekbones over a sensuous mouth—which more than a few magazines had rhapsodized over. He was both masculine and feminine at once.
But I’d only seen him look like ransacked garbage on one occasion, when we’d both gotten hit with food poisoning in Germany.
This was the second time.
It wasn’t just that he physically appeared hungover or strung out or exhausted. It was something else, something less tangible, like a soul-deep tiredness that dimmed his eyes as they flickered over me blankly. He looked like he was tired of his own skin. Or maybe I was just projecting my own irritation at feeling like his constant custodian. My desire to find some common ground with him again butted up against extreme annoyance. He’d clearly partied hard in Vegas.
“It’s good to see you,” he said. The greeting surprised me so much I didn’t know how to respond back. I was expecting animosity, or snark, but he sounded like he meant it.
One side of his mouth twitched up in a tentative smile, then he pulled a small black plastic bag from his pocket and tossed it toward me. “I’m gonna go crash.”
I caught the bag, lifting a brow in a silent question that he didn’t answer as he snatched the handle of his suitcase up again and tugged it down the hall after him. The door to his bedroom clicked shut behind him.
Blink returned, bobbling a couple of guitar cases and bags, which he set beside the door. Then he stood there, looking around and rubbing his hands together briskly as he gave me a tight smile and seemed uncertain of what to say.
“How was Vegas?”
He seemed surprised by the question and shrugged, wandering deeper inside the cabin to drop heavily into the chair across from me.
“It was Vegas, I guess. You know, a place where nothing changes yet is constantly changing.”
I’d never understood the draw. Vegas was just noise to me. Noise and overexposure on every front. “That’s why he likes it.”
Blink considered, running a finger over his upper lip. “I don’t know if it goes that deep for him. I think it’s more like an exciting distraction. Shinies everywhere.” He wiggled his fingers, and I cracked a small smile. He was right about that, too. There was a lot about Les that was almost fae; he loved everything bright and scintillating.
“Looks like y’all had a good time.”
Blink’s mouth screwed up in a wince. “We went hard, yeah.” He paused, and I could tell he was debating saying more or just leaving it alone. “He’s stressed. He knows he’s on the line, Ev.”
“We both are,” I said impassively.
“Yeah, but you do well under pressure. Les just sort of… collapses.”
I flipped the magazine shut and tossed it aside where it skittered over the couch cushions and landed on the floor. “Then it’s time for him to figure his shit out. I’m tired of doing it for him.”
“Not gonna lie, even I’m having a hard time keeping up with him, lately.” His hands were fidgeting all over the place, with threads on his shorts, the hem of his shirt. Part of that was just Blink; he was full of energy, always restless, but I felt like I was making him nervous somehow. I guess I could understand. He didn’t want to be caught in the middle.
“It’s not your job to keep up with him,” I pointed out. “It’s not anyone’s job.”
He narrowed his eyes slightly. “I’m his friend, too, and hey, it used to be fun.”
“Things change.” I shrugged. “He get into too much trouble out there?” It was Les, so I didn’t really need to ask. He’d ride the Whore of Babylon, then ask who was next.
Blink rolled one shoulder, looking back over to the door, probably itching to leave. “Nah. Nothing out of the ordinary.” By which I deduced plenty of drinking and plenty of sex. I got an unwelcome sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Actually, for him it was pretty tame. Anyway—” Blink stood. “Guess I’ll head out.”
“You can crash if you want. Take the couch. I’m fixin’ to go to bed.”
“Nah.” He waved off the offer as he started for the door. “I’m picking up a few gigs in Nashville, so I need to get back.”
“You sure you’re good for the road?” I had no idea how long he’d been up, but it was entirely possible he’d only slept a few hours over the past few days.
“Oh yeah. I pounded a couple of Red Bulls.” He cut me a confident grin and opened the door as I trailed along after him.
“That shit’ll kill you eventually.”
“Everything will. At least I’ll be awake.”
We exchanged a loose, mostly insincere hug, and I lingered in the doorway as he walked out to the rental car.
“Take it easy, write some hits, all the good shit,” he called over his shoulder. He stopped after he opened the car door, glancing up at me like he had something else to add. I suspected it would be about Les, so I was glad when he changed his mind with a quick shake of his head and ducked into the car.
Back inside the cabin, I picked the magazine up from the floor and threw it on the coffee table among its other out-of-date brethren. The black plastic bag Les had tossed me was still on the couch, tempting me. I snatched it up and turned it over to find a small plastic case with a clear top and a sticker that read “Lundgren Hand Made.” Six wooden picks of varying thicknesses and wood types were slotted into a gray foam bed. Popping the case open, I ran my thumb over the smooth edges. I’d been interested in playing around with wood picks for a while because of their reputed warm tones, but I’d never gotten around to actually getting any. These were exquisite, probably not cheap, and I examined each of them individually before selecting one indicated as being made of rosewood. I grabbed one of Les’s guitar cases from by the door, too lazy to go down to the basement, and set up on the couch, running quietly through some scales, getting a feel for the way wood changed the level of attack on the strings.
It was a thoughtful gift. Les was good with stuff like that. So often he seemed absorbed in his own world, and then bam, out of nowhere he’d say or do something that let you know he’d been paying attention to everything
all along.
It also seemed like an apology in a way, but maybe I was reading too much into it. Regardless, it kept him on my mind, and twice that night I almost walked into his room. But I didn’t know what I wanted to say, besides thanks, and he needed the sleep anyway, so I abandoned the idea and went to bed.
Chapter 14
Levi started blowing up my phone at eight the next morning.
“You hooked up to Wifi yet?” he asked right off the bat when I answered. I was puttering around the kitchen, dumping coffee grounds into a filter, but the urgency in his voice gave me pause.
“Yep. Need me to look at something?”
“That’d be good. Go over to TMZ. Les around?”
“Sleeping it off. What do you think?” I hit the button on the machine to start the coffee and poked through the fridge before closing it, empty-handed.
“Get him, take a look, and call me back.”
“You’re making me nervous,” I said, already on my way to the kitchen table where I reached into my messenger bag to pull out my laptop.
“It’s not a huge ordeal really, but I know how you are about privacy.”
I figured the news about my breakup with Leigh had finally gotten out, though why that would be newsworthy, I had no idea. I’d done such a good job of keeping my shit locked down that my love life was rarely mentioned these days, and it wasn’t like Leigh was some high-profile celeb, anyway. I got my laptop fired up, then navigated over to TMZ.
I recognized her instantly, even at thumbnail size. Ella. I couldn’t think of her name without a hundred images flashing on the backs of my eyelids. My hand in her hair, Ella on her knees, the dart of her tongue along Les’s cock.
My eyes glommed onto the headline next, a sour mash of feeling erupting in my gut. “Porter & Graves Share More Than Music; Gatlinburg native spills all the details of her steamy tryst with the dynamic duo.”