by Neve Wilder
What he wanted to tell me was that just because you wanted something didn’t mean you needed it, and I knew that perfectly well, but I also knew what we’d each earned over the last few years, and debating over an extra box of cereal was like worrying about stealing a glass of water from the ocean. I knew he couldn’t help it to some degree; it was just how he was made. That and growing up with so little to his name that he held tightly to everything he got. His whole childhood was want versus need. On a photoshoot once, the wardrobe assistant had a bunch of shoes lined up for us to choose from, and Evan had just stood there, frozen by the choice, going back and forth as if it really mattered which shoes we wore until the woman finally picked for him. As he’d sat down to pull off his ratty Vans, she’d said he could keep all the shoes if he wanted, but he’d just shaken his head.
“Why the fuck not?” I’d asked. I’d had a bag in the corner already loaded with more dress shirts and hipster pants than I had closet space for. “What’s the point if you won’t even let yourself enjoy some of the perks?”
He’d given me a disconcerted look, like I’d insulted the very core of his being or something. “I’m not doing this for perks and these”—he toed at his Vans where a piece of rubber was peeling back from the side of the fabric—“keep my head in the right place.”
I reached past Evan toward the cereal shelf, my shoulder brushing his. The contact was light and innocent, but I felt him stiffen. I got it. We were both hyperaware of each other now that we were supposed to be portraying a couple. It was freaking me out, too, how conscious I was of his proximity, his every look. It was different than before, when I could just sit back and ache for him from a safe distance. Now, we were trying to navigate building this grand illusion that was a farce to him, but more like my wish come true. Minus the part where he was completely not into it.
The second we’d gotten out of the car in the parking lot, I could tell he was starting to overthink and doubt things. He’d scanned the parking lot repeatedly as we walked toward the double doors searching, no doubt, for the photographer who was supposed to show up at some point. When I’d slung my arm around him casually, like I’d done a thousand times before, he’d withered inside my grip like water put to a straw wrapper. “Relax,” I’d said, leaning into his peppery aftershave. “It’s just a different kind of stage.”
“You’re getting both.” I flipped my hand so the boxes of cereal careened over the ledge of the shelf and toppled into the cart. “And if you don’t eat them, I will. In fact, I want them. I want them both. And now they’re in the buggy, which is great, so let’s move on because what I do need is to stop freezing.” I reached for the handle of the cart, and Evan edged me out of the way.
“Par for the course,” he muttered and started to push the cart down the aisle.
I snapped my foot out to the basket underneath and halted it. “What’s that mean?”
“It means that’s just your whole MO. You want something, you take it, because why shouldn’t you have it if it’s there? Why shouldn’t you have anything you desire?”
“Yeah, and so? Why shouldn’t you?”
“That’s not real life.”
I chuckled. “None of this is real life, sweetheart.” His eyes flashed when I drawled the word. He hated it. “That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t enjoy something. There’s not some kind of enforcer up in the sky waiting to snatch all of this away from you the second you let yourself relax, Porter.”
He pressed his lips together, then forced the cart back into motion, one wobbly wheel squeaking as he continued down the aisle. I trailed close behind, rubbing my arms briskly.
“That’s not it, but whatever,” he said. “Let’s just finish.”
But I couldn’t let it go. “It’s almost this reverse snobbery thing with you. You’re too hung up on your roots. Too afraid if you let yourself reap the rewards of all our work that… what? You’ll be just another run-of-the-mill celebrity? We can’t have that, can we?”
I could tell I’d hit a nerve because the squeaky wheel stuttered again as he slowed and pinned me with a hard stare. “The last time I fucking relaxed, we bombed an album.”
Had it been anyone else, a look with that much sharp edge might have drawn blood, but with Evan, I knew it came from the fear of failure that’d been in the driver’s seat his entire life and maybe always would be. “That’s not just on you, though—don’t be that fucking arrogant. It’s on us both, and it has nothing to do with anything we’re talking about.”
“Anytime I relax and think I’ve got a handle on shit, something goes wrong.”
“Got news for you, then. You haven’t relaxed in six months and shit’s still going wrong.”
His mouth crimped up in irritation as I reached out and sped the cart along again. “And it’d be a helluva lot worse if I wasn’t busting my ass to keep things on an even keel.”
I snatched a bag of potato chips from a display and tossed it in the cart with more force than was necessary. “You say that like I’m inept, like you’re carrying me along and keeping everything going while I’m fucking off.”
“Sometimes it feels that way.”
This was dangerous territory, but I sure as hell wasn’t cold anymore. Heat flared and battered at my pulse. It wasn’t just anger. It was frustration, too, because I knew deep down he was right. And if I opened my mouth and unleashed what I was holding back, whoever was supposed to be waiting out in the parking lot was going to get an eyeful of the wrong kind of thing. So I took a deep breath and turned down the next aisle.
Evan smacked my hand away when I reached for a six-pack of beer. “Oh come the fuck on,” I groused, but I put my hands up and backed away when he gave me a meaningful stare. “Fine. I want it, but I don’t need it,” I said. “Look at that, we’ve come full circle.”
A glimmer of a smile threatened the corner of his mouth. He didn’t want to smile, I could tell, but I latched onto it, wanting to coax it wider. “Now all that’s left is you throwing a case in the cart and telling me to stuff it.”
He put his hand out and shoved at the side of my face, but I caught that curve of his mouth as it widened and he said, “How about I just tell you to stuff it? Also, did you call the cart a buggy?”
I blinked at him. “Maybe?”
“Have you always done that?”
“I have no idea since I haven’t devoted a great deal of time to quantifying certain aspects of my vocabulary for frequency of usage. Feel free to keep track for me from now on. We don’t make a habit of shopping together,” I reminded him. “Thank God.”
“I’ve just never noticed it before. Buggy,” he repeated the word to himself with a little chuckle. It was one of those idiosyncratic moments where I didn’t quite understand his amusement but infinitely preferred it to irritation, so I let him have it, bless his heart.
The checkout line took forever, and a couple of people gave us funny looks, but that might have been on account of our clothing, which was definitely more dirty hippies than Southern-boy Polo chic, though no one said anything until just before we got to the exit. I was back to freezing again, enjoying the welcome blast of heat when the doors slid open with a hydraulic hiss. And then—
“Les?” A woman’s voice, and she said my name with authority like I was personal friend. But when I turned around, I had no idea who she was. She was cute. Petite. Vividly dark eyes and wild dreadlocks gathered up and spilling over a scarf wound around her head. Evan glanced over at me. I knew he was assuming she was someone I’d slept with. I was pretty sure that wasn’t the case. Well, more than fifty percent sure.
I gave her a polite smile as she approached, and an easy “Heyyyyyy.”
“You have no clue who I am, do you? It’s okay. I can forgive you.” She laughed brightly. “Bonnaroo, last year. You probably saved this gorgeous face”—she preened, angling her face from side to side. Her mocha skin was flawless, her smile gleaming and perfect—“from getting trampled. But I think you were hammered, too
.”
The memory came to me slowly, and she was right. I’d been hammered. It was early evening when we’d played our set, and Blink and I had been sampling liberally from the cadre of booze and weed that were in abundance on the grounds. By the time Evan and I walked onstage, the crowd had become an indistinct blur of motion, an ocean of faces rippling between the play of shadow and light. I didn’t even know how I’d managed to see her. There’d been a suggestion of disturbance I caught from one corner of my eye, and when I looked in her direction, an emptiness like something had been scooped out of the landscape, then a flash of white on the ground. The crowd swayed and bounced, jostling near the stage and then began parting around her. Security retrieved her and tried to muscle their way off to the side where the medics were, but there were so many people packed in they had trouble making headway. They’d turned around, heading back toward the stage, instead, and I stopped singing and hopped down to help them pull her over the barricade. Her ankle was twisted at a grotesque angle and her face tracked with dirt and tears.
“Maize!” Her name bubbled up to the surface, and she gave me a cheerful grin and enthusiastic nod.
“You just plopped down next to me and said you’d wait with me until the medics got there. It was really sweet.”
“Don’t give him too much credit,” Evan interrupted, folding his arms over his chest. “He probably needed to sit down, and it was that or pass out.”
I shot him a bird. Evan had been furious with me for ditching out in the middle of the song, but he remained onstage, picking up a few beats after I’d left off, and the audience had fucking loved it. Loved that he soldiered on alone. Most of our music featured intricate harmonies and duets, so hearing Evan’s incredible range solo and stripped bare had been something special. That was my take, at least. When I climbed back onstage later, I’d discovered he was trembling. “It’s been so damn long since I’ve stood up here by myself, I got nervous,” he’d explained afterward. And then I’d felt bad, though I probably hadn’t apologized.
I introduced the two of them, and Maize asked what we were doing in town, so I explained how we came here to write all of our albums.
“No shit? Well, I live a couple miles outside of town. Have a drum circle that goes every Friday night if you’re interested. It’s pretty low-key, and I promise no one would spaz out too hard if you guys came.”
I cut a look over at Evan to suss out what he was thinking, because I was game. He was hard to read with strangers, but I thought I detected some interest in the way his eyes narrowed thoughtfully, so I nodded. “We could probably manage that.”
She rolled onto the balls of her feet, aiming another blinding smile in our direction. She seemed really sweet and down-to-earth, and I wished I could remember what the hell I’d spent fifteen minutes talking to her about in the pit in front of the stage while we waited for someone to come examine her. I wouldn’t put it past me to have been trying to get her number, considering how attractive she was.
She put her number in my phone, hit Send, then hung up and handed it back to me, saying, “My girlfriend comes up from Chattanooga every weekend, too, so you’ll get to meet her. Again. Have you to thank for that. She was one of the medics.”
“I’ve always been a good Cupid.” I gave her a wink as Evan grunted something under his breath, and then we pushed through the doors and into the blissful oven-like furor of hot Southern asphalt.
Chapter 19
“You know we actually have to produce while we’re here, right?” Evan said as we strolled through the parking lot. I scouted for cameras over the tops of cars and vans, skimming the few other people in the parking lot, but I hadn’t spotted a photographer yet.
“We will. I’ve got a couple of things I wrote down last night. Figured we could go over them this afternoon.”
Evan grunted and searched the parking lot, too. “Where is this fucker? I’m not about to wait all afternoon.”
“We won’t. If he’s not here, he’s not, and too bad.” I shrugged one shoulder, wondering when grocery delivery would reach these parts as the cart rattled noisily over the pavement.
Evan popped the hatch on his SUV and started shoving groceries in the back. I’d joined in when a prickle of awareness dusted over my shoulders and lifted the hairs on the back of my neck.
“He’s here. Don’t look,” I said, and wedged another grocery bag inside.
“I swear to God, you’d feel a damn ant looking at you from a mile away. It’s uncanny. Or maybe scary,” he muttered.
“So what’re we going to do? Should I put my arm around you? Should we make out?” We hadn’t really planned this out in advance, and now I was flailing over the logistics. Levi had said we needed to be convincing, and considering how Evan had been recoiling from even the mere suggestion of my touch, I wasn’t sure how we were going to get from that to a loving embrace. Damn, we really should have mapped this out beforehand.
Evan paused, one arm extended above him, his hand curled over the hatch door as he squinted his eyes at me scornfully. “We’re not making out in the parking lot.”
“Why not?”
“It’s total overkill.”
“Okay, how about holding hands? That’s easy.” I reached for his hand, and he batted me away. I cracked up at that, and at his stiff posture. I could tell he was calculating, too, trying to break this event down into logical steps. So in order to save some time, grief, and overthinking, I just went for it, leaning in against him, ready to plant one on his mouth. He did the same, tipping his head aside in time to avoid my mouth landing on his as he plastered a very chaste, very dry kiss on my cheek.
I groaned and reeled back to peer assessingly at him. Surely that didn’t qualify as boyfriend-worthy steam? It hardly even registered to my dick, and I had a hair trigger as far as erections were concerned. A hot, stiff wind could perk my interest on the right day. “What the fuck was that?”
“Affection? Contractual obligation? Let’s go.” Evan slammed the hatch door shut. I sent my gaze out over the parking lot and found the photographer, her camera still aimed at us.
“That wasn’t affection. That was a kiss for someone you’re afraid might have a nasty infection.”
Evan’s arched his brows, a little smirk curling coyly up one side of his mouth. “Your point?”
“Oh fuck off. I get tested regularly.”
“That’s about the only thing you do regularly.” He might as well have stuck his tongue out at me. “I did what I was supposed to do.” He pushed off the hatch of the trunk, like he was ready to go, but I wasn’t done.
“That wasn’t a kiss. It was like a zombie taking stock of fresh meat, or a grandma giving a kiss to the grandkid she secretly can’t stand. A hello to the long-lost brother you never wanted. A—”
“It was a perfectly nice peck on the cheek. It got the point across, it fulfilled the mission, it was—”
“Unconvincing and boring,” I countered.
“I’m not going to stick my tongue down your throat in a fucking grocery store parking lot.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not fifteen?”
Great, now we were arguing in full view of the photographer. “Just a prude.” Mostly I said that because I knew it was the quickest way to get a reaction out of him.
“I’m not a fucking prude.” Evan smacked the rear window of the SUV, his brows pinching together with frustration. I could practically hear the whir of the photographer’s shutter capturing this stupid moment. “You of all people should know that,” he growled.
I got the reference immediately, amusement fading, replaced by hunger and ache as the memory of him exploding inside Ella and the harsh cry of sound he’d made flashed in the back of my mind.
And then, without warning, he crowded up against me, his hand planting at the center of my chest and shoving me up against the car. There was a split second where I felt my mouth drop open in shock before he smothered it with the crush of his.
&n
bsp; The memory I had of his lips was muddied by Ella’s presence, just a hint of the Fireball shot he’d taken before, and the messy tangle of tongues I couldn’t really differentiate.
And nothing like what was happening now.
My lips yielded automatically beneath the pressure of his, like cracking a seal, and behind it was warmth, the spicy tinge of cinnamon gum, the silky wetness of his tongue when it slipped against mine for a slow, indulgent caress. Kissing didn’t get near enough credit, and I knew Evan probably thought I was only about plugging my dick in a hole. But I fucking loved kissing, and holy shit was Evan good at it. To a degree that, in a completely nonsensical way, I felt like he’d been holding out on me. You could have warned me you kissed like every dark devil that ever seduced, asshole.
I felt the tension of his body transferred to the slippery heat of his lips, and the few seconds of discord where our teeth clicked together as we navigated the unfamiliar geometry of each other’s mouths until we found our rhythm. And once we did, it was effortless synchronicity of give and take, the same way we were onstage.
Evan’s stubble prickled along my chin, and after a few moments, I remembered I had a body, that I was more than just the lips and tongue currently dancing with his. I caressed the tips of my fingers up his spine, and his hand slid up from the center of my chest to my throat. The tendons in my neck jumped beneath his roaming touch, and my pulse rippled against his palm as he tightened his grip around me and dipped his thumb into the shallow dish below my Adam’s apple. I groaned again, and he staggered back with a curse, his teeth scraping across my lower lip as we parted. His eyes were fever bright and glossy, the pupils shot wide as he stared at me. We were both breathless.
“How’s that? Unconvincing? Boring?” he panted out and smirked.
I swiped my hand across the back of my mouth and smirked back. “Better.”
What I really wanted to do was take hold of his shoulders, shove him into the back of the damn SUV, and pull his shorts around his ankles because holy fuck was I turned on now. That kiss was no stiff wind—it was a whole tornado, and I was dizzy with the violent intensity of it. I scanned his face desperately, trying to determine whether he felt the same. I couldn’t get a good read on his expression, though.