by Neve Wilder
“Why’d you come here in the first place?” I finally asked once we’d migrated from the kitchen to sprawl on the sectional in the living room.
“I wasn’t really thinking about it. It was gut reaction.” Evan shifted against the cushions, his foot knocking against mine where they met at the vertex of the sofa’s L shape and then settling there. A wiggle of my bare toes against his ankle drew a faint smile from him. “Leigh came over last night and had all these pictures of us, and it made me realize how much I missed you, and then when I saw you on the screen, I just—” He stopped and drew in a breath. “I just did it.”
I folded my arms behind my head, propping myself up for a better view. I’d noticed in the kitchen that he was thinner. Not by much, but when you spent as much time staring at him as I had, even a few pounds registered. “I think you should still take that deal. It’s huge. It’s everything you always wanted. Financial security, all that.” It hurt to say it, but I didn’t want to be a liability for him anymore.
Evan sawed his teeth against his lower lip in consideration, so I kept going, just in case he was trying to be nice about it, which was totally something he’d do. “Really, you should go for it. I’m not just saying it and I’ll secretly resent you later. I want you to do what you need to do.”
“But maybe it’s not what I want to do.” His glance became a longer gaze, and damn, I’d missed having him look at me with that perfectly Evan expression—sincere, slightly troubled. “I don’t want to make music without you, Les. I’ve tried and I can’t make it feel right. We were meant to do it together, and the only way I wouldn’t want to is if you thought it wasn’t right for you anymore or if you thought it would threaten your sobriety.”
“I want to, but…” I shook my head and sat up on the couch, pulling my knees in and resting my chin on my forearms. “I don’t think I can go on tour for a while. I can handle the studio and playing shows here, but I don’t want to mess up on the road, and I don’t trust myself yet.”
“Even with me there?”
“I don’t want you to be my babysitter. It’s not your job. I wouldn’t be able to stand it. Just thinking about our last tour makes me want to crawl in a hole. How I treated you. The dumb shit I did. I need time. I need to take things slowly.”
“Yeah, I get that.” Evan nodded and drew in a breath. “Slow is good. We need time to think.”
Admittedly, right then I wasn’t thinking about much aside from how damn grateful I was just to have Evan in the same room as me again, and that we’d been able to talk, really talk like we used to. Like friends. And in spite of that kiss he’d given me, if he just wanted to be friends, I promised myself I’d respect that no matter how much it hurt. Because I owed him that, and because I didn’t want to hurt him again.
Silence stretched and finally, Evan pushed himself upright and glanced at the door. “I guess I should probably go home.”
I clenched my lower lip between my teeth, then nodded, rising after him. “Sure. I can drop you off. Let me grab my keys.”
I retrieved them from the kitchen, and when I returned, Evan was standing in front of the big black-and-white photographs on the wall. “I remember you buying these. That was a great show.”
“Right after we found out we’d hit platinum for the second time.” I smiled.
He studied the pictures a moment longer, then turned toward me, an odd expression on his face. “I mean, I should go home, yeah? That makes the most sense. There’s a lot to think about and…”
“Yeah,” I jumped in quickly. “I can touch base tomorrow.”
I followed him to the door, and he’d pulled it open halfway when he paused, shut it again, and turned around, bumping into my chest.
“I don’t want to leave,” he said softly.
“You want to stay with me?” I held my breath. Because I didn’t want him to leave. Not at all. Not ever.
“I mean, if that’s okay?” His gaze searched mine, hesitant, as he feathered a light touch across my cheek, then my jaw that kindled a warm spark of hope and a rush of desire.
But God, the awkward politeness was going to kill me. “I want you to stay. Christ, Porter, I’m about to climb the walls wanting to touch you again.” Sitting across the table and then across the couch from him all those hours made me physically ache, but I didn’t want to push my precarious position when we still had so much ground to cover. I didn’t know if it was the bald confession or because I’d called him Porter, but the tension that’d been hanging over us since that kiss broke and he grinned.
He was still grinning when I hauled him in by the waistband for a kiss, and we made our way back to my bedroom at the speed of slugs on a sidewalk in August, pausing to peel off our shirts, tripping over the top step of the stairs.
By the time we got into the bedroom, we were both panting and hard, grinding against each other. I yanked his pants the rest of the way off and backed up for a second, just to stare, just to feast my eyes on the delicious man in front of me that I could never seem to get enough of.
“You’re looking at me like a cannibal right now.” Evan arched a brow at me with an amused tug at one corner of his mouth, but I could tell he enjoyed every second of it.
I snickered. “Sorry, rehab only served vegetarian fare, so I’ve worked up a huge appetite for some—”
He smothered the rest with a kiss, then broke away in laughter. I slid his boxers down his hips and attacked his neck, kissing a line up his throat.
“Did I tell you I’ve started running again?” I licked his earlobe, then bit down.
He grunted and slid his hand over my ass, giving it a squeeze. “Mmm, that’s sexy. Please do tell me all about your mile pace while you’re getting me hard.” His voice was laden with sarcasm, but when I reached down and squeezed his shaft in my fist, his breath hitched.
“Play nice, or I will. In monotonous detail.”
He looped an arm around my waist, sliding his hand behind the waistband of my boxers and running his finger down the seam of my ass. “Is this considered playing nice?” he asked, feathering a light caress over my hole that made my legs go wobbly.
“I think that’s considered playing dirty. Fortunately for you, I like that just as much. Now get inside me and light me the fuck up.”
“Shit,” he groaned, “I could listen to you talk like that all day.” He pulled his hand free, wet his fingers in his mouth, and returned, roughly shoving my boxers down before he teased my hole and pushed the tip of one finger inside until I moaned.
“Will you settle for all night?”
I woke around three in the morning. The habitual waking had come back in rehab. Sometimes I just lay in the bed; other times I got up and wrote. The first night home after I’d gotten out of rehab, I’d gone downstairs and played, but it only ended up making me sad. Tonight I lay there watching the rise and fall of Evan’s back as he slept, then rolled over and stared out the window, thinking about everything that had happened over the past couple of months. My parents had flown in from Virginia to be with me for the first week post-rehab, at their insistence, and though they meant well and I understood their concern, we’d drifted apart after Evan and I had hit it big with the first album, and I’d been glad when they left again. I thought now maybe I should work on that, call them more, something.
Evan draped his arm around my shoulder, spreading his fingers over my chest, his body so warm against my back I couldn’t help the contented sigh that escaped me. I covered his hand with mine, tracing the shape of his fingers and knuckles, the calluses from his guitar strings.
“What’re you thinking about?” he murmured into my neck.
I chuckled sleepily. “I don’t even know where to start. Everything. The tour, the cabin, rehab, my parents. Every single moment that’s led to this one and how it feels so precarious and sweet at the same time. How I want you to see that I’m taking sobriety seriously. That I want it. That I want us—more than the music, even.”
“I see it.” Ev
an pressed his lips to my shoulder. “You wouldn’t have stuck it out in rehab otherwise, wouldn’t have called Leigh or reached out to those other people you were telling me about earlier. Wouldn’t have called your sponsor to check in tonight.” Another soft brush of his lips sent a shiver of pleasure running through me. “I see it.”
“I can’t make any promises, though, you know that.”
“I know.” He got quiet after that, and I thought he was faltering, hesitating again, but after a moment, his lips resumed their soft trek along my shoulder and he rolled me onto my back, propping up on one arm to look down at me. “You keep acting like I never did anything wrong, but I did. I shut you out after Ella, and you didn’t deserve it. At all. And I’m really sorry about that, because it changed us. So I don’t want you thinking it was all your fault. I want to be better, too.”
I closed my eyes when they began to blur and burn, and Evan cupped my chin, sweeping his thumb gently over my cheek until I opened them and focused on him again.
“There was that night at the cabin where you said I was wrong. I was. I want you and I need you, and they’re the same thing for me, too. Maybe that’s what’s been wrong with the past and with my other relationships. I kept thinking about what I needed, what made logical sense, what I should want, what I should need. And I think you’re the only person I’ve ever known who’s both the one I want and the one I need.” He dragged in a breath, bending to press a kiss to my chest where my heart beat wildly beneath, and when he spoke next, it was with his lips brushing against my bare skin. “I love you, Les, and I want you with or without the music.”
Three words that hammered into my bones. My heart felt like it swelled and ballooned into the space around us, then went soaring up toward the ceiling, because I knew he meant it, that he’d never said those words in any other relationship. They were precious and small, and they were mine to keep.
Evan lifted his head, his lips hovering in front of mine as he said it again, then leaned a fraction of an inch forward to give me a kiss that was like our music. Thundering intensity and fragile complexity all at once. It was him and it was me in unison. A perfect harmony of us both.
Chapter 41
Nine months later
I was anxious like I hadn’t been since our first show together when I’d been worried that somehow, despite our months of practicing together, Les and I would be out of sync or fall completely flat in front of a large audience.
I wiped sweat from my brow and tried to unstick my T-shirt from my back, then drained the rest of the bottled water Les had handed me earlier, my nerves popping and hissing inside me like live wires sparking.
“You all right there, sweetheart?” Les shot me a grin as he squeezed my shoulder, knowing the endearment would raise my hackles. I was certain he knew that I secretly liked his random pet names, but fuck if I was going to tell him. It was just a thing like many others between us. His other favorites: darlin’, sweetie, one time sugar nuts, which I guess was his take on sugar tits. That one had earned him a hard, impromptu fuck in the back of the tour bus. You know, as punishment.
What could I say? We had a weird relationship, but it worked for us. A lot of stupid moments of antagonism blended with some of the most intimate experiences I’d ever had with another human being. Most of the time, it was the simple things that got me, like when we’d be on the bus or just sitting around writing and Les would randomly plop down next to me, lie his head in my lap, and give me a cheesy grin until I rolled my eyes and pulled him up for a kiss.
“I’m fine,” I said, tossing my empty water bottle at him, then picking up my guitar. When my hands started shaking, I clenched them into fists. Five minutes until showtime.
Les bent over to sweep up the empty water bottle, crackling the plastic a couple of times in my ear to both annoy and distract me, before he tossed it in a nearby receptacle. “Still want to go out for dinner after? I got us a reservation at Fusion.”
I nodded absently. I couldn’t even think about dinner right now, but Fusion had just opened and I’d mentioned wanting to go, so it was nice of him to remember. He did a lot of thoughtful stuff like that, and it was just one more thing that showed me I’d sold him too short in the past.
“Good.” Les fiddled with the ends of his hair; it’d grown longer and unruly and thinking about how much he fucking loved when I pulled on it made me smile. He fiddled with his earpiece next. I guessed he was nervous, too. We were fresh off the tour for our fourth album, Rise—which we’d delayed for several months until Les felt confident enough in his sobriety—and playing our final show before a two-week break. We hadn’t played the Ryman in ages, and it always felt like the shows mattered a little more when we were on home turf.
I bumped his shoulder with mine and gave him a smile that made him stop fiddling and grin back.
Les held true to his promise to put honest effort into staying sober. The first three months after he got out of rehab, he went to a meeting every day without fail. Now he went weekly. He’d worked the steps and made his amends, and I’d grown used to the random times he’d disappear to make a call to his sponsor, an old guy named Milt, who ended up becoming a friend to us both and frequently turned up at our house on the weekends. Yeah, our house. We’d moved in together two months ago after buying a spread outside of Belle Meade that needed a little TLC but had an amazing layout and an old barn we were in the process of converting into a home studio. Royalties off the fourth album helped a shit ton with that. Three songs off that album went to number one, including “Break Me,” the song Les had busted out with at Grim’s Gatlinburg, and we were currently working on a side project with Amanda Faulks that I thought was going to light up the charts. She and Les tangling their words together? It was a special kind of voodoo.
So with all of that going for us, there was nothing for me to be nervous about. Except the fact that I planned for this show to be the one where I asked Les to spend the rest of his life with me. Les liked being center stage; he liked a dog-and-pony show. I didn’t and naturally would have planned something quieter and more private, but the idea of him being in one of his favorite places in the world when I proposed was too much to pass up. I loved the fucker, and there was no one else on earth who could get me so out of my element and make me enjoy it at the same time.
It had taken me forever to come up with the idea, and it was so fucking cheeseball that I knew he’d love it as much as he’d tease me eternally about it if I could manage to pull it off. Pulling it off was the tricky part, but I’d enlisted Mars’s help.
Les dragged in a deep breath and slung the strap of his guitar around his neck as the lights dimmed. “I can’t wait to sleep in our bed again,” he muttered, and then his smile lit up as Mars gave us the go-ahead. Mars threw a wink my way in passing, which I knew meant he’d done his part. Now Les just had to cooperate with my attempt at psychological manipulation.
We walked out to an ovation of thundering applause, and I made our usual introductions while Les prowled around the edge of the stage as he was prone to. When we finally set up on the pair of stools in front of our mics and I played the opening notes of “Twist Me Up,” our latest hit, Les ducked his head and caught my eye, speaking quietly to avoid being picked up by the mic. “Check out that chick’s shirt on the front row. I should’ve worn mine.”
I rolled my eyes but was ecstatic inside. One thing checked off the list. I glanced at the blonde wearing the “I will end you” T-shirt in the front row and gave her a wink. She beamed back. I didn’t even know her name, but I imagined I would later, since Mars had given her and her boyfriend backstage passes for her role in my scheme.
We played through our first set with no difficulty, took a quick break, then returned for our second. The crowd was full of energy, standing up, singing along, and it went a long way toward easing my anxiety. Until we got to the portion where Les did his ask-the-audience bit.
He hopped off his stool, pacing back and forth, and the tempo of my pul
se sped up as he searched the audience. Then he pointed at the blonde, grinning. “I kinda can’t not pick you, because I have that same T-shirt.”
The girl bounced and clapped her hands.
Les started his usual spiel. “So what do you want to hear? Anything in the world. Doesn’t have to be ours. We may fuck it up royally, but we’ll give it our best shot. And, by the way, speaking of fuckups, there’s now a YouTube channel dedicated to all of our worst attempts at covers—thank you wayne17333. So you all can check those out if you want to hear Evan and me shattering our vocal chords with some Mariah Carey or me beatboxing a Barry White song. To whoever had the foresight to take a video of that night before Evan found me and tried to teach me right, thanks a lot. Really. I appreciate it.”
The laughter died down, and Les stopped at the edge of the stage again, inclining his chin to the girl. “So what’s it gonna be?”
I kept my eyes on the audience, afraid that if I looked down I’d see a puddle of sweat under me.
She licked her lips, shot me a quick glance, then cupped her hands around her mouth and called out, “Marry You?”
Les cackled. “Is that your boyfriend next to you?”
She nodded.
“Then I’m afraid I’ll have to decline. He looks like he might be able to beat up my boyfriend, and I kinda need him, soooo… sorry.”
She spoke again, and he leaned closer to hear. “Oh, right, of course! I knew that. Did I mention I have an ego?” He chuckled. “She meant the song. My bad. Okay. We can do that.”
He wandered back in my direction, setting his mic back into the stand and glancing over at me. “Bruno Mars, yeah?”
I nodded, hoping I wasn’t white as a sheet, then willed my hands not to tremble on my strings so I could start the damn song I’d been practicing for days.