“Wow, Ty. That’s big.” Carter’s tone was noncommittal.
“Yeah,” I continued. “But I need this band to make it, Carter. I don’t have anything else to fall back on, I’ve got to get away from my mom.”
“I know you do, Ty. You have my full support.” Carter clasped my shoulder. “You are like my son, you have to know that.”
“Thanks, Carter. That means a lot.”
“How does Zoey being the ‘one’ fit into those plans?”
“I love her. I haven’t told her yet. I’ve never had any feelings like this, and she is just so beautiful. And kind. And sweet.” It was hard to put into words why she had come to mean so much to me in such a short time.
“So, why make it about love? Why not enjoy the summer with her and not take it so seriously?” Carter tapped his finger on his chin.
“Because loving her is serious for me. I know she’s going to college at Western in the fall and we’ll be on tour. It doesn’t matter. I want us to stay together. All the other guys are going to be partying and fucking around. I’m just not into it. I only wish there were a way for the band to be successful without always having to be out on the road. Don’t you think that would have made a difference with Lianne?” After the scene on the lawn, I felt really anxious and needed some fatherly advice.
Carter stared at me, dumbfounded.
“Ty, I’m going to give it to you straight. Get her out of your system and let her go when you leave. It will suck, you’ll be sad, but you are way too young to be thinking about forever with any girl, especially one who just graduated high school.”
“I don’t want to get her out of my system.”
“C’mon, you’ve never really dated let alone had a serious girlfriend.” Carter was incredulous.
“No. But, I haven’t been completely immune to the women that throw themselves at all of us, Carter.” I scowled.
“Thank God, you’re far too young to settle down.”
“That’s my point. You were with Zane’s mom at my age, weren’t you?”
“Yes! It was the worst fucking mistake of—” Carter stopped mid-sentence. His face drained. “No, it wasn’t a mistake, Zane was never a mistake.”
“You loved Lianne.” I tried to get him to understand. “Maybe if—”
“I did. And I know that having a girlfriend and a kid and living this life, it just doesn’t go together.” Carter squinted at me. “Trust me, it will blow up.”
“Carter, I’ve had to make my own decisions and support myself for a long time now. I didn’t have anyone who ever gave two fucks about me until I met Zane and you. But Zoey is a whole new level, I know I want to be with her.” I dug my heels in. “My life is different than yours, that’s what I’m trying to say.”
“You’re only twenty-one, you don’t know a lot.”
“Well, neither do you,” I snarked. “I sure don’t feel twenty-one. I’m not going to ever fuck a bunch of girls who are strangers. I am not my mom. I’m also not going to be like the sleazeball guys who wanted to fuck my mom. I’ll never be like that.”
“What does Zoey want?” Carter backed off a bit after my outburst, trying a new angle. “She just turned eighteen, I mean c’mon. You said it yourself, she’s young. Do you trust that she feels the same way?”
“I hope so. If she’ll stay with me, I will do whatever it takes to be a good man for her, because that’s the kind of guy she deserves.”
“Look, I’m not going to fight with you, Ty.” Carter picked up his guitar and strummed a few notes. “Just promise me you’ll not do anything stupid. Or permanent. Use condoms.”
I sighed without answering and started playing a counter-melody. Zoey slipped into the room and stood against the wall, watching us with a look of awe on her face. We played and sang a few covers, Led Zeppelin, Soundgarden, Oasis, and finally a couple of Beatles. When we finished and I set my guitar back on its stand, Zoey gleefully ran over to me, throwing herself into my arms.
“You guys are so talented, I’m so lucky to just be able to hear you play like this,” she said softly. “Thank you, Carter, for letting me be here today.”
“You’re welcome, sweetheart. Anytime.” Carter smiled at her kindly. He took off his guitar and set it on its stand. “You take care of him, yeah?”
“I’ll do my best,” Zoey said as though she were taking a solemn oath.
“I’m gonna call it a night.” Carter stood to leave. “Ty, remember I’m off tomorrow for a couple of festival shows, and when I get back it will be time to focus in the studio.”
“I can’t wait, hope everything goes well.” I saluted him.
“Yep.” Carter saluted back and headed out.
I picked up my guitar and started strumming again as Zoey watched me, thinking about the conversation I’d just had with Carter. Summer was going to go by quickly, and I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible now and make sure we were on the same page for afterward.
“So, are you going to visit me when I’m on tour, butterfly?” I caught her eye while plucking through some notes to a tune that had been formulating for the past few days.
“If I can, I’d love to.” Zoey sat on an amp across from me while I played.
“I’ll pay for your ticket.” I tried to keep eye contact with her to gauge her reaction. “I’ll check the tour schedule when it gets finalized.”
“I’d like that, but I’m going to have to see how my classes and school obligations shake out, Ty.” She stared off into the distance, avoiding my gaze. “Plus, you might change your mind about us once you’re on the road.”
“I’m not going to change my mind about you, Zoey.” I set the guitar on its stand again and walked over to her, gently lifting the butterfly on her necklace from her throat and rubbing it with my thumb.
“I hope not.” Zoey’s hazel eyes watched my finger against her throat from under her long lashes.
Bending down, I touched my forehead to hers and her eyes found mine. Her pink lips parted. She studied me with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. My cock instantly hardened, I wanted her so much. I lifted her chin, and Zoey captured my mouth while gripping my shirt tightly. She sipped from my lips, her tongue searched for mine.
Exploring her pouty mouth was pure bliss. Zoey’s hands moved downward to rest on my hips. I wrapped my arms around her head and shoulders, pulling her flush against me as we devoured each other. One of her hands moved across the front of my board shorts tentatively, cupping my erection. Instantly, I moved away.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . .” Zoey’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh God, you don’t want me like that.”
“No! Z, I want you so much.” I took her back into my arms, not caring that my dick was as hard as it had ever been and that she could most certainly feel it.
“Is this just a summer thing for you?” Zoey’s voice quivered.
“It’s so much more than that.” I searched her eyes with mine. “So much bigger.”
“You’ll be on the road, aren’t you afraid of being tied down?” She looked down at my chest, avoiding eye contact.
Tipping her chin up with my finger, I caught her gaze again, hoping she could see what she meant to me. “After everything I told you today, do you really think I want to be with someone else?”
“I hope not.” Zoey ran her hands up and down my arms nervously. “But, you always pull away from me when we start to do more than kiss. I wish I knew why you were so anxious to get the job done with the band room girl and don’t want to be with me?”
“Shit. Don’t think like that. It’s the opposite. I want to be with you more than anyone in the world.” If she only knew that I’d rubbed one or two out every day since I’d met her. Or maybe not.
“You’ve never even tried to get to second base.” Zoey’s anguish seeped into her voice.
“I’ve never had a girlfriend,” I confessed. “The only sex I’ve ever had was meaningless and empty. Like Zane described. Straight to home-run with no
thing in between. It’s meant nothing to me.”
Zoey buried her face in my shoulder. “All your bandmates assume I’ve seen you naked, and I felt so stupid out there because I haven’t. I mean, we’ve not even talked about it.”
“You deserve for your first time to be special, butterfly. Not in the band practice room, trust me on this.” I held her to me, stroking her soft hair.
Zoey pulled away and doubled down. “I heard Carter talking, he doesn’t think it’s a good idea for us to be serious.”
“Zoey, Carter has his own baggage that doesn’t apply to me. To us. I’m a grown man, and I’m not going to fuck around like he did. I rarely drink, I don’t mess with drugs. I’m serious about my music. My career.” I scratched my head and took a deep breath. “I’m serious about you.”
“I’m serious about you too Ty, but you’re going to meet so many beautiful women and have so many experiences without me.” Zoey sighed dramatically. “Carter is just looking out for you.”
“I have the same worries, you know. You’re hot. You’re fun. You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. I’ve never had anyone look at me the way you do. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted. When you’re at college you’ll have your pick of any dude you want. Someone who you’ll have a lot more in common with than a wannabe rock musician. Maybe you’d be better off—” I felt sick at thinking of her with some preppy guy.
“You’re an intelligent, ambitious guy. And, you’re the one I want.”
“Ahh, fuck. Okay. I’m just going to say it. I love you, Zoey.” I couldn’t have stopped my feelings from spilling out of my mouth if I tried. “I’m so fucking in love with you, I can barely think of anything else. I’m trying so hard to do the right thing by you. You are four years younger than me. I feel like a pervert sometimes for having the thoughts I have about you. What I want to do with you. To you. But I can’t help it. I’ve never felt this way about anyone. Ever.”
“Oh, God. Ohmygod, Ty. I love you too. I’m having all of the same emotions and feelings. I’ve never felt like this, I can’t imagine feeling like this about anyone else. Ever.” Zoey held her hand out to me. “I want to do all of those things with you.”
Reaching to take her offered hand, I moved back over to her and sat next to her on the amp. My other hand stroked through her hair and I nuzzled her neck before our lips met, smashing together furiously. Sucking her lower lip into my mouth, I couldn’t stop from placing soft kisses all over her entire face, her eyelids, her temple, her cheeks before going back to taste her again.
Zoey caressed my neck, her lips swollen from our passion. “Ty, you’ve got to know that you’re the only one I’m ever going to want.”
“Oh, butterfly.” I nuzzled her ear; her words were the most precious I’d ever heard spoken to me.
“We’re both leaving in a few weeks and we won’t see each other for months.” Zoey reached down and once again tentatively caressed the bulge in my shorts. I gulped, watching her hand stroking me as I grew harder and bigger. “We don’t have many days left to be together and I want to do everything with you. I want to be with you.”
“Look at what you do to me.” I dragged my hand through my hair, barely able to hold it together, afraid I’d come from just her touch.
“I don’t want to wait,” Zoey pleaded. “I love you so much, Ty. I’ve never wanted anything more.”
“Oh, Z. Me too.” I cupped her hand over the bulge in my pants. “I want you to be sure about us. You should have a chance to follow your own dreams without me holding you back, so you don’t regret anything.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Ty.” She kissed me, keeping her grip firm on my cock. “My only regret would be if we waste any more time.”
“I’m not sure what I’m doing, Z. I mean, you’re a virgin. I’m afraid that I won’t know how to make it good for you.” My mind whirled, I was overcome with so many emotions.
“I’m fairly certain we will be able to figure it out, together,” she assured me. “I know it will be good, there’s no way it won’t be.”
I couldn’t help but sigh with relief. “Do you really love me?”
“So much! From the moment I met you.”
“Me too.” I moved her so that she was straddling me, then gripped her ass and pulled her core flush against my hard cock. Her heat surrounded me like a warm glove.
“Ohhh.” Zoey braced herself with her hands on my shoulders, her eyes clamped shut as she ground against my erection, trying to find the right spot. I brushed my fingers lightly up under her top, stroking her sides before pushing it up over her white, cotton bra to expose her stomach. My mouth caught hers and our tongues danced again.
Tracing the undersides of her breasts with my fingertips, I continued my exploration of her beautiful body, cupping her heavy mounds and stroking up over the top of her breasts to her creamy cleavage.
“Jesus.” My dick swelled against the seam of her cutoffs when she circled her hips against it. I licked and sucked the soft swell spilling over the top of her bra. My thumbs strummed over her nipples, hardening them to bullets poking through the cotton. I had to taste them. I couldn’t wait.
“Ty, please,” Zoey begged.
Her beautiful eyes were half-mast with desire when I clicked open the front clasp to expose her luscious mounds tipped with taut, dusky-pink nipples. Fascinated, I pinched each bud gently, alternating between pulling and stroking to watch how she responded. Her little whimpers let me know that I was doing something right. Groaning, I sucked each delicious nipple into my mouth one after the other and swirled my tongue all around each taut peak. Lost in my worship of her perfect breasts, I didn’t hear the door open.
“Oh shit, sorry,” Connor shouted and immediately retreated. “I thought you took Zoey home.”
Wrapping my arms around Zoey and making sure she was flush against me, so her breasts weren’t exposed, I held up one hand with my finger pointed to the ceiling and demanded. “We need a minute.”
“Uh, yeah.” Connor kept his eyes to the ground but held the door ajar about an inch. “Everyone is coming to jam, dude, so get yourselves sorted.”
“Oh, God.” Zoey looked mortified. She had already redone her bra and pulled her top back down. “Did he see my boobs?”
“No, I kept you covered.” I smoothed her hair down. My boner had deflated when Connor interrupted us, so I focused on getting Zoey pulled together. Within a minute we were decent. “I knew this was a terrible place for us to do this, Z. I’m sorry.”
“As embarrassing as being caught is, for the record I loved what you were doing, it felt amazing.”
“You almost made me come in my pants.” I burst into laughter at the absurdity of the moment.
“Really?” She arched an eyebrow.
“I was two seconds away.” I kissed her forehead. “I’m fine now. Barely.”
“Well, maybe I should go before they come back in.” Zoey started to get up off my lap.
“No, stay while we jam.” I banded my arms around her lower back to keep her from moving. “Please.”
“Really?” Zoey looked surprised. “I’ll have to see if it’s okay with my parents.”
“Text them. It will be fun,” I assured her. “Feel free to see if Alex wants to come over, I’m sure a few of our friends will show up.”
“Wow! That would be so cool.” Zoey picked up her phone and texted furiously.
“Hey.” I gently gripped her wrist.
Zoey’s big, hazel eyes looked up from her phone to me.
“You’re so beautiful and sexy.” I kissed her. “That was my first time doing that, and I hope you’ll let me do it again soon.”
“We’ll need to make sure we’re alone, though.” Zoey winked. “I swear, Connor is a cock-blocker.”
Just as we disengaged from each other, Zane and Jace bounded through the door, Connor trailed behind. Soon Alex joined and Zoey seemed so happy to have a friend hang out with her; they seemed like sisters. Later Fiona came back wit
h a couple of our buddies who were going to roadie for us on tour. We worked through a few new songs and made a lot of progress, but it was hard to keep my eyes off Zoey. The feeling must have been mutual because we couldn’t stop giving each other shit-eating grins as me and the guys jammed well into the night.
Chapter 7
ZOEY
For someone as vibrant and wonderful as Ty, the sparse, sad, and damp-smelling place he called “home” was depressing. Ty kept his room neat, but there wasn’t much to it. It consisted of a twin bed with a plain, blue comforter and tan sheets, a small plastic end table, a guitar on a guitar stand, and stacks and stacks of notebooks, which contained all his poems and song ideas stacked in piles on the floor.
I tried to read one, but he gently took it away explaining, “These were written during some lonely times, Zoey.”
I put my arms around him. “You should record them.”
“I don’t know, Z.” Ty smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “There is so much darkness inside these books.”
“I love you so much, babe. There’s no more darkness in your future.” I stroked his back and tried to be reassuring. All I wanted to do was absorb any of the pain he’d ever been through.
A noise in the front room startled us. Ty looked panic-stricken.
“Is your mom home?” I asked tentatively.
“God, I hope not.” Ty moved quickly to check. “Nope, it was the window, it slammed shut.”
“Do we have time to take up where we left off in the practice room?” I waggled my eyebrows. We hadn’t been alone since that night at Carter’s almost two weeks prior. Since then, all I had been thinking about was what we had done and what I hoped we’d do.
“Zoey.” Ty gave me a pointed look as he grabbed the notebooks. “Not here. Besides, we don’t have time. I can’t be late for the studio.”
It was exciting times for LTZ. The guys were setting up in the recording studio to be ready for sessions with Carter and their producer the following day.
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