by Lauren Dane
“Ugh. I don’t want to be with you if I feel like I have to check up on you. I don’t think you’ll cheat on me. It’s just gross and uncomfortable and it makes me unhappy. But it’s part of the world you inhabit, so I just need to figure out how to process it. I do want to come out when I can, but not because I don’t trust you. Because if I can’t trust you, this isn’t worth the energy. But I can’t just take a leave. It doesn’t work that way. I have vacation time, and I can shift around a little here and there with my coworkers, but that’s what I’ve got to work with.”
He sighed. He wanted to say—and wisely did not—that she could quit her job and hang with him. Wanted to ask her to move in with him. She could volunteer and do her own thing and not have to hold down a regular job. Hell, she had the means to do just that.
But she loved her job, and working to make her way meant something to her, so he kept his mouth shut.
Natalie took him in, clearly torn between annoyance and amusement. “If you’re looking for an easy woman, you’re with the wrong one. This isn’t a problem that’s ever really going away, so we just have to figure a way to deal with it.”
He took a risk to get closer, and when she didn’t maim him, he pulled her into a hug. “Okay. We’ll just have to do this step by step.”
“The only way we can is if we’re honest. And I can’t be honest if I can’t trust you not to be mad when I tell you how I’m feeling. It’s hard enough to admit being jealous.”
He got that, too. It had taken him until that very moment as he held her, the warmth of her seeping into him, to truly understand a few things.
She had given him her trust. Every time she let him take control, control he knew she held on to like a security object.
It was a continued reminder to be careful with it. To deserve it.
“I’m sorry I reacted that way. I just... I’ve never done this before. Never been with anyone like I am with you. I can’t help what stuff comes along with my life sometimes. You seemed okay about it when it happened in Portland. I just...I’m sorry. I do want you to trust me. So we step carefully.”
She nodded. “And I’m sorry if I made you feel like I didn’t trust you. As for Portland?” She pulled away, and he would have complained but she looked back over her shoulder. “You promised food.”
He laughed, taking her hand, relieved when that connection zinged between them again.
“Sit, and I’ll toss something together.” He pointed to a chair at the kitchen island.
“Want me to do any media checking while you do?”
“My iPad is there. Check the fan club site first. They’ll be the best source for now.”
She watched him work because he wore no more than low-slung sleep pants. So low slung the blades of his hips showed. Natalie shivered before she turned to the task she’d just volunteered to do.
She scrolled through, smiling at the comments in the live show forums. “They have a forum started for tonight’s show and already have one for the new album, as well. Everyone thinks Ezra looked and sounded fantastic. Lots of you’re so lucky comments from people who weren’t there. They’re very dedicated to be on this so fast.”
The show had only been over for hours, and there were already a hundred posts. Including pictures.
“What songs are they talking about? Oh, and salsa on your burrito?”
“There are burritos?”
“Damn, I think you sound more excited about a burrito than me.”
“I already fucked you a few hours ago. I haven’t eaten since six. Priorities. Plus, it’s only a matter of time before you jump me again. I need to keep my strength up.”
“Okay, then. I’m glad you seem to have a fine grasp on the way things are.” He winked, and she rolled her eyes.
“They loved ‘Bright Light’ and ‘Silent No More’ best it seems like. Not that I’m biased or anything, but the girl you wrote that one for is pretty lucky. Anyway, they also loved ‘Chemicals’ and ‘Here Comes Trouble.’ There are pictures here, too. Of you guys.”
“We have a photographer and media guy. He was backstage tonight, and he also sends stuff to the fan club site for them to post.”
“Yeah, hang on, there’s a link to the band’s official website.” She clicked it to a gallery of shots taken from that show. “Your people are really efficient.”
She paused, smiling at one, a candid, taken of the two of them in a hallway. Before the show. Her head was tilted to look up at him, a smile on her face, eyes wide. He looked like he was about to lick her. There was so much sex between them in that moment, it leaped off the page.
“Hot damn. I sure do want to get all up in whatever you’ve got.” He stood behind her, sliding a plate within her reach. “You’re beautiful. Holy shit.”
The note beneath it said, “Silent No More.”
“Yeah, so I guess this is part of that rebranding thing.”
He turned the stool so she faced him. “You said you were okay with it. I know you’re sort of overwhelmed by my world right now, but I want to stay on the same page. I can call him and have them remove it right now if you want me to.”
It was three in the morning and she had no doubt at all he’d do it and not be angry.
She shook her head. “No, you’re right. I said I was okay with it and I am. I’d rather this than be interviewed. We talked about that.”
He kissed her forehead. “It’s a great picture.”
She smiled and wrapped her legs around him to hold him close. “Yeah. Thanks for the burrito.”
He grinned, kissing her quickly. “Eat up. We have time to have at least an orgasm or two before we sleep and rest up for the rest.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
WINTER HAD SETTLED in and didn’t seem to want to make way for spring, though March 21 had come and gone. The extended cold made Paddy’s being gone even harder. Ezra had elected to do the second secret show in Seattle and the opening and closing shows of the tour itself, but passed on the rest.
They’d left nearly two months before and had been busily blazing a trail across the country.
He called her every single day so she knew he missed her, but she heard the excitement in his voice and knew, too, that this was an important part of his life. Their album dropped and was doing amazing.
She was incredibly proud of him, and she tried to keep really busy so she didn’t have time to mope or miss him, much less think about what it might be like out there for them.
Speaking of Ezra, she needed to get a move on. She was having lunch with him in less than ten minutes at her favorite Mexican food place in town. The Hurleys had sort of taken her in while the band was out on tour. It had been...startling and yet really nice. She and Sharon had coffee or dinner at least once a week, and Ezra was her regular lunch date.
She closed the project she’d been working on, grabbed her coat, hat and gloves and headed out.
She hated driving in the snow, and Hood River was currently blanketed in it, so she walked over to the restaurant and was freezing cold by the time she hurried through the doors.
“Hey, Nats.” Ezra waved from a table, standing and moving to take her coat and give her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Darlin’, you’re so cold.” He enveloped her into another hug, rubbing his big hands up and down her back and arms a moment.
It didn’t feel creepy or sexual at all. It felt...as though he was her family.
She grinned his way as he set her back with a kiss on her forehead. “Sit down. They just came by and took my order for some hot chocolate. I got two.”
“You’re the best Hurley ever.”
He laughed as she settled across from him. “How are you? You look fantastic. Even the red cheeks make you pretty.”
“Wow, I’m paying for lunch now.”
They looked over the menu, but she knew exactly what she was going to have. The same thing she always had, the giant veggie burrito.
“Been two months now. How are you? Missing Paddy?”
He looked up as the server brought more chips and salsa, and they gave their orders.
His smile was wry. “I could pretend I don’t know what you mean. But...there’s something about you that makes my tongue loosen up.”
“Maybe you’ve just held on to the words too long. It’s not good for you. Some things need to be said so you can be free of them.”
One of his brows rose for a moment. “Someone’s been to therapy.”
She laughed, reaching out to pat his hand. “Yeah. It helped put some stuff into perspective. If you’re interested, I can give you someone’s name.”
“Ha. I’ve got my own therapist. Though I haven’t been in a while. Anyway, with performing? It’s addicting in a lot of ways. Doing something you love. Being up onstage. Hearing the cheers. You can’t so much see faces as you simply know they’re all there. For you. They clap and stomp. They sing lyrics you wrote. They...they’re into something you made. And that’s... I’m not sure I can really explain just what it is. But it’s amazing. An ego boost to get you through the days when everything else in your life is shit. It feeds your soul. But it’s dangerous, too. Because it’s easy to let that become normal. And it’s not.”
Their food came out, and they ate awhile in silence.
“Anyway, I love the road. I loved it before I fucked everything up. And it’s not so much that I think I’m going to end up in the gutter again if I’m out there. Musicians do it every day. I’m around people who drink and to be totally honest with you, it doesn’t bug me. It’s not the alcohol that was my big problem, anyway.” He snorted.
Natalie thought about how the depth of her father’s addiction had shot down deep when he started using opiates. Wondered if Ezra ever was tempted.
Instead of asking that in a crowded restaurant, she kept it fairly safe. “Mary said it’s like a totally different reality on tour.”
He nodded. “Time is different. You don’t sleep enough. You don’t eat right.” He grinned. “Though now that Mary tours with them, that’s not an issue. But you’re off. And home is so far away. Every night you’re filled with this adulation. The rush of it is like nothing else. Normal isn’t so normal. Your life is filled with people who never question you, never say no to you. In the early days, it was worse. Backstage was like a three-ring circus of chicks, drugs, booze. It was wild every moment. So much that you start to believe your own hype machine. I’m not scared of doing heroin again. I’m scared of getting out there and losing the self I had to go to hell and back to find.”
She took his hand again, squeezing it.
“I don’t understand your journey because it’s yours. But I know what it means to find yourself and be terrified of losing it. Of fighting every single day not to lose ground you fought so hard for. If you need to not go out there, or to manage your exposure to it so you can have what you love in the way it takes to be healthy, you know your brothers support that. They love you. More than that, they respect you, and they want the best for you.”
“I can see, in so many ways, why Paddy loves you. Why you’re different from all the others.”
She needed to hear that more than she’d realized. She swallowed back the emotion the statement brought—or tried to.
She thought of all he’d just revealed to her and decided to share, too. “I needed that, Ezra. I miss him, and while I trust him, I do my best not to think on anything but what he tells me. Which seems like I’m hiding from the truth.”
“Bullshit. You’re managing your shit. That’s not hiding. You’ve been to shows now, you know what it’s like. It’s totally normal to be overwhelmed by it. Wise to be suspicious of it. You letting Paddy fill you in is a lot more an act of trust than fantasizing about what he might be doing. That’s what’s important, anyway. Not the shit outside the dressing rooms or off the stage.”
“I guess.” She blew out a breath.
“You give Paddy something real. Something heavy to hold him, and that’s not negative. He needs to be anchored. Everyone does so they won’t blow away in a storm.”
“You need to use that line in a song.”
“I will.” He winked, and she sipped the hot chocolate.
“So, if there was something in the media, and it was about you, but it would upset you, would you want to see it, anyway?”
Her happiness went sour. “What is it?”
Ezra pushed a sheet of paper across the table. “Jeremy sent it to me yesterday. He got it off a celebrity gossip website.”
The title of the article was Father’s Desperate Cry for Help for His Daughter. A picture of her father was below it as he held up one of the photos snapped of Natalie and Paddy at the secret shows Sweet Hollow Ranch had played before going off on tour.
Her father had gone off to some fucking tabloid and sold a story about her. She placed a hand over her stomach, pressing hard as she read the details of her life spilled through her father’s self-centered perspective, which painted him as a self-sacrificing single dad who only wanted a relationship with a daughter who so cruelly rejected him.
“Jesus.” Her skin had gone clammy. “I wish I could say I couldn’t believe he’d do such a thing, but I can’t. And I...” She looked up to Ezra to catch the empathy on his face. Not pity—that would have driven her away—but empathy. “Is Jeremy mad?”
Ezra shook his head. “Hell, no. Look, this is part and parcel of this whole thing. I know you have reservations about the life Paddy leads. I care about you and I like you with my brother. I could have kept it from you, but I didn’t want you blindsided with it. Chances are? No one is going to run with this story. But if it’s slow and someone wants to, the last thing you need is to have this shit shoved in your face without knowing about it first.”
“I keep thinking I’m finally free of him. I draw my boundaries around myself clearly. I communicate to him that I don’t want him in my life, and he never stays gone. He’s told the world about stuff I’ve never said outside therapy. I’ve tried to not be bitter, to understand he’s not a fully formed person, you know, like bread that’s not cooked all the way through? But this is... He’s accusing me of being an addict? Me?” She scrubbed her hands over her face. “You’re not going to ask me why I won’t forgive and forget?”
Ezra’s laugh was entirely without humor. “Having been through the process and the programs and all the stuff that comes with it, I’m in a unique position. Forgiveness, like respect, needs to be earned. You can’t just say you’re seeking to make amends and not mean it. The amends can’t be all about the person seeking them, either. My sponsor was really clear about that. I did ugly stuff. I’m lucky my family and friends forgave me. But I wasn’t owed forgiveness, and I understood they needed to see that I was not only truly sorry, but that I was going to do my best not to do it again. Your father sounds like a piece of shit. And he’s going to be a piece of shit even if he was straight because some people are just pieces of shit. You don’t have to let that into your life now. You don’t owe him anything. I do think, for your own mental health, you need to let go. But as far as I can tell, you’re trying.”
He lifted a brow. “Sometimes the only way you can survive and move on is to wall the people who are poison out of your life. And sometimes those people will never allow themselves to truly see what they are. He’s a coward for that.”
It was as though he had given her permission to feel the way she did. Not that she hadn’t owned her feelings in the past. She had. But it meant something to her that he’d said all he had. And that he saw her father for what he was. Made her feel less of a jerk for not letting him back in one more time.
It hit her again, the depth of her father’s utter lack of concern for anyone but himself. And she was caught in it, even when she desperately didn’t want to be.
Ezra got up, moved to kneel next to her and encircled her in his arms.
“I can’t. I can’t fall apart. I need to go back to work. So go over there and sit and tell me about your pig or whatever.”
He snorted but kissed the top of her head and did what he was told.
* * *
AFTER WORK, SHE showed up at Tuesday’s shop at closing time. She slapped the paper down on the counter.
Tuesday read it, her eyes going wide. “That motherfucker! I’m going to hunt him down and kick him in the taint for hours. What are we going to do?”
“First I’m going to thank you for being so wonderful and jumping straight to the taint-kicking threats.”
“Number one rule of best friends, hello.”
“And then I’m going to pack because I’m getting on a plane tomorrow to Chicago. I’ll be back in a few days. I need...”
“You need Paddy.” Tuesday smiled. “And thank goodness you’re going to admit it. Does he know about this?” She indicated the interview.
“If he does, he didn’t find out through Ezra. I asked him to let me tell Paddy in person. I don’t think he’s heard it anywhere else, either. He texted me a while ago. Today is a travel day for them, so he’s sending me pictures from airports. He needs to know I’m coming to him with this, you know? That I trust him to share my stresses.”
“In the past you tried on your own and it made him pissy. I’m glad you’re doing this. Like a big girl and everything.”
“He has been someone I can rely on. Someone I can count on, and you know what that means to me. He’s really trying, so I’d be a jerk if I didn’t, too. Plus? I want to hold him.” Now that she’d started to be more open, it had become something that actually made her feel better. Even if all he did was listen.