To Each Her Own

by Molly Mirren

  “Tacocat did?”

  He gave a low chuckle that made her girlie bits get a little warm. “No. College radio did, especially when they played one of your band's songs.”

  “Oh.” Cue the blush.

  “You guys have been gaining momentum.”

  “Yeah. It seems unreal to me, though. I feel kind of like an interloper, more part of the audience than part of the show.”

  “I'm sure Zac doesn't feel that way.”

  “No. He seems glad I came back.”

  Neither said anything for a second or two, and then Jay said, “So . . . how have you been, darlin'?”

  Darlin'. That buttery word slid through her, and now the warm girlie bits tingled. To think she'd once hated for him to call her that.

  Crap. She needed to tread carefully here. Thirty seconds into their conversation, and Jay already had her melting for him. What was she doing?

  She should never have responded to that text. She was weak. She would never be able to resist him. What had she been thinking, that maybe they could just be friends or something? Ridiculous.

  She needed to dial back her need for him and be more wary.

  “Erin? You still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don't do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Withdraw from me.”

  “I'm not.”

  “Yes, you are. You're starting to think you answered my text on impulse and that it was a mistake.”

  She huffed. “How can you tell all that from a half a second of silence?”

  “I just can.”

  “Jay . . . ,” she began, then trailed off. What did she want? Why was she even talking to him? She couldn't let it go anywhere. “I—”

  “Erin, just listen. I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have lied to you.”

  “You made me feel like a complete dumbass.”

  A pained pause. “I know. Christ, darlin', if I could take it all back, I would. But you know what? I'm not sorry you opened up to me, and I'm that same guy you felt comfortable talking to online. I want you to feel like you can tell me anything, just like you could with Panhead.”

  “Oh, right. Like the fact that your gimpy legs make me all horny?”

  To her surprise, he laughed. “Yes. Even that.”

  “I don't believe you.”

  He sighed. “I know you have every reason not to. I'm sorry for deceiving you. I wish I had better words than that, something more powerful, but I don't. Please, Erin, forgive me. Let me earn back your trust.”

  She let out a sigh of her own. “It's not that I don't forgive you, Jay. That's the easy part. I know you're sorry, and I know you didn't mean to hurt me. It's not even so much about the Panhead thing anymore. It goes a lot deeper.”

  “Erin—”

  “And you know what? I saw it coming, and I still let it happen. It's in my DNA. God made me, and he proclaimed, 'Let it be written that Erin Marie Silver is destined to have her heart broken over and over and over forever.'”

  “I don't think God does shit like that.”

  Anguish washed over her, making her eyes sting and her throat constrict. She swallowed hard to keep the waterworks at bay. “Yes, he does, or he wouldn't have made me a dev.”

  In a quiet, intense tone, Jay said, “I think he made you for me.”

  And there he went, disarming her again. She wanted to believe that might be true, but she'd been beat down too many times to believe in destiny and soulmates. That only happened in fiction, not real life.

  A couple of tears slipped free of her eyes, despite her best efforts, and she wiped them away. “I saw the revulsion on your face the moment you realized just how deep the creep goes in me, Jay.”

  “Dammit, Erin—”

  “Let me finish. I don't know if I can get past that, any more than you can truly get past me being a dev. We can try all we want, but it will always be there. I think there's always going to be that doubt between us.”

  He was quiet for a moment before he spoke. “Okay. You've had your say, now let me have mine. I'm sorry I reacted the way I did. I was an ass. But I've had a lot of time to do some soul-searching since we've been apart, and I think the reason I had a hard time with the dev thing was because I still had some deep-seated issues with accepting my injury and what it did to me.”

  “But you've been injured a long time.”

  “I know. And I thought I'd come to terms with it, but apparently I hadn't. That's why I reacted the way I did.” After a pause, he added, “I couldn't see how you could possibly find the paralyzed part of my body attractive because I was disgusted by it. Long story short: It wasn't you. It was me.”

  She gave a small laugh and rolled her eyes. “That's supposed to be an excuse for breaking up, not one for getting back together.”

  There was a smile in his voice. “Well, do you think it might work for getting back together?”

  She wanted to say yes, wanted so badly to believe they still had a chance, but caution held her back. “I don't know. Maybe.”

  “I can work with 'maybe' as long as it means you'll keep talking to me.”

  She smiled, even as her brain kept shouting this was a big mistake. “I'll keep talking to you.”

  “That's all I ask, darlin'. That's all I ask.”

  Chapter 29

  Erin read the e-mail again on the screen of her phone, and a grin split her face. She couldn't wait to tell Jay, but she would have to because she wanted to tell him the news in person.

  Things had been going great with him in the last month. Although she was still cautious, she and Jay had been talking and texting every day. They were getting to know each other in a new way, without their hormones or other baggage interfering, and they were slowly but surely mending their relationship.

  A gust of wind blew Erin's bangs away from her face, and she combed her fingers through to fix them. To gain some privacy, she was sitting at an abandoned picnic table a few camping pads over from the campsite where the band's RV was hooked up.

  Switching to the favorites screen on her cell, she tapped Jay's name from the list. To her relief, he answered almost immediately. “What's up, darlin'?”

  His voice sounded hoarse and kind of weak, and some of her excitement morphed into concern. “Nothing,” she answered. “What's up with you? You sound kind of weird.”

  He cleared his throat, and his voice came out stronger. “Just tired. Things are busy here.”

  “But everything else is okay?” She meant his health, specifically his back, but it was a touchy subject. He got evasive whenever she asked him about it and usually steered the subject to something else.

  “Everything's fine,” he said, giving the same answer he always did, but that hoarseness had crept into his voice again.

  Something was off with him. Erin could feel it, and she wanted to see with her own eyes that he was okay. Now she had the perfect excuse. “So, guess what. We're playing in San Francisco in three days, on Friday. I'll be just across the bay from you. I thought you might want to come see us.” She added shyly, “Or, more specifically, me.”

  There was such a long pause that she pulled her phone away from her ear to see if the call had dropped. Putting it back to her ear, she said, “Jay? You still there?”

  “Yeah. I'm here.”

  Okay. So, not exactly the response she was hoping for. She'd thought he would be more excited. She tried to be cool and not sound disappointed. “If you don't want to, that's okay. It's no big deal.”

  “No, no,” he said hastily. “I want to.”

  “Is it—are you worried, you know, about accessibility? I think the venue is accessible. At least, they said it was when I called to check, but, if you want, I could come see you instead. I'd have to get my brother or somebody to drive me to your place in the RV, but we could probably figure it out.”

  “No. I'm not—no. Don't come here. My place is a dump.”

  She snickered. “Trust me. It's probably way better than the RV
.”

  “Trust me,” Jay echoed dryly. “It's probably not. No,” he said with conviction. “I'll come see you.”

  She smiled, relieved. Still, she gave him another chance at an out. “You sure? I don't want to twist your arm or anything. I just thought—”

  “Erin,” he said in that whiskey-tinged voice of his, “there's nothing I'd rather do.”

  * * *

  Zac's glare was burning a hole in her, and Erin knew she'd hit another wrong chord. What key was she even in? Her fingers were stiff and clumsy as she tried to fit them on the strings of her guitar. She should just stop playing and pretend. It wasn't like the band really needed her. She was filler, a charity case. They only let her stay because Zac was her brother, and Michelle and Norf were still her friends.

  She got the vibe from Nate that he couldn't care less whether she lived or died. After all, she'd stolen his thunder. Well, maybe not stolen it, but encroached on it. The feeling was mutual. Nate was barely a blip on her radar.

  She tried to get her mind back on the song, tried to concentrate, but her thoughts kept going back to Jay. Where was he?

  Communication with him had been sparse the last three days; she’d sent him the address of the bar and gotten a quick “OK” in return, but they hadn't talked on the phone since Wednesday. Still, she hadn't thought anything of it, just that he must be busy with work. He hadn't said anything that would make her think he wasn't coming to see her.

  She squinted and strained to see if she could see him in the crowded venue where the band was performing, but the hot stage lights were too bright and blinded her. She'd expected him to come early and hang out a little before the show, but he hadn't. He hadn't sent her a text to tell her what time he would be there either, but maybe he'd shown up after the show started. Maybe he was there and she couldn't see him.

  She faked her way through the rest of the show and then the encore, which she’d always thought was a stupid thing. Why didn't bands just play all their songs and tell everyone they weren't doing an encore? It was all so phony. It felt like they were fishing for adoration, making the fans beg for more.

  The encore lasted forever, but finally it ended. Zac and the others started packing up instruments and breaking down equipment after the lights went up, but Erin dodged her way through the handful of groupies that always seemed to linger after a show and tried to make herself invisible. Unfortunately, a guy sitting at one of the few tables near the bar tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey. Great show.”

  She gave him a perfunctory smile. “Thanks.”

  “You're Erin, right?”

  She stopped scanning the milling crowd long enough to answer. “Yeah.” The guy was cute. He had short, dark hair and a nice smile, but she was more partial to blonds these days.

  “I've been a fan of Silver pretty much since you guys first started,” he said. “I'm from San Antonio originally.”

  “Hm,” she replied absently, still searching the crowed. The place they were in was a warehouse that had been converted into a bar and live-show venue. She couldn't see Jay, but maybe he was hidden. He'd be sitting down, of course, while most of the people were standing.

  “Small world, right? Been out here a couple of years now.”

  “Really?” she replied, barely registering what Cute Guy was saying.

  Where was Jay? He wouldn't do this to her. He wouldn't stand her up. He wouldn't. Had something happened? What if he'd been in a wreck or something? The thought made her stomach lurch. She needed to check her phone, but it was in her bag behind the stage.

  “So, how is your ankle?” Cute Guy asked.

  That got her attention, and she frowned. “What?”

  “Your ankle. I read you hurt it pretty bad last spring in a car accident.”

  It was weird, how complete strangers knew stuff like that. It had happened a few times since she'd been on the tour, but it always disconcerted her. Zac ate that kind of thing up, but Erin didn't like the invasion of privacy and had to force herself to be polite. Zac would freak if she was rude to a fan. “The ankle is a lot better.” She patted his shoulder. “Thanks for coming out.”

  Before the guy could engage her again, she walked away, her search for Jay impeded several more times by fans of the band. She had to face reality, however, when the bar was nearly empty and Jay was still nowhere to be seen. Making her way back to the stage, she found her bag and checked her phone. There was a short text from him that had been sent shortly after their set started.

  Sorry I couldn't make it, darlin'. Things got busy.

  The excited buzz of anticipation she'd had at the prospect of seeing Jay again suddenly drained from her, and she sank down to the edge of the stage, feeling numb.

  That was it? That was all he had to say? He didn't even seem bummed. She'd looked forward to this for days, but it hadn't even been important enough to him to warrant a voice mail. All she got was a lame text, as if he'd hardly given her a second thought.

  What the fuck? Had she imagined the last few weeks they'd been talking? Had she imagined he'd practically stalked her for three months before that, begging her to talk to him? Why would he do this?

  She closed her eyes and tried to shut out the disappointment crushing her lungs and stealing her breath, but it was no use. Once again, she'd let down her guard, and once again, her heart had been ground to dust.

  Chapter 30

  “So,” said Zac, sitting down in the empty lawn chair opposite Erin, “you wanna tell me what planet you were on last night? Because it wasn't this one.”

  Erin took a sip of the coffee she'd gotten from a local coffeehouse across the street from the bar/warehouse where the band had played last night. They were still in San Francisco, and the autumn wind was blustery and cold. She was glad she was wearing a thick hoodie sweatshirt, even though it reminded her of the ones Jay always wore. Her battered heart twisted at the thought of him, while her brain shook its fist and yelled, “I told you so!”

  The RV was parked in an alley behind the bar. Thank God the bar was located at the bottom of one of those crazy-steep hills San Francisco was known for. If it had been at the top, Erin had no doubt the RV, with its iffy, groaning emergency brake, would have careened to its death.

  “You're up early,” she said to Zac. It was early for him, anyway—almost noon. The rest of the band members, she assumed, were still asleep.

  “Don't change the subject.” He jerked his head in a maneuver to get his tousled mop of black, inky hair out of his eyes and hunched into his black leather jacket. “What's going on with you, Erin? You've been so moody since you came on the tour. First, for months, you were all mopey and quiet. Then, lately, you've been all happy, more like yourself. But last night you couldn't concentrate. It was like you'd never seen a guitar before.”

  “Gee, thanks,” she said, pressing her lips together. “I wasn't that bad.”

  He looked dubious. “The truth hurts. You sucked.”

  She didn't say anything, just held her coffee with both hands and stared at the plastic lid.

  “This has to do with Jay, doesn't it?” he said out of the blue.

  She looked at him. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because you lived with him.”

  She raised a brow. “So?”

  “It's a law of nature. It's not possible for a guy and a girl to live together and not hook up, unless, of course, one of them is a troll.”

  “Or a freak,” Erin murmured to herself.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “He's the one you were boinking, isn't he? He's the reason you didn't want to come back.”

  Even though Zac was right, she was indignant. “No.”

  His expression was calculating. “Yep. You guys hooked up.”

  “You and Michelle live together, and nothing is going on between the two of you,” Erin pointed out. “And nothing is going on with Norf and me, even though we share a bed.”

  “Maybe not now,” Zac said sa
gely, “but in the past, Michelle and I knew each other in the biblical sense—”

  Erin rolled her eyes.

  “—and let's not get started on your history with Norf.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “Yeah. Forever ago,” he said dryly. “Like, last year.”

  “It's ancient history.”

  “Doesn't make it any less true.”

  She couldn't deny that. “Whatever.”

  “So, spiel,” he said with a cheesy German accent. “Vat iss ze deal vith Bontrager?”

  She took a sip of her cooling coffee. She usually liked her coffee black or drank tea, but, bummed about Jay and feeling sorry for herself, she'd splurged and gotten a mocha with raspberry. It was the epitome of “bittersweet,” made with real dark chocolate and raspberry syrup, and was positively decadent. The smell alone was divine. “Your guess is as good as mine. I have no idea what's going on with Jay and me.”

  “Was the sex good?”

  She felt her face heat a little. “God, Zac. That's none of your business.”

  “What? Don't go all prudish on me now.”

  She exhaled. “We never got that far.”

  “Uh-oh.” He thought for a moment. “So, like, can he even have sex?”

  “Yes,” she said, not elaborating. Zac had an expectant look on his face, but she didn't want to go into the details of how sex worked with Jay's disability. Besides, that wasn't technically why they hadn't done the deed. “Jay wasn't the problem. It was me. I screwed it up, no pun intended.”

  “What do you mean? How did you screw it up?”

  She couldn't meet his eye, so she focused on her coffee. “I freaked him out.”

  “How?”

  “Because I'm a freak.” She eased the lid off her coffee and took another lukewarm sip.

  Zac threw his hands in the air. “Come on, Erin. Stop being so cryptic. Are you secretly into BDSM or something? Did you break out the whips and chains?”

  Erin snorted. “I wish.”

  Okay,” Zac said, his brows knitting together. “Now you're freaking me out.”

  Erin eyed her brother. Could she tell him? She was tired of hiding what she was from him. He was her best friend. She'd always told him everything—everything except that she was a dev. She hadn't had much luck in the past coming clean with people about her devoteeism, but she desperately needed him to understand, to accept her.