Finally, he said, “Elle’s got this thing about her. It’s like two sides of a coin. Hot and cold. Strength and vulnerability. It’s always been there. Makes you want to protect her, and at the same time, set her loose, see what she can do. She probably has the most untapped potential of anyone in the band. She’s the most diverse. That’s why her solo album was such a success. Why she’s able to dip her finger into so many pies and find success, again and again. No matter what happens with Dirty, you’ll be seeing a lot of Elle in years to come. She’s got staying power and the ability to grow and evolve.”
“And what about that hot-cold thing?” Liv asked. “I’ve heard people say that about her before. Can you elaborate?”
“It’s like I said, it’s two sides of the same coin. Or maybe it’s a double-edged sword. It’s that thing that makes her hard to know. That thing that makes guys want her and girls want to be like her. She’s fierce, and she’s fragile. She’s real. You sit her down in an interview and ask her a bunch of prefab questions, you’re not gonna get the real Elle. But put her onstage and you’ll see her pouring out everything she’s got through the music, she’s sweating, breaking down in tears, and that’s just her. That’s where you’ll find her, at that intersection between the real person and the rock star. But how do you touch that? It scares some people, I think. She’s kinda like Zane that way, I guess. The two of them are kinda larger than life. They’re hyper-real. If you really want to know them, you gotta be fearless. I don’t think many people are that fearless.”
“And how about the other guys?” Liv asked. “Would you describe them like that? ‘Larger than life’?”
“Not exactly. Jesse’s a star. No doubt about that. But you can get to know him. As long as you can get him to sit still long enough. And Dylan you can get to know, if you can keep his attention long enough.”
“And how about you?”
Seth shook his head, and in that moment, I could feel that the interview was over. It was the last question he was going to answer for Liv. “Me?” he said. “I’m just a regular guy, who likes to play guitar. That’s all I’ve got, Liv. I’ve got a plane to catch.”
The video ended.
I played it again, from start to finish. Then I played it again.
I listened, carefully, to everything Seth said about himself, about the band, and about me. And with every word he said, with every new thing I learned about Seth, I liked him more.
He intrigued me. And it worried me that he intrigued me so much.
But it did not freak me out as much as it should.
I wasn’t sure what to think. What to do. I did not know what this was… This strange flow of feelings beginning to build in me. This growing thing.
It was more than mere sexual attraction, though.
A curiosity?
An infatuation?
I did not know what I was getting into. But the fact was, I’d followed him here. I’d flown to Vancouver for one reason only: because I knew Seth was here.
And yet, I didn’t call him. I didn’t reach out.
I did not yet know if I would.
Frankly, I was scared. I was scared of looking into the eyes of a man who seemed to understand me so well, and who had the courage to say so, in front of the world… no matter how it might come back to hurt him.
The next day, midway through the afternoon, my drummer showed up at my house. On a boat.
He pulled up to the dock at my neighbor’s place, which I knew because she called me all in a fluster to tell me. After working his charms and getting her permission to moor there, he came on up to see me.
“Good timing,” I told him as I let him in. “Just got back from a meeting with my publicist.”
“Cool.” Dylan swept me up into a hug with his long, strong drummer’s arms. I nestled into the warmth of his T-shirt, his solid chest, and I felt… a little better. Like things were going to be okay.
Maybe.
Since we were teenagers and played in our first band together—just before Brody recruited the two of us to join Zane and Jesse’s band, and we formed Dirty—Dylan had been one of my very best friends. I was closer to him than anyone else in the band. Even Jesse.
When he released me, he looked me over and I felt weirdly exposed, like he could see everything I’d been thinking these past few days. Like he could tell I’d been lusting after Seth Brothers.
He narrowed his eyes at me a little. “You don’t look like someone who just got back from Hawaii.”
“To be honest, I don’t feel like one.”
He trailed me through the house as we headed out to the back deck. The back of the house looked west, over the waters of Howe Sound, the blue-gray humps of Gambier and Bowen Island in the distance—which was the main reason I’d bought this place. I could never get tired of that view. Gazing out at the water had a settling, resetting affect on me, at once inspiring and therapeutic… much like music did.
Dylan had brought beers and stashed them in the fridge, bringing two bottles outside for us. He popped them open and handed one to me as we sank into a couple of my lounge chairs. He’d stripped off his shirt and kicked off his shoes along the way, and now wore nothing but his shorts. They were jean shorts; ragged, faded cut-offs that ended halfway down his muscular thighs, splattered with paint and streaked with sawdust.
I smirked. “What’s with the never nudes?” It was a term we’d appropriated from the TV show Arrested Development, where one of the characters wore cut-offs at all times because he had a fear of being nude.
“Huh?” He followed my gaze to his cut-offs. “Oh. Been working on the cabin with Ash.”
“Uh-huh.” I happened to know that the “cabin” was a veritable mansion on one of the Gulf Islands, just off the coast. Dylan had bought it recently. “Renovating?”
“Converting half of the garage into a man-cave for Ash.”
Well, that explained the paint and sawdust. “Je-sus,” I joked, “are you two gonna get married, or what?”
“Maybe.” He swigged his beer and looked at me. “You cut him loose, huh?”
I rolled my eyes. “He wasn’t mine to cut, Dylan.”
“Right.”
“He still over there?”
“Yeah.” Dylan looked out over the water in the general direction of his “cabin,” though the island couldn’t be seen from here. It was close, but too far south. “He’s drowning his sorrows in hard labor.”
God. I did not want to think about Ash’s sorrows. But at the same time, I cared. I didn’t want him experiencing any sorrow whatsoever over me.
I knew I’d have to talk to him about it. Soon. I’d been the one who insisted we were only friends. Which meant a friend was what I’d have to be. Though part of me thought he was being a little ridiculous, making more out of this than there ever was.
I didn’t say all that to Dylan. Dylan had a special relationship with Ash, like a brother bond that went even deeper than what he had with Jesse and Zane. He’d be protective of Ash, and I had no idea what Ash had told him about “us.”
I really didn’t want to get into it with him, either.
I just watched him for a minute, stretched out on my lounge chair. His ruddy, slightly tanned skin. For a redhead, he tanned decently. His hair was dark auburn, but glinted all kinds of copper and red and gold in the sun. It flopped over his forehead in waves and curled around his ears. He had a straight nose and high, fashion-model cheekbones, a slight divot in his chin, and an underwear model’s body—literally.
When we’d met, Dylan Cope had been a cute but gawky teenager, all flailing limbs, wailing on his drum kit. Somewhere over the years he’d grown into a total stud of a man. Women melted into puddles of giggling gush in his wake. And even I didn’t mind occasionally checking him out.
I’d tried hooking him up with pretty much every available female I knew over the years. Sometimes with success, sometimes not. But even though Dylan was a total babe, I’d never felt even a twinge of What if…? the way
I had with Jesse. I’d never once thought about hooking him up with me.
It was a personality thing. Dylan and I were nowhere near couple material, and we both knew it. Maybe it was my hot and cold personality. As a bandmate, he’d never been bothered by it. It just kinda rolled off his easygoing nature.
But as a couple? Disaster.
The truth was, Dylan was just too laid-back for me.
Usually.
He could, however, be coy, calculating, and far too aware of his own charms. Like right now. I knew he wanted the goods on Seth and Hawaii. But he wasn’t outright asking.
As we had beers over the water, he just kept saying things like, How was Woo’s place? and You look like you got some sun… and Met anyone lately?
“Are you ever just gonna come out and ask?” I asked him after my second beer.
“Ask what?”
“Dylan. Don’t be an idiot.”
“What?”
“Just ask me about Seth or whatever, so we can get past it.”
“Okay,” he said. “Tell me about Seth.”
“Tell you what?”
“Why’d you take him to Hawaii?”
“To talk to him. We already went over this.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Everything.”
“You guys are cool now?”
“I’m not sure we were ever uncool… but yes. We’re cool.”
He nodded. “Cool. You know you shouldn’t have done that, though.”
“Done what?”
“Take him with you.”
“Why the hell not?”
He sighed, looking exasperated. “Because it’s just causing more shit with the band, Elle.”
“I didn’t cause shit,” I said. “I did what I did. If the guys have their panties in a knot about it, that’s their fucking problem.”
His eyebrows rose, but he didn’t say anything. It was enough to make me feel shitty.
Really shitty.
“Do not give me shit, Dylan. Do I ever give you shit about where you go, or with whom you go, or what you do on your time off?”
“Nope.”
“Right. So shut it. You want another beer?”
“Yup.”
And it pretty much went on like that for the rest of the day.
He brought it up, every once in a while, pointing out that we now had the fallout of this shit storm to deal with, but offering no suggestions on how to deal with it. Finally I asked him, “So what do you want me to do about it now? I can’t turn back time.”
And he said, “Maybe we should talk to Brody.”
That was his answer for everything.
Let’s talk to Brody.
Brody will have the answer.
Usually, he did. But on this one, I was hardly gonna defer to Brody.
“Let’s just do the rest of the fucking auditions,” I said, “and let the bullshit with Seth drop.”
“Fine with me,” he said. But after a minute he added, “Don’t think Jesse’s gonna let it drop, though.”
“Jesse can bite me,” I said, and Dylan finally shut up.
By now, I was pissed right off. I knew Dylan meant well. He was just concerned. Trying to do his part. Thinking that coming over to talk to me over beers before the next round of auditions would help.
It didn’t.
It just made me feel more defensive of what I’d done, and more defensive of Seth. This was Dylan; he was gonna be the easiest on me, and it was already feeling hard. If he was having this much of a problem with what I’d done, what the hell was Jesse gonna say? Brody?
But I couldn’t exactly start defending Seth to the guys without setting off warning bells—and another shit storm.
By the time Dylan left, I knew, by how defensive I felt of Seth, that I had to see him again. There was so much left undone there, and unsaid.
It took mere seconds from the time Dylan sped off in his boat for me to get Joanie on the phone.
“I’m gonna text you an address,” I told her. “I need you to send a car there, to pick up Seth Brothers.”
Chapter Eighteen
Seth
I arrived at Elle’s place just as the sun was going down. It was a sprawling mansion on the coast, low white slabs and glass, hidden in the trees. By the time the car stopped in the driveway, I was wound right up. My heart was beating too hard. My palms were sweating.
All the way here, I’d been wondering what this was about—a car service showing up at Ray’s place and the driver telling me he was supposed to take me to some house in Lions Bay, for Joanie.
I knew exactly whose house it would be.
As for why Elle had sent a car for me, there could only be one reason: she wasn’t finished with me yet.
She didn’t want me to leave Woo’s place; she’d made that clear. She’d also said she was staying in Kauai for a few more days, but now here she was, the very next day. Either she was pissed at me, royally, or she wanted to see me for some other reason.
One look at her when she opened her front door told me what that reason was.
I stepped inside, feeling uneasy. I’d never been in this house before, but I barely looked around. There was a white entrance hall and a giant, sweeping staircase leading upstairs, behind her. But all I really saw was Elle, standing there in her minuscule dress.
It was a sundress, innocent at first glance, white, with colorful flowers splashed across it. But it was thin and covered barely anything. One floss-like strap had drifted off her shoulder. She wasn’t wearing a bra; her firm breasts pressed against the soft, gauze-like fabric, her nipples poking out.
I wondered if she was wearing panties; the hemline barely covered her clit.
It was mid-summer, pretty warm out, and I was no expert in women’s fashion—but that was not a dress you wore to a business meeting. Or for a chat with a platonic friend.
“How are you?” she asked carefully.
I tore my gaze away from her tits and looked hard at her face. “Been better.”
“Why?” she asked, folding her arms at her waist. “What’s wrong?”
How to answer that, exactly? “I guess I don’t appreciate being summoned.”
“Summoned?”
“You sent a car to collect me. What would you call it?”
Her mouth dropped open, but she didn’t speak.
“Look, I get that in your world, this is normal for you,” I told her. “That you’re used to snapping your fingers and having everyone around you do your bidding. But it’s not normal, Elle.”
She looked taken aback. Offended, even. “So then why did you come?”
“I guess you could call it… morbid curiosity.”
She frowned. “About what?” She cocked her head a little, her loose blonde hair spilling over her shoulder. I let my gaze go with it, dropping briefly to her low-cut neckline, then the high-cut hemline of her dress.
“I think you know.” When I looked her in the eyes again, they were wide. “Are we gonna play games, too? ’Cause that’s not normal for me, either, and it’s not a turn-on.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Why don’t you tell me what we’re talking about. You’re the one who brought me here.”
“Yeah, so we could talk.”
“Right. Like you took me to Hawaii to talk.” I kept staring at her; I couldn’t fucking help it. I was drawn, getting sucked in by that dress, her bare thighs, the pouty, bitchy look on her face. “So we talked. What else is there to talk about?”
She balked, getting kind of flustered as she said, “Well… lots of things.”
I just stared at her some more. She did not go on. She didn’t offer up what all these “things” were as she stared up at me. I was half a foot taller, and standing close enough that she had to tip her head slightly back to meet my eyes. It put her in the perfect position to be kissed.
“Elle,” I said, trying to shake that idea out of my mind, even as I studied her pink lips. “
You know the rest of the band won’t take me back. It was great playing with you again, but it’s done. It’s over. The faster we just move on forward, the better it will be for everyone.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” she said, still flustered. Her cheeks were actually turning pink. “Move forward.”
“Feels to me like you’re still looking backward.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if you’re looking back at the past and having regrets. If you’re feeling bad about firing me. I don’t know if you’re regretting Hawaii. What happened. What didn’t happen. But what’s done is done.”
She’d started shaking her head slowly as I spoke. “Maybe it’s not done, Seth.” She blinked up at me, her gray eyes searching my face. “It doesn’t feel like it’s done to me.”
My heart beat harder, my throat squeezing a little as she spoke.
“Does it feel that way to you?” she asked.
I had no idea if we were talking about the band anymore, at all, or about the two of us and whatever happened—or almost happened—in Hawaii. But I told her, “That’s the way it’s gotta be, Elle.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s no other way it can be.”
Couldn’t she see that?
“Maybe you’re just afraid,” she fired back, “and you’re letting that stop you.”
“Maybe you have the luxury of doing whatever you want, Elle, but I’m not you.”
“Maybe you’re afraid to take a chance.”
“Maybe you’re pissed that you didn’t get what you wanted in Hawaii, and you’re not used to that.”
Her gaze dropped to my lips. “What… what do you mean?”
I was uncomfortably aware that she’d been drifting closer and closer to me as we spoke, that there were a few mere inches of air left between us.
“Elle. You did everything but fuck me on that dance floor.”
“What?” she protested. “We didn’t even kiss!” But she sounded disappointed about it.
And that tone of hers… kind of aggravated, frustrated—aroused?—went straight to my cock. I could feel myself swelling as the blood rushed south.
Dirty Like Seth_A Dirty Rockstar Romance Page 17