“You should’ve told me about that,” Jude said. “About the guy who was creeping on her.”
“Why?” I asked. “So the Kings could get involved? I figured the last thing she needed was more bikers taking notice of her. She was sixteen.”
No one said a thing for a long moment.
“So… you stepped up to try to protect her, and never told anyone.” That was Maggie, making an attempt to keep the peace. “Even Jessa didn’t know.” She was standing next to Zane’s chair now, and poked him in the shoulder.
“You’re saying…” Zane put in, prompted by Maggie, “you were just trying to watch her back, the whole time?”
“That’s how it started,” I said.
“Right,” Brody growled. “And that was a purely altruistic move on your part.”
“It was, at first. I never meant to end up in bed with her… but we were friends. I spent a lot of time with her. And I fell for her.” I looked Brody straight in the eye and said, “Can you blame me?”
Brody stood and took a few steps toward me. “Brody…” Jessa said, but he didn’t stop. He got close. Not exactly within swinging distance, but the dark look on his face put me on edge. My muscles tensed, adrenalin kicking in, as my body prepared for fight or flight. I felt Jude stirring, probably readying himself to launch if Brody attacked me again.
“Yeah,” Brody said, his eyes locked on mine. “I can blame you.”
I shook my head. “It didn’t matter, Brody. She was in love with you. We all knew that. I knew that. She told me right to my face, when I begged her to come back to me.”
Brody appeared totally unmoved. “And getting her hooked on pills didn’t bother you?”
“It bothered me. But everyone I knew did drugs in some capacity. It was normal for me. I know how fucked up that is now. I didn’t know it then. I really thought I was protecting her. I never would’ve hurt her. And she wasn’t like me.” I looked over at Jessa. She was watching us, smoothing her hand slowly over her giant belly. “Even I could see that, no matter how fucked up I was. I knew she’d work her shit out, and she did. Or at least, she seemed to. She didn’t want the drugs anymore. She’d go through periods where she’d disappear and wouldn’t be partying, and she wouldn’t want to be around me. But then she’d come back.” I shook my head, remembering… “She always came back. And every time she did, I was so relieved, and so… disappointed.”
Jessa took a deep breath, but she didn’t say anything.
“I kept waiting for her to realize she was too good for it. Too good for me.” I looked at Brody. He was still staring at me, hard, his clenched jaw ticking as he listened to me talk. “I wanted her to know it… And I wanted her to stay. ” I looked away, and my gaze collided with Jesse’s. Jessa’s brother hadn’t said a word yet. “Like I said, I was fucked up.”
“So what happened?” Jesse asked me. And I couldn’t tell where his head was at. His dark eyes weren’t giving much away, but I knew he couldn’t be thrilled about anything he’d heard here today.
“She stopped coming back,” I said.
“And you fell down a fucking hole,” Zane concluded.
“Yeah,” I said. “Something like that.”
“And you covered for him,” Jesse said, to Jude.
“Fuck, yeah,” Jude said. “I covered his ass so the band wouldn’t know how bad his debts were. And in the end, when you all had enough with the drugs and started talking about cutting him loose, I encouraged that, so none of his shit with the clubs would ever come back on the band.”
“Jude took care of me,” I said, in his defense. “He got me into rehab a few times. But I always fucked it up. He helped me more than I deserved.”
No one said a thing about that.
“You know what’s really fucked up?” Elle spoke up, and we all looked over at her. She’d been sitting back, silent, just listening and watching us. Watching me. And my stomach twisted with dread. I had no idea how she was gonna feel about hearing all of this. “You’re all having a conversation about Jessa,” she said, “like she’s not even here. Just like you always did back then. News flash, guys: She’s not a little girl anymore.”
“Amen,” muttered Maggie.
Then Elle stood up, and she faced Jessa. “Seth lost everything, but he tried to protect you. He was a friend to you. He cared about you. Don’t you have anything to say?”
Jessa’s brown eyes went wide as she held her belly.
“Elle,” Brody warned.
“Seth’s already forgiven me, Elle,” Jessa said softly.
“Forgiven you?” Brody turned to Jessa.
“Yes,” she said, looking up at Brody with such total fucking love, I didn’t know how the guy didn’t just melt into a puddle on the floor. “And I forgive him, okay?”
Silence.
“Well, then… there’s really nothing more to say,” Dylan said, carefully. It was the first time he’d spoken up. “I hope.” He looked pretty fucking tired of this whole thing. Kinda like I felt.
But I had adrenalin coursing through me, still keeping me on edge.
“Are we putting this shit to a vote?” Zane asked. “Fucking finally? We need this unanimous, right?”
“A vote about what?” Brody said. Clearly, he wasn’t ready for any such thing.
I didn’t think I was, either. No matter what air might have been cleared here today, I was in no way ready for the band to vote, right here and now, on my fate.
“No,” Jesse said. “Not right now. I need to talk to my sister first.”
“Yeah,” Elle said softly, coming up next to me. She laced her fingers through mine, and no one in the room could’ve missed it. “And I need to talk to Seth.”
Chapter Thirty
Elle
Jesse did talk to Jessa. Then he and Brody stashed her back in Brody’s truck with her driver and she headed home. Brody followed on his Harley.
I spoke with Seth outside, briefly, but in the end, I asked him to go on home without me, and I’d meet him there.
Home…
Seth was definitely a part of what I considered home now. I knew my house would not feel like a home anymore if I got there and he wasn’t in it.
He kissed me, and whether he liked it or not, he left, like I asked him to.
Maggie headed home, too.
Jude lingered outside. No doubt he and Jesse had a few things to discuss. But when Jesse came back into the church, Zane, Dylan and I were sitting on the edge of the stage. It was just the four of us, and the church had never felt so silent as Jesse walked up the aisle toward us. He dragged a chair over and sat down.
“So, you want to give Seth a shot,” he said. It wasn’t a question, and he was looking at Zane, not me, when he said it.
“No, I don’t want to give him a shot,” Zane said. “I want to give him a permanent place in this band.” And this time, he wasn’t trying to push Jesse’s buttons. He was totally serious. “You all know I like the guy. And he’s super fucking talented. Like it’s fucking killing me we’ve missed this much time with him already. The way I see it, there are only three things that matter. As long as…” He counted off the points with his fingers. “Number one: he stays clean. Number two: he wants to be here. And number three: he and Jessa have sorted their shit out… I don’t see any reason we can’t play with him again.”
“Number four,” Dylan said, crossing his arms over his chest. “He treats Elle right.”
They all looked at me.
I found my voice. “He does,” I told them. “He does treat me right.”
“Wait,” Zane said. “What?”
I looked at him. “Seth and I are… together.”
Zane’s mouth dropped open, as it all came together in his head… And rendering Zane Traynor speechless was a fucking feat.
I sighed a little and looked at Jesse. His dark eyes were on me.
“You want this?” he asked me. “Seth in the band?” He didn’t say a word about the rest of it.
�
��Yes.”
There was nothing more to say. For me, it was a resounding yes. I’d scream it off the mountaintops if they needed me to.
“And what if you guys break up?” Dylan asked.
“Oh, snap,” Zane said, recovering from the shock. “Yeah. What the fuck happens then?”
But it wasn’t like I hadn’t thought about that scenario myself.
“I’ve been through one breakup in this band,” I said dryly, “I can survive another.”
Jesse shook his head. “No one wants that for you, Elle. For you to have to go through that.”
“Yeah, well… it’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
They were all silent.
Then Dylan got to his feet, leaned over and gave me a hug. “We’ll talk to Brody,” he said, and this time, it meant everything to me.
“Thank you.” I fought back tears as Zane hugged me, too.
“Thank you,” Zane whispered in my ear.
“For what?”
“For bringing our boy back to us.” He slapped me on the back, kind of a man slap, but I was used to these from Zane, a guy who didn’t exactly know how to relate to women who wouldn’t fuck him.
“You’re welcome,” I said, shoving him gently away.
“So…” he said, studying me, and still trying to get his head around it, “you’re fucking Seth?”
“Zane. Shit…” Dylan hooked him by the neck and dragged him away.
Jesse stood to face me, filling my vision, as I heard the other guys leave the church. We were alone, for the first time in a very long time.
He still hadn’t cut his hair and the dark curls almost touched his even darker eyes. He looked eat-your-heart-out gorgeous, as usual—and yet, it didn’t make my stomach turn over the way it usually did.
His hands were shoved deep in the pockets of his jeans. They were faded black with rips on the thighs, and on his feet, he was wearing black-and-white Converse again.
I couldn’t help smirking a little. “So what’s with the Chucks?”
“Huh?” He glanced down and rocked back on his heels, kinda the way Seth often did. “Oh. Katie gave them to me.”
“Uh-huh. She looks good on you,” I said, grudgingly. It was true; the man had had a nauseating glow about him ever since he met that girl.
His mouth twitched a little, like he might smile, but he didn’t. “You’re sure,” he said, “this is what you want?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure.”
“Yes.”
He digested that, nodded once, then gazed up at the stage behind me. When his dark eyes found mine again, he said, “Alright. I’ll talk to Brody. We can have another band meeting, soon. Talk to him together. But I need to talk to him first. This will be hard for him, and I think he needs to hear it from me. I’m the only one he’ll trust to make the right decision, where Jessa’s concerned.”
I knew that was likely true. But still…
“What if he doesn’t come around?”
“He’ll come around,” Jesse said. “Ultimately, this is our decision. The four of us. We decide, we tell Brody how it’s gonna be.”
Yeah. I knew that.
I did not love that it was gonna come down on Brody that way, but after what happened tonight… after he’d seen Jessa and Seth together—arm-in-arm, for Christ’s sake—and heard the things they’d said about each other… the mutual forgiveness they’d found… he had to know that it was time for him to come around. Bury the hatchet, even if he himself wasn’t completely ready to forgive.
If the four of us, and Jessa, could accept Seth back into the band, Brody would have to, too. No matter how difficult it might be for him.
Jesse took a step closer to me and drew me in for a brief hug. When we pulled apart, he said, “I’ll talk to Seth, too. We need to put some time in. Get to know each other again.”
“He’d like that,” I said, because I was sure he would.
When there seemed nothing left to say, Jesse just said, “I’ll see you later,” and turned to leave. Halfway up the aisle, he stopped and looked back at me. “Seth, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling kind of aglow myself. “Seth.”
“I hope you’re happy, Elle.”
“I am.”
“You know… you could’ve told me.”
“Told you what?”
“About Seth.” He shrugged, kinda uncomfortably. “You could’ve talked to me about it.”
“Right. Like when you came to me and told me all about Katie?”
That seemed to trip him up. “I didn’t know you wanted me to.”
“I didn’t. And even if I did, what would you have said?”
“Well—”
“You would’ve told me you were in love with her and it was none of my fucking business.”
He crossed his arms. “Okay. I may have said something to that effect.”
“Yeah.”
He considered for a moment. “And you’re sure… You’re sure he’s clean?”
“I’m sure. I would never have asked you guys to take him back if—”
“Yeah,” he said. “We know that. But you know…” He trailed off, like he was looking for the right words. “Because he’s clean now… doesn’t mean he’s always gonna be, Elle.”
“Yeah. I know that, too.”
I did know.
I’d gone so far as to make a desperate phone call, late last night, to Rudy Baker, the legendary blues musician and recovered alcoholic who’d been a longtime friend of Dirty’s—and Zane’s AA sponsor. I wasn’t exactly an expert on addiction, and Rudy was the closet thing to that that I knew of; a man whose addiction had almost killed him, but who now had over thirty years of sobriety under his belt, and still toured, still lived his life in and out of bars, playing shows and partying without falling off the wagon. I’d left that conversation with far more questions than answers, but Rudy and I had made plans to meet up for coffee as soon as I was back in L.A..
He’d told me upfront that he wasn’t all that well-versed in drug addiction, that it was a different animal altogether than alcohol addiction. But one thing both had in common: the addict’s ability to stay clean depended almost entirely on their motivation to do so.
I knew Seth had huge motivation. Now, maybe more than ever. He was about to have Dirty back. And he had me.
Soon, he’d have a baby.
But none of those things would keep him clean; I understood that much.
He had to want to stay clean for himself. Otherwise whatever hard time came along, whatever stress—and there would be stress—it could trigger him. He could get high once, in a moment of weakness… and start the downward spiral again.
All I could really do was support him, trust him, and put my faith in him. But I already had faith in him. There was no question about that in my heart.
I believed in Seth.
Jesse was staring at me, unblinking. “You’re in love with him?”
“Jesse…”
“I know.” He turned away and continued up the aisle. “It’s none of my fucking business…”
I watched him leave, and a smile crept over my face.
It was pretty much the first time in a year-and-a-half that I’d had a conversation with Jesse without having to pretend I was okay, while inside I was really feeling like shit.
I did feel okay. I felt happy. Relieved.
But then again… I was also terrified. Because even though it seemed the band was ready to talk to Seth about coming back to us, I really wasn’t sure how Seth would take the other news.
No matter how much he cared about me, hearing those words—I’m pregnant—just plain freaked some guys the fuck out.
He’ll do the right thing.
That’s what I kept telling myself. But it was a cold comfort.
I didn’t want him to do the right thing, which was stand by me and support me.
I wanted him to fall head-over-heels in love with our baby… like I could already feel
myself doing, gradually and irreversibly, one heart beat at a time.
When I got home, Seth was waiting for me on the back deck. He had a coffee and he was gazing out over the water. The sun had just crept down over the islands, and the horizon was a volcanic eruption of violet, scarlet and gold.
“Gorgeous,” I said as I sat down next to him. “You know, I never get tired of this view.”
He looked at me, his green-gray eyes molten as they reflected the sunset. His gaze slid over my face. “I know what you mean.”
I smiled.
“Coffee?” he offered.
“No, thanks.” I felt my smile fade. Caffeine; just another thing I was gonna have to give up, with a baby growing inside of me. “How do you feel?” I asked him.
“Tired. I threw a double shot in here, hoping it might pick me up.” He lifted his mug for a sip and shrugged. “Nothing.”
I could understand the feeling. I felt crazy-tired. I had no idea if it was the pregnancy or just the strain of keeping it to myself, when I’d been dying to tell someone… along with the strain of everything else—the whirlwind of falling, hard, for him, and the long hours of auditions, moonlighting in the studio—but it was all hitting me, right now. I could fall right over.
Instead, I got up and pulled him from his chair, wrapping my arms around him. I looked into his smoky, soulful eyes as we leaned together against the deck railing, holding each other.
“I have something to tell you.”
I saw the trepidation, the doubt, flicker over his features, before he tried to hide it. He was probably thinking I was about to tell him the band wasn’t going to take him back. That it was just never gonna happen.
“It’s not that,” I said. “The band… We’ve agreed that we all want you to come back to us.”
He stared at me, clearly unsure. “Even Jesse?”
“Even Jesse. You know that wasn’t easy… but I think he’ll listen to Jessa. And clearly, she’s willing to try.”
“And Brody?”
“Brody will come around,” I said, repeating Jesse’s words to me; trusting them. “Jesse’s gonna talk to him.” I pulled him closer and said, “It’ll be okay, Seth. We’ll get through this. I actually think it’ll make us stronger as a band. We’ve been kind of needing something anyway, this last year… since Jesse and I broke up. Something to cut right through all the tension and bullshit and force us to appreciate each other again. In a weird way, I think that’s happening. Because of you.”
Dirty Like Seth_A Dirty Rockstar Romance Page 28