by LJ Evans
That made me smile. And I was still smiling when I made my way quietly through the big house towards the front door. But Dylan’s booming voice halted me.
“Mia!” he called and I turned, hiding my nervousness behind the mask that I had perfected. I hid my emotions from my family. I hid them from all sorts of people at the dealership. So I was fairly certain I could hide my emotions from this one director.
“Hey,” I said with a forced smile.
“I heard you’re going with Keith to pick up Bianca’s latest artwork,” he said with his hands in his trousers as he rocked on his feet. It shocked me, but he was the one who actually looked nervous. And this threw me off my game slightly.
“Yes. I hope that’s okay?”
“What? Oh, yeah. No problem,” he said still rocking.
I waited. He rocked. “Is there something I can do for you?” I asked. I wanted to head-thunk Good Girl Mia against the door, but it was too late, it was already out.
He looked as astonished as I felt. “No… I just wanted to apologize for our dad.”
“You don’t have anything to apologize for.”
“I do. He’s an asshole. And he made Derek’s life hell at the mansion. I shouldn’t have invited him.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
“You…” he hesitated. “Please don’t take this wrong, but you kind of remind me of the girls there. That’s why I was surprised to see you with Derek. He doesn’t normally like anything that reminds him of that time.”
I turned a thousand shades of red and crossed my arms over my too big breasts. God, why couldn’t I have had a nice set of B boobs like Cam. Now I was being compared to a ‘PlayBabe’ or Hugo Brantly’s girlfriends, neither of which was something to write home about. I guess that’s what I got for running away with a sexy musician.
Dylan looked at my flushed face and grimaced. “I’m sorry. That was rude.”
I looked away, still not sure what to say. I wasn’t sure what he really wanted from me.
“I’m not saying any of this right. I love Derek. He’s not just my kid brother, he’s my best friend. I don’t want to see him hurt. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t…” His words faded away.
“A whore? A stripper? Someone hanging onto his coat strings waiting for his fame to kick in?” I was suddenly as angry as a queen bee whose hive has been attacked because, let’s face it, Dylan’s own wife fit that image way more than I did.
Dylan’s turn to flush bright red. “Shit, I’m sorry.”
He brushed his hand through his blonde hair. “That sounded awful.”
“It did,” I agreed.
“You just came out of nowhere.”
I couldn’t disagree with that because I had. But it went both ways. Derek had come out of nowhere into my life too. He’d entered it with his crazy energy and happiness that you couldn’t resist. He’d entered it like the eagle he was, swooping down to capture the mouse.
But then I realized that I couldn’t be mad at this big brother standing up for the little brother. It was exactly what Cam and Jake would do for me. I swallowed hard the anger as guilt overwhelmed me instead, and I was there in the guilt when his next question hit me.
“Do you love him?”
My brain literally froze at the question. Did I love Derek? And before I realized it, my head was nodding. I felt the nod just as Dylan saw it, but my brain and heart were still trying to catch up with what my body already knew. Oh my God. I was in love with Derek.
Cheese and crackers. I’d been worried about his girlfriend label when I should have been worried about the fact that I was in love with him. That my stupid heart had gone in the most stupid direction ever. I’d fallen in love again when it was only going to hurt all over.
Dylan didn’t realize the turmoil he’d just thrown me into. He’d seen my nod, and that was all he cared about.
“Okay then,” he said as he turned and disappeared into the depths of his house leaving me to wonder what in bejeezus had just happened.
I hadn’t recovered. I was still in the shock of my own revelation when the doorbell rang and then the door opened to reveal Keith. He was happy, jiggling keys to a sports car that sat on the driveway behind him, and seemed to fit his new L.A. image as much as his boyfriend had. It was like he was more at home here in his own skin than he had been back in Tennessee in his cowboy boots.
“Ready?” he asked, and I could only nod again because I wasn’t ready.
I was nowhere near ready to be in love again. To be in love with a sexy musician whose life was even further apart from my reality than Hayden’s had ever been.
Thank God it took longer than I expected to drive down the coast to Seth’s studio because I had a chance to get myself together. Keith didn’t seem to notice my preoccupation. He rambled away as he drove about the Water boys and how he loved working for Dylan. He talked about meeting Locke through Seth’s art. He talked about how he and Seth were now good friends, and how they were helping each other through AA.
This statement surprised me enough to bring me back to the car ride and Keith, putting aside my epiphany until I had some time alone to examine it.
The fact that Keith was in AA was startling, but not Seth. Seth had needed AA back when he was sixteen going off the rails and pushing girls off cliffs. But Keith’s openness about it all as we drove in the summer sunshine allowed me to focus on him as he continued his onslaught of Hollywood insider information.
I concentrated on the sunshine along the coast which was cool and dry and so very different from our humid air back home. And even though it was beautiful, with the ocean mist and spray, I suddenly missed the heaviness that filled our Tennessee air, wrapping itself around you so snuggly that there was no mistaking that you were home. I missed home. And unfortunately, that brought me back to loving Derek. Because I also felt at home when I was with Derek. And Derek and Tennessee were not anywhere near synonymous. Derek and Tennessee were antonyms. Words that would never fit together.
Keith must have noticed that my brain kept disappearing, because he got quiet as we got closer to Seth’s. Seth’s studio was at his house that sat directly on the beach. It was a beautiful Nantucket ranch that, while not huge, was stunning. It was yet another surprise in a day of surprises. The house didn’t seem like something a moody, junk artist should own.
“This is Seth’s place?”
Keith laughed at my astonishment. “It is. Believe me, he’s so tame now that you won’t even recognize him.”
But I did. He greeted us at the door and when Seth Carmen smiled, you couldn’t not recognize him. The panther-like quality of him that made you want to run away or just lay down and give in. Except that I didn’t want anything to do with him when I had my own amazing eagle waiting for me back up the coast. The one I apparently loved!
Seth was still all hot Cuban though. And he had his own book-worthy image going on in his jeans and gray t-shirt with bare feet. The beach and this life seemed to suit him just as Keith’s sports car and boyfriend seemed to fit him.
Seth offered us sweet tea and something called ajiaco that was a stew that he said he made himself. I wasn’t quite sure I believed that. We sat out on the patio at a table made of stone and iron that I’d never seen the likes of before, and which I did believe he could have made.
“How’s Cam?” Seth asked through hooded eyes. Making small talk. Something he’d never been good at back when he was a teen in Tennessee.
“She’s good.”
“And the baby?”
“She’s on bedrest. Baby wants to come out early.”
Seth smirked. “Serves her right. Hope the little shitter gives her a run for her money.”
I smiled back, because it was so something Seth would say, and so something appropriate for Cam.
“Speaking of on the run, have you heard from PJ?” Keith asked.
Seth’s smile was wiped away, and in its place a glower that seemed appropriately Seth again. “No.�
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“She’ll be back. She loves you man.”
“If I don’t lose it and drag her back first,” Seth responded, Keith look unfazed, and I realized that Seth was still Seth.
But Keith had said love, and that had my brain reeling again so much that when Seth collected the bowls and cups and moved them back into the house, I didn’t even offer to help.
Instead, I followed the man who seemed so nothing like the sixteen-year-old, motorcycle riding schmuck that I used to know, that it pulled me back to the moment I was in once more. Seth was still silent and brooding, you could still feel the simmer of intensity and anger broiling under the surface of him, but it didn’t seem like he took it out any longer in alcohol and motorcycles and fists.
Seth led us into his studio to get the piece for Bianca, and then my brain shut off for a completely different reason. I was stunned by the art in the room. Art that was full of color and light and beauty. It made me realize that somehow Seth was trying to find a way of putting his past behind him so that it wouldn’t take up any time or energy or space. Johnny Cash would have been proud of him. Seth and Johnny were more alike than Derek and Johnny. Seth was the addict after all.
One piece in his studio caught my eye more than any other. It was a chair made of wrought iron, the legs grooved and broken and put back together with silver and gold welding in a way that somehow made me think of wounds on a heart as if the scars were embedded there permanently. Over the top of it was draped a piece of purple satin that shimmered and glistened like diamonds. I ran my hand on the silk, then drew back in astonishment as I realized that the satin wasn’t cloth at all, but unbending steel.
“This is exquisite,” I told Seth.
He stared at it, not smiling. He didn’t agree, he just nodded, like it hurt him to admit it.
“Here’s Bianca piece.” Seth turned to the corner where a twisted tree stood. The pot it was in was made out of shards of stained glass soldered together. The leaves were made out of iron and steel, and from the branches hung tiny snow globes filled with an array of different objects.
Keith and I both stared at it. It was amazing. All of his art was amazing.
“You’re really good at this,” I finally said.
He looked at me as if he’d forgotten I was there. His arms were crossed against his chest, feet wide.
“It’s a living,” he shrugged off the compliment.
“Says the man making millions at his art,” Keith said.
“Shut up, asshole,” Seth groused. And that did seem more like him. Keeping people in their place.
Keith and Seth finagled the tree into the back of the sports car, and I helped buckle it in so that it wouldn’t topple over and break.
“Locke said he already got the check, right?” Keith said, and Seth nodded. A man of few words.
“You gonna be okay?” Keith asked.
“You really need to go to hell. And tell Locke he doesn’t need to send you to fuckin’ check up on me,” Seth bit back.
Keith laughed and I smiled at his surliness.
I said goodbye and thanked him for the stew. Seth nodded one more time. “Tell Cam,” he paused. “Let her know how happy I am for her.”
It was said in a quiet, deep tone that would have given me shivers if I wasn’t used to a certain sexy musician’s voice giving me shivers.
“Will do.” I got in the car and then looked back, “Good luck, Seth.”
He nodded one last time, then we drove away.
“Who’s PJ?” I asked as Keith and I made our way back up the coast.
“The love of his life. She’s breaking him into tiny shards because she took off across the country.”
This stabbed at me because in just about a week, Derek and I would be almost as far apart. After I’d just realized I loved him.
“I can’t imagine Seth being broken by anything,” I said just to stop my own tortured thoughts.
“You’d be wrong. He’s the most broken man I know. But, like Seth himself says, you can take broken and make it into art, so hopefully he won’t stay broken for long.”
I looked at Keith expecting a smirk, but there was none there. He was serious. Seth Carmen, hard-ass, had really been broken by a girl and was trying to put himself back together. It was enough to make me think of all the ways people can be broken by the ones they love most and quietly hope that somehow Derek and I wouldn’t end in the same broken shards that I expected we would once our realities hit us.
* * *
Keith took me to Dylan’s office on the studio lot. I stared like the greenhorn country bumpkin I was. The energy and backdrops and people reminded me a little of the electricity of Vegas and yet, it seemed somehow one more layer of false. Like these were even stronger automatons going at it. I wondered if anyone who lived in these bright cities ever felt real life hitting them in the face.
We took Seth’s tree to Dylan’s office where his assistant drooled over it and Keith, as if Keith wasn’t gay and she wasn’t fifty. I wondered if Bianca had arranged for the fifty-year-old just like she arranged for the older nanny. What did that say about her and Dylan?
By the time we got back to the mansion, it was almost seven. Keith dropped me at the front door, waved, and tooted the horn before driving off. I was grateful when I made my way through the big house without seeing anyone.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I saw Derek. I’d been trying to figure out how to tell him I couldn’t be his girlfriend and now it was even more complicated by the fact that I loved him.
But I also knew I couldn’t stay in his world, girlfriend or not. Not only because it didn’t fit me, but because I belonged with my family in Tennessee, helping to heal a family that had lost its gravitational force.
That’s where my brain was, when I walked into the guesthouse, but it went out the door when I saw Derek.
He paused midstride as I entered as if he had been pacing, his hair stuck up at odd angles like he’d been passing his hand through it repeatedly. He looked like he’d lost everything, and my heart crumbled into itself.
“Jesus Christ! Thank God!” he said, walking toward me and wrapping me into that chest welding hug that I loved. But, it made me realize that his whole body was trembling. He was shaking like a dog caught in a thunder storm.
“Derek, what’s wrong?” I asked, pulling back to look up at his face. His eyes were closed. Dark lashes hiding his stormy eyes.
“Where have you been?” he asked huskily.
“With Keith. I left you a note.”
“Here?”
“Yes, on the counter.”
I turned him to look at the counter in the kitchen where a pink sticky note sat by the cordless phone.
“Why the hell didn’t you text me?” he asked. I could sense him calming down some, but there was still no sign of happy Derek. That Derek seemed to have been swallowed whole.
“I didn’t want to bug you while you were recording.”
“Shit, that’s not bugging me, Mia, that’s letting me know you’re okay. I’ve been texting you for hours.”
I grabbed my phone out of my bag and realized it was dead. I had forgotten to plug it in last night after we’d gotten back from the fiasco with Derek’s dad and we’d lost ourselves in each other.
He saw the dark phone face and glowered, pulling it out of my hands to plug it in at the counter.
“What could have happened to me?” I asked, frowning as I watched him sulk and stalk in a way that fitted Seth way more than my happy musician.
“In L.A.? All kinds of fucking stuff.”
“Why are you cussing at me?” I was confused.
He approached me cautiously and reached for my fingers.
“I thought you left,” he breathed out, and then he pulled me into his arms again. One hand at the back of my head, the other around my waist holding me to him.
“Left?”
“You know. Left me. Went back to Tennessee.”
It was the perfect
opportunity to remind him that we had only a week left together, and that I would eventually be going back to Tennessee. But I couldn’t. Not then. Not when the sorrow in his voice was enough to drown a whole city. Not when he looked like his whole world had already collapsed.
I didn’t because I could see now the broken part of Derek just like Keith had shown me the broken part of Seth. These beautiful men that looked like they were strong and whole and confident. But inside, they were a series of crumbling walls just like me. Derek was just like me. It made my love for him swell even as it made me hurt because I was afraid that we were both going to end up even more broken when this was all done.
I quietly said, “Moron,” and then led him to the couch. We sat with me tucked up against him and him holding me like he wasn’t going to let me escape. And the truth was I didn’t want to escape. Not yet. Maybe not ever, even though I couldn’t see another path for us.
After sitting like that for a few minutes, being reassured by each other’s presence, I finally pushed past the chicken Mia I had been and found the courage to ask him. “What happened to you?”
He knew what had happened to me with Jake and Hayden, but I didn’t know what had broken this man who had repaired and then stolen my heart with the ease of a cleft stretching smile. And I thought, maybe he needed me to know his story as much as I had needed him to know mine.
At first he didn’t respond, so I tried to prompt him with the little that I knew. “Dylan said the mansion was hell. What did he mean?”
Derek frowned. “When did Dylan say that?”
“This morning.” I wanted to add that he’d also accused me of being a PlayBabe looking for an easy target in an up-and-coming musician, but I wouldn’t drive that wedge between Derek and his big brother.
“Why would he say that?”
I shrugged. “He was trying to apologize for your dad, I think.” Which was the truth. Just not all of it.
He cursed under his breath and pulled me onto his lap like I had been the night before. His fingers swirled under my tank along the edge of my jeans.