“Can you at least look at me?” Her voice was soft, unsure.
I took a steadying breath, meeting her gaze full-on for the first time since she booked it out of town the day after our first sold-out gig, looking at her in a way I hadn’t been able to at Epic. Her eyes were the same deep blue, her lips the same pale, pink pout, and my body had the same reaction it had when we were dating, pulled towards her like a magnet. I felt it like a strike of lightning—the damn string tied between us—a connection that hadn’t been severed, and I hated it as much as I was fascinated by it. Something you neglected and ignored for years should shrivel and die, yet it was still there, painfully strong as ever.
“I’m looking, Sabrina,” I said her full name just because I wanted to test it on my tongue, to see if it tasted as sour as I’d hoped. Of course it didn’t. If I’d had to guess, I would have said that everything on her tasted just as sweet as I remembered, and just like one of Pavlov’s dogs, my mouth watered.
“Please don’t hate me, Hawthorne,” she begged like she was testing the name-waters, too.
Hearing my full name on her lips was brutal.
“Hawke,” I corrected, grabbing my beer. “You lost the right to call me anything else the minute you decided it wasn’t okay to date a rock star, but it was okay to become one.”
Her gaze hit the floor briefly and color flared in her cheeks. “I don’t want to be here anymore than you want me to. Can’t we just write this song and be done?”
“Yeah, okay, because they held you at gunpoint to sign that contract, right?” I asked and threw back another swig.
Her eyes narrowed in my direction. “You don’t know my reasons for signing the first contract, or for signing this one. For that matter, you don’t know me. Not anymore.”
“Well, at least we can agree on one thing,” I snapped. But at least there was still some fire in her. I’d watched the last three years as her spark had dimmed, wondering what the hell they’d done to her.
Her shoulders drooped, one creamy shoulder peeking out from the oversized neckline. She took a few steps toward me, then thought better of it and stopped at the refrigerator. “Is this how it’s going to be with us?”
“What other way was there ever going to be?” Chad’s suggestion of screwing her out of my head popped to the front of my mind and I dismissed it just as quickly. It had taken years to lose the feel of her from my fingers, the taste of her from my mouth, and I wasn’t stupid enough to get addicted again.
“I don’t know,” she answered quietly, leaning back against the pantry door. “I’ve thought about this moment a thousand times with a thousand different outcomes.”
“What was the worst?” I asked, hating the way my stomach tensed.
She shrugged. “You refusing to speak to me, or doing the exact opposite and humiliating me in front of an audience while everyone watched.”
Given what I knew of how she viewed crowds, I understood how that was her worst nightmare. I drained the rest of the beer and moved toward her until I was a couple feet away. “And what was the best?” I asked quietly, torturing myself with the need to know.
“The honest answer?”
“As always,” I answered automatically. How many times had we told each other that in school, cutting through the small-talk bullshit that surrounded us, both looking for something real.
She sighed, but met my gaze. “I’d apologize, and you’d forgive me, saying that you’d thought of that moment just as often as I had.”
The breath stilled in my lungs. Fuck, I’d thought about that moment—this moment—every day since she walked out. What I’d say if I saw her, the various ways I’d tell her to go to hell, the thousands of ways I’d kiss her into forgetting that she’d left in the first place and slaughtered me in the process.
It had taken a year to pick up all the pieces, and that was never going to happen again. Not with her or any woman.
I stalked forward until I had her caged between my arms. “And what do you want this time, Brie?”
Her lips parted and it took every ounce of self control I had not to pounce.
“I…I don’t know anymore.” Fear flickered in her eyes, like she knew just how close she was to being devoured in my kitchen. I knew I could do it, kiss her, slide my hands up her tiny skirt along those smooth thighs, and she wouldn’t protest. Her body was already leaning toward mine, drawn by the same unexplainable force that I was.
But her answer, that was a disappointment. “Funny, the girl I knew—” the one I’d stupidly loved “—knew exactly what she wanted. She liked to make everyone else happy, let others push her around too often, but she always knew, and she never had an issue dishing my own shit back at me. I guess I’d hoped that these years might help her figure out how to push back, to actually act on what she wanted. How shitty to see that you’ve actually regressed.”
Her eyes widened, and I almost regretted my words when I saw the hurt that she blinked away. “And I guess I’d hoped that you wouldn’t embody every shitty quality of a rock star. Guess we both get to be disappointed.”
There she was.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet, sweetheart,” I promised in a husky whisper that worked on every groupie we’d come across.
She raised her chin, which I knew she meant in defiance, but all it did was bring those lips closer to mine. God, I felt her tiny pulses of breath against my mouth, and I wanted. I hadn’t been celibate the last few years—hell, far from it—but I hadn’t felt this kind of blatant, all-consuming need since…
Since you last had her under you, her thighs locked around your hips.
“Do your worst, Hawke. It couldn’t be anything I haven’t already assumed.”
And boom. She’d cut to our base problem with one comment. “One day you’ll meet someone worth breaking one of your precious little rules for.”
She shrugged. “One day I won’t have to worry about it. One day I can find something normal. Something real.”
But real was exactly what we’d had, and she’d thrown it away—thrown me away.
“Hey, Hawke? Oh! I’m so sorry!” Bianca’s startled gasp came from the doorway.
Brie pushed at my chest, but I didn’t budge. She wanted to see how bad rock stars were? I could show her.
Without looking away from Brie, I opened the refrigerator door and took out two beers, then handed her one. “You need this more than I do. Loosen up a little.”
I pushed off the pantry door and gave us both some breathing room. “What’s up?” I asked Bianca as she held a boombox to her chest.
Her eyes darted between me and Brie, and I swore silently. A rumor about me hooking up with Sabrina Caroline while we collaborated on this song would just drive Birds of Prey album sales, but it was possibly a giant black mark in Brie’s, and Bianca was just enough of a jealous wretch to start one.
“Ummm…we’re out of batteries.” She put the boombox on the counter.
“No problem.”
“Thanks, babe,” she answered with a smile, twirling her hair just above her breasts.
Sabrina stiffened.
“No problem,” I said with a forced grin and reached into the top drawer to pull out a pack of D batteries. “Here you go.”
Her fingers lingered on my hand, but as soon as I pulled back, her attention shifted to Brie. “Are you Sabrina Caroline?”
“Yep,” Brie answered with her fake smile. As pretty as it was, I fucking hated the way it stopped just before her eyes.
“Bitchin’,” Bianca said, nodding her head like she was in on some secret.
Sabrina focused on the details of the metal pop top on the beer she held, but didn’t open it.
A couple moments of awkward silence passed before the Bianca got the hint. She leaned up and brushed my cheek with her lips. “I’ll be in the pool if you need me for…anything.”
“I’ll remember that,” I lied, saying anything that would keep her from lashing out at Brie.
“Be sure y
ou do.” She winked, grabbed the batteries and ran.
“Need some help?” I offered Brie once Bianca was gone.
“No. I don’t drink.” She handed the beer back to me. “But thank you for offering.”
“Of course you don’t,” I said, putting it back in the frig. “Because it goes against your image, and your rules.”
“Actually, it’s because it interferes with my medication if I want to take it,” she said, effectively shutting me the hell up.
“You’re on meds?” For what? Was she sick? Had her fear pushed her to get help?
She opened her mouth to answer, but Chad bulldozed in. “Hey, you two. Hopefully you got your shit worked out, because we need to get started.”
“We’re fine,” Brie answered, damn-near running out of the kitchen.
Chad raised his eyebrows in question as she passed him.
“Not even close,” I answered.
Those few minutes had only clarified two things—I was still pissed at her for the way she’d walked out, and I still wanted her more than my next breath.
Fuck.
“Absolutely not,” I snapped at Hawke.
“You got a better idea?” he asked, leaning over his piano and resting his head on his forearms. His very muscular forearms. And seriously, did he have to wear that AC/DC shirt? It was soft from years of use, and I’d stolen it on more than one occasion to sleep in.
He wasn’t playing fair.
“Sabrina?” he prompted, turning his head so that the spiked ends of his hair brushed his arms.
“No,” I answered, pacing next to the piano. The other band members had abandoned us a half hour ago for the party in the next room. Not that I could blame them—we’d been at this for hours and still weren’t getting anywhere.
“Then pick one of my ideas,” Hawke growled.
“Every one of your ideas has a bitch for a female lead, or shallow lyrics about scoring one of the band members.”
I was tired and on edge, scraped raw from every subtle dig he’d not-so-subtly threw at me.
“And? A little too autobiographical for you?”
That was it. “You know what? I’ve had it.” I bent under the piano to retrieve my heels. Screw his hardwood—I’d scratch the crap out of it walking out. “I’m done with you.”
“Well there’s something I’ve heard before.”
“You’re such an asshole.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
I miss you. Every second of every day.
I slipped into the hot pink pumps and grabbed my denim purse off the end table. “Let me know when you actually want to work.”
“Why? It’s not like you actually need this, Brie.”
I stopped in the doorframe and turned back slowly. “What?”
He leaned back on the bench, crossing his arms. “You took an entire year off and still came back at the top of your game. Chart-topping hits, new cars, interviews on MTV—you’ve made more money off your last two albums than some singers do in a lifetime. Hell, your whole life is an upgrade now, right? You didn’t even keep that house you loved so much, just tossed it away and got something better. So why do this? Why put us through this? Are you some kind of sadist? You want to see if you can rip me apart again? Or were you hoping that I’d relieve some of your guilt and break you this time so you could play the pretty little pop princess martyr?”
White hot rage ran through my veins, kicking up a notch with every accusation he posed as a question. “Maybe it’s not about you.”
He scoffed. “Yeah, okay. As if. Why else would you take time out of recording your third album?”
“Because this was the price to write my own songs!”
His brows knit together. “Wait. What?”
I ran my hands over my face and took a steadying breath. Then I closed the door behind me so we were alone in the room. “I hate how you can do that, just rip the truth out of me. You drive me nuts.”
“Yeah, well, I like it. Now tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”
I wavered. I wasn’t supposed to discuss the terms, and Epic was already pissed enough that Mom made the deal. But then Hawke tilted his head to the side, and that simple movement erased the last few years, and he was Hawthorne again —my best friend, my own little slice of forever. “I told Epic that they weren’t getting the third album unless they let me write some of the songs.”
His eyebrows rose, and he pushed the hair back from his face. “How did that go over?”
“Not well.”
“And you’re under contract.”
“Yeah, and they can sue me, but my lawyer says they probably won’t. There’s no dates on the album, and I could basically say that it’s forthcoming for the rest of my life as long as I don’t record with anyone else, but it’s a gray area.”
“Do you want to quit?” His entire body softened, like the anger had been suddenly siphoned out.
“I don’t want to quit, but I never wanted to start,” I admitted softly, sitting on the empty side of the piano bench. If I leaned just another inch, I’d be up against him.
“I don’t understand.”
“I know, and it’s hard to explain it to you without getting tangled up in our past and dragging that all out.”
“We’re not kids, anymore, Brie. I can handle it.”
“I just saw three non-kids slide across a beer-soaked slip-n-slide in your hallway. Want to tell me that again?”
He opened and shut his mouth a couple times before finally nodding. “Yeah, they haven’t quite grown up, but they don’t have to.”
“And they’re always here?” I asked.
“I’m the only one who used my money on something tangible. The other guys blew it on cars and parties. They’re not broke or anything, but it just makes more sense for them to stay here when we’re between tour dates. We get writing done. Don’t change the subject. How did you end up with Epic if you didn’t want it?”
Hawke was a dog with a bone when he was after something. It was one of the things that I’d loved about him, but now it made me feel like I was under a microscope. “Do you remember the end-of-year recital at Duncan?”
“Yeah, that’s where we scored our all those gigs that lead to the deal,” he said before looking away. “You’re right, it drags shit up.”
That was the night he’d first told me he loved me, and I’d thrown it back in his face a few short weeks later.
I bit my lower lip but forged ahead anyway. “A scout approached me and I turned him down. It took everything I had just to get up on that stage and sing as it was. You know I was always more comfortable writing.”
“Right. I remember.”
He was the only reason I’d been able to get up there in the first place.
“Well, after…I left—” and broke my own heart “—Mom showed up at Julliard around October. I’d barely been there six weeks and she was ready to shred my dream. She’d mortgaged the house to put me through Duncan, and she’d always been so disappointed that I wasn’t the shining star.”
“The house your dad left you?”
“Yeah.” The only thing the guy had ever given me, and Hawke was well aware. Hell, I didn’t even have his last name, let alone know it. “When Epic came to Mom with the deal, and the money, she said she was my manager, and laid the guilt on. I’d cost her the house for those four years of Duncan, and if I would just sing a few albums for Epic, she’d have it back. Julliard said they’d take me back, but it had to be within four years, and Mom agreed. She’d given up her career to raise me, and it felt like the least I could do. So I signed the contract.”
“You hated performing. I remember hives breaking out.”
I nodded and studied my hands to keep from looking back at him. His stare felt like a physical touch, intense and questing. “I’ve got the hives under control, but I still hate it. The crowd, the eyes, the way I can screw it up so quickly. Did you…did you see what happened in Chicago?”
/> “Where you passed out because you were pregnant, fell off stage and then delivered the baby in secret before coming back?”
I glared and he threw up his hands. “Hey, I see the magazines.”
“Well, I wasn’t pregnant.”
“You’re sure?” he asked with a smirk.
“Perfectly.”
“Really? I mean, that was pretty damning evidence. How can you be sure?” he teased.
“Because I haven’t had sex in years,” I blurted out, and then snapped my mouth shut. Heat stung my cheeks and I would have traded my entire bank account to sink through the floor and disappear. “Can we just pretend I didn’t say that?”
“Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat.
“Good, because I’m sure you don’t go more than a day or two,” I muttered.
“Do you really want to know?” he asked, a lock of hair falling over his eyes as he turned his head.
I brushed it out of the way without thinking, my fingertips grazing the smooth, warm skin of his forehead. “No,” I said softly, pulling my still-tingling digits back.
“What happened in Chicago?”
I shrugged.
“Yeah, that whole not knowing thing gets you every time.”
“You want the PR answer?”
“You fell off the stage and broke your leg.”
“Yeah, that was more the result.”
He waited patiently, and that quiet resolve in his eyes got to me more than any amount of pushing could have done.
“I was already exhausted. The constant scrutiny, the reviews, the interviews, the pressure…it was all crushing me. I’d gotten to where I was scared to say just about anything, or it was getting twisted. I was either unable to sleep, or having nightmares. I would find myself pulling out of conversations, and I second-guessed everything, especially the music. That show in Chicago, security wasn’t as tight, and when I down by the front row, someone grabbed my ankle.”
I still felt the fingers on my skin, the slight tug that had sent me sprawling, the initial, overwhelming panic as the faces rushed toward me. I breathed through the pressure in my chest. “I know they didn’t mean to hurt me. It was more excitement than anything. But I froze, then stumbled, and the rest of me ended up on the floor.”
1984: Against All Odds (Love in the 80s #5) Page 4