by Julia London
“Yeah, actually, I did.”
“So when were you going to tell me, Brennan? When were you going to let me in on your big secret?”
“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully. “I should have told you in Stratford Corners. I should have told you when I met you in my mother’s kitchen. I should have done a lot of things. But I didn’t, and I am so profoundly sorry for it, you can’t begin to know.”
Her pulse was racing. She was so damn angry with him for having deceived her. But she was also confused—she wanted so badly to believe him. She wanted to believe that she really was different to him in some way. That she’d mattered.
Her anger was squeezing the breath from her. She couldn’t catch it. “Shut up. You were just using me, Brennan. I was an easy piece for you, that’s all.”
He smiled ruefully. “Except that if you think about it, you know you weren’t the slightest bit easy, Mia. Do you honestly believe that I couldn’t have invited a model or actress up here if I’d wanted one? I wanted to be with you. And I loved every single moment of it.”
“But . . .” she said, gesturing for him to continue.
“But?”
“But it was all temporary. Say it.”
Now he looked slightly exasperated. As if he was annoyed she might have expected more. “Wasn’t it always temporary? You said so yourself. You said I’d go and you’d be here. You’ve worried more about how to find your artistic voice than this relationship.”
Mia hated him for being right. “That was true in the beginning,” she said. She could feel tears beginning to build. “But after Stratford Corners, I thought . . .” She turned away from him. “Fuck it. I don’t know what I thought.”
“Mia,” he said softly. “You didn’t think—”
“No, of course I didn’t think so, asshole,” she said. “But I hoped it, okay? I hoped it,” she said again, softer. She dug her fists into her belly to stop the roiling. The only thing that could make this moment worse would be to vomit, and she felt dangerously close to that. “Can you blame me, Brennan? These last few weeks with you have been so . . . right. I feel so right,” she said. It was the first time she’d put that nebulous and raw feeling into words. “You don’t understand—for the first time in my life there was someone in this world who could look at me and not be annoyed or mystified by the way I look. You’re the first guy I’ve known who really gets my need to express myself.”
“I do understand you,” he agreed from somewhere behind her.
She turned around and looked at him over her shoulder. “When I had to come back to East Beach, I was scared that meant I didn’t really belong anywhere. Not in art, not here, not in Brooklyn . . .” She paused, wincing a little. She had never voiced her fears out loud, and it scared her now to say them, as if giving voice to them would make them come true somehow. “I was scared that I didn’t matter,” she said, her voice hoarse. “But Brennan, you made me feel like I mattered and that I belonged. And I believed it,” she said, swallowing back tears. “I honestly, truly believed it. And now I discover that you weren’t being honest with me at all. How can I believe you were being honest with me about anything? How do I know you’re not here right now because you are avoiding the photographers camped out at your house?”
“The photographers,” he repeated, then groaned. “Great,” he muttered, dragging his fingers through his hair. “Never mind that—I never lied to you, Mia,” he said earnestly. “Maybe I am guilty of the sin of omission, but I never lied. I told you I was a musician. I told you my name. I told you I was writing a soundtrack. You didn’t believe me. You could have asked about the soundtrack, but you didn’t. You pigeonholed me from the beginning, lumping me in with the summer people you usually dislike, and assumed I was the idle rich. I shouldn’t have let you believe it, you’re right, you’re absolutely right. But everything else has been one hundred percent real. What we’ve shared is real. But I think we both knew from the beginning that this was . . .” He looked wildly about, as if searching for the right word. “Improbable.”
“Improbable,” she slowly repeated.
“Isn’t it?”
“Maybe. But if that’s true, it only makes this much worse. I felt something real for you, Brennan. And I thought that just once . . .”
God, no, don’t say it. Don’t beg. Mia stopped and hung her head. She sounded like a pathetic wreck. Everything was falling down in her, collapsing under her own expectations. She was so stupid.
Brennan moved cautiously around the bar to her. He slid his arms around her. Mia made a feeble attempt to push free, but he silenced her with a “Shhh” and a kiss to her temple.
That tenderness was more than Mia could bear—she closed her eyes and sagged against his body, dropped her forehead to his shoulder and squeezed her eyes shut. Her heart felt painfully tight, as if the life was being wrung from it.
“I feel something for you, too,” he said into her hair. “God, I have feelings for you that I don’t know I’ve ever had for another woman. You think I understand who you are? That goes both ways—you understand me, too.”
He put his hands beneath her chin and forced her to look up at him. “I didn’t expect any of this, any more than you did,” he said. “I never expected this,” he muttered, and kissed her cheek. “Or this.” He kissed her mouth.
Against her better judgment, Mia slid her hands up his chest to his shoulders. She began to move without conscious thought, just moving, wanting him to erase the pain, needing him to hold her. She was an idiot to want him, but part of her wanted once more with him, wanted to feel the magic between them one last time before it was over. She pushed Brennan back, pushed him again, until he bumped against the armchair. Then she pushed him down onto the chair and climbed on top of him.
“I definitely didn’t expect this,” he said, gazing up at her. He put his hands on her hips; she could feel him hardening beneath her and leaned down to kiss his cheek and his ear.
“What are you doing?”
“Don’t talk,” she whispered. “Don’t be a super rock star just yet. Please just be Brennan.”
He caught her head between his hands and made her look at him. “I am Brennan.”
No, he wasn’t. He was Everett Alden, and before he went into the world as Everett again, Mia desperately needed him. She kissed him before she could say it was too late, that he could never be Brennan again. She kissed him because she didn’t know what would happen, but he was here and she was clinging to the short time they’d had and she wasn’t ready for it to end.
Brennan gave in to her desire; he slipped his hands under her skirt, moving his fingers over her skin, then in between her legs, guiding her to sink down onto his body.
This, she thought, was what she wanted. It should always be like this.
She let him lead her into sexual oblivion on that chair, thrusting into her with all the heartache and desire and hope that she felt, and all Mia could think was that she loved him. She truly loved him.
At some point, they moved to her bed and lay in each other’s arms. Brennan told her about his reasons for going to LA, about the discussion with Kate Resnick, and the view from her terrace. He told her about talking to Chance, and how he wasn’t sure where they stood, but how the whole world seemed to be listening in on their personal struggle.
Mia told him about the wedding, and how she’d gone into the bathroom and inexplicably cut off the dress. Brennan laughed roundly at that, holding his abdomen as if he was trying to keep the laugh from exploding out of him. They made love again, their rhythm slow, caressing each other, whispering to each other.
Mia would think of that night often in the weeks to come and how they had lain in that bed and talked like lovers. How they managed to keep reality from seeping in through the windows and the cracks in the door. She would remember how that had felt in her breast and her veins, how her heart had beat so strongly and quickly for another person. She would remember how it felt to realize what falling in love fel
t like, and how it filled her up as much as a beautiful piece of art.
And she would think of how he never answered the question of whether or not he had ever intended to tell her who he was.
Twenty-three
Brennan woke Mia before dawn, whispered that he was heading up to Ross house before the paparazzi spotted him, and kissed her fervently until she groaned and buried herself in a mound of pillows.
Brennan drove home, sliding in through the gate. There were no photographers around this early. He parked in the garage and walked around the back of the house, entering through the kitchen.
He could avoid paparazzi—but he could not avoid his mother.
“You will not believe how many people are trying to get in here!” she complained. She was already up, making coffee, dressed in what he thought were sailing clothes.
“Hello to you, too, Mom,” he said with a yawn as he nudged her dogs off his feet. “I told you this would happen.”
“I didn’t tell anyone you were here, so how on earth did they find out?” she demanded, hands on hips. “Don’t say Mia, because she said she didn’t know.” She punctuated that statement with a glare in his direction.
Brennan didn’t need his mother’s disdain—he hated himself enough for not telling Mia, especially after last night.
“I told you to tell her,” his mother grumbled.
There was nothing worse than an I-told-you-so delivered by one’s mother. “I know,” he said, giving in.
“She looked absolutely shell-shocked, by the way. That’s on you, Brennan.”
Because he’d effectively tossed a bomb in her life. “I get it, Mom,” he said, feeling his exhaustion take hold of him again.
“How was your trip?” she asked, a little calmer now.
“It was fine. I’m going to grab a shower.” He moved past her on his way out of the kitchen.
“Just so I know, how long is this going to go on?” his mother asked, gesturing toward the front of the house.
Jesus, it felt like the pressure to do something was coming at him from all sides. He glanced at her over his shoulder. “I’m doing the best I can right now, Mom. I don’t know the answer to your question, but it won’t be long.” He walked out before she pressed him for details.
In his room, he pulled out his phone and glanced at the notification of more than a dozen calls, texts, and messages.
He hadn’t answered his mother about who had alerted the world to where he was, but it was obvious Mia’s cousin had been the one. Everything had been fine until she’d shown up, and then suddenly his phone was blowing up, his email was flooded, people were camped outside his gate, and everyone wanted an answer.
His phone messages were from Phil and Gary; those, he expected. There was another call from Tyanna, the woman who handled the band’s publicity. She said her message was urgent, so Brennan called her back. “Hello, Everett,” she said crisply when her secretary put him through. “Gary told me to leave you alone, but we’ve had a bazillion requests for interviews this week. Please tell me it’s not true that you’ve been living like a mountain man in a cabin in the woods.”
“A cabin.” He laughed. “Where’d that come from? I’ve been doing a little R and R at my mother’s house.”
“The idea came from OK! magazine. Apparently they photoshopped a picture of you outside a run-down cabin in a place that looks like the Blue Ridge Mountains to me. The article says you have no running water.”
“What the hell? No, Tyanna. I am at my mother’s house at Lake Haven.”
“So she’s sick?” she asked, all business.
“No, she’s not sick, she’s fine. I told you—I came here to decompress.”
“Decompress? That sounds like a drug problem. We’ll say you’ve been taking care of your mother,” she said. “Are you up for some interviews?”
“No. I don’t have anything to promote. I don’t owe anyone an explanation. There’s nothing I have to say to the media, and I’m damn sure not going to pretend my mother is sick.”
“We’re not going to be able to hold them off for long,” Tyanna said. “We’re going to have to say something. People think you’re living in the mountains without toilets, Everett.”
“Figure it out, Tyanna,” he said. He hung up before she could talk him into any interviews.
Brennan then listened to Gary’s messages—and all of them were the same. Where are you? We’re getting heat. Band wants to know what’s up.
Phil’s messages said that there were several calls into his office about the possibility of Brennan appearing at the Lake Haven Music Festival. It was happening next week, and Whittaker, a band that had opened for Tuesday’s End, was the headliner. Brennan would have dismissed those messages out of hand, but he had another message from the drummer who had taken over for Trey in Tuesday’s End. Justin hadn’t tried to get in touch with Brennan since the end of the tour. His message said that he’d gotten a call from Whittaker’s drummer. “They heard you were up there somewhere and wondered if they could talk you into sitting in. Anyway, here’s his number,” Justin said, and rattled it off. “In the meantime, man, you ought to get in touch once in a while. Later.”
Brennan called the number Justin had left him. Ben Whittaker, the lead singer and founder of the band, answered. “What’s up, man?” he said happily when Brennan phoned him. “Dude, you’re on the cover of everything.”
“Slow news cycle,” Brennan said.
“So look, man, we’re playing the Lake Haven event,” he said. “It’s the first year, supposed to be a small crowd. I heard you were up there somewhere, so why don’t you come out and sit in on our set? Piano, guitar, whatever you want to do. We can cover a Tuesday’s End song.”
“What would you think about letting me test a new song?”
“Sure,” Ben said.
“It’s acoustic.”
There was a pause. Then, “Sweet.”
The offer was tempting. The opportunity to play “Come Closer” before a test audience would tell Brennan a lot. And the thought of jamming with Whittaker excited him. Brennan hadn’t realized how much he missed playing with a band. “Count me in,” he said.
By the time Brennan hung up, he was feeling more optimistic about his return to music than he had in several months. He’d found his groove, he was back in the game. He was weeding all the noise out of his head and his path was slowly becoming clear.
But in the midst of that burgeoning euphoria—a natural high after his unnatural depression, two shadows still lurked: Chance and Mia.
Mia, Mia. That quirky young woman with a peculiar taste in clothes. Brennan’s feelings for her didn’t fit into his new groove. He didn’t know where to put his feelings, but they couldn’t be tucked away or forgotten. He felt utterly incapable of focusing on music and the show ahead of him, of putting that before everything else. He’d always managed to keep his eye on his music without letting unnecessary emotions get in the way. But when he was at his lowest point, Mia had come traipsing into his life in combat boots. And since that moment, his emotions felt entirely necessary and messy and had rooted into him like a stubborn vine.
A fast-growing, gargantuan vine that he didn’t know how to cut back or train.
His growing affection for her had kept him awake last night. His heart had swelled, and he’d felt new and awkwardly tender things for her as he’d lain beside her. It was a flow of warm desire that had scared him a little, coming so hard and heavy to him on the heels of his trip to LA. He didn’t know what the emotions meant in his life or how to mesh them into everything that was happening.
He glanced at the time: a quarter till noon. He looked out his window and saw the purple bike propped against the guardhouse. He called Mia. “Good morning,” he said, aware of the smile that instantly lit his face when she answered.
“Hey,” she said softly.
He waited for her to say more. She didn’t. He heard hammering in the background that matched the rhythm of his hammeri
ng heart. “So you’re working, huh?”
“I am,” she said. “Life goes on.”
“Can I see you?”
There was a pause. A very long pause, he noticed. “I’d like that,” she said at last. “I’m taking a lunch break in an hour. Lookout Point?”
“Perfect. I’ll see you then.”
But Brennan didn’t see her. He had a conference call crop up over the lunch hour with his label. The management there had been unnerved by reports that he’d been holed up without plumbing or running water in a cabin in the woods. They thought he was flaming out, or worse, doing drugs. This, according to Phil, who had been texting messages that were increasingly frantic. So Brennan gave in. He texted Mia, told her he’d be late. He thought the call would take five minutes.
“I’m with my mom,” he said to the label head, Blake Rendon. “It’s a ten-thousand-square-foot house for God’s sake. There are more bathrooms than there are people. I am not living in a cabin without water; that’s crazy.”
“Good. Great. We need you in the studio,” Blake said, apparently satisfied that Brennan had not turned into some antigovernment nut.
“Have you talked to Chance?” Brennan asked Blake. After their conversation in LA, he wondered what Chance might have said to the label.
“Yes, I’ve talked to Chance because he is the only one who will return my calls,” Blake said. “He says it’s up to you. You need to give me some idea of when the band will be back in the studio. We have a contract, you know.”
That prompted a drawn-out argument about when the band would be back in the studio, with Brennan holding firm that he wouldn’t agree to a date at this point. They could threaten him all they wanted—they knew as well as he did that the label needed Tuesday’s End more than the band needed the label.
By the time the call ended, he realized Mia’s hour was nearly over. He rushed downstairs, hoping to catch her and explain, but Mia had gone back to work. He could see her down the north hall, taking fixtures out of boxes and cleaning them off for installation.