Combust

by K. Bromberg

  “Where’ve you been?”

  I know Emerson has called him by now. I know he knows what Wes said. The insults repeated for another person to know my shame.

  “Is it true?” Was I just a pity fuck?

  “Dylan?” He part laughs, part rejects the question with a shake of his head as he drops his spoon into the bowl.

  “Yes. Or. No. That’s all I want to know, Grady.”

  “What the ever-loving fuck are you talking about? Is what true?”

  “Didn’t Emerson call you? Fill you in?” His blank stare tells me she didn’t, and for that, I owe her one for saving my dignity—or what little is left of it. “Your fight. Wes Winters. How he couldn’t fuck me because I wasn’t pretty enough or skinny enough or some shit like that. Ring a bell?”

  Grady runs a hand over his jaw, the chafe of his stubble the only sound filling the room. “He’s an asshole.”

  “And you punched him, but then when you came home, you couldn’t tell me who you hit or why you did it. Did you not want me to know? Did you not think I’d find out?”

  “You weren’t exactly up front about telling me you two didn’t actually sleep together, either.”

  I glare at him. His point is valid if who I did or didn’t sleep with is any of his fucking business. The hurt riots inside as I stare at Grady, so goddamn handsome, and I question myself. How did I think there was actually something between us when right now I feel like it was all started on a ruse? Because knowing I was a pity fuck isn’t exactly the best way to boost my ego.

  “Would you have come home that night and slept with me without hearing what Wes said? Or did you walk in so pissed at him for being an asshole that you felt sorry for me? First Jett and then Wes . . . poor Dylan, right? So what? You knew I was self-conscious so you thought you’d step into the role—lower your standards—to help me feel a little better about myself for a week or two. Then make sure I’m gone when an attractive woman comes along to twist up your sheets.”

  He stands where he is, angles his head to the side, and just stares at me, eyes pinning me motionless. There is so much conflict in his expression, but it has nothing on how I feel.

  “You’re actually questioning me on this?” Anger colors his voice and disbelief weighs on his posture. “You actually think it was that bastard’s bullshit comment that made me want to sleep with you? You really think I’m that weak that I need another man to help determine who I fuck? Glad you think so highly of me, McCoy.” He rounds the counter and stands a few feet from me, his spine stiff, the muscle pulsing in his jaw as he glares at me.

  “I know what I heard. I know what you did. And since you haven’t told me a fucking thing, I’ll believe what I assume.”

  “Fuck you and your assumptions.”

  “Considering you haven’t answered me yet, I guess I can say fuck you too.” I grit the words out as my tears burn paths down my cheeks. “Sorry you slummed it with me for a bit. I’ll make sure to be scarce so you can tune into your regularly scheduled program of beautiful women.”

  “You’re wrong, Dylan. So fucking wrong.”

  “I saw the look on your face when glitter-dress girl left that first morning. No one’s ever looked at me like that. So why should I believe you?”

  “I haven’t slept with anyone since you showed up.”

  I raise an eyebrow at him. “Um . . . glitter-dress girl?”

  “Correction.” He sighs. “Since I actually met you. Don’t you think that says something? A lot of somethings?”

  “Where I come from in Hollywood, all we say are somethings, and none of them hold any value.”

  “Well, in my job, sometimes your only value is your word. When I say I’m going to be there for someone, their fucking life depends on it . . . so when I speak, I mean it.” He rolls his shoulders, and I can see his frustration.

  “You still haven’t answered my question.” And I don’t care how many words he speaks or if he’s worth his weight in words because it’s the ones he’s not speaking now that scream the loudest.

  “You don’t get it, do you? You don’t see what I see.” He steps forward and reaches out to me, but I yank my arm away. I’m too hurt, too ashamed, too irrational to be touched. I don’t trust myself, and if I don’t trust myself, then I sure as hell don’t trust what my reaction to even the tiniest ounce of comfort would be.

  “Christ,” he mutters and paces from one end of the kitchen and back before turning to face me. “You want your words? Here they are. You’re fucking gorgeous. There, I said it, and I know you’re going to reject the compliment so I’ll say it again. You, Dylan McCoy, are the things wet dreams are made of. You and those thighs of yours you hate but I love.”

  “Grad—”

  “No.” He holds his hand up to stop me, and he just stares at me with such intensity I can’t remember what I wanted to say. “You weren’t a pity fuck, Dyl. You were far fucking from it. You’re the woman I keep thinking about, keep wanting more from, but can’t bring myself to ask you for it because I can’t give you shit. I can’t give you what you deserve because every time I think I can, I see Brody and Shelby. So, how can I ask you for more when I can’t give you a relationship? That isn’t fair to you . . . so I’m using you. Yep, I am. Using you because you’re the only thing I can get lost in when nothing else has made a dent in my pain. Using you because it’s what I need when I haven’t asked you what you need. Call me an asshole. Call me a fucker. But don’t you ever tell me this started with a pity fuck. Far from it.”

  “Grady. Please don’t.”

  “Please don’t? Screw that, Dylan. You wanted to know until I started telling you the truth . . . until I started telling you good things about yourself and made you uncomfortable, so hold tight, sweetheart, because I’m not even close to done.” He takes a step toward me as I shake my head, conditioned to mentally reject the things he’s yet to say. “This started the minute I saw you standing over there in a white fluffy robe held close at your neck, judging me like you had every right to. This started when you walked up to me in the kitchen and kissed the ever-loving life out of me to prove to Jett he couldn’t have you. And guess what? That night, the taste of your kiss seared into my goddamn mind, making sure no one else’s kiss could ever come close. This started when I walked in the kitchen the night of the fight so amped up on adrenaline wondering how in the world a man couldn’t get hard by just looking at you since that’s all I’d been doing since you showed up. You were standing right there”—he points to where I was sitting the night of the fight—“looking so beautiful, and I couldn’t help myself anymore. Sure, I was livid at Wes for what he said, but I was also so fucking thankful he didn’t get to do the things to you I was about to. I jerked off imagining you on my cock the night the bastard brought you home from the bar. Your moans. Imagining your body. Your taste. Your hot fucking pussy. That was all I needed to fucking come, and I hadn’t even tasted you or had you at that point.”

  I look at him slack-jawed and stunned, his every word spoken with such conviction that they hit my ears and reverberate through my body so I can’t deny them.

  He stares back, teeth gritted, eyes intense. He reaches out, pulls his hand back, and then reaches again without a hint of hesitation.

  His lips meet mine. There’s anger on his tongue. There’s frustration in his touch. There’s passion in every movement of his mouth against mine.

  I fight him at first. The mixture of his words and my anger and Wes’s shame spin in a storm of uncertainty, making my head dizzy and my heart ache, but his lips . . . his lips steal its thunder with each and every second they claim mine.

  He takes without asking. He claims and seduces and demands without a single word. But the one thing that is constant is his anger. And just when I think I’m drowning in the swell of emotion his kiss evokes, he ends it abruptly. He shoves away from me as if he’s been burned.

  He stands before me, my lipstick smeared on his lips, his shoulders heaving, his hands flexing at
his sides, and his eyes piercing. “If that’s pity, Dylan, take pity on me, because I’m the asshole who would do it all over again without a second thought. So blame me. Hate me. But don’t you ever fucking blame yourself again.”

  Grady heaves in a deep breath and then throws his hands my way as if to say he’s so angry with me and this conversation that he has nothing else to add. Then he slams out the back door, leaving me standing there staring after him with my fingertips touching my lips. Lips that are still buzzing from his kisses. My head is a bigger mess than when I walked in here, but for a very different reason.

  Tears well in my eyes, and a contradictory laugh falls from my lips.

  “You were standing right there looking so beautiful, and I couldn’t help myself anymore.” Talk about the unexpected. Now what the hell am I supposed to do?

  Find ’em hot and leave ’em wet just got a whole new meaning.

  “If I was living with your ugly ass, I’d run for the hills too.”

  I lift my middle finger up for Grayson to see as he’s hanging the drywall.

  “Momma said you’re not allowed to let your bird fly that way.”

  Fuck.

  I lower my finger and look to where Brody sits, hands under his chin, green eyes wide like I’m in trouble. “She does, does she?”

  “Yep. She says that birds should only flap when you’re really angry, and I don’t think you’re really angry.”

  I shake my head. Shelby’s doing a damn good job with him. “Does your mom ever let her bird fly?”

  “Only when she’s driving.” He fights a smile. “She also says you shouldn’t use the word A-S-S, but I’m a big kid so don’t worry about me. I’ve heard it before.”

  I laugh loudly and press a kiss to the top of his head. “Grab a beer, we need to have a man-to-man.”

  He giggles without a care in the world like every little boy should and grabs his bottle of root beer, looks at it like it’s the coolest thing, and then scoots closer to me.

  “Cheers,” I say as I tap my bottle of beer against the top of his root beer.

  “Cheers.” His smile is beaming.

  “So . . . now that we’re getting closer to getting this done,” I say, pointing to the almost completely drywalled playroom, “we need to start discussing what type of things we should fill it with. Foosball. Air hockey. PS4. Nintendo Switch. Darts.”

  “Darts?” he asks. “I don’t think my momma would like me playing with those. She’s always talking about eyes getting poked out and stuff.”

  “Well, that’s the best part about being here. We’re men, and men don’t worry about that stuff. Besides, we have to have our own secrets. That’s why we have the Boys’ Club here. Right, Gray?”

  “Yep.” He takes a seat and taps his beer against Brody’s. “Boys’ Club rules. You can always come here and be a man. Burp. Fart.”

  Another giggle sounds off. “I’m not allowed to say that word at home,” he says with a roll of his eyes.

  “What word? Fart?”

  He nods.

  “You’re not?”

  “Nope. I have to say toot. It’s so lame. I sound like a girl.”

  “I’ll have to have a talk with your mom about that one, Brody. That’s where I draw the line. A man’s gotta be able to say the word ‘fart’ or he won’t get any playground cred. Especially now that you’re a kindergartener.” Grayson just looks at me and shakes his head. “What? Don’t tell me that Luke can’t say it, either.”

  “He can. In fact, I’m sure when he comes home from his play date later I’ll be hearing all about farts.”

  A horn honking interrupts us. “Your mom’s here.”

  “Ah, man,” he says and grabs one last handful of M&M’s that he knows his mom isn’t going to let him have.

  “None of that,” I say as I ruffle the top of his hair. “Finish your beer and go grab your stuff. I’m gonna talk to your mom.”

  He says a garbled okay around the M&M’s he’s chewing while he hugs Petunia and takes off for the house.

  “How was Boys’ Club?” Shelby asks as she walks up, hand shielding her eyes from the sun.

  “It was good. But, Shelb, toot? You’ve gotta let a boy say fart or he’s going to get made fun of at school.”

  She starts laughing, and it’s such a good sound to hear after so much sadness. “This is what you’re teaching him?”

  “What happens in Boys’ Club, stays in Boys’ Club.” I wink. “Did you have a good time?”

  “Yeah. It was nice to relax and feel girly for a bit. They tried to talk me into going out with them next weekend, but I’m not ready for that yet.” Her voice falls.

  “You should. You deserve some non-mommy time out with your friends. Drew wouldn’t want you to be lonely forever.” The words pain me to say. It’s as if saying them aloud means he’s really never coming back. But she needs to hear it. She needs to believe it, even if the blanch in her expression when she does mirrors how I feel inside.

  “Grady . . .” Her eyes meet mine, and the look in them fucking kills me. “Hey, sweetie. You have fun? You ready to go?” Her face transforms into a mask of happiness the minute Brody comes jogging our way.

  “Yeah. It was rad. We talked about playing darts and . . .,” His words drift off when Shelby’s eyes widen. “Never mind.” He looks at me and tries to wink but both eyes close instead. “Just man stuff, mom. No big deal.”

  “Man stuff,” I repeat and stifle a laugh.

  “Thanks again,” Shelby says, and her eyes light up with humor.

  “Any time.” I watch them climb in her car and stare after them while they drive off.

  “You going to tell me what the hell’s going on?” Grayson asks as he walks up beside me and hands me a fresh beer.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ha. Nice try, baby bro, but you don’t have Brody here anymore to protect you from me asking where the heck Dylan is. Did you scare her off already?”

  Maybe.

  I think back to last night. To the hurt in her eyes when she walked in the back door. To the shock that made her jaw go slack when I told her how I really felt. To the wince in her posture when I told her I was using her. And to the taste of her kiss that fucking killed me to walk away from. If I hadn’t, I would have used her again—right there.

  “Not sure,” I confess. “I woke up to an empty bed and—”

  “An empty bed implies it was occupied.”

  “Knock the grin off your face.”

  “So was it?”

  “Occupied? Yes. But for strictly platonic reasons.”

  “Bullshit.” He coughs out the word.

  But he’s wrong. My bed has been empty since Jett the fuck face left. Empty so the nightmares returned.

  Except for last night it wasn’t.

  For some reason, when I came in from working out here, she wasn’t hidden away in her room. No, she was asleep on her side of my bed. Her side? I’ve already given her a side? And I selfishly opted not to wake her because with her next to me, my nightmares wouldn’t come.

  That and I wanted her there.

  Had she gone in there to wait for me to cool off and accidentally fallen asleep? Was she still upset and needed some company?

  I don’t know. I can’t ask her because she fucking left without waking me to say goodbye.

  “I woke up to a note,” I say, the sting still there. “It said she had to head to L.A. for a couple days to work on a few of the songs in the studio.”

  “And you buy that?”

  The way he stares at me says he knows there is so much more going on, but he doesn’t outright ask it. If it was Grant, he would. But Gray is the peacekeeper and will let me explain if I want to or leave it be if I don’t.

  “I knew she had to go and had been waiting to know when it was scheduled. Otherwise she’d risk violating the terms of her contract.” He looks at me like he doesn’t believe me, and I don’t know if I even believe myself. I know it’s what I want to believe.
I know it’s easier to think she left because of work instead of fleeing because she still thinks she was my pity fuck. “Honestly, dude, I’m not sure what I believe when it comes to why she left.”

  “Ask yourself this, were you disappointed she was gone or were you breathing a sigh of relief. The answer will tell you all you need to know.”

  “You are my shot in the dark.

  The flame I can’t put out.

  The nightmare I need to walk away from.

  The dream I constantly doubt.

  But you’re under my skin.

  You’ve stolen my heart.

  How am I ever going to be able to walk away from this?”

  “Nope. Start over,” I interrupt Jett mid-bridge and hold up my hands. “That line still isn’t right.” Frustrated, I shake my head and look to Kai and then Jett.

  Groans fill the room.

  “It sounded good to me,” Jett says as he picks up his glass of whiskey and takes a sip.

  “Good isn’t good enough. I want perfect,” I say, scribbling down a possible fix and tucking my pencil behind my ear. “I need to hear it one more time without the mix. I only want the acoustic track.”

  “You sing it,” Jett says. “You always hear it better when you sing.” I look at him and know he’s right but hate the idea of having the audience.

  “No.” I shake my head to reject the idea.

  “We’ll sing it together then.” Jett lifts his eyebrows as if he’s asking if that will work.

  “Fine. Sure. Let’s go.”

  Kai sighs. “What the lady wants, the lady gets. For the thousandth time, let’s try it again, folks. Cue the track,” he says and directs the tech in the booth.

  I press my hands to my eyes and try to concentrate, but I’m tired. Too little sleep after waking up from a bad dream to find I’d fallen asleep in Grady’s bed while I waited for him to come back in so I could talk to him. Make things right with him? I don’t know what with him.

  Then finding the text I’d missed after the chaos of the bar when I’d gotten up to get a drink of water. The one that said there had been a cancellation at the studio and the label had taken the spot for Jett. That I was required to be there.