by L. V. Lewis
This bit of information has me perking my ears up.
“You’d better watch out,” Brody says. “Your brothers never knew what hit them when she paired them up.”
“She’s managed to wrangle me a date for the wedding.”
“Really?” Brody says, as he and Sky look over at me. I’d like to skewer them both for being so fucking obvious.
“Is she even your type?” Sky asks. There’s my bestie gathering intel for me right in front of his smug face.
“Let’s just say, she could be any guy’s type. She’s gorgeous, and smart. A college girl. Wheaton graduate, as is my Mom. So, we’ll see.”
I hate the bitch already, but I smile along with them, as if I’m delighted that Dylan has a date to the wedding. But inside I’m furious that he has a real date, and I’ve got a rent-a-date. Crap! I should’ve tried harder to meet someone organically to take to Sky and Brody’s wedding, but now it’s too late.
“You’d better have her provide you with an NDA and a medical release before you bring her to the Maldives,” I sing cattily.
“Alyssa!” Sky says, while Brody’s mouth drops open in shock.
“Dani’s credentials are stellar,” Dylan says. “Believe me. I’ve already checked.” Then the bastard has the nerve to wink at me.
Ignoring my previous self-preserving advice, I down the rest of my second glass of wine and pour another. In an effort not to fidget, I cross my legs. Dylan tries to hide the fact that he’s checking me out, but I catch him practically drooling as I re-cross my legs. Dani must not be all that if I’ve gotten a rise out of him with a little leg action.
Now, I don’t have to share the credentials of my date out of desperation. I’m Your Man’s choice for me is a movie-star gorgeous actor and interesting enough, but I want Dylan to be surprised when he sees who I’m bringing to the Maldives. Besides I can’t claim I’ve vetted my date when we haven’t even met. Yet. But what Dylan doesn’t know won’t hurt me.
Della enters the room and informs us that dinner’s ready, and we adjourn to the dining room, where I carry what’s left of the bottle of Riesling, just in case I need it. Besides, Sky prefers that bottles be finished off, or poured down the sink when they’re opened. Less of a temptation for Brody. They’re on some type of honor system about alcohol and she keeps only unopened bottles in the house and she always knows the inventory count. They take no chances, even though Brody’s drug of choice was heroin when he was feeding both of his addictions. Rock n’ Roll being the other one, apparently.
The table is set rather elaborately for a regular Friday night meal, but Della has a thing for the men in our lives. She feeds them like they’re kings, or some shit. I don’t know if she got the memo, but Dylan has been persona non-grata for quite some time. Nevertheless, she’s brought out the big guns for him. She begins by bringing out two appetizers, which is unheard of when it was just Sky, Brody and me. Blackened scallops covered by a seared corn, mango and vegetable salsa and shrimp scampi drenched in real garlic and butter. Both are mouthwatering, but I’m finding it hard to eat with Dylan here.
Della outs me when she removes our appetizer plates to the sideboard and serves our main entrée, which is a braised rack of lamb, with roasted new potatoes, sweet carrots, and succulent asparagus.
“You don’t like what Della’s serving up, Cher?” she asks in her normal preference for speaking in third person, especially when she’s serving her culinary creations.
“It’s delicious, Della,” I say with a smile. “I just had a heavy lunch, and I’m saving room for the main course, and dessert.”
“Just making sure you and Ms. Sky aren’t starving yourselves for the wedding. You pay those designers enough. They can take out a few seams.” She laughs at her own joke.
Sky is livid. I know this because her face is so pink, her tiny brown freckles look like they’re in high definition. I, on the other hand, wish the floor would open up and swallow me, but I refuse to let anyone in the room know this. I quietly scoop a generous portion of lamb and green vegetables onto my plate minus the potatoes when the platters come to me.
I observe Sky’s plate noting that she’s done much the same. This gives me the permission I need to dig in, and I do, leaving the bottle of wine further untouched. The vegetables and protein will soak up the alcohol and help me to not be the uber bitch to Dylan that would surely come with inebriation.
Brody talks shop with Dylan about the upcoming concert, so that gives Sky and me the opportunity to eat enough to keep Della off our asses. Sky gets a call from her dad right before Della serves dessert, so she excuses herself and drags Brody along, leaving me at the table with my romantic nemesis.
“You were right,” Dylan says, gesturing toward the table. “This was far better than room service.”
“Will wonders never cease?” I say, and take a sip of my water. I smile hoping it will take some of the sting out of my words. Sarcasm is a much better look on me than bitterness, though.
Dylan attempts another subject. “Brody tells me the rest of your album is just as good as the cut we just recorded. The rock element gives it a flavor that will surely appeal to a larger fanbase for you.”
Music is one of the universal languages, and I speak it fluently, so I can’t shut him down on this. “I know, right? And your drums on that one? There are no words…” I was about to go overboard on the word vomit, but pulled myself up short. “Thanks for stepping in at such short notice. You saved our asses from breach of contract with the label.”
“It was my pleasure,” he says, and wipes his full, ‘Tom Hardy,’ lips with the napkin and puts it aside. I have always compared his lips to my favorite actor’s since the first day I met him. He credits his mother, Lillian who has natural bee-stung lips that many women pay to possess, since his father, Edward’s lips are non-existent.
His lips are moving again and he’s saying something, but I’m admiring his lips and what they have done and still could do to my body, and I don’t hear a single word he just said.
I shake my head and laugh nervously. “I’m sorry. You were saying?”
“Brody’s set up a Saturday practice, since I’ll need all the practice I can get if I’m going to be ready for the concert next weekend. You’ll be here in the morning?”
“Yes, if the Lord’s willing and the creek don’t rise.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “What does that even mean?”
That laugh. Slays me every time, but I manage to answer him before he thinks I’ve zoned out again. “Another of my grandmother’s old sayings. It means I’ll definitely be here. You might know it as ‘come hell or high water.’”
Della comes in with huge slices of red velvet cake, and it’s obvious she made enough batter this morning for cupcakes and a whole cake. Sky is going to lose her shit when she sees this, but I just smile and thank Della for my piece. I’m not turning down homemade red velvet twice in one day.
Dylan thanks Della profusely and is about to dig in before he looks at me as if asking permission.
“We don’t have to wait on Sky and Brody. That’s an overseas call and she and her dad have been having long conversations lately. Making up for lost time, and talking about his part in the wedding.”
“Oh,” he says and cuts a nice sized piece of cake with his fork and shovels it manfully into his mouth. I don’t recall Dylan eating with such gusto in the past. I mean, we had our fair share of meals together, but he eats now as if he’s savoring every morsel, and hoping a lot of it sticks to his frame.
“Your appetite is good,” I comment. “Your therapy and medication must be working. When I was depressed about my Mom, I lost quite a bit of weight, too. Took me a minute to get my appetite back.”
Dylan frowns. “It’s only been a few months since I’ve gotten my appetite back. As you know, some medications do the opposite.”
“Yeah, makes you wonder if it’s all worth it.”
Apparently, I’ve hit a nerve because he stops
eating.
I swallow the piece of cake that practically melted in my mouth. “What?”
He drinks a sip of water, and clears his throat. “It’s nothing. I’m just still a little sensitive about the whole thing, I guess.”
I feel like a literal asshole. Of course making an off-hand comment like that would strike a nerve. “Queen of Prickly,” or not, that was just insensitive.
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “It’s evident you’ve gone through something this past year and I should’ve been a bit more mindful of your feelings.”
Della returns with two additional slices of cake, which she places on Brody and Sky’s place settings. “I thought I’d given those two enough time to get off the phone,” she says absently, then addresses us. “Can I get you two anything else?”
“I’d love a glass of milk, if it’s not too much trouble.” Dylan says.
“None at all,” Della says, and then looks to me, but I shake my head and she leaves immediately to retrieve the milk Dylan requested. This is new for him, too, but I am a living witness that eating habits do change when you’re going through depression, and it’s obvious it’s taken its toll on him.
It’s also obvious I can’t give him as hard a time as I would like to, because I don’t want to be the reason he has a relapse, or something. I would never be able to forgive myself for that. The joint parenting I got before my mother died compels me to be the bigger person and apologize. When I look down, about half my piece of cake is gone, so I put the fork down, or I’ll have to spend an hour in Sky’s gym before I go home.
“I have a confession to make,” I say.
“What’s that?” Dylan says as he adjusts the napkin in his lap. Looks like I’ve been the only one who’s been eating through that brief silence. He’s only taken a couple bites of his cake.
Della brings a glass of milk so cold the outside of the glass is already sweating. Dylan thanks her for it and she disappears from whence she came. I’m glad, because I want to say what I’m going to say fast before I lose my nerve.
“I was prepared to give you holy hell this week, because what you did? It hurt me, and it’s not in my nature to let anyone do that to me and get away with it.”
Dylan swallows convulsively and takes a much-needed sip of his milk, after putting a couple of pills on his tongue. Only then does he respond. “It was obvious in your comment earlier about Dani that you came prepared to bring it. What changed your mind?”
“If you experienced even a portion of what I did when I was depressed about my mother’s death, then you’ve already experienced a hell I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.”
Dylan looks as if my words are an insult, rather than an apology. “Alyssa, there is no excuse for what I did to you. There are only explanations, and only you can decide whether they are good enough.”
“Then I guess I’ve decided that they are,” I say. I wipe my mouth one final time with my napkin and drape it across my half-eaten cake.
Dylan drinks his milk down and wipes his mouth, too. Yet, he still doesn’t seem very happy with my armistice, and I don’t have time to question him about it because Sky and Brody return, elated that her father is bringing quite a few of her relatives on his side with him when he comes to the wedding.
We remain at the table while Brody eats his dessert, and Sky grumbles and picks over hers, leaving much of the cake and frosting on the plate. We chat about all that’s happened since we last saw Dylan and I forget his reaction to my impromptu cease-fire, and enjoy the conversation and company of good friends.
Fifteen
Hollywood, CA
DYLAN
I leave Sky’s place in a different car than the one in which I arrived. Alyssa’s condo, either by happenstance or because Brody orchestrated it that way, isn’t far from my hotel. So, she feels obligated to offer me a ride, insisting she’s doing it for Sky’s sake and not Brody’s.
“Then I’ll gladly accept your favor on my bride-to-be’s behalf,” Brody quips.
Alyssa flips him the bird and we’re off. Of course, she still drives like a fucking bat out of hell, and I find myself grabbing the “oh shit” bar a few times as we wind around the mountain and eventually spill out onto the 101.
“Why am I not surprised this isn’t the leisurely nocturnal drive I hoped it would be?” I say breaking the tense silence.
She slows imperceptibly, and glances at me. “Is my driving scaring you?” When she sees my reaction to her question, she grins. “You grew up driving in Chicago traffic. How can my driving possibly scare you?”
I huff. “We don’t have any fucking mountains in Chicago.” And what I don’t tell her is that when you almost die from cancer, you’re not very keen on dying in other ways.
“Oh, that’s right.” Traffic for LA is going at a leisurely pace since it’s a few hours south of rush hour, so Alyssa slows down a bit more. “Better?”
“Yeah, at least I can now unclench my ass, and relax my fucking balls,” I say.
“Oh, what’s a little fast driving between friends? This car is not to be driven like my grandmother drives her Buick,” she says.
Her little red California is a beauty, and I’d probably drive it the same way if I were on the freeways in Chicago, and not the hills and valleys of LA. “That may be true, but I want us both to get back to our respective destinations alive.”
“Baby—I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.” I wish she were calling me baby like she used to when we were fucking like rabbits on just about every tour stop after Flushing. Just thinking of all the things we did with and to one another has my cock straining against my zipper.
“I’m holding you to that,” I say, “because if we die tonight I’m going to kill you.”
“Not unless I kill you first,” she teases, then speeds back up and within a few minutes, we’re exiting at my hotel, and she swings us into the entrance near the valet, who looks as if his night just got more interesting when he sees the little red number we pull up in. He walks toward us, but when I hop out and Alyssa doesn’t, he returns to his post.
“Can I catch a ride over with you in the morning?” I ask, because despite being scared shitless just now by her driving, I’d rather be with this girl than anywhere else in the world.
“Sure. I’ll scoop you up at nine,” she says, and zooms away. Besotted bastard that I am, I watch her until she’s out of sight before I enter the hotel.
I remember that Alyssa is not a morning person, so I grab her one of those ‘coffee cocktails’ she loves and get me a straight cup o’ Joe from the hotel restaurant and I’m waiting outside for her when she screeches into the entrance. I hand her the drink, deposit mine in the cup holder and buckle myself in.
“You remembered the obligatory caffeine!” she declares. “Thanks, Dylan.”
“Yes, I kinda want you to talk to me and not bite my head off on the way to Sky’s place.”
“Well, this will get me started, but you know I’ll need a couple more of these before I’m decent enough to be in polite company.”
She still defaults to talking like her grandmother when she’s nervous. I found that utterly endearing when we were getting to know one another before. Her maternal grandmother spent a lot of time in LA caring for her daughter before Alyssa’s mother died, and Alyssa picked up on a lot of her vernacular. I don’t think she even realizes she’s doing it sometimes, but it’s so fucking cute.
“I’m sure Sky has a state of the art coffee machine,” I say.
“She does, and Della won’t let any of us touch it, because the kitchen is her domain, and she doesn’t mind reminding any errant soul who deigns to touch anything in there.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, and just make us a couple of orders when we get there.”
She worries her lip, and I know she’s got something on her mind, which I’m almost certain she’ll share with me before we reach Sky’s home. In the interim, I enjoy the beautiful California morning, and being in her c
ompany, until she decides to share it with me. It doesn’t take long.
“Um, Brody hasn’t mentioned what you and the rest of the band were going to do since he’s out for the foreseeable future, and Stephen’s still in that mental health facility. Have you guys talked any more about reviving your band, maybe without Brody?”
This is a sore subject for all the guys except me, but I’m happy to answer the question. “Last we discussed, the guys aren’t interested in revamping The Savages unless Savage is a part of that. We did kick around coming up with a new name and hiring a new lead singer, but then I got… sick, and to be honest, I haven’t talked to them since you and I last spoke.”
She looks surprised. “Wow, you really weren’t…available to anyone.”
“No, I wasn’t. Except to my family. Who were amazing, by the way. You know my mom. And my dad, even my brothers were amazingly supportive.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less of the Castles,” she says. “You know, if my album takes off, I might be in the market for a band, especially if I get my own tour.” She looks surprised, in spite of herself, at the sudden offer and goes silent.
“That is a generous offer, but do you really want your ex- whatever the hell I am, skulking around you all the time?”
“You are a lot of things, Dylan Castle, but you aren’t a skulker. If that’s even a real word.”
We laugh as much to clear the air as at the hilarity of the turn of the conversation.
“If you’re serious, I could run it by the guys when we’re in the Maldives and we could jam together and see what happens. You’ll have to bring your rock A-game if you want to convince Finn and George to buy in.”
“Oh, I can bring my rock A-game. My new album is a fusion, remember? I see it as the beginning of my music taking a whole new turn, bringing in new fans and melding the two genres I love.”
Alyssa’s confidence has always been sexy to me. Still is. And as we head up the mountain to Sky’s place, I adjust myself discreetly so I won’t scare the hell out of Della when I raid her kitchen for more coffee.