My Life as an Album (Books 1-4): A small town, southern fiction series

by LJ Evans

  “I never knew I had a dream

  Until that dream was you.”

  -Bon Jovi & Sambora

  The phone ringing brings Seth out of a deep slumber. He hadn’t slept much in the four days since he’d returned from New York. A couple hours at most. The sunlight is pouring through the blinds in his bedroom, but it could be morning or afternoon when he eventually comes alive to the ringing noise.

  When he’d landed at LAX, he’d turned on his new phone to find a message waiting from Mac. Mac said that his dad’s parole had been revoked. He’d been high and had both drugs and a weapon on him when his parole officer checked in on him. His shit-for-brains dad was going back to jail. Seth wanted to feel relief, but he hadn’t because he’d known that eventually he’d be out again.

  He’d driven home in a dreamlike state to find that Becca had left a note and a chicken wrap in the fridge. He’d swallowed down the food, ignored the note, and headed into the studio.

  That’s where he’d pretty much spent the last four days.

  He’d finished the chair. Her chair. The chair itself was twined metal, broken all over and welded back together with strands of pure gold and silver that had cost him more than the motorcycle. The sheet of metal that was like a silken purple wrap hung off the chair in a way that was graceful and unintentional, as if it had just been flung there by someone in a torrent of passion. At the base of the wrap, like a brooch someone had forgotten, he’d embedded a deep purple flower that looked like the flower pen PJ still used when she wrote anything by hand. In the center of the flower were Larimar stones that he’d handpicked so that they hinted of the gray and teal of her eyes.

  It really was a simple piece. Like PJ appeared to be simple. A chair with a silk wrap. But once you really looked at it, you could see that it was much more complicated than that. Like her, it was once broken by Michael and others, but it was fused together so that the pieces shined. The purple material soft and silky, yet strong and unyielding.

  When he was done, he’d felt a sense of peace that he hadn’t ever felt before. He still missed PJ, he still loved her, but he didn’t feel an all-consuming need to find her and tie her to him.

  After it was done, he’d collapsed into his bed and slept until now with the phone waking him from his dreamless slumber.

  “What?” Seth grouses.

  “I need to see you,” Locke says with his own grumble.

  “Why?”

  “We need to talk about a few things,” Locke continues obscurely.

  “Just spit it out, Locke.”

  “No. I want to talk to you in person.”

  “Goddamn it.”

  “See you soon.” Locke hangs up as if he’s afraid he won’t be able to hold Seth off if he says more.

  But Seth doesn’t hurry. He takes a run on the beach to work off the shroud that covers his brain. For once, it doesn’t feel like he’s running from his demons. His obsessions. It feels like he’s running for him. For a future that may still be in front of him.

  He showers, shoves his body into his jeans and a gray t-shirt, and carefully places the silk chair into the Porsche before taking his time up Highway One to the gallery. It’s nearly three o’clock when he finally gets there. Several hours after Locke called, but he’s there.

  As he walks in, he sees that Locke’s secretary-slash-sales-assistant isn’t at her desk, so he just makes his way back to Locke’s office and enters without bothering to knock.

  Locke jumps, almost flinging the phone across the room in surprise. “Jesus, Seth!”

  He puts up a hand as the person on the other end says something. “Yeah. Yeah. Now is as good a time as ever. We’ll wait.”

  Seth puts PJ’s chair down and then fights his way into one of Locke’s contemporary office chairs. “I hope you’re not expecting me to wait for anyone,” he rumbles.

  Locke stares at the chair. He gets up, runs his hand over the material, and pulls back in shock when it hits metal instead of cloth. “My God! How’d you do that?”

  Seth doesn’t respond.

  “It’s passionate and simple. Elegant and strong,” Locke goes on, mesmerized by it all.

  “It’s PJ,” Seth responds.

  Locke turns back to him and then back to the chair. “It really is, isn’t it?”

  “I’m meeting Keith at the gym. What’s up?” Seth persists.

  Locke sits down behind the desk with a sigh. “If I didn’t really know you, I’d be jealous of you meeting with my boyfriend at the gym at all hours.”

  It makes Seth smile a lazy, snarky smile that he hasn’t shown in a while.

  “See, right there!” Locke says in exasperation.

  “What. Do. You. Want?” Seth repeats slowly, drawing it out.

  “The gallery is going nuts. We’ve taken on quite a few new clients, and your work tends to absorb so much time these days that I don’t have the bandwidth for everyone else.”

  “So hire some help.”

  “I have.”

  Seth just looks at him. It isn’t his business.

  “I’m handing you over to them.”

  This gets his attention. He sits up, leaning toward Locke. “Absolutely not.”

  “Wait…”

  “No. I signed with you, not some useless wannabe,” Seth cuts him off. For once, he doesn’t feel the anger invade him as it normally would have, but he still has no desire to be put in the hands of some stupid ass newbie.

  Locke slides an envelope toward him on the desk.

  “They wrote you a letter.”

  “Who?”

  “The useless wannabe who wants to represent you.”

  Seth gets up from the chair and starts for the door. “I don’t have time for this.”

  “Don’t be an asshole, read the letter,” Locke says, running his hand through his hair for the twentieth time since Seth walked into the room.

  Seth grabs the letter and tears it open.

  Dear Seth,

  Once upon a time, there was a very young girl who lost her parents in an unexpected accident. She was young in many ways because her parents had loved her and sheltered her from a lot of the cruelties of the world.

  When they died, she lost everything she thought she had. She lost her home.

  Seth looks up from the letter. His heart pounding like it hasn’t pounded since she left. Since he found her. Since forever.

  Locke smiles and nods. “Read the letter, Seth.”

  Seth turns his eyes back to the words, but his body is shaking. Hope invades his soul, taking the place of the peace that had just resided there.

  She went to live with her brother. And it changed both their lives. Her brother loved her and did his best to make her feel that she had a home with him, but instead, she felt guilty that he’d given up his dreams for her.

  One day, the girl found a boy. A pretty boy with a pretty smile who took the girl by the hand and made her feel like she was special. Like she mattered. The boy told the girl that he loved her, and she believed him. Because her whole life, people had only said those words when they meant them. No one had told her that people sometimes said those words as a cover to get something else. She was unprepared for that reality. So, she gave him all of her, including the piece you could only give once.

  When that boy broke up with her, and the one that followed did too, her already shattered heart was torn apart just a little more. Because now she understood that not only did homes not last, but also that people used “I love you” as a lie. The only people who had used it for truth were gone, just like the home they had created for her.

  The girl was lost in a well of grief. One that saw her using her body as a way to try to fill the holes that had been carved inside. And when it was painfully and embarrassingly pointed out to her, the girl was ashamed. She was lonelier than she’d ever been. And home felt farther away.

  Then one day, after the girl had changed into a woman, and when she l
east expected it, a man entered her world. A man who was so raw and intense and honest that she found it hard to believe he could lie to her. Found it hard to walk away when his eyes beckoned to her.

  And the woman fell. How could she not? To this man who had been carved into pieces many times himself, and yet had found a way to put himself back together. How could she not love the man who thought of himself last? Who only wanted to make her feel loved and desired. Who wanted to build her a home.

  But instead of being happy with this kind and generous man, with the love that they shared, the woman felt scared. Because even though this man seemed honest. Even though this man was trying desperately to build them a world together, she was afraid that, even if it wasn’t a lie, that it wouldn’t last. Like all the love and homes before hadn’t lasted.

  The woman knew if she lost the man, if she lost even the beginnings of this new home they were building, that she’d be broken into pieces that couldn’t ever be put back together. So even though he promised he wouldn’t leave her, even though he tried to defy fate to keep her safe, she left him first.

  She thought she was protecting the pieces of herself that were left. She thought she could build her own home. But the truth is that a home cannot be just one person. Home is the people who love you, ugly broken pieces and all.

  The woman gets it now.

  And all she wants to do is to come home. To the man who loved her. Ugliness and all. To the man who thinks he’s ugly because he cannot see that the love that he wields makes him more beautiful than any of the pieces of art that fill his studio.

  The woman wonders now if she’ll be able to get them back. The man and the home. She wonders, if she returns, if they can weld the home she broke back together with love instead of gold.

  Do you think they can?

  I’m hoping with all my heart that you’ll say yes.

  With all my love,

  Your Bella

  Tears hit the paper.

  Seth can’t believe they are his. But they are. It’s the only part of him that is working.

  His heart isn’t working. His lungs aren’t working. Like the first time he met her and thought she was Cam. Like it’s his turn to wait for someone to grant him the air to breathe.

  Words leave him. Not because he’s concentrating on escaping his addiction, but because he doesn’t have them. He’s frozen, grabbing the letter as if it is the dearest thing in his life. As if it’s a rock, tethering him until the air and the earth come back to him.

  “Just so you know, the useless wannabe is really enthusiastic about your work,” a melodic voice says from behind him.

  He turns slowly, leaning on Locke’s desk so that he doesn’t fall over, and gives her his stone face. A stone face with tears.

  She looks so damn good. Strong and fierce, as always, in a purple sundress that is nothing like the chiffon she wore when he first met her, and yet is the same because it’s purple, and flirty, and shows off her graceful legs.

  She’s still been working out, but less. It’s softened her in some ways that he immediately wants to explore with his hands on her body, silk against callouses, tide against shore. Her hair is shorter, as if she’s become impatient with it, but he’ll still be able to tangle his fingers in the curls and draw her face toward his.

  Her eyes catch his, and he can’t breathe all over again. Her eyes with the lashes that make him think of black and white checkerboards, and ceramic, and old photographs. And inside them, there is a stormy sea of emotions. She has a little sweater on over the sundress, and she’s twisting the edges of it, showing that she’s nervous. And then, he can breathe again. A slow, arduous breath that he’s sure both she and Locke can hear.

  When she does, her lovely little lips curl up slightly at each end. “I heard you were an arrogant jerk, and that you were more likely to try to get my dress off than let me manage you, so maybe I’ll pass.”

  The sass is back, and he can’t help the drawl that returns with her playfulness. “Well, shit, darlin’, I might as well go all in then.”

  In one swift movement, he has her in his arms and has settled his lips on hers where they’ve been aching to go for five long months. For five miserable months. He’s kissing her, and tasting her bubblegum goodness, and absorbing her pixie dust into his soul like never before.

  And she’s responding, like she always responds to him. With fire, and desire, and a leg sneaking around him as if she can draw him into her, piece by piece, just where he belongs.

  Locke clears his throat behind them, and Seth moves his lips an inch away from hers, looking down into her face. She wipes at the tears that fell from his eyes, like the goddamn wuss he is, and he grins again. A foreign grin, one he isn’t sure he’s ever had on his face. Maybe this is what a five-year-old is supposed to feel like on Christmas, but it’s not a feeling Seth has ever had before.

  “You’re here,” he says quietly.

  “I should never have left,” she replies.

  With those five little words, she welds up his soul, just like she said in the letter, with love instead of gold. He can’t help it, he’s kissing her again, and she’s responding again with arms tight around. He wants to carry her from the room to the seat of the Porsche and be done with the clothes and months that have kept them apart.

  “I think I’ll let the two of you work out the details,” Locke chuckles and walks out, slamming the door purposefully behind him.

  Seth pulls her onto his lap in the office chair. And they are once more a series of tangled tongues, and tangled fingers, and tangled legs.

  He pulls his lips away so that he can see into her eyes again. He has a million questions, and yet really doesn’t care about any of the answers except the one that means she’s here.

  “You’re here,” he says once more with that goofy smile that he knows she’ll tease him about later.

  “I can finish my degree through Northeastern’s online program.”

  “Thank God!”

  “It’s funny. I went clear across the country to figure out what I was passionate about, but you were right. It was right here all along. You. You are what I’m passionate about.”

  “Bella,” he grunts with emotion before trying to kiss her.

  “Wait. I have to say something,” she says.

  “You said enough in the letter.”

  “No. This wasn’t in the letter. Listen. There are three reasons why you should never let me go.”

  His heart pounds. He’d given her three reasons why he was saying goodbye.

  “One, you are passionate and full of raw emotions. But because of that, you make me feel. You won’t allow me to go through life numb, and I would if you didn’t pull at all the pieces of me and put them back together.

  Two, you aren’t your father. You aren’t even a shadow of him. You are this bright, shiny star that’s risen above where you came from. I love that you were able to do that when most people would just sink into the grime of that life and let it eat at them. Instead, you fought it because you are a fighter like me.

  Three, you’re right, you don’t deserve me, but I don’t deserve you either. Liv said, and she was right, that you can’t deserve people. We aren’t trophies to win. But I can love you, and you can love me back. And I know that you will. You’ll love me and protect me. You will never stand by and let anyone hurt me, even if that someone is you. How could I not love that?

  But there’s something you forgot when you were trying to say goodbye. You forgot that together we are something amazing, and that apart we’re just shattered pieces.”

  The tears threaten to overcome him again, but he controls them better now that the shock is gone. Now that he’s holding her. She leans in and kisses him, reaching under his t-shirt for his skin and his button.

  “Let’s go home. We can tell Locke the details later,” she whispers.

  His heart does another crazy flip because she said home, and that clogs his thr
oat with more unshed tears. “He doesn’t need all the details,” he says gruffly.

  She laughs that tinkling laugh, making him want to capture her in art in twenty new ways. He picks her up and carries her through the gallery with her legs wrapped around him.

  “I can walk,” she says, but it isn’t with her angry, independent tone. Instead, it’s with laughter.

  He knows she can. There will be plenty of time for her to walk, and run, and float along next to him, but right now, he wants to feel her like he hasn’t in months.

  “I don’t want you that far away from me right now,” he says. He knows it might still sound like a demand; it might feel like he has to control her, but he hopes it doesn’t. But even if it does, she still knew that about him and came back.

  He’s never had someone come back for him.

  She nuzzles his neck whispering, “Never again.”

  His heart races and he grins because he knows that she finally sees it. She can see the brokenness for what it is now. She can see the art of them and the beauty they make together. She can see that their damage isn’t permanent. That what they are, tangled together, makes them exquisite.

  All it had taken was five months and a handful of love letters.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  Seth’s story may all be done, but you can check in with him ten years later. How, you ask? There’s an EPIC BONUS EPILOGUE for the entire My Life as An Album series for FREE when you sign up for my newsletter:

  https://BookHip.com/WZVAFM

  Or just continue with next installment in the series, My Life as a Mixtape, with Lonnie and Wynn.

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Playlist

  Dedication

  Chapter One: Drunk Girl

  Chapter Two: A Little Bit Stronger

  Chapter Three: Take Your Time

  Chapter Four: Wasted Love

  Chapter Five: Lullaby

  Chapter Six: Everybody Needs A Hero

  Chapter Seven: Show Me the Way

  Chapter Eight: The Long Way

  Chapter Nine: The Trouble with Girls