My Life as an Album (Books 1-4)

by LJ Evans

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to know.”

  “I’m going to tell you anyway. Are you ready?” he asked as he watched me.

  I wasn’t ready. Probably would never be ready.

  “Four. Including you.”

  I stared at him. My number in my head had been a lot more than that.

  “Four?” I swallowed.

  He grinned at me.

  “After the crap I saw, I wanted to make sure that when I made love, it was just that. Making love. To people I cared about.”

  “Four?” I asked again, in shock.

  He laughed at me.

  “You’re such a Lothario!” I teased, trying to help lighten his load because I knew that was what he wanted. To move away from this conversation, and his mom, and the mansion, and what had happened there.

  “Did you just use your big words with me again, Miss Mia?”

  Then he was tickling me. And I was trying to escape, and in the process, I slammed my elbow into his nose, making his eyes instantly water as he exclaimed, “Fuck!” and I exclaimed, “I’m sorry!”

  He froze with the smirk still on his face. “What did you just say?”

  I pulled away from him.

  “That obviously doesn’t count. That was a legitimate I’m sorry.”

  “No. Never again.”

  He grabbed me and had me over his shoulder and out the door before I could blink. I banged on his back and squirmed, trying to escape, but he held me tight like a cowboy holds his calf. At the pool, he tossed me in, clothes and all.

  I came up sputtering. He was laughing. Hard. Back to the Derek that had attracted me to begin with. Back to the smart-aleck, gorgeous BB. It made my heart flip happily that I’d been able to take him away from that scary place in his past.

  “Oh my God, I can’t believe you did that,” I gasped.

  He took off his shoes and dove in after me.

  He swam toward me, and I went to swim away, but he caught my blouse that was billowing out behind me and dragged me toward him.

  “I think we should shed these wet clothes, don’t you?”

  Good Girl Mia balked. “No way! We’re in your brother’s backyard.”

  “It’s dark.”

  “It is not. It's barely dusk.”

  He was already tugging my top over my head, and I either went along or lost a nose in the process. I tried to comfort myself in the fact that my bra was basically the same as a bikini top.

  I reached down and pulled off my wedges that were swelling up because corkboard and water don’t agree. I tossed them poolside and then reached for his t-shirt. He pulled it off, and it hit the cement with a wet slap. Then he was tugging at my jeans, and I laughed as I got spun upside down while he tugged the clinging material off of my legs.

  I came up sputtering again, and then he was kissing me, tongue tangling with mine, hands encasing themselves around my waist and drawing me up tight to him where I wrapped my legs around his middle. Our hands and lips and tongues finding this comforting path that we’d discovered together.

  After a long time, he carried me to the steps, out of the pool, and back to the guesthouse where we quickly shed the rest of our wet clothes and found our way to the bed that had become my favorite place in this whole house because it was the place where we came together. Where all my senses came to life, and where he was the only one. Where we were just… one.

  The City

  SAVE MYSELF

  “I gave you all my energy,

  And I took away your pain.

  Cause human beings are destined,

  To radiate or drain.”

  -Ed Sheeran

  The next day, we had to leave for San Francisco where Derek’s next show was scheduled and where we would attend Harry Winston’s wedding. My heart cried out in a different way because we agreed to leave Jane the Kitten with Maggie and her nanny. Derek said we’d come back for her, or have her sent to us, but I nearly cried because I didn’t want her to think we were abandoning her.

  He tugged at my hair, curling it to my lips, caressing them. “She’s happy here. We’ll be back.”

  Somehow, in my bones, I knew I wouldn’t be back, because this wasn’t my home. This wasn’t my reality. In truth, I often wondered if it was really Derek’s reality either. There was nothing in the guesthouse that said Derek beyond his instruments. It seemed more like a place he hung his hat while he visited the brother and niece he loved.

  I kissed my little furball and made Maggie promise to be careful with her. Betty took pity on me, getting my phone number and promising to text pictures every day.

  In addition to leaving Jane the Kitten, we were also leaving the Camaro. We were flying to San Francisco so that we could attend the wedding later that day, because Indian weddings are long events. Hours long. The guys in the band were driving up in the “tour bus” to join us for the gig the next day. After that, we were going to rent a car to drive out to the California Caverns while Rob and Trista drove the motor home north to Oregon.

  We had another show and one more caving trip planned near the Oregon coast, and then that was it. I tried not to think about that as I left Dylan’s mansion.

  All of those things, the kitten, the Camaro, my trip ending, were combining in my heart such that I was an emotional basket case as Keith picked us up and dropped us at the airport. It was hard for me to wear my mask with Derek, maybe because he saw it for what it was, a front, just like I could see that sometimes his happy face was a front. By the time Keith left us, I was crying.

  I’d cried more with Derek in two weeks than I had with any person in my whole life. He entwined his long fingers in mine as we headed through security. I pulled myself together, and when we got to the other side, the tears weren’t flowing, but my emotions still felt raw.

  The flight to San Francisco was short, and my mind was still a twirl of feelings and thoughts as we landed.

  We got our rental and headed toward the city. Derek was more comfortable here than he had been in the other places we’d been, probably because he’d played here many times. He didn’t even need the Google Map lady.

  “Tell me about this Harry guy,” Derek said after we’d checked into the hotel. He was trying to distract me from my thoughts as I hung clothes.

  “Harry was my first best friend.”

  “So why wasn’t he your first kiss?”

  “Because, moron, he was my best friend, not my boyfriend.”

  “I don’t see how any guy could be around you and not want to kiss you,” Derek said, pulling me onto his lap.

  He had me captured, hair twirled up to my lips again before I could protest.

  “We were, like, seven years old. We both liked books and not football. We were friends until eighth grade when he moved to California,” I said with an eye-roll that earned me a quick kiss.

  “Okay. But I may still have to kill him.”

  “May I remind you, he’s getting married!”

  “Maybe he secretly wants you to be the person to stand up in the crowd and protest the wedding.”

  I laughed. Derek tickled me, adding to my laughter, and I ended up on my back on the bed, with him lying up beside me, hand swirling under my t-shirt, across my belly button.

  “I don’t find it funny that I’m going to become a serial killer trying to keep the guys away from you.” He smirked.

  “He’s a traditional Indian! Getting married to the woman he’s been engaged to his whole life!”

  “You aren’t making this any better. An arranged marriage? You know he really is hoping you’ll protest, right?”

  His hand crept up from my belly button to the wire of my bra, caressing through the satin. My whole body turned to a quivering mass as it did every single time he touched me. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to it. Or not love it.

  “You don’t know Harry.”

  “Obviously.”

  “He is all about tradition
and family. He would as soon call off the wedding as he would commit hari-kari.”

  “I’d be happy to help him with that.”

  My concentration on his words began to fade as his fingers caressed my breasts and my body took over for my mind.

  “So, what are you wearing to this very traditional Indian wedding?” he asked me while I fought to maintain a brain cell.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Wearing. You do plan on wearing clothes, Little Bird, correct?”

  “Yes… yes.” His words faded as his fingers continued doing things to me that made me want to forget the whole world.

  “The green dress,” I said, meaning the very same green dress he had seen me in at the fundraiser.

  Then he disappeared, standing by the bedside, magical hands far, far away from my body. “Oh no,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I am not taking you to an Indian wedding in that plain-Jane dress.”

  My body was coursing with desire, and he was talking dresses. And standing away from me. I wasn’t following.

  I knelt on the bed and moved toward him till I could rest my hands on his shoulders. “I thought you said I looked beautiful in that dress. Was that a line?”

  “No. You did. You do look beautiful in that dress. That wasn’t a line. Although, needing you to drive the Camaro…that was a line.” He winked.

  I stared because even though I’d suspected it, I hadn’t expected him to ever admit it. “What?”

  “I had to have a better reason for you to come with me than the fact that I wanted to seduce you in my hotel room.”

  “You lied!” I couldn’t be mad. I’d known. But I could pretend to pout, hoping it would get his fingers back on my skin.

  “Of course!” he said.

  “You’re terrible.” I pulled at his fingers, kissing them.

  “But irresistible.”

  “That’s it! I’m not taking you to the wedding tonight.”

  “You will, but not in that green dress. It’s not at all acceptable for a traditional Indian wedding,” he said.

  “How would you know?” I asked just as he grabbed my hand and pulled me from the bed. I stumbled, and he caught me. A familiar move that I should expect by now, but continued to catch me off guard.

  “I have been to many traditional Indian weddings.”

  “You have not!”

  He grinned at me. “Okay, one. But I can tell you this: everyone was in bright colors. Had you told me this was a traditional Indian wedding, I would have brought my best paisley. But now we must go shopping.”

  “You’re insane!”

  I tried to bring him back to the bed. I tried to kiss him and touch him, but he just wagged his finger at me and dragged me with him from the room.

  There was a shopping mall nearby. Plus, a Macy’s that took up a whole block. I wasn’t used to that. I was used to local, suburban malls. We ended up at the Macy’s, and it was hot and overwhelming.

  Derek kept bringing me dresses. Dress after dress. Half of which I refused to even try on. The other half were entirely inappropriate. I told him he needed assistance from a woman, and eventually one of the salesladies took pity on him and helped out.

  I finally slipped into a fuchsia and teal patterned dress that covered my bra straps, showed off my waist, and flared out to mid-thigh, and I knew that this dress was it. It was bright and vibrant just like I felt like I was when I was with Derek.

  I left the dressing room and barely saw Derek’s wide-eyed smile before he had me in his arms and was kissing me.

  “This. Is. The. One,” he said as my heart plunged down to the pit of my stomach and back.

  “Go change. I’ll meet you at the register. I have to get a new shirt.” He smiled his huge grin. I reached out and touched his cleft, which made him smile more.

  “Go.” H said again as he pushed me toward the dressing room.

  When I met him at the register, he had a bright green and blue paisley shirt waiting there. I tried to pay, but he wouldn’t let me.

  “Shoes,” he said. “And jewelry.”

  “No,” I said, but he was smiling and pulling me toward the escalator, and I knew there was no stopping him, like there was no stopping Cam when she was on a roll. So I let him lead me to the shoe department, and from there, to the jewelry department where I absolutely refused to let him buy me anything real.

  “I swear to God, if you try to buy me anything with a karat or sterling symbol, I’m really not going to let you come with me.”

  “Sassy. Miss Mia is being sassy.” He grinned.

  His grin was infectious.

  I love you, I thought, even though I couldn’t say it out loud. Not when we were going to have to say good-bye. Not when it would just hurt us both.

  We picked out some floral necklace that I knew I’d never wear again, but that he insisted would fit right in at an Indian wedding.

  When he was satisfied that I was going to be appropriately attired, he led me back to the hotel where we ordered room service and took a shower together. All soap and skin and hands. But no words. Our words were quiet today, as if we both needed to keep them inside for a while longer.

  After, he helped me dress and then watched as I did my hair and put on my makeup. He watched as if it was the most fascinating thing he’d seen.

  “You’re weird,” I told him.

  “Me?”

  “Only guy in the room.”

  “You’re beautiful. Everything you do is beautiful. There’s nothing wrong with me wanting to watch a beautiful woman get ready.”

  “Okay. How about creepy and stalker-like?”

  “That would only be if I was doing it through a pair of binoculars.”

  I finished my mascara and turned to look at him. He was unbelievably good-looking in his loud shirt, black pants, and dress shoes. I’d never seen him in dress shoes. He looked more business than rocker. It was disorienting and yet still sensual. It made my heart flip in a new way. I wondered, if we were really together for longer than this journey, if my heart would continue to flip like this year after year.

  He took my hand and kissed the palm. “Little Bird, you are the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.”

  I flushed with pleasure.

  “Are you sure we have to go?” he asked with a knowing smile.

  “Yes! And I don’t want to be late.”

  We made our way down to the lobby, fingers hooked together in a way that seemed to be our new normal, and then out to the taxi line. The taxi dropped us at the gardens where the wedding was taking place.

  We entered a glorious world of lights and color.

  Mr. and Mrs. Winston saw me and greeted me with pleasure, smiling when I congratulated them on the wedding. Once the ceremony started, I was floored to find Harry arriving on a white horse decorated in colors and flowers. The guests were invited to dance around him as drums beat. Then, the bride and her family came out to greet the groom. His bride was beautiful. Dark, silky hair, with beautiful kohl-decorated eyes, and henna over almost every visible space. Harry and his bride, Haleema, exchanged ornate floral garlands while smiling deeply at each other. There was no way you would think their marriage was arranged. There was love in those eyes.

  Then, the priest, Harry, Haleema, and her parents sat beneath a tapestry while the bride's parents gave her away. Her mom sobbed quietly. Tears of happiness and loss. It made my heart swell up. Harry and Haleema joined hands before Harry applied a red powder to the center of her forehead and tied a black beaded necklace around her neck.

  The whole audience cheered as if they were at a sporting event. Loudly and happily.

  We moved from there to the reception. The food was an amazing mix of spicy and sweet, and rich and savory. Both Derek and I found a whole plate of things to sample that we’d never had before.

  “You have to try this,” he said, and before I could object, he had placed the sweetes
t honey-and-nut-scented pastry in my mouth.

  “Wow,” I said after swallowing. The pastry reminded me of not only the scent of him but of how he made me feel, full of buttery, honey sweetness.

  “You can say that again,” he smiled. Then he leaned forward and brushed the powdered sugar from my lips with his long fingers, caressing as he traced the shape of them. My stomach dropped happily.

  “Mia!” Harry’s happy voice interrupted us. I stood and hugged my friend. He was no longer the tiny Indian boy that I’d grown up, with or the gangly teen I’d visited several times after they’d moved, but instead was tall and handsome in his beaded jacket.

  “Harry,” I said as I held him tight, “I’m so happy for you.”

  “Thank you!” he said as his bride came up and stuck her hand in his. “Mia, this is Haleema. Haleema, Mia.”

  “Mia!” She reached over and hugged me tight. “It is good to meet you after so long. Harry speaks of you often.”

  Derek squeezed my hand as if to say I told you so, and I tried hard not to eye-roll him.

  “I speak of Harry often, too. He’s always been a good friend.”

  “We are honored that you could join us,” Haleema said with a sweet smile.

  “Thank you for inviting me. Us,” I said, returning her smile.

  “Who is this, Mia?” Harry asked, eye-balling Derek.

  “This is Derek. Derek, my friend Harry.” I realized I hadn’t said he was my boyfriend, and hoped Derek hadn’t noticed.

  Derek and Harry shook hands. Serious. The smile gone as they assessed each other in that way that men tend to do when they are both being protective and possessive.

  “She’s pretty special. You need to treat her right,” Harry said, not letting go of Derek’s hand.

  “You’re right. And I will.”

  “Oh Harry, stop being so ridiculous,” Haleema said with a laugh that said she wasn’t jealous in the least.

  “Sorry we can’t stay longer. Call me soon, so we can catch up, okay? Have fun,” Harry said and then took off into the crowd where he was greeted with happy smiles everywhere he went.

  Music started up, and all of a sudden everyone was cheering and dancing. “Come on,” Derek said, grabbing my hand and leading me into the thick of things where we laughed at our failed attempts to learn the Indian dances even as those around us encouraged us to continue to try.