My Life as an Album (Books 1-4)

by LJ Evans

  I know… This is exactly why you’ve left me. I’m a controlling asshole. But…I can’t go through that again, Bella. I just can’t. I wouldn’t survive it.

  Regardless, that’s how I ended up at that stupid mansion ahead of you. Knowing you were angry and coming later. Me anxiously waiting for you to show.

  I shook Dylan Waters’ hand while they took pictures of us in front of the waterfall, met the wife who thought she was the second coming of Marilyn Monroe, and then made it into the main room where there was enough liquor and food wafting around for it to be an inauguration. I was tempted—as I always am—by the champagne flutes drifting by, and it had been a hard day. Fuck, it had been a hard couple weeks. But I didn’t pick one up.

  I found a pillar to lean against near the doorway so that I’d be able to see you when you came in, but that’s when I saw her instead. It surprised me, but it didn’t shock me to the core or have me holding my breath like it had the night I’d met you. I’d been so focused on you for months now that it didn’t seem possible that she could reappear in my life. I didn’t need her to reappear as I’d once needed vodka.

  It was Cam. Cam Swayne. I could see immediately how I’d thought you were her, but I could also see instantly how she didn’t hold a candle to you. You read that right, Bella. SHE WAS NO YOU! She was staring up at the waterfall like I’d thought she was the night that I met you. The peacock at the top matched her blue dress.

  I won’t lie to you. I was drawn to her. But not in the way you thought. Not in the way that caused all hell to break loose. I eased up to her much the way I’d eased up to you at the gallery. She was so much taller than you. Even in flats, she easily reached my eyebrows.

  “Ms. Swayne,” I said with a smirk.

  She looked up at me with surprise in her eyes. The surprise that I’d been looking for all those nights ago. Her gray eyes, when she turned to me, seemed ages older than I knew her to be.

  “Seth!” she said, and her face broke into a smile. I didn’t think she’d ever smile at me again. Not after I’d hit her, and she’d landed on the floor. Not even after I’d apologized, and she’d wished me luck.

  She reached over and hugged me, which I didn’t know how to react to. I tensed up. And it was then that I realized there was a baby bump in the middle of us. Her stomach was pulling at the fabric of her blue dress in a way that left no doubt that she was a decent way into the pregnancy. She must have taken my tension as being due to the baby because she pulled away and put a protective hand on the mound. The smile was still on her face, but it didn’t reach her eyes anymore.

  “I never thought I’d see this again,” she said with a hand to the waterfall.

  “I never thought I’d see you again,” I responded smoothly, and I was surprised to see her flush in a way that reminded me instantly of you and how much more your blush suited you than hers did her.

  “Cami Swayne?” another voice shot out from behind me. I turned to see Keith approaching in a white-coated tux with Locke following behind him in his own tux.

  “Keith McMullin! Oh my God, I can’t believe it’s you!” She was engulfed in another hug, this time by Keith. I watched them carefully. Once upon a time, I would have wanted to kill him for hugging her. For coming anywhere near her.

  Locke seemed confused. He didn’t know their history. He barely knew my history with Keith.

  “Cam, this is my boyfriend, Locke,” Keith told her, smiling.

  “How do you know each other?” Locke asked.

  “Because it’s a goddamn Tennessee reunion. All we need now is for Jake to show up,” I slammed out with my normal crap attitude.

  Cam looked like I’d hit her in the baby bump. A hand reached up and pulled her to a body, but it wasn’t Jake’s. The guy stared at me through shaggy blonde bangs with a look that wished me pinned under a car.

  “Jake’s dead, asshole,” the shaggy blonde growled.

  I saw Cam’s eyes flash with an enormous pain that she hid with a smile and a grip on this other guy’s arm that was like a life-line. I was hit again in the gut. Jake had died? My heart twisted for her. For Cam. For the loss of the thing she loved most in the world. I hadn’t known. What if I’d known?

  Thank God I hadn’t. That’s what I felt. Relief. You know I don’t lie. You know.

  “Shit. I’m… Shit.” It was all I could say.

  “Still the prick, huh, Seth?” Keith said, but it was with a smile that said he didn’t quite care that I was still a prick.

  “Seth. This is the loser who hit you?” the shaggy blonde asked, moving her away from me with another hand.

  “Jesus, Blake. We were seventeen. And remember, I hit him first,” Cam said with a hand on his arm and her usual smart-aleck smile.

  I looked at her hand on his arm, and it was as if I could feel it on my own. Her hand had stopped me from doing many terrible things when we’d been together. It was either her hand on my arm or her mouth kissing me that kept me from pounding one of her many followers into the ground.

  “There’s never an excuse to hit a woman,” shaggy Blake said as if he wanted to invite me out back. He reminded me of someone else from Tennessee.

  “You’re right,” I said with my own growl, but not an apology.

  I was still reeling. From the idea of Cam losing Jake. Of losing her soulmate, and it made me think of you. Of what I’d do if I lost you. My heart constricted until it felt like it would wink into nothingness.

  It was then, when my heart was completely balled up, that you walked up to me. I hadn’t seen you come in, even though I’d been looking for you. Instead, you slid a hand into mine and reached up to kiss my cheek. When I looked down at you, everything clicked into place. Your beautiful smile, the color on your cheeks that was never far away. Your beauty, your fire, your etherealness. It grabbed all the pain and burned it to ash. Cam Swayne could never have even a tenth of the beauty that you held in your tiny little frame. You were a flaming volcano. She was a tiny campfire.

  You didn’t realize the emotions I was going through right then, but I clamped you to my side and kissed your forehead, just trying to convey something of what I felt to you.

  “PJ,” Locke said with a smile. I didn’t have words yet. I was still catching my breath from seeing you. I know you thought I didn’t want to introduce you. It wasn’t that. I was taken in by just how much my chest had expanded at seeing you.

  “Hey, Locke, Keith” you said, kissing both their cheeks.

  And like always, that was when I wanted to slam anyone’s face into the waterfall, when they were touching you. I hadn’t given one iota when they’d hugged Cam. But them touching you…that was enough to make me crave that champagne flute again.

  Then, because I was still reeling from everything, you turned to the other two people in our group and introduced yourself.

  “Hi. PJ Hensley,” you told them, sticking out your little hand.

  “Blake Abbott, and this is my fiancé, Cam Swayne,” Blake responded.

  You shook their hands, but you got a look on your face as you took in Cam that made me nervous. I could almost see you retreating into yourself, the protective barriers of sass and attitude coming down over you.

  “What are you doing here in L.A., Keith?” Cam asked, trying to ease past the quiet that had descended on us.

  “I work for Dylan’s production company,” Keith said nonchalantly. “That’s how I met Locke here. Was helping Dylan buy Seth’s waterfall through Locke’s gallery. I had no idea it was the same asshole from all those years ago in Tennessee until Locke showed me his picture. What are you doing here?”

  “Blake is Derek Waters’ lawyer,” Cam said with a wave in the direction of the stage where a band was setting up and a dark-haired singer who was tuning his guitar.

  Blake’s name finally caught up with me as the conversation continued.

  “Abbott. You related to that Matt guy Cam used to hang out with? The one I sold the ran
ch to?” I asked as I pulled you back into my arms and held you up against my body. But I could feel your tension and your desire to bolt.

  “That would be my kid brother.”

  I nodded in acknowledgement. You turned away from me toward the guys. “Locke, come with me to get a drink?”

  You pulled away, and I rumbled a protest that just made everyone raise their eyebrows like I was still that shit-for-brains seventeen-year-old kid they used to know, so I had to let you go. You, Keith, and Locke took off in search of the champagne. I was already following you with my eyes. Watching as you weaved through the crowd in that sexy dress. Watching as men watched you.

  I looked down at Cam for just a moment. I wanted to make my excuses and leave. Go get you. Blake’s hand was still wrapped possessively around her, but he didn’t need to be possessive. All I felt was sadness. For her. For me. For the fact that I’d held onto a memory for so agonizingly long.

  “I’m truly sorry about Jake. What happened?”

  “Not the time,” Blake said with a tone in his voice that left no question that he wasn’t going to let me upset her. He was probably a little taller than me, and just as built as me, but I knew that I’d easily kick his ass if I wanted to. After all, I still don’t fight fair, and this guy was all manners and honor. I’m not that guy. I fight to win. At any cost. But he didn’t need to worry. I didn’t want his prize. I only wanted you. I was still watching you as you got a drink and swallowed it in one gulp before turning to talk to Keith.

  Cam just shook her head at him. “It’s okay.” And then to me, “Jake had a kidney transplant and it didn’t take.”

  For just an instant, I saw that flash of haunted pain in her eyes again, but then she looked at Blake and peace settled over her. She seemed calmer than she ever had when I knew her. All I could do was thank a God that I didn’t believe in that I hadn’t found out about Jake, because if I had, I would have gone to her. And I certainly didn’t want to be the man standing next to her. I didn’t want to be anything but yours.

  I just nodded at her, not sure what to say about Jake’s death. But really, my eyes were on you. Your smile. Your hand touching Locke’s.

  Cam noticed, and she smirked a knowing smirk. “You better go get her before you explode.”

  It made me grin. That she remembered how short my patience was. When I looked up from her to you, you were watching me, were watching my grin. I turned it on wider, trying to charm you over the distance, but you didn’t return it. Not even with your sassy one.

  “It was good to see you. Congratulations,” I said, referring to the baby. “Take care of her, piss-ant.” I said to Blake, and she had to hold him back like she held Jake the last time I’d seen them together.

  When I reached your side, I took the second glass of champagne out of your hand, ignored your murmured protest, and dragged you out onto the dance floor. The band played a slow, sexy song. And I began to like Derek Waters because that song, it was you. No, it was you and me—damaged humanity put back together.

  I looked down at your little frame pulled up tight against mine and felt relief. Relief that you were there, fitting into me like the piece of me that had been missing my whole life. And I was amazed all over again at how beautiful you were.

  “Bella,” I said, full of emotion that I was fighting to control, and so I captured your lips instead.

  You pulled your lips from mine, searching the crowd for someone, and when you found her, you got that little crease in the middle of your eyebrows that made me lean down and kiss it.

  “I look like her.” There was pain in your voice. I cursed myself. I cursed Cam. No one should make you hurt.

  “No,” I said fiercely.

  “I do.” You got quiet, and then you looked up at me with eyes full of hurt. “Is that why you’re with me?”

  “No.”

  “How can you say that? I’m like a replica doll. A mini-me of her.”

  “You aren’t anything like her!” I realize now that you thought I meant that she was more than you. That somehow you couldn’t meet up to her standards, but my God, how do I convince you that it was absolutely the other way? After that first night at the gallery, you’d been anything but her. You have every little piece of my heart engraved in your soul. You are the only one that I could ever love. She was the fun house reflection of you, not the other way around.

  “You… Oh my God… I think I’m gonna be sick.” You took off toward the hallway, trying to find a restroom. I followed on your heels. You slammed the door in my face.

  “Bella!” I said quietly to the door, trying not to draw eyes. Trying not to be the dickhead that everyone in that other room already thought I was.

  I could hear the water running. Could imagine you splashing water on your face which would ruin the makeup you’d carefully applied, but it would just show off your natural beauty instead.

  I leaned against the wall, arms crossed, waiting for you. Because I needed you. I needed you to understand that you were my only happily ever after. That I needed you for any kind of ever after.

  There were no Disney movies in my real world as a kid. The only time I saw a fucking Disney movie was at school. The teacher had just finished reading Barrie’s Peter Pan to us and put in the animated movie as a reward. That scene where Tinker Bell is captured by Captain Hook, well, I can see now that that’s you. This tiny, amazing creature stuck in a cage by the man the crocodile wants to eat. That everyone fears except Peter himself. I’m not Peter in this scenario. I’m Hook.

  But even Hook deserves an ever after. So, I stood there. Waiting for my fairy. I think you thought I was gone. I think you thought I wouldn’t wait for you. Now, maybe I think you thought I’d be chasing Cam. I’m not sure how you can love me, how you can feel everything we feel when we are holding each other, and think that I would be following her anywhere, but especially not when you were hurting.

  When you opened the bathroom door, you looked at me with disbelief in your eyes. “Bella,” I said and reached for you, but you pulled out of my grasp.

  “I’m just the version of her that you can be with, right? You couldn’t have her and so you think you can have me instead? Is that why you buy me things? So I’ll stay? The way she wouldn’t?”

  You tore me to shreds.

  “No!”

  But you didn’t believe me. You’d already convinced yourself that you weren’t what I was looking for. That I wanted something that I never knew was wrong for me until I’d found you.

  “I’m going back to the house,” you said.

  “Fine.”

  I made to follow you, but you put your hand up. “No. Stay. I want to go by myself.”

  I grunted a protest, but you just pushed past it.

  “I need some time to process all this.”

  It took me a second to realize you were serious and to fight my instincts to run after you. In the end, I couldn’t fight it. Instead, I followed you. At the door, you’d already asked for your car to be brought up by the valet. I gave them my tag as well, but yours came first.

  “I want you to stay,” you said as I opened the door of the Bug and helped you slide into the piece of shit.

  “I’m coming home.”

  “Please don’t.”

  I could see that that was what you wanted, but I couldn’t let you go. Not like that. Not when you didn’t understand, and so I didn’t respect your wishes then. And I’m glad I didn’t. Thank God I didn’t know how to give you your space.

  You took off in the Bug, and I waited for what felt like an eternity for the Porsche to show up. I flung the tip at the valet even though he didn’t want it and jumped into the car. I tore off out the gates and down the windy road that had led up to the mansion.

  The smoke was what I saw first. But I didn’t panic then. I didn’t panic till I saw the lime green piece of garbage up against the guardrail.

  I slammed the car to a halt and was out and ripping open t
he door of the Bug before I could completely process what had happened. My heart was pounding so loud that all other sounds were muffled. I couldn’t hear the hiss from the car’s engine. I couldn’t hear the stupid car radio that I knew was on because you always had it on.

  But you weren’t there.

  The car wasn’t wrecked. It had broken down. I shut the engine off and stood, looking around.

  “Bella!” I hollered out your name.

  No answer.

  I walked over to the rail. “PJ!” I yelled.

  I turned back to the road.

  I hadn’t been long enough behind you for you to have called someone to come get you. You would have still been waiting. You hadn’t walked back towards the mansion; I would have seen you that way too. I walked down the road in the opposite direction. “Bella!”

  My heart started to pound in a different way. I was jogging back toward my car so that I could track you down when Locke and Keith drove up. Locke was out of his Mercedes in an instant, fearing the same thing I had when I’d first seen the worthless Bug.

  “PJ!” he cried out.

  “She’s not fucking here,” I told him.

  Locke and Keith started calling your name just as I had.

  I grabbed my phone from the car and hit your number. Your phone rang, except I could hear it. Fucking Bon Jovi. Locke turned and went to the rear of the car where the engine was still smoking, bent over, and picked your phone up from the ground. The face shattered.

  You weren’t here, and you wouldn’t have gone anywhere without your phone.

  I could feel the dread welling up inside me. The fear. Blinding fear. I dialed 911 on my phone.

  I explained what happened. You could tell the lady was doubtful. I tried to explain about the stalker. She was just trying to calm me down. I hung up.

  “Seth!” Locke yelled when he realized I’d hung up.

  I grabbed my wallet from the center console where I usually stashed it and flung the contents on the top of the Porsche’s roof as I tried to find the business card. I finally landed on it. Officer Tate.