Anyone But You

by Jerica MacMillan

  I can’t help but snort out a laugh. “I seem to recall your love life being in shambles not too long ago. And who helped with that?” I tap my finger on my chin like I’m deep in thought.

  She flicks her fingers dismissively. “That’s not the point. That was just Marcus returning the favor.”

  My eyebrows climb my forehead. “Just Marcus? He’s the only one who got involved?”

  “Fine,” she grumbles. “You and everyone else got involved too. And it was annoying as hell. Which is why I thought I’d given it up. But here you are, sad and alone in my condo. And Mason’s being broody and lonely in his. When it’s clear as day to anyone with eyeballs that the two of you belong together.”

  I fidget with the hem of my shirt and take another sip of my drink, enjoying the tart sweetness of the cranberry juice and the bite of the alcohol as it slides over my tongue.

  She sighs. “What are you doing, Viola? Why are you just sitting here alone and hurt when he’s so close?”

  “Why is he? Why can’t he call me first?” The questions sound stupid and belligerent. But I can’t help it.

  Another sigh. “You know what happened with his parents, right?”

  I shrug. “Not the details. I know they’re estranged.”

  “The disowned him,” she says baldly. “They’re crazy religious, super judgy, his dad’s a preacher or whatever, and here’s little Mason, growing up loving to play the drums. He played for their church for a long time, but he wanted more. Different stuff.” She holds up her fingers and makes air quotes. “‘Devil music.’ He got in trouble for listening to non-Christian music. Like spanked on his bare ass with a belt at age twelve for it. After that he got better at hiding it. He didn’t even tell his parents he was accepted to Berklee on scholarship until it was time to go. They pestered him for a while the first year, begging him to come back and threatening him with shunning and hell if he didn’t all in the same breath.”

  She looks away and shakes her head. “I wasn’t there when it was happening, but I saw what he was like after. He still feels like he’s not really good enough, y’know?” She raises her eyes to mine, and they’re shiny with tears. “That’s what he was always told as a kid. That he’s not good enough. For anything or anyone.” She waves a hand. “Supposedly god makes him good enough or whatever, but believe me that it fucks with a kid when they grow up believing nothing they do is ever enough. We both know what my issues with that are, so I won’t rehash them right now. Mason’s are less obvious. He had parents, right? They loved him, or at least they said they did. But he didn’t fit the tiny box they wanted to stuff him in. And when he finally broke free, instead of accepting him for who he is, they cut him off. Now they pretend like he doesn’t even exist.”

  Pressing her lips together, she sucks in a deep breath through her nose and looks down at her drink. “I probably shouldn’t be the one to tell you all of this, but you deserve to know. I’m not saying that he’s doing the right thing here, but I’m just trying to explain why it’s going to have to be you who makes the first move. He’s already decided that he’s not good enough for you. He wasn’t good enough for his parents. He wasn’t good enough for me. And when you pushed back and put up a boundary—and again, I’m not saying you did anything wrong or that your position isn’t understandable either—but that told him that you don’t think he’s good enough either. The fact that your parents actually feel that way only makes it more firm in his mind.”

  Tears slip down my cheeks at the image of a young Mason hiding everything about himself for fear of getting beaten. And then to grow up and have his parents completely cut ties with him … no wonder he didn’t get why I put up with my mom’s crap.

  He tied it to his own parents’ manipulation. And maybe my mom was being manipulative too, and while I’ve never wanted to deal with her disapproval, I’ve never been worried that she’d completely disown me. Pretend I don’t even exist. That’s just … inhumane.

  Blaire sets her glass down on the table and scoots closer to me, rubbing my back. “I’ve never seen him as happy as he’s been with you,” she says. “I love Mason, even if I was never in love with him. And I love you, too. I want you both to be happy. Quit hiding and go talk to him before it’s too late. Please.”

  With a nod, I swipe at my tears. “I will,” I promise, and drain my glass.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Mason

  I’ve barely gotten rid of Blaire, when another knock sounds at my door. It’s too tentative to be Aaron, but it’s possible he sent Sam to check on me today. Blaire came by to kick my ass—her words not mine. She stomped in and delivered a lecture on all the ways I’m a fuckup, which isn’t exactly news. Aaron’s been doing some version of that for the last several days. Blaire hinted that she’d actually spoken to Viola, which is more than anyone else can say, and I tried really hard to rein in my desire to hear more about her.

  Tried and failed. “How is she?” I asked, interrupting Blaire’s tirade. “Did she take the interview? Is she quitting?”

  Blaire crossed her arms and gave me a level look before quietly saying, “You should ask her all those questions yourself.” The dumbass was implied. And that was the most I got out of her where Viola was concerned.

  Before she left, she stepped in close and wrapped her arms around me. “You know that you and I were never meant to end up together, right?”

  I rested my arms on her back, strangely comforted by her forced affection. “Yeah,” I grumbled. Because I figured that out a while ago.

  She looked up at me, her eyes wide and guileless, none of the piss and fire that had been fueling her since she showed up in her gaze. “Viola and you, though … you guys belong together. You probably both need some therapy to get over your issues, but don’t let her slip away just because you’ve been listening to old stories about yourself that were never true.”

  I had to swallow down the lump in my throat, my voice choked while I forced a smile and an attempt at laughter. “You’re one to talk, Miss Abandonment Issues.”

  Stepping back, she gave me a sad smile. “I know. Actually, that’s what gives me room to talk. I’ve been using an app that lets me talk to a therapist wherever I am. I’ll text you the info.” With a pat on the chest, she slipped out of my arms. “Seriously, Mason. Talk to her. She’s dying without you.” And on that note, she left.

  So I’m really not in the mood to have more sympathy or another lecture. And if it’s Sam knocking at my door, I have no idea which I’m going to get, I just know I don’t want it. But Aaron’ll be super pissed if I don’t answer, so with a heavy sigh, I pull the door open.

  And freeze.

  Because it’s not Sam. It’s not Ava or Kendra, either.

  It’s Viola.

  I drink in her appearance like someone who’s been forced into fasting finally being allowed access to food and drink. She has dark circles under her eyes, no makeup on, her hair pulled back away from her face with a black clip, almost invisible against her dark hair. She’s wearing leggings and an oversized tee, her usual off-duty uniform. All I can do is breathe her name.

  Her pale lips pull up in a forced smile. “Hey,” she says just above a whisper, one hand lifting and her fingers fluttering in an approximation of a wave. “Can—can we talk?” She makes another tiny gesture with the same hand, silently asking if she can come in.

  I push the door wider and step to the side, allowing her into my condo. She looks around, taking it in, and it dawns on me that this is her first time here. This isn’t how I wanted her first visit to my place to go.

  Shutting the door behind her, I clench my hand into a fist and bang it softly on the door in frustration. With myself, mostly.

  Because Blaire’s right. I am an asshole. I’ve handled this whole situation so badly. I shouldn’t have projected my worst perceptions of myself onto her.

  I turn to face her, but she still has her back to me, drifting around the perimeter of the room, trailing her hand along a co
nsole table, the back of the couch, a chair, stopping to take in the view from the bay window. “It’s a lot like Blaire’s,” she says at length. “The view. The layout. The furniture is different, though.”

  “I used a decorator,” I rasp, clearing my throat before I continue. “Blaire picked out her own furniture.”

  She nods, still not looking at me.

  We stay frozen like this as the minutes slip past, the time, the silence, the unsaid words, the unexpressed feelings weighing down the fragile thread that connects us, the pressure growing so unbearable that I fear it will snap if I don’t do something—say something.

  Stepping forward, I lift a hand to reach for her but let it drop back to my side before touching her. “Viola, I—”

  She turns, cutting me off with her outstretched palm and a shake of her head. “Let me speak,” she says. Closing her eyes, she takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have shut down on you. I was just …” She lifts a hand in a helpless gesture, finally opening her eyes to look at me, imploring me to understand the things she can’t put into words. She presses her lips together and firms her resolve before continuing. “My mom has very specific ideas for what she thinks my life should be. It’s been easier to go along with her. This is the first time I haven’t eventually given in and done what she wants. She was beside herself when I told her I was quitting my job to go on tour as the PA for Cataclysm. You were right when you said that she thought I was following in Blaire’s footsteps, because I very literally am. Her job.” She gestures at me. “Her relationship, at least one of them.” She makes a wider gesture around the condo. “Now, I’m staying in her condo.”

  I suck in a breath, wanting to interject, but not knowing what to say. She’s not done, though, so I say nothing and let her get everything out, hoping she’ll give me the chance to say my piece before she leaves again.

  “The thing is, though … the thing is that I’m not Blaire. But I’m not whoever it is that my mom has decided I should be, either. And even though she thinks I’m doing this out of spite, it’s actually the first time in my whole life that I’m doing things because I want to do them.” Her voice wobbles on the last sentence, and a stream of tears flows down her cheeks.

  It takes everything in me not to pull her into my arms, to wrap her up in my body and tell her that I understand. More than anyone, I understand what it is to not fit your parents’ ideals for your life and how hard it is to buck that.

  But I can’t. Because instead of understanding, instead of giving her the time and space to work through how to set healthy boundaries with her family and supporting her need to keep her parents in her life, I lashed out at her. And then I abandoned her.

  “You are all the things she worries about the most, you know,” she says. “Tattoos, parties, drugs and alcohol”—she waves a hand up and down, encompassing my body—“the whole rock star vibe you’ve got going on.” Her hand drops, and she shakes her head. “But that’s not all of who you are.” She presses her hand to her chest. “I know that about you. Even though that’s who you tried to show me for so long, you made the mistake of showing me who you really are. And I fell in love with you.” Her voice cracks on the word love, and so does my heart.

  She loves me.

  Holy shit. She just said she loves me.

  Once again, I open my mouth to speak, but she keeps talking before I can say anything.

  She swipes at her eyes, but the tears keep coming regardless. “You’re right that she said horrible things about you that day on the phone. But you missed the part where I defended you. Where I told her about how caring you are, how you do all the little things you do to take care of me, how much you matter to me. And when you came at me, throwing everything she said in my face, I couldn’t take anymore. I shut down. I grew up with professors for parents, where all assertions had to be backed up with documented sources, and emotions have no place. And right then, I’d been reduced to nothing but raw emotion. I had no sources but my feelings. And I’d just been told that wasn’t enough. So I shut down in the face of your anger.”

  She pauses to swallow, her throat working. “I should’ve told them about us before we showed up in the entertainment news. But I naively thought that no one would really care that much about me, despite all your and Kendra’s warnings to the contrary. And I also thought that my parents were too highbrow to pay any attention to celebrity gossip stories.” She looks down, fidgeting with her sleeve. “I was wrong on both counts,” she whispers, shaking her head. “I never meant to keep you a secret. I didn’t tell them because I didn’t want to hear their bad takes, not because I was ashamed of you. Of us. I’ve missed you for days. And I’m sorry I hurt you.”

  Once again I’m reduced to breathing her name. “Viola.”

  She raises her watery eyes to mine.

  I swallow hard. “I’m an asshole,” I say all at once, the words running into each other in their haste to get out. “I’m so sorry.” I close the distance between us but hesitate before touching her. “I’m a mess and a fuckup and Blaire just got finished telling me that I need therapy, and I’m sure she’s right. And I’ll get it, and I’m so sorry for leaving without talking to you. When you said you needed space, I heard leave me alone forever. I heard, you’re not good enough, and I’ll never love you. And I know that’s not at all what you meant, and nothing like what you said, and I’m sorry for putting all my shit on you. You’ve been nothing short of amazing at every turn, dealing with every ounce of crap I threw your way with this quiet calm that drove me fucking crazy. When you finally let me in, I felt like I’d managed to win American Ninja Warrior or something.” A watery laugh bubbles out of her, and I give her a smile, finally daring to slide my hand down her arm.

  She steps closer to me, angling her body toward mine, and I take the invitation and pull her in close, wrapping both arms around her.

  “I’m so fucking sorry. I fucked everything up. I can’t promise to never fuck up again, but I will promise that I’ll never leave without talking to you again. Is that good enough?”

  With a sniff, she nods, looking up into my eyes.

  “I’m going to get therapy too,” I promise, “so you won’t have to bear the brunt of the mindfuck my parents did to me.”

  She chuckles at my phrasing. “Okay. Maybe you should send me the therapy info too. Because you’ve been right all along that I need to do a better job of setting boundaries. I’m trying. I’ve been trying. But it’s so hard sometimes.”

  “I know,” I whisper, pulling her in tight. “We’ll work on it together.” Putting just a little bit of space between us, I reach down and tip her chin up, making sure she’s looking me in the eyes before I say the next thing. “I love you, Viola. When I thought you might be leaving the tour, when I thought you didn’t really want me after all, my heart shriveled up in my chest, and I didn’t know how I’d get through the next day, much less the next month, without you. I’m so glad you came back, and I’m sorry I didn’t come to you sooner.”

  “No more apologies,” she whispers, and then she reaches behind my neck and pulls my head down to hers.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Viola

  His lips meet mine and time stops. The world exists only as sensation and emotion. The leftover fear and anxiety of coming here, the catharsis of admitting everything, the relief when he apologized and said he loves me too.

  All of those other feelings are overshadowed by that last part.

  Love.

  He loves me.

  I love him.

  And right now that’s what matters the most.

  He gathers me against him, his hands moving over my torso, under my shirt, pulling my hips tight against his. “I’ve missed you so fucking much,” he whispers against my lips.

  “I’ve missed you, too.” The words are cut off as soon as I finish speaking them, his tongue once again slipping past my lips, taking everything I have to offer.

  But then he pulls back,
pushing me away at arms’ length and looking me over. “I’ve fantasized about having you here so many times. Both while we were still on tour and I invited you to stay, but also since I’ve been back. This almost feels like a dream. You sure you’re real?”

  Laughing, I reach out and pinch his bicep.

  He flinches and lets out an indignant, “Hey!”

  I give him a cheeky grin. “Convincing enough?”

  With a low growl, he yanks me against him again, grinding his hardening cock into my belly. “If it weren’t, I think this is.” Then his hands fall to my ass and he hoists me up.

  I cling to him as he carries me through the condo to his bedroom and drops me on his bed. It’s unmade, the sheets and comforter a tangled wad at one end. And best of all, it smells like him.

  He crawls on top of me, settling between my legs, bracing his arms on either side of me. Dipping his head, he fuses his mouth to mine once more. It’s like we’ve both been drowning and we’re now finally able to breathe again. Our kisses are oxygen, and we’re both gasping.

  Soon, though, it’s not enough. I want more than just the slide of his tongue against mine, more than the friction of his hardness grinding against my center. I want the soft skin of his cock in my hand. The scrape of his stubble on my nipples. The firm muscles of his back under my fingernails.

  I want him inside me. Now.

  I yank up his shirt with my fingers and start pushing on the fabric of his joggers with my feet, needing to get him naked right this minute. When his shirt is bunched under his armpits and his pants are starting to slide down the curve of his ass, he stops kissing me long enough to pull his shirt over his head.

  “I need you,” I whisper.

  He groans and rolls off me, shoving his pants down and kicking them off while I sit up and pull my own shirt over my head. He wins the race to get naked first and rolls back toward me, his hand cupping my breast through the soft lace of my bralette. His thumb flicks across my nipple, bringing it to a hard point, and then his mouth closes on it, sucking hard through the fabric.