He’d gone back to work, like I wasn’t even standing here.
I watched him for a moment. Then I mashed the joint out in an ashtray and left the studio.
Chapter Seventeen
Xander
I spent the rest of the day down at the beach with friends. In the evening, I ended up back at my condo downtown.
I didn’t want to go back to Cary’s right now. I didn’t know how to stand seeing Courteney, or how to stand not seeing Cary.
Truth was, as much as I wanted to see him more… it fucking hurt to see him like he was.
Other than when Gabe died… I’d never really felt that kind of pain. That kind of loss.
Every time I saw Cary and he shut me out, it was kinda like losing him to the darkness all over again.
It reminded me of how bad it had gotten for him that first year after Gabe died. It made me worry that he could end up there again.
Really, what was there to stop him from falling apart again?
What was holding him together now, except his work, his love of music, and maybe knowing that his sister cared? That I cared?
I worried about him, and it put me in a really fucking bad place.
I couldn’t sleep, so I lay in bed and scrolled around on my phone. Checking messages. Scanning social media feeds.
Nothing held my interest.
Until I opened the email Courteney had sent me. I knew she’d sent me her book, like a week ago. While I was in Lisbon. But I hadn’t opened the email yet, much less the book.
Now, I opened the pdf attachment on my phone.
ALIVE: The Life and Death of Gabe Romanko
I stared at the title. The plain black type on the white page. So matter-of-fact.
How was it that one of my best friends, one of the best guys I’d ever known, had died when I was twenty-six? He was only twenty-eight.
It didn’t seem right.
The title of the book was kinda dark, but once I got reading it, I could understand why Courteney chose it.
When Gabe died, the media had jumped all over the tragic irony of our band name. Every headline said some gross, tacky version of “ALIVE” BAND MEMBER DEAD. Fucking brilliant journalism there.
But this wasn’t that. Courteney wasn’t trying to be clever. She was telling you what you’d find in her book. Which was Gabe’s life story, only a small portion of which amounted to the circumstances surrounding his death.
Courteney had written a lot more about his life than his death. His death, and the trial that followed, had one chapter dedicated to it.
The rest was about him.
About his life.
Growing up alongside his best friend, becoming musicians together, running his crazy podcast about music, Alive at Five, and finally forming the band, Alive, with Cary, which took its name from the podcast.
It told the story of a total music-geek-turned-rock-star who was a genuinely good person, a guy who loved his family, would’ve given up a lung to save a friend, and who was the kind of guy, once you’d met him, you’d never dream of not inviting to your party.
The book was incredible.
Like Courteney said, it was a rough draft. It was still rife with typos and some awkward sentences, a few redundancies, but I was sure she could work that all out in revisions.
There were chunks missing, where she’d left a rough outline of what she intended to fill in later.
But she had a beautiful writing style. Descriptive; very visual. There were several times I forgot I was reading, and I could see Gabe’s life playing out in front of me, like I was watching it in a movie. Or better yet, like I was there living it with him.
Which I was, for the last few years of it.
When I met Gabe and Cary, seven years ago, I already knew about Gabe’s podcast. I’d been listening to it for a while. The dude geeked out about music and bands and music-related tech, and often interviewed local musicians. Then one day, he did a shout out to local musicians to come audition for his band—the new band he was putting together with his best friend, Cary Clarke.
The two of them had just broken up with the rest of their band, and I couldn’t even believe I could get in the door to audition for these guys. They were both local legends by then. They’d already had a major label debut and a real world tour. They were miles ahead of me.
They were looking for a drummer and a lead singer, and they hired me and Dean from the auditions.
I was fucking thrilled about it, but even then, I had no idea how it would change the course of my life.
The four of us gelled incredibly well. Cary and Gabe were so prolific, so energetic in everything they did together. They wrote a whole album for us in three months. We cut a demo and played local bars, and we got picked up by a record label within that first year. We recorded our first album in two months, and then we were off touring in support of it.
Alive climbed the charts and we got pretty famous, fast.
By the time I was twenty-six, Alive was at the top of the charts and Cary, Gabe and me were inseparable. The three of us did everything together. Dean usually tagged along, but he was kind of in his own world. The three of us were each other’s world. We were climbing a mountain, together, and we couldn’t do it without each other.
I’d had a lot of friends over the years, good friends, but Cary and Gabe were my best friends. They were the only true brothers I’d ever really had.
Then Gabe died while we were on tour, and Cary never really recovered. Alive went on hiatus, then just… dissolved.
Quickly or slowly, everyone went on with their lives. Except Cary.
He was still my best friend, even if I rarely got to spend any time with him. I loved him, but I didn’t know how to help him. And that was not an easy thing to live with.
Gabe’s death wasn’t an easy thing to live with.
And Courteney’s book brought it all back. The good. The bad.
So many memories…
So many fucking feelings.
And I knew if I let it, all that shit would eat me up. Just like it ate Cary up.
I typed her out a quick email, choosing my words carefully. The book is really good, Courteney. You write well. Keep at it.
Lame, but it was all I could manage.
I sent the email and put down my phone. In the silence of my room at night, in the dark, my head was a storm of memories. Pictures and colors… voices and sounds.
Music.
Gabe.
My chest felt like it was about to burst. Like the way you felt right before you cried like a baby.
Fuck, though. I was not gonna cry. There was no point in crying over something you couldn’t change. No point feeling shit that only made you suffer.
What the fuck good were feelings?
Who needed emotions?
Look what they did to Cary.
I didn’t like feeling all this shit. I wasn’t a fucking monster or something. I wasn’t a psychopath. I felt.
I just didn’t want to feel.
So instead, I tamped my emotions down and went on living. Or at least, I fucking tried to.
* * *
The next day, I headed back over to Cary’s place knowing I needed to step away. Before all this shit took me down.
I could keep as much of an eye on Cary from my place downtown as I could from his poolhouse. Or at least, I was trying to convince myself of that. That he didn’t need me here. That I wasn’t helping.
Because I needed some space.
Without music taking up my time, keeping me busy, I was in danger of some kind of major meltdown or something, if I spent too much time around the Clarkes—or even just sitting around brooding over them, like I did last night.
I cared too much about both of them to fuck up the delicate relationship I had with either of them.
I could feel it coming, like the vacuum of silence before a wicked storm.
Disaster.
I had way too many feels last night about way too much shit.
I felt hungover, and I didn’t even have a drop to drink.
Who could stand to feel shit like that all the time?
No wonder Cary locked himself away.
I knew I had to tell Courteney that this thing between her and me—whatever it was—was not happening. And the only way I could back that up with action was to get away from her.
I found her in her room. The door was open and she was sitting on her bed. She had that big photo album open in her lap; the page had what looked like newspaper clippings taped to it.
“Hey,” I said, as I rapped a knuckle gently on the doorframe.
“Hey,” she said with a little jump. She closed the album in her lap.
“Working on the book?” I asked, stepping carefully into the room. I shut the door behind me, just in case; I didn’t need Cary hearing any of this if he happened to venture out of the studio.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Cool. I read it last night.”
Her eyes widened. “You did?”
Guess she hadn’t seen my lame-ass email yet.
“It’s really good.” I could see she wasn’t sure if she could believe me on that. “I’m not just saying that because I know you. It’s really well written, and I’m sure when you finish, it’ll be even better. I’ll read it for you again, if you want, when you’ve got the final draft, just to look it over again for you. And you can interview me, if you still want to.”
“I do.”
“But I have to move out for a bit.”
“What?” She set the album aside and slid over to the edge of the bed. I took a step back, leaving space between us.
“I talked to Cary yesterday. He seems, uh… pretty good.”
“Oh. That’s good.” Her face brightened a little. So hopeful—like I might have some breaking news that her brother was in full recovery and his reentry into life was imminent.
I looked away.
“Yeah. I think he’ll be okay. You know, the Joseph Fetterman thing will just pass and he’ll be okay. I mean, if nothing else upsets him.”
I let those words sit between us, heavy as fuck.
She knew what I was insinuating.
“It’s not going to upset him,” she said. “What we did—”
I looked at her. “As long as he doesn’t know about it,” I said, “you’re right.”
She sighed. “We should talk about it, Xander.”
“Talk about what?”
“About what happened. The sexy stuff we did.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Sure there is.”
“No. There isn’t.”
Instead of getting her back up and yelling at me like I pretty much expected her to, she said, “I know you care about him, a lot, and you don’t want to upset him. And I know you care about me.”
“Good,” I said when she went silent, because there was really nothing else to say about it.
“I know you feel—”
“I don’t,” I cut her off. “I don’t feel.”
She shook her head at me. “Of course you do. You feel bad about what happened because he’s your best friend and I’m his little sister—”
“I don’t feel anything,” I said. “I just need to go.”
She got up and came over to me. “Go where? Back to your place downtown? That’s not gonna erase what happened between us.” She studied me. “It’s not gonna erase anything, Xander.”
“I just need to step away for a while.”
“Okay.” She took my hand, and I froze. “It’s okay, Xander.” She held my hand gently with both of hers and smoothed her thumb over my palm, looking up into my eyes.
“I need to go,” I repeated, swallowing, but I just stood there.
“Okay.”
She drew closer, and then she hugged me.
I wrapped my arms around her. I held her tight, and I could feel her heart beating, feel her breathing in my arms. And I did not want to let go. I never would’ve touched her right now, but once she touched me… I couldn’t let go.
“I want you to stay,” she said, and peered up at me with her soft, honey eyes.
And I totally fucked up. Again.
Instead of letting her go, walking away—I kissed her.
She kissed me back, her mouth opening beneath mine as she moaned softly, and I pushed her back toward the bed. She whimpered as I grabbed her ass and pulled her against me. My dick was already getting hard, throbbing for her. She moaned again as I pressed myself against her.
I broke the kiss and looked down at her. “Are we doing this again?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Please.”
I slid my hands up inside her T-shirt and pulled it up as I went, then slipped it off over her head. She worked my shirt up, and I tore it off. I stripped off her bra and cupped her tits in my hands, squeezing. Her hands landed gently on my chest and strayed toward my nipples, but I couldn’t really handle the bolt of electricity that sent to my cock.
So I pushed her back on the bed and stripped off her jeans, her panties. Then I went down on her. And this time, as she spread her legs and started moaning along to the rhythm of my tongue, I teased her pussy with my fingertip.
Then I slipped it inside her.
She bucked her hips off the bed. I sealed my mouth over her clit and she writhed in pleasure, gasping.
“Oh, God. Xander… I want you… inside…” she panted. And as she bucked against me again, I pushed my finger the rest of the way into her, slowly.
She squealed in pleasure and plunged a hand into my hair. She held me to her and rode my face, harder than she did the first time, and I started fucking her with my finger in slow, deep strokes.
“Yeah… oh fuck, that feels good. Yeah, do that…” she moaned as she writhed on the bed.
I just kept at her, harder, faster, as she went wild, riding my face. I sucked on her clit and drove my finger into her again and again as her breathing cut short, in sharp, hungry gasps.
“Oh my God,” she whimpered, “please, please tell me you’re gonna fuck me…”
I didn’t answer that. My tongue was too busy lapping at her clit, and when she started screaming into a pillow, I sucked on it again. Her hips jerked violently and her whole body spasmed as she came.
The silky-tight sleeve of her pussy pulsed around my finger and I felt the tremors all through her.
I kept licking her until she stopped writhing around and tossed the pillow away, gasping for breath.
“Holy shit,” she breathed.
I licked my lips and looked up at her face as I slid my finger out of her… and she gave me a small, trembling smile.
My heart slammed in my chest and my pulse hammered in my dick as she lay there, gasping. I knew when a chick had been rocked with an epic orgasm, and Courteney had been rocked. Again. I’d just made her come, really fucking hard… while she begged me to fuck her.
This girl turned into an animal in bed. Couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to fuck her.
Christ… I couldn’t resist this. No fucking way.
All she did was hug me… and I ravaged her like a starving beast.
I had to move out. Now. That was the only way out of this.
“I have to go,” I told her, as soon as I staggered to my feet. Like we were continuing the conversation from right where I’d said that the first time. “I’m gonna go stay at my place for a while.”
“Why?” She blinked up at me as she sat up, slowly. I handed her her shirt, and she took it in a daze. “Because of me? Because of what just happened?”
“No.” I pulled on my shirt.
“You’re lying. You’re running away. Why do you keep walking out on me?”
“I’m not. Get dressed.”
“No matter what I do,” she said, slowly pulling her shirt on, “you keep leaving.”
“I’m not leaving. I’m just gonna stay at my place for a while.”
“Why?”
“Because if
I don’t, this is gonna end very badly for all of us.”
“All of us? What does that mean? There are two of us here, Xander.”
I didn’t answer that, because she was a smart girl. She knew what it meant.
“You don’t have to move out,” she said.
“I’m not moving out. I never moved in.”
She glared at me, still sitting there on the bed in her T-shirt and nothing else.
“I don’t live here, Courteney,” I told her, “and neither do you.”
“Why do you always have to do this?”
I shook my head, scraping my hair back out of my face. “I’m trying, here, okay? I just… need to do the right thing.”
“Right. Because you’re always so good at that.”
Yeah. She had me there. “I guess there’s a first time for everything.”
“And the right thing is to make me come, and then walk out on me?”
“I’m sorry about that. We shouldn’t have done that.”
She jumped to her feet. “No. No, screw you. You don’t get to say that. You don’t get to treat it like it was a mistake and regret it—”
“It was a mistake.”
She stared at me. And instead of getting mad, she just looked hurt. Her eyes flashed with tears. “I’m not some little girl anymore. Is that really how you see me?”
She kinda scowled at me, but I reached for her. I put my hands on her shoulders and kissed her on the forehead.
“You’re beautiful,” I told her. “And sweet and lovely. That’s how I see you. And it would be best if you forget this ever happened.”
Then I left her there. I grabbed some of my shit from the poolhouse and went home, because I meant every word of what I’d said to her.
Chapter Eighteen
Xander
Playing drums. Hanging with friends. Working out.
Avoiding anywhere near Cary’s house.
This was the new routine.
For the next four days, every time I caught myself in my car, heading in that general direction before I even knew what I was doing, I’d pull a fucking U-turn and burn it the other way.
Filthy Beautiful: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players #2) Page 24
