But he was digressing.
Second, he was a bit self-absorbed. He was great at homing in on his own feelings, but he sucked at paying attention to the feelings of others. It was different with Paige. In any other circumstance, he would have known he’d handled things okay. This whole thing today had taken him by surprise.
Which brought him to the third thing about himself—he was not good at thinking on his feet. It didn’t seem to matter what the situation—if he had to make a snap decision, he always made the wrong one. The major difference with today’s encounter was that he’d hurt Paige’s feelings—not by missing lunch or not putting her first, but by not putting her before anything having to do with her family was a major misstep on his part.
It was funny, he mused, how family issues were the root of so many problems—it was something he and Paige shared. Not on the same level or for the same reason, but…
Only, it was the same level.
It was all about attention.
They both felt they didn’t get the attention from their families that they deserved. Dylan chose to be rebellious while Paige just…accepted it.
Dammit.
Why hadn’t he made that connection before? While he’d sympathized with her over the way her family treated her, he never truly related to it. Until now. Maybe that would work in his favor; maybe it wouldn’t. All he could do was hope she’d listen to him when he got to her.
Fortunately, the universe was on his side, because for the first time ever, he made it through the city without hitting one traffic light. He turned onto her block and was relieved to see her car in her driveway. Daisy said Paige was going home, but in the back of his mind, Dylan had begun to wonder if she had maybe decided to go somewhere else to blow off steam.
Like batting cages or a gun range.
The image of her doing either of those things put a smile on his face, and he had to force himself to push it aside until they were done talking.
At her door, he knocked.
No answer.
He rang the bell.
No answer.
After the third try, he turned to check the back when she opened the door.
Bathrobe on. Hair in a towel.
He hung his head and shook it. She’d been in the shower. Not ignoring him.
With a lopsided grin, he faced her. “Hey.”
Holding the towel to her head, she responded, “Hey.”
No makeup and in a robe that looked like it was two sizes too big for her and all he could think of was how beautiful she was. “Can I come in?”
Nodding, Paige stepped aside and motioned for him to come inside. Dylan walked straight to the living room and waited for her. She followed—eventually. It seemed to take her way longer than it should have. She didn’t come close to him. She didn’t kiss him hello, and dammit, that one hurt almost more than anything.
“I’m sorry,” he said and realized he sounded louder and more defensive than he should have. He took a deep breath and let it out. “I’m sorry,” he said, calmer this time.
With a shrug, Paige adjusted the towel on her head and then turned and walked into the kitchen. She got herself a bottle of water and came back.
Without one for him.
“We should have gone to lunch,” he said as he began to pace. “I never should have left with your sister to talk about anything. It was wrong and I’m sorry.”
“Okay,” she said with a shrug as she sat down on the sofa.
Stopping, he looked at her and knew it was anything but. This was her MO. This was how she handled things. For whatever reason, she felt she deserved this crappy treatment, and that wasn’t okay with him.
With a muttered curse, he walked over and crouched down in front of her, resting his hands on the sofa on either side of her. “No, it’s not okay,” he said, his voice a near growl. “I know you’re mad at me, Paige. I know I messed up. I also know you threw a mug across the room because you were mad. So don’t sit here and go meek on me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
She didn’t have her glasses on and yet her eyes looked just as big. There was so much emotion in them, so much he knew she wanted to say—he needed her to let it out.
But she didn’t.
“Tell me I’m a jerk,” he prompted.
Nothing.
“Tell me I’m a selfish bastard.”
Nothing.
Then, he knew how to get her to speak up. Suppressing a grin, he said, “Tell me I’m a complete and total…ass.” Now he did grin. “I dare you.”
His gaze instantly went to her lips, which twitched ever so slightly. Then he looked up as she rolled her eyes.
Leaning in closer, he lowered his voice in a way he knew she loved. “Come on, Paige, say it.”
“You’re ridiculous,” she whispered, but she was starting to smile more.
Dylan shook his head. “Uh-uh…you know the rules. You have to say it.”
With one brow arched at him, she said, “Fine. You’re a complete and total…ass.”
“That’s my girl,” he said and gave her a quick kiss on the lips before he stood. Grabbing one of her hands, he pulled her to her feet. “Now go dry your hair so we can talk.”
“We can talk while my hair is wet—”
“No, we can’t,” he countered. “Because it’s distracting. I want to take the towel off your head and smell your shampoo and be a total perv with you. But that would not be appropriate right now.” He gave her a gentle push in the direction of her bedroom and then gave her a light smack on her ass.
Paige let out a little screech and looked at him over her shoulder. “Maybe I wouldn’t mind you being a total perv right now.”
It was tempting—to put off having an uncomfortable conversation in favor of having Paige naked in bed was beyond appealing. “Paige…”
She walked into her bedroom, which was right off the living room, and Dylan figured they were on the same page again.
Then the hair towel flew out the door.
Yeah, he was tempted to follow her and watch as she dried her hair.
Then her robe flew out the door and…well…he was only a man.
* * *
“This wasn’t why I came here.”
“I know. But I always wanted to test the makeup-sex theory.”
Dylan laughed. Seriously, this girl was beyond perfect. He rolled onto his side and admired her—in her totally naked glory. He caressed the soft skin of her arm. “I’m serious, Paige. I messed up and I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. The thought of playing again with the guys jumped to the forefront of everything, and…and it shouldn’t have.”
Turning her head, she looked at him. “Yes, it should.”
“Excuse me?” Clearly he hadn’t heard her correctly.
“Dylan, your music and the band are important to you. You’re finally at a point where you’re ready to take on that part of your life again. I get it. I’m not mad because you want to play.”
“O-kay…”
“I’m upset because you came to the office and surprised me, and then as soon as something else came along, you…forgot about me,” she said sadly, her voice so soft he almost didn’t hear her.
He cupped her cheek. “Baby, I swear, I never forgot you. Ever. The whole time I was in there, I was wishing I were with you and cursing myself for not going to lunch. Then they both kept talking and talking and talking—”
“My dad was there too?”
“Um…”
She gave a delicate snort of disbelief. “It’s okay, Dylan. I figured they’d go at you together. It’s what they do. Like a little team.”
“For what it’s worth, Paige, the only draw is having an excuse to play with the guys. What your dad and Ariel pitched wasn’t creative or exciting or all that big.” He paused. “Look, in the last two mon
ths I’ve noticed a lot of things. I think your dad is brilliant in some areas…”
“I know.”
“But not all areas,” he finished. “I think what he did to get the press off my back was pure genius, but he didn’t do it alone. He had you and Mick to guide him. I think your sister is a good spokesperson for the firm but she has no friggin’ clue how to do anything on her own. She’s great with jumping in and taking credit, but beyond that, she’s useless.”
He breathed a sigh of relief when she didn’t argue.
“I think you, Paige, are the driving force in that company and you scare them.”
“Me?”
He nodded. “Yeah, you. The entire time they pitched, it was obvious they were going to throw this at you to take over and make happen. Not because they think they’re better or because they’ve got other things to do, but because they have no idea how to make it work. Your dad’s getting older, Paige. If you ask me, he’d probably love to retire or at least cut back. He’s probably tired, and it’s hard to keep up with all the marketing trends—that’s a young man’s game. And your sister? She’s lazy.”
“That’s great and all, but it still leaves me doing all the work and not getting any of the recognition.”
“And you want that? The recognition?”
Paige was silent for a moment. “Everyone wants their hard work to be acknowledged, Dylan. I’m only human.”
“I get it. I do.” Here was his opening. “It hit me on the drive over here how alike we are.” Pausing, he waited for her to comment, but when she continued to look at him, he went on. “Everyone wants their parents’ approval. I know I did.”
“Dylan, I’ve read a ton of articles where your parents are quoted saying how proud they are of you.”
“They are and I know that. Now,” he added. “But when I was younger, they were very detached. I got whatever I wanted and they never said no to me. When I wanted to take guitar lessons, I did. When I wanted to join the soccer team, they bought me everything I needed. When I wanted to take karate, they signed me up. And they went to my games and to my recitals and all that, but they never said they were proud of me or even ‘good job.’ It was like they couldn’t speak the words out loud. To them, their presence relayed all those things and I was wrong to expect both—the words and their being there.”
“Well, that’s…odd,” she said carefully.
“I know. And so I started to lash out and started doing things to get a rise out of them. I pierced my ear when I was fifteen. Got my first tattoo at sixteen—illegally, by the way. I was drinking by that time too and was sneaking in and out at all hours of the night and the most they said was how I needed to be careful, so I wouldn’t hurt anyone. Not myself—anyone,” he added for emphasis.
He rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. “I drank more, stayed out more, and yet every Sunday we went to church together, and every night we sat down to dinner together, and nobody talked about how I was getting more and more out of control.” This was all the stuff he came to realize while in rehab, but it felt good to share it with Paige. “I don’t blame them for how far gone I got—that’s all on me. But I do blame them for not caring enough to leave their comfort zones and confront me on my behavior. If they had even once told me I was a disappointment or how they were worried about me, I might have listened. I’ll never know for sure, but I’d like to think I would.”
Paige took one of his hands and brought it to her lips and kissed it. “Can I say something?”
“Anything.”
“Maybe it’s not the kids you should be talking to.”
He turned his head and looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, it might be beneficial to talk to parent groups about this sort of thing, teaching them how to speak to their kids and how to make a difference. Like you just said, you’ll never know exactly what would have made a difference, but I bet there are parents out there who’d find it helpful. You could potentially save someone’s life. Or even save an entire family.”
His throat felt tight, and he forced himself to look away. “Maybe. I guess it’s something to think about.”
“I’m glad you shared this with me, Dylan,” she said softly.
And then he did look at her again. “I wanted you to know that I get it. That I understand. You want that acknowledgment from your dad, from your parents, and they won’t do it. My path led to destruction in a very obvious and public way. You not dealing with this and accepting their treatment has you internalizing it all, and it’s slowly killing you, Paige. I see it in your eyes and on your face every time they do something like they did today. Like what I did today. You can’t let people get away with it.”
“I didn’t internalize it today. I threw that mug,” she said and gave him a sassy smile. “And I have to admit it felt really good.”
Rolling to his side, he gave her a loud, smacking kiss on the cheek. “That could get to be an expensive and messy form of therapy.” He stood and reached for his boxer briefs and slipped them on. He noticed the look of uncertainty on Paige’s face as he looked at her. “I know it’s not lunch but I really do want to take you out. How about an early dinner?”
“Italian? Because I’ve been craving some eggplant rollatini and spaghetti all afternoon,” she replied as she climbed off the bed.
Dylan watched as she walked, gloriously naked, out to the living room to retrieve her robe. When she came into the room and passed her mirror, she frowned.
“What? What’s the matter?”
Paige ran a hand over her hair. “This is never going to be right. I’m going to jump in and grab a quick shower to wet it and freshen up.”
With lightning speed, Dylan whipped his briefs off. “You’re probably exhausted and weak from missing lunch. I should join you and make sure you don’t faint in the shower.”
Her only response was to giggle and shake her head at him.
Following her into the bathroom, he watched as she started the water and felt like the luckiest man alive when she turned and held out her hand to him and pulled him under the steamy spray.
Chapter 8
Looking back, Paige could say with great certainty that things changed between her and Dylan the day he came and apologized for skipping out on their lunch date.
And not for the better.
Two weeks later, Paige felt the strain and knew he was feeling it too.
Their work schedules were crazy even though Ariel was back at work. Somehow Paige ended up taking on a lot more responsibility—more than usual—and Ariel’s latest idea was a big benefit concert. There was no way Paige was getting involved with that mess. Her temper was short, her nerves were frayed, and Dylan’s sudden obsession with his image and getting the band back in the public eye was making her want to scream.
At every Literacy Now event or function they went to, he managed to turn it into a self-promotion event for himself and his band. At first, Paige had to focus to realize what he was doing—like he was so smooth about it most people might not notice the plugs he managed to slide into his talks.
But she noticed.
And she didn’t particularly like it.
Not that she was against Dylan being excited about his work with Shaughnessy. She wasn’t. What she was against was Dylan using their time with Literacy Now to promote his music, and not literacy and the importance of reading.
Like right now, she thought, they were at a regional library outside of LA, and Dylan was supposed to talk about the different library programs and get the kids excited about them. But was he? No. Right now he was answering questions about life in a rock band. She could reason that he was building a relationship with the kids in the crowd, so when he did mention the library programs, they’d be willing to listen to him and take his advice. Looking at the clock, however, she knew they were almost out of time, and if he didn’t do
an immediate change of subject, there was no way he’d get to the pertinent information.
It wasn’t easy to get his attention, but she managed to snag it for a second and held up the library brochure and waved it at him in hopes of him getting the message and leaving his riveting band talk in favor of his love of reading.
“So what I’m saying, kids, is you need to have an interest in the arts. Whether it’s playing an instrument or drawing or painting or writing, you need to find where your passion is and go for it,” Dylan was saying, and Paige started to relax.
“Like I did when I figured out that I wanted to play the guitar,” he went on, and she groaned, her head falling forward as she cursed him. Why now? Why, when they were so close to the entire campaign going national, did he have to go rogue? Seriously, why?
A loud round of applause burst out all around her, and she knew he’d missed giving out the real information. Jumping up, she ran to the front of the room before anyone could leave and immediately began talking as loud as she could.
“On your way out, please see Mrs. Duncan, the head librarian, at the front desk to get a schedule of the many programs they’ll be offering here over the next three months. From story time to reading tutors, there will be something for everyone!”
By the time she spoke the last word, the room was almost empty. She turned to Dylan and glared.
“Good group today,” he said with a grin as he grabbed his jacket and slipped it on.
“Are you for real?” she asked. “You do realize this was a promotional event for the library and not a press junket for Shaughnessy, don’t you?”
He looked at her in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“You!” she cried. “You spent the majority of the time talking about yourself—again—and about the band—again—and never mentioned any of the library programs! Dammit, Dylan, that’s why we were here!”
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