Be Your Downfall (Be Yours Trilogy Book 1)

by Lizzie Fox

  “You’re daring and impetuous. Hmm… sounds like someone we know,” Shane said, with a pointed gaze in my direction.

  “I wasn’t always,” she replied, her smile fading fast

  “Jessie is writer,” I said, trying to steer the conversation away from something that was obviously making her a bit uneasy.

  Bad idea. Shane was instantly intrigued. “You are? Would I have read anything?” He asked giddily. I exchanged a look with Anthony and we stifled our laughs.

  “It’s possible if you were reading romance novels in the early 2000s,” Jessie replied, with a shrug.

  Shane promptly rose and went to the nearby bookshelf, admiring her collection. “Are any of these yours?”

  Jessie blushed. “A few of them, actually.”

  Shane’s dark brow furrowed as he scanned them, until he gasped. “Oh my god. Oh my god. You’re not—you’re not who I think you are?”

  She cocked a brow. “Who do you think I am?” But the second Shane produced a book that was bright blue in color, she bit her lip. Yeah, it was clearly hers.

  “You’re not J.L. Lightman. Holy forking shirt I read these when I was in college! They were the best!” Shane grinned excitedly.

  “That was a long time ago,” she said, appearing distant once again. “But, I’m glad you liked them.”

  “The last one was really sad, I always felt terrible for the person who wrote these because something really awful must have happened to write something so heart wrenching.” Shane frowned. “That was you?”

  “You could say that…” Her bright, pretty face turned completely downcast. “The pen name… Lightman. That was my husband.”

  “The one you divorced?” Seemed strange to me she’d be sad over someone she said was such a jerk.

  “Ah, no. Um… I was married before that. He… passed away suddenly,” she replied sullenly. “But I was very young, and it was a long time ago.”

  I flinched at the bombshell. Holy shit…

  “Damn girl. I’m so sorry,” Shane said sympathetically, looking genuinely troubled by the confession. I exchanged a look with Anthony.

  She bobbed a shoulder but didn’t say anything else about it. “I’m hoping to write something new. Maybe the lake will inspire me,” she said, with a forced laugh.

  “I’m sure it will. Well…” Anthony jerked his head towards the door and widened his eyes at Shane, indicating that they should leave. “We’ll let you be. It’s good to meet you, Jessie. I hope you’ll come by practice sometime. Seth is actually pretty talented, despite being an ugly ass bastard.”

  I threw my head back and cackled. “Oh you’re such a dick.”

  Jessie seemed to grin at our banter. “I’ve seen him before, actually.”

  “Girl, we all know the story.” I groaned, as Shane flashed her a wink. She bit her lip and her face flushed.

  “See you tomorrow, Archer?”

  “Yeah,” I replied, waving him off as they left, leaving Jessie and I in an uncomfortable silence.

  Finally, she sighed. “Aren’t you going to ask?”

  “Ask… what?”

  “What happened to him. Everyone always asks,” she replied bitterly.

  “Only if you want to tell me,” I replied carefully. “Otherwise I’m sure it’s none of my business.”

  “It’s okay. Really. It’s been what? Thirteen years. I should be over it by now.” She scoffed at herself. “He was…shot. Suicide.”

  The word was like a slap in the face, and I blanched. Suicide. The word weighted in my mind like a two-ton pick-up truck. And when I looked to her… her face was twisted into an expression of…despair. And torment.

  He put that expression there. Her husband. I knew that expression. I saw it on friends and others who dealt with me; expressions of sadness and sympathy and… fear.

  I dared to ask the obvious question. “Was he… depressed or…something?”

  “Well, we’ll never know for sure. But I know he had something. He would get really worked up sometimes, and then angry, and sometimes not able to get out of bed for days,” she replied uneasily as she glanced down at her hands, fiddling in her lap.

  Mania. He sounded bipolar.

  Just. Like. Me.

  Suddenly, this living arrangement didn’t feel so great after all. I wasn’t sure if I could put her through this—my issues—like her husband’s, again. How would that be fair to her?

  I sighed heavily. “Damn, Jessie. That’s…” The right words escaped me; there wasn’t anything right to say to that.

  But all the breath escaped me when her face lifted, and a lone tear ran down her cheek, leaving a wet stain before she wiped it away with the back of her hand. The pain in her eyes was so apparent, I wanted to reach out, tip her face up, wipe away her painful tears and kiss her until she smiled but… I knew that was a bad idea right now.

  Really, I just wanted to kiss her; any excuse. But… no.

  What was she going to say when she found out that was me; I had bipolar too. I had a good handle on it, but I didn’t always. I couldn’t hide it. All she had to do was walk into the bedroom, and she’d see all my pill bottles on the nightstand.

  “It…sounds like he didn’t have any control over it at all. No meds?” I dared to ask, and she shook her head.

  “No.” She looked me over carefully, narrowing her eyes with scrutiny. I knew she was deducing in her head what I probably would be.

  She knew that my sister was in a psychiatric hospital. And, these things were often hereditary. If she hadn’t already, she’d put two and two together eventually.

  “I see,” I finally said, after a moment of thought.

  “Well.” She suddenly put a bright smile on her face that seemed somewhat… forced. “We can lay out ground rules tomorrow.”

  “Ground rules?” I repeated, a bit taken aback. She was… really going to treat this like a roommate situation?

  Well of course, what did I expect? Now that she knows I’m nuts, after dealing with it before, did I really think she was going to come jumping into my arms? Of course fucking not.

  “Yeah. I mean… having people over, cleaning up, money… stuff like that.” She nodded lazily to the side. “No big deal.”

  I folded my arms over my chest and cocked a brow and she shifted uncomfortably slightly, and shied away, trying to hide her blush. I set my hand over my mouth so she wouldn’t see my smile. “Jessie, the only friend I have, besides the guys, is Wes. He lives in Minneapolis and I barely see him. I don’t think people over is going to be a problem.”

  “What about the guys?” She inquired, and I chuckled.

  “I see those assholes enough during the week, I don’t need to hang out with them any more than that.”

  “What about…” she swallowed nervously. “…dates?” Her eyes widened slightly as she watched me. I noticed I was absentmindedly pulling on the stupid lip ring I had. I did that often and didn’t even notice it. Until I noticed her noticing it… and she definitely noticed.

  “Jessie, I don’t date.” I finally answered, with all seriousness.

  Now it was her turn to raise a brow. “Why? You’re not like… secretly gay or something?”

  My head tipped back and I laughed. “No, I’m not but I’m sure people think I am. You know…the nail polish and the eyeliner during gigs.” I rolled my eyes as she scoffed. “And the fact that I’m like, you know, not the most macho, built guy out there.”

  She raised a hand and scratched her neck, and if I wasn’t mistaken, she was eyeing me carefully, drinking me in. I should have felt embarrassed but it only served to give me a flush over my skin. “I don’t see the problem with that,” she finally answered.

  I grinned. “No? I never did care for my lankiness, but it is what it is.”

  “Lanky?” She shook her head slowly as if in disbelief. And that pleased me a lot. “Anyway, why don’t you date?”

  “Because…I’m looking for a certain thing in particular and I don’t want anyth
ing else,” I replied, hoping to god I sounded more confident then I felt. Outwardly, I was unshaken. Inside? I wanted to throw up, throwing all I had at this girl. Woman. Anything to make her see that I was normal—or that I could be relatively normal. That my issues weren’t so bad…even though I didn’t necessarily believe it myself.

  “What exactly do you mean by that?” She challenged, with a gentle smirk. I just rose my pierced brow, along with an upturn of my mouth. She still touched her neck, and it started dipping lower, barely grazing the top of her breast, exposed under the “V” of the t-shirt. And it was so fucking hot…

  “Okay so… no dates.” She sighed, lifting her hand and brushing a strand of hair that had fallen out of her ponytail and smoothed it back. “Really, is this a good idea? You barely know me.”

  “I know enough.”

  “Enough?”

  I started to speak but thought the better of what I was about to say. I was going to have to change tactics. “Look, I promise, as long as I’m here… I’ll keep my distance as long as you want me to.” For a short time anyway.

  Something in her expression seemed skeptic. Probably the furrowed, pinched forehead.

  “We’ll just get to know each other first. As friends. And anything else? We’ll take it one day at a time. Okay?” I suggested, trying not to sound too eager.

  She blew out quietly. “Yeah. Okay. I mean… it’s not like people were banging down the door to answer my ad.”

  “There’s the spirit,” I chuckled. She gave me a tame grin.

  “Well…” She rose to stand. “I did a lot of driving today and I’m pretty wiped. Going to relax and maybe try to write and go to bed early. We can talk tomorrow? Feel free to whatever is in the fridge or cabinets—it’s not much, but I’ll get more tomorrow. Come and go as you please. The spare key is upstairs and I’ll get it in a bit.”

  I waved her off. “I’m not going anywhere. So just… whenever.”

  “Sure… then whenever. What are you going to do? Cable and internet won’t be hooked up until tomorrow, so no TV for now.”

  Oh, I knew what I wanted to do. I’d waited a year to find this girl, dreaming of those damn eyes and what those curves would feel like under my fingers. Thinking about those lips, and how they’d feel pressed to mine or… other places.

  “I’ll probably just go, work on some songs and go to bed myself. If I get bored, I’ll watch a movie on my laptop.” Feeling bold, I said, “If you want, you can join me?”

  She held back a smile. “Maybe some other time.” It wasn’t “no," so I considered that a win. For now. “You… work at all?”

  “Nope, just the band. We get royalties from downloads and from gigs. It pays the bills. Nothing extravagant but I get by,” I replied.

  “Ah okay. I don’t work traditionally either. So I won’t be surprised to see you around tomorrow.” She paused, like she wanted to say something else. “Good night, then, Seth.”

  “Good night.” I watched her disappear up the stairs. She paused briefly at the loft, offered me a wry smile, and then she was out of sight. I heard a door shut and I knew she’d gone into her room and I was left… alone. And a little disappointed.

  I don’t know what I thought would happen. Guy sees girl in the audience, guy imagines some love connection even though they never spoke, guy misses out his chance… guy finds her again and automatically thinks everything will be happy ever after.

  No, this was going to take a bit of work. I had to show her… me. Not just the Seth Archer that paraded on the stage singing rock ballads and performing for a crowd. Not the Seth Archer who used to cut himself to feel better, to get out of his own mind when it was tormenting him. I had to show her that I wanted to be better. I wasn’t out of control.

  I wasn’t going to end up like her husband. Now I had extra incentive to never go down that road again.

  So, I was going to be patient. However long it took. One way or another… I was going to make this woman mine. Even if it took another year.

  I could do this. I didn’t have to be anyone’s downfall. Really.

  I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince more of that. Her, or myself.

  7

  Jessalie

  What the hell was I thinking? Letting this man live here. It was crazy. Nuts. A bonafide, bad idea. Why was it a bad idea?

  Because I saw things—felt things—about him that I hadn’t felt in years. It was the exact same way with Blake. One look of those damned blue eyes and I was completely enraptured. And, as different as Seth appeared from Blake, his honey-colored eyes still did the same thing to me; they spoke to my soul, pleaded to my heart, and rendered me completely breathless.

  What was it about him? Was there such a thing as soulmates—really? And did they just call out to each other when they met? Or, was this all just a figment of my imagination, because once upon a time I saw this hot guy standing on a stage, crooning in a majestic voice like a siren’s song and I lusted after him… and now he was back. Somehow.

  “Damn…” I muttered, flinging myself face first on the bed. I’d heard the bedroom door down the hallway open and shut, and I knew he was just feet away. All I had to do was go through the bathroom and I’d be there. All I had to do was grab him, pull him to me, and kiss him until I was weak—which is what my heart and my body wanted to do. Desperately.

  The shattered half of my heart and my brain wanted to run, far, and put up walls.

  This was stupid. Groaning at my own idiocy, I fumbled and crawled awkwardly on the bed for the cell phone on my nightstand and proceeded to dial Victoria’s number. She picked up on the first ring.

  “Jess?” My cousin, Kieran, picked up instead. “You never call, are you okay?”

  I snorted into the receiver. “I never call you, Kee. But I call Vics all the time.”

  “Ha ha. Vics is actually in the shower. I just saw your number come up and figured something had to be wrong, you know… since you always text,” he said, pretending to be cross.

  I rolled my eyes, although he couldn’t see it. “Just… things.”

  “Vics tells me that you had a new roommate? What’s she like?” Kieran questioned, and I grumbled. He was definitely going to give me crap for this one.

  “He. Actually.”

  “Fuck really? You’re living with a dude?”

  “Kee, he was the first person to respond. It’s no big deal…” But he laughed, wise to my deception.

  “You’re lying. You’re so into him. I know you, Jess. Remember that. I remember how squeaky voiced you got when talking about Blake—” he stopped abruptly. “Shit, I’m sorry, I know—”

  “—it’s okay,” I replied, with a sigh. “And I did not just get all squeaky-voiced!”

  He snorted. “Yes, you did. Never over Adam though.”

  “Of course not,” I said, like it should be obvious I wouldn’t.

  “Hey, here’s Vics. I’ll get the low-down from her.” I scoffed, and Victoria’s voice came on the other end.

  “Jess? What’s up?”

  I grumbled. “So, do you remember like, a year ago we went out to the Lagoona? And heard that band?” I asked.

  “Umm… I think so? Was that the time that singer bumped into you and spilled your drink? And we spent half the night afterwards looking for him? And then weeks after you split with Adam trying to find his band again but never could?” She asked.

  “Yes. That’s him.”

  I could almost hear the irritation in her voice. “What about him?”

  “He’s here. In Independence Point.”

  “Oh my fucking god you have to be kidding me? No way—you—no!” Victoria let out a little squeal, so loud I had to pull the phone from my ear. “Fuck, Jess! It was meant to be!”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “Is he still just as hot?”

  “Ummm...” I replied, my cheeks flushing. “His hair is shorter, and he has a few more tattoos but… generally, yes. Hotter, even, if it’s possibl
e.”

  “Aw, you’re squeaking! You’re into him! How’d you find him? Run into him at the store or something?”

  “I am not!” I squeaked and groaned.

  “Come on, Jess. I know how much you loved Blake, but you have to let him go. Go out with this guy. You never run into ‘the one that got away’ again! You have to go out with him!”

  “Ah, well there is more…”

  “…more? What’s his name?”

  “Seth Archer.”

  Victoria let out a quiet moan. “Seth? Oh god that’s hot.”

  “Yes it is. And…” I braced myself for the shrieking. “Well, he, ah… actually was the one to reply to my ad for the roommate.” Squinting my eyes, I waited for it, pulling the phone away preemptively. When it didn’t come, warily I moved it back.

  “You have to be shitting me? You’re living with him? Oh my god, Jessalie fucking Reynolds, you—”

  “—it’s no big deal, really,” I interrupted, but she laughed loudly.

  “I saw how starry eyed you were over this dude. What’s the problem? You’re not going to make a move on him? Is he not interested?”

  I bit my lip hesitantly. “No, I think he might be, but…”

  “But what? He’s hot, he’s a damn fucking rockstar—sorta—what, is he a dick?”

  “No, not so far.”

  “Then what?”

  “His sister. She’s in a psychiatric hospital,” I said quietly.

  “So? So she’s—oh. Oh.” She sighed loudly. “Just because his sister is, doesn’t mean he is, Jess.”

  “I know. I know. But…”

  “Jess, you already complicated things by letting him live there. Is he already moved in?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Shit. You’re sharing close quarters—”

  “—it’s a big house, Vics.”

  “Ha. So, you are going to torture yourself with a hot guy in your house that you refuse to have?”

  “It’s not that simple,” I said sullenly. But, she made a good point. As usual.

  “Jess. He’s not Blake. Maybe you can hang out and just be friends, or maybe he’s the love of your life. Just because Blake committed suicide, even if he has mental issues, it doesn’t mean Seth will too. You know that, right?” Tori said calmly.