by Aly Martinez
Her eyes flashed to Scott in question.
“Oh, don’t hold back on my account,” he said. “I know all about Henry’s premature departure. Evan hasn’t stopped crying all week.” He nabbed an apple off the counter and polished it on his flexed pec.
I swung a fist out to the side and landed it hard on his shoulder. “Asshole.”
“What? It’s true. Besides you know beautiful women are my kryptonite. I’d spill all of your deep, dark secrets for one this gorgeous.” He winked at Levee while crunching into the apple.
Her eyes lit as she leaned over the bar and asked, “Is he in love with Henry?”
“Don’t answer that!” I shouted.
He mocked insult. “Man, I would never answer something so personal.” Then he turned to Levee, nodding as he shot her a shit-eating grin.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Can you go home now?” I growled at him.
“Sure can.” He turned back to Levee and shook his head while mouthing, “No.”
“Go,” I ordered.
He threw his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. I’m going. Nice to meet you, Levee.”
“You too, Scott the straight man,” she laughed.
I rolled my eyes and not-so-patiently waited for him to get dressed and actually leave. After one last round of goodbyes, Levee and I were alone again.
“So…Henry?” I prompted.
“Ah, yes. Henry.” She intertwined her fingers and rested her linked hands on the bar between us but said nothing else.
After several seconds of staring at each other, I was the one who finally broke the silence. “You’re killing me here.”
Placing a hand over her heart, she feigned innocence. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you weren’t interested.”
I shot her a don’t-be-ridiculous expression that had her smile spreading so wide I feared for her lips.
“Okay, okay… You freak him out.”
I hitched a thumb at my chest. “I freak him out? Me? The one he ran out on approximately ten seconds after we had sex for the first time? The one he has avoided at all costs since I fucking pulled up my pants? Yeah. Sorry. Didn’t mean to freak him out so badly.”
“Well, I didn’t say it was a rational fear. I’m just stating the facts.”
Groaning, I pinched the bridge of my nose. “You know what? On second thought—I can’t do this. Maybe it’s for the best he took off the way he did. Save us the trouble down the road.”
“He’s scared. This is not the time to quit on him.”
I laughed, and it held God’s-honest humor. “Actually, I’m pretty sure that is the exact moment to quit. I don’t have it in me to play games. You want to talk scared? I’m fucking terrified of your best friend. And you want to know why?”
“Evan…”
“Because I was scared he would do exactly what he did. Work his way into my life, consume me, and then leave my ashes blowing in the wind as he traveled to the next guy.”
“Evan, he didn’t leave. He’s crazy about you. He just doesn’t know how to come back.”
I pointed at the front door. “There’s a door right fucking there. All he has to do is walk through it.”
“It’s not that easy for him,” she said defensively.
And that’s when I lost it. “Yes, it is that easy! I would take him back zero questions asked. Jesus, Levee. I miss him. His laugh. His randomness. The way he can captivate me from across a room. The rush I felt when we were together. It was the closest thing to flying I’ve ever experienced with my feet on the ground. I would do anything to have him back. How fucking sad is that? He damn near breaks me, and I can’t even slam the fucking door in his face.”
She smiled. “That’s not sad at all. That’s why I’m sitting here. Let me give you some info on Henry and then you can decide what you want to do with it. Okay? Just hear me out.”
I leaned forward, propping myself on my fists on the counter. “And who’s going to hear me out? Sure as fuck not Henry. He ran out of here like his ass was on fire because he found out I was bisexual.” I laughed, but it held no humor. “I wasn’t straight enough for the man I was falling in love with. Do you have any idea how much that hurt?”
Her smile fell flat. “I do now.”
I instantly felt guilty. She didn’t deserve my wrath. She was only trying to help, but the longer we talked, the more jaded I became. I wanted him back more than anything, but I couldn’t magically be who he wanted me to be. That’s not how relationships worked. People seek out a mate who can offer comfort and unconditional acceptance. But the way Henry had made me feel that night as he’d lost his shit because of my sexuality had been anything but. There was nothing wrong with who I was. So fucking what I wasn’t straight. So fucking what I wasn’t gay. If he didn’t accept that, I was better off alone.
“I’m sorry. You should go.”
“His name is Henry Gilchrist,” she announced.
“I know,” I called over my shoulder, walking to the front door.
“He— Wait. What? He told you that?” she gasped.
I yanked the door open and motioned for her to go. “Yep. Weeks ago.”
A sinister smile pulled at the corners of her mouth, but she didn’t budge from the stool. “Now, we’re getting somewhere.”
“Any way you can get there faster? I have shit to do today,” I smarted.
“Sure.” She grinned confidently. “He loves you.”
My back shot ramrod straight, and as much as I wanted to deny it, hope swirled in my chest. “Don’t say that.”
“Why? It’s the truth. He loves you, Evan.” She tipped her head to the side. “I mean, he’s a dumbass, but he loves you. For the last week, I’ve been listening to him bitch and moan about how much he misses you. He hasn’t been out gallivanting around town or moving on to the next guy. There is no other guy for him.”
I raked a hand through my hair and tried to pretend that that little bit of information hadn’t ignited a spark inside me all over again. “I think you’re wrong.”
She pushed to her feet and lowered her voice to a scary whisper. “Did he tell you about Robin?”
“Yes,” I replied curtly.
Her brown eyes lit and the proverbial light bulb flashed over her head. “Did he tell you how he grew up?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, wow,” she breathed.
I chewed the inside of my cheek, equally interested in and dreading whatever she was going to say next. I was barely hanging on to what little resolve I had about asking her to leave. I hadn’t needed her “oh, wow” to make me curious, but it really fucking had.
“Evan, that’s huge for him.” She walked over and gently pulled the door from my hand before swinging it shut. “You can Google all of that about him. It’s not a secret. But never, not once—including with me—has he voluntarily told someone about his past. He doesn’t trust people with it. He wants people to see the confident and successful man he is now, not the broken, insecure boy he still secretly harbors inside.”
I blinked. Henry had openly given me that. I’d had no idea what it’d meant to him at the time or I would have offered him the broken parts of my past too. However, now, I was happy I hadn’t.
“Can you just listen to me for ten minutes? I’m not wrong about this. He loves you, and after this conversation, I’m pretty sure you’re in love with him too.”
I clamped my mouth shut.
There was a massive difference between being in love and falling in love.
Being in love was like a never-ending flight through the clouds. Storms were likely. Turbulence a given. But they didn’t last forever. The clouds always returned.
Falling was more like a terrifying test of trust where you’re expected to leap from death-defying altitudes with nothing more than one flawed person with his arms held open, acting as your safety net.
Sometimes, you crashed, shattering into a million pieces, when the person you trusted wasn’t there to catch you. I’d learned that fir
sthand.
But, as I stared at Levee’s pleading eyes as she asked for ten minutes of my time to hopefully enlighten me about the man who had me plummeting in an all-out free fall, I couldn’t help but wonder if Henry was falling too.
And if he was…was I the one who was supposed to be catching him?
AS A SUCCESSFUL songwriter, I prided myself in not only the music, but the ability to transfer simple words into tangible emotions. Over the week without Evan, I realized something truly remarkable.
I didn’t miss him.
Not at all.
Because, according to the dictionary, the word miss meant to notice or discover the absence of something.
I missed how content I felt in his arms.
I missed the way his breath felt whispering across my chest as he slept at my side.
I missed his stoic smiles and their ability to fill my soul for no other reason than they were aimed at me.
I missed the idea of forever and the promise of a future.
No, I didn’t miss Evan at all.
Because you don’t notice or discover the absence of a man like that. That pain was engrained so deeply it was inescapable. It devoured me on a second-by-second basis and consumed my every thought—conscious or not. Sleep wasn’t even a reprieve.
I craved him on every level.
But especially the level where I got to walk into his house and have him wrap me in his strong arms while I hid from the world, or the one where I collapsed naked and sated next to him in bed, knowing that the mind-blowing orgasm wasn’t even going to be the best part of my evening.
I told myself that it was irrational to feel so strongly about a man I had only been seeing for a couple of months.
But, in reality, I knew that the only irrational part was when I’d walked away.
“Henry, where’s Carter?” Levee called from the doorway of my dressing room as I stared at my phone, willing it to ring.
Evan had stopped calling a few days earlier. It was for the best. It meant I didn’t have to have a nervous breakdown every time it rang.
“No idea,” I replied, pushing to my feet and walking her way. “Hey, beautiful,” I purred, pulling her in for a tight squeeze. “How’s my baby?”
“She’s good, but I can’t find Linc and I need someone to escort Sam past the press so he can get to his seat.” She huffed anxiously.
We were in L.A. for a special all-acoustic charity concert Levee was heading. It was a cross between a formal affair and a drunken night of entertainment. The floor level of the arena had been transformed into a lavish dinner party, with tickets having been sold for tens of thousands of dollars. Meanwhile, the upper levels had been sold for donations of any size on a first-come, first-serve basis. It had been Levee’s idea to make tickets affordable to everyone, despite their tax bracket. And it had been a smashing success, bringing out the best in everyone. Those tickets had sold out in a matter of minutes, ranging from one dollar to ten thousand. With the average of each seat going for over seven hundred dollars, it was far more profitable than we’d ever hoped. But, then again, it was the concert of the year. There were over fifteen of the biggest names in the industry, spanning all genres, slated to perform that night.
First up? Me.
“Are you okay?” I rubbed her stomach. “I’m sure he’ll be back in a minute.”
“I’m just stressed about the show—Oh my God, did you feel that?” Grabbing my hand, she moved it just below her belly button. “Shhh…” she said as two hard thumps landed on my palm.
“What the…” I yelled, snatching my hand away as if her spawn had been about to claw its way out, Alien-style.
“Give me back your hand,” she demanded. “Bree wants to say hi. She’s really active right now.”
I backed away as quickly as possible without breaking into a dead sprint—which was not-so-secretly what I wanted to do. “Can she maybe say hi when she isn’t floating in a sack of bodily fluid at Spa de Levee?”
“Stop being an ass and give me your hand. This is important to me. You’re important to me.”
My chest warmed, and as much as it grossed me out, I begrudgingly lifted my hand in her direction. “That’s not fair. You know I can’t say no when you con me like that.”
She smirked mischievously. “No con. But I know you can’t say no.”
“Evil woman,” I mumbled to myself.
Instead of placing my hand on her belly, she ducked under my arm and pulled me in for a hug. Then she asked the million-dollar question. “How are you doing?”
“Better now that you’re here.” It was only a semi lie, and I kissed the top of her head so she wouldn’t see the longing etched across my face at the reminder.
“You sure you’re up to performing tonight? I know it’s been a hard week for you.”
I sighed. Hard was an understatement. But this was Levee.
“Babe, you’ve been planning this thing for two years. There is no way a little heartache could keep me from being here.”
Her curls tickled my nose as she nuzzled in close. “Yeah, but I appreciate it all the same. You’re a real diva, but you sell tickets.”
I laughed. “You’d do it for me.”
She tipped her head back, and her chocolate-brown eyes shimmered as she looked at me and vowed, “I’d do anything for you.”
My heart stopped. I knew exactly how much she meant those words.
“Anything?” I asked around the lump in my throat.
“Anything.”
“Does that mean I can finally take Sam for a romp in the sack?” I asked, opting for humor when the emotions had become too much.
Her eyes smiled. “Sure!”
My head fell back as I lost myself in a fit of laughter. “Really? Just like that?”
“Yep.” She pushed from my arms and made her way to the mirror, sweeping her fingers under her eyes. “I know I’m not usually fond of the sharing thing, but seeing as you’re completely and utterly in love with Evan, I figure you won’t even be able to get it up. This might be the safest Sam has ever been around you.”
My laughter stopped abruptly at the mention of his name.
Her eyes jumped to mine in the reflection of the mirror. “You okay?”
I nodded entirely too many times. “Yeah. Let’s go find Carter so we can get Sam to his seat. I’m up first.” I quickly spun, giving her my back as I willed my heart to slow.
Suddenly, I felt Levee’s hand on my shoulder.
“I checked your schedule,” she said. “You don’t have to be anywhere for two weeks. Why is your tour bus out back?”
I straightened and flashed her a tight smile. “I don’t fly.”
“It’s a five-hour drive home. You could ride with me and Sam.”
I shook my head and toyed with the collar on my pale-blue button-down. “I’m not going home.” Swallowing hard, I pasted on an award-winning smile. “Nothing at home anyway. Robin agreed to finish off the tour with me.” I proffered an arm in her direction. “Let’s go.”
I knew that Levee wouldn’t buy my bullshit, but I didn’t expect her to call me on it either—at least, not right then.
“Deny it,” she ordered, poking my chest with a single finger.
“Deny what?” I poked her back.
“That you love him. And that you’re just fighting the inevitable by trying to stay away from him.”
I couldn’t deny any of it. She was pretty much spot-on.
But leaving had never been about how I felt about Evan.
I threw my hands out to my sides and then slapped them against my thighs when they fell. “Jesus Christ, Levee. Please just drop it.”
“Not until you deny it.” She poked my chest again. “Say you aren’t in love with Evan and I’ll never mention his name again.”
“What is up with you poking me?” I rubbed my pec.
“Don’t change the subject.”
I shit you not, the crazy woman poked me again. I was probably going to have a bru
ise from her knobby little fingers.
“Stop.” I swatted her hand away.
“Deny it!”
I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t force the blatant lie from my tongue, no matter how much I wanted her to drop it. “I can’t,” I breathed on a resigned sigh.
“What was that? I couldn’t hear you.”
I lifted my eyes and glowered at her. “Can you just stop? You of all people know I can’t deny any of it. But hey, thanks for gutting me ten minutes before I have to go on stage.”
Levee hated feeling guilty, and I fully expected an apology when she realized the salt she’d just poured in my wound.
I didn’t get it though.
Her smile grew impossibly wide as she cupped my jaw. “I love you, so get your shit together. The last thing I need is to be forced to issue refunds because Henry Alexander sounded like a dying cat.”
She sauntered into the hall and then walked away, Linc hot on her Jimmy Choos.
My four-song set went off without a hitch. On stage might have been the only place I was able to forget about the ache in my chest. But, the minute the last note played, my regrets collapsed down on my shoulders again.
I showered and changed while Levee did her set. Then the two of us smiled for the press as we made our way arm in arm to our seats. A fresh gin and tonic and what I assumed was sparkling cider waited for us at our table. I was tired and really just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep for a week. Instead, I plastered a smile on and chatted with the strangers who stopped by our table between sets.
The latest up-and-comer in country music was busy marching around the stage when Levee turned sideways in her chair and leaned back against my side.
“What do you make of that?” she asked, pointing to where Carter was standing in a cove just on the other side of the backstage door.
He was mostly hidden, but Levee, Sam, and I had the only seats in the house with the exact right vantage point to see him. His back faced us, but his shoulders were hunched over and his head bent low.
I shrugged and began clapping with the rest of the crowd as Bubba Somebody took his final bow.
Fisting the front of my shirt, she dragged me down to her line of sight and pointed at the floor. “No. Look.”
