Slash and Burn

by Jade C. Jamison

  Could she?

  He couldn’t think of anything to say, so he kept his mouth shut. He barely heard her when she said, “I missed you, Nick.”

  There was no helping the words coming from his lips. “What would Monica say to that?”

  Her voice was typically cool but she kept her head leaning on him while they continued to walk. “Monica knows how I feel about you.”

  “And how exactly is that?”

  “You’re very special to me.”

  He had to protect himself, but he knew it was impossible. He was already exposed, raw…and hopeful. “So what’s that mean anyway?” He kept walking, not ready to look her in the eyes. If he did, his demise would be spelled out. Part of his heart held out hope that she would say the three of them would find a way to make it work. He knew it happened sometimes—three people who cared for each other making a relationship work…but he knew it was rare and he didn’t know if those setups continued to function after the newness wore off. Still…part of him wanted to try. He knew Monica had no attraction to him and, aside from their acceptance of one another, he doubted she felt any special affinity for him, any more than he did her. Honestly, he suspected she viewed him the same way he did her—as competition.

  He knew she was the victor, though, and he would only ever be second place.

  “It means that I care about you very much.” She placed her hand on his chest and he stopped moving forward. He was focused on her lips at first, but he couldn’t stop his eyes from drifting upward. Once again, he was the helpless and fucking stupid moth, and Brina continued to burn brightly, tempting him to stay too close to her fire.

  He scanned her eyes, looking for something, anything that would tell him it would work, but he knew he needed to wait for her words. He tried to speak but found that he was mute. As he struggled, trying to find the right words, she brought her lips to his and immersed him in a sensual kiss that moved every little thing inside him—a well of emotions, desire, and an unbridled need—for what, he didn’t know. But there was no stopping his response. His hands wrapped around her waist and held her close as he kissed her with the force of a thousand horses…and an almost broken man. He knew he didn’t dare speak afterward, because he didn’t trust anything he had to say. So he sucked in a slow breath and waited for her to say what was on her mind. “Nick, I really do care about you, but I don’t think you believe that. I just…” She looked down at his lips before returning her eyes to his. “Monica’s my soulmate, and she always will be. That’s something you need to know.”

  Oh, God, part of him, the pathetic part that still hated his parents for their soulless marriage, wanted to ask her if and where he fit into that scheme, but the Nick of today, the one who projected the never-give-a-shit image, wanted no part of it.

  Yeah…the real Nick knew he didn’t need to be a plaything—and he was beginning to realize that was all he would ever be to Brina.

  She kissed him again and it almost dissipated his resolve. He was ready to be her willing slave, her whipping boy, her doormat, simply for the occasional taste of her, but the Nick who’d decided long ago that love was a sham, that finding a partner to journey through life with was bullshit, the guy who was the fucking drummer of world-famous Fully Automatic, who had friends who gave a shit, who had triumphed over his past, no matter how stupid it seemed—that Nick knew that if he did this, if he went through with it, that was it. He’d be a tragic nobody the rest of his life if he let Brina lord over him. He could sense that in himself.

  He’d seen it in Monica, that need for attention and occasional morsels of love from this woman. He’d seen in their short time together how she hung on Brina’s every word, every glance, every nod of approval. He saw how she had to have those things from Brina, how her ego, her sense of self hung on them, and he couldn’t let himself become that way. He couldn’t let Brina decide how he felt about himself. He wasn’t going to let her have that kind of control over him, no matter how badly he wanted her.

  He held her by the shoulders, as if to stave off what felt like another attack, and he searched her eyes. He couldn’t read her, had never been able to, and as much as he wanted to believe there was potential for eternal love there, he knew it wouldn’t be for him. He was sure of that. So he took a deep breath and tried to draw from a hidden pool of resolve when he said, “Brina…you are a hell of a bassist. I’m glad we found you for Val Hella…but I think you and I need to cool things off between us.”

  With those words, he saw her normally icy eyes flare and she squinted at him. “What, Channing? You think there was something huge between us?”

  He took another breath. What was it with her? “You don’t have to be bitchy, Brina.”

  She clenched her jaw and darted her eyes back and forth, searching his, trying to find an answer to something, he had no idea what. Finally, she said, “You’re right.” She took a breath and he could see something stripped bare, as though maybe for one of those rare times she was going to be honest with him. Maybe she too felt as though she’d been laid raw from their all-consuming yet short relationship. After some time, she nodded and said, “Okay, Nick…yeah, you’re totally right. I’m pretty sure I love you, but, yeah, you got it right. You will always be second fiddle. You’ll always be just a boy toy—a loveable, amazing boy toy…but…”

  She’d said in just a few sentences everything Nick had known in the back of his mind, deep in his heart. All that threw him off was the fact that she said she was “sure” she loved him. He hadn’t sensed anything like love coming from her before.

  A theory started to gel in his mind, and he credited it to the fact that he’d spent time away from her. He believed it was the distance that enabled him to see the forest she was instead of focusing on her individual trees. He wondered if she sought him out when she was lonely and aching for the person she really loved…or wanted to be with. He was beginning to doubt if she could actually love someone.

  He was starting to think she was too selfish to.

  So, as much as he loved her, he had to walk away. He took her arm and laced it back in his and, without a word, began walking again so they could catch up to the rest of their group. “I think we’re going to have to agree to be friends, Brina.”

  Her face looked like stone and Nick thought maybe she was, once more, hiding what she was feeling, a problem he’d had with her from the beginning. She hid everything she thought and felt—or maybe she simply didn’t think or feel anything when it came to him. He saw her jaw set as though concrete had solidified and she said, “If that’s what you want, Channing.”

  He didn’t know that it was what he wanted, but he was fuckin’ sure it was what he needed.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  BY THE BAND’S next break, a one-week hiatus late summer before touring overseas, Nick’s heart felt less raw. He’d buried his heartache in occasional groupie pussy on the road, just like Zane had suggested, but the problem now was that it only took the edge off the hurt. Now that he’d actually found a space in his heart for a woman, he felt an emptiness without her. It was something he would have described as poignant had anyone bothered to ask.

  The biggest problem was that hardly anyone even knew how much Brina had meant to him. That was mostly his fault—he knew that. But no way now would he say shit about it to anyone. He now understood that he was, in her own words, nothing more than a boy toy to her. That had probably been more painful than anything else she’d said. He understood that Monica was Brina’s everything, but to be told, after all they’d gone through and after everything he’d felt about her, that he was a mere plaything left a wound that would take a while to heal—if he could ever fully recover from that blow. Worst yet, he’d finally managed to move past the wall he’d built when trying to protect himself from the scars his parents’ failed relationship had caused, and all the shit with Brina had done had been to reaffirm that he’d been right to begin with.

  After a couple of days of trying to get through to him,
Brina gave up and resumed her usual cold self.

  Good fucking riddance.

  If her bass playing had suffered, he might have found a way to talk to her, but she made it easy on him. She picked up her own share of groupie pussy, and everyone was happy.

  Happy-ish.

  Gracie called Nick the day before Val Hella was slated to leave the country, offering to help him pack. He’d told her he was more than capable of getting himself ready to go, but she insisted. Besides, she said, she had the night off and needed something to do. She needed to get out of the house, away from kids and wedded bliss and all that bull crap. She wanted to hang with someone real, she said…whatever the hell that meant. So he relented and asked her to bring beer and he’d pay her back when she got there.

  He had his luggage spread on his bed when he heard the doorbell ring. He turned his head toward the bedroom door and shouted so she’d hear him outside the front door. “Come in!”

  After less than a minute, he heard her voice. “Where are you?”

  “In the bedroom.”

  Gracie made her way in there, reminding Nick of the last time she’d been in that room…the time they’d accidentally slept together.

  Only now, as his mind conjured up those images, he realized it hadn’t been an accident. Deep down, he knew this woman meant more to him than he’d ever admitted. She was kind, thoughtful, and cared about Nick inside and out. He could remember their unbridled passion, the way their bodies had seemed to fit together perfectly, all the sweet and sexy things that had tumbled out of her mouth.

  But she probably didn’t feel a goddamn thing for him, especially after he’d told her Brina was the be-all, end-all for him. Add to that he thought he would be no good for her. She deserved someone who wasn’t fucked in the head.

  She said, “I put the beer in fridge.” She pointed a thumb toward the doorway. “Unless you wanted one now.”

  “Nah. I’m good.”

  “Good idea. You might not be able to remember everything you need to pack if you’re blitzed.”

  “You think I’m a lightweight, blondie?”

  She giggled and then put a serious look on her face, pretending to assess him, cupping her chin in her hand. “I plead the fifth.”

  He shook his head, smiling, and then opened the top drawer on his dresser. “What I hate most about being on the road is doing laundry. How many shirts do you think I should pack to minimize the amount of loads I have to do?”

  She shrugged. “I have no idea…but I could do your laundry if you want.”

  “No way in hell. You want to wash my stinky, funky clothes? I barely want to subject my worst enemy to it.”

  “I’m offering. I have to do mine anyway, and I usually do the kids’ too, so yours would barely add to it. If I have to do a couple of loads anyway, what’s one more?”

  He grinned, shaking his head again. “You’re crazy.”

  She bit her lip and walked over to the dresser, looking into the drawer and grabbing a few t-shirts. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

  Nick considered her again. Now that summer was imminent once more, she was wearing the shorts and baby doll tees that clung to her curvy, thin figure, and he could see in his head what she looked like underneath—his memory filled in all the blanks. He swallowed, knowing where his mind was going, and he wasn’t stopping it this time. “Why are you so good to me, Gracie?”

  She was standing at the foot of the bed now, holding a t-shirt up and setting it on the bed before picking up another one to examine. “You’re my friend, Nick—my best friend. If friends can’t be good to one another, who can?”

  He stepped over and touched her chin, urging her with his fingers to turn and look at him. “I’m not so good to you.”

  She frowned. “Why would you even say that, Nick? You are.”

  “Yeah…and what have I done for you lately?”

  “Anytime I need to hang with you—for whatever reason—you never turn me down. And a few weeks ago, remember? Those guys were getting grabby and handsy at that bar in San Diego and you threatened to beat the shit out of them if they did anything without my permission. Remember?”

  “So? I’d do that for anybody.”

  “Baloney.” She folded the shirt in her hands and placed it in the open suitcase.

  It was on impulse, something boiling in his blood, but he wasn’t going to mess around anymore. He knew this was right, and he wasn’t going to deny himself—or his best friend—any longer. They had spent too many months pretending they were only friends, and he didn’t want to do it anymore. He reached out and, with a sweep of his arm, pushed both almost-empty bags off the bed. Gracie gasped, her eyes wide, and she looked at Nick just as he took her in his arms and pulled her down on the bed so that they lay side by side.

  She looked frightened at first but then giggled. “What’s gotten into you, Nick?”

  Instead of answering, he cupped her cheeks in his hands and kissed her. It was full of passion, love, and unbridled emotion—things he’d denied and buried and hidden from her and the world for far too long.

  The only answer he needed was the one he got from her, and that was no protest, pure emotional response. Her hands were in his hair as she kissed him back and seemed to move her body so close to his, they were welded together. So he kept his mouth locked on hers for one kiss after another, but he kept his dick on a leash. This was not about sex.

  After a few minutes, he took his lips off hers and opened his eyes. She kept hers closed and sucked air through her parted lips as though she were dizzy. He moved his fingers to her forehead and brushed a lock of hair aside until she looked at him. She cleared her throat and a small smile formed on her face as she repeated her earlier words: “What’s gotten into you, Nick?”

  “Gracie, I am a complete and total dumb ass. I was looking for love with someone incapable of giving it, thinking maybe I felt it too, but it was right here all along. You…” He couldn’t find the right words to tell her what he was feeling, and he was afraid he would ruin the moment if he tried bumbling through it.

  He couldn’t read her, and her expression was giving nothing away. “You’re not just imagining it, Nick, are you?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Imagining it? Seriously?” The laugh that came out of his mouth was nothing he could have controlled. “Gracie, you should have known me when Fully Automatic first started out. You’ve only known me a couple of years. I used to be the biggest player…I was going to say second only to Ethan, but I don’t think even that’s true. My plan was to never let a woman inside, to never get close, and why? Because my parents were the worst couple ever, and if that was what a relationship was all about, fuck it. I wanted no part of it. A growing boy’s gotta have sex, though. No denying that part of myself. And Brina? I’m not sure you even want to hear this.”

  Gracie blinked and stroked his cheek. “No. Go ahead.”

  He smiled. Spoken by a true friend. “I really don’t know exactly how that happened, except…well, she was the first woman in years to blow me off—more than once—and…she was very different.”

  “‘Cause she’s bi?”

  “Yeah. And…I guess I kind of viewed her as a challenge…and…please don’t think worse of her.”

  Gracie raised an eyebrow—not unlike Brina—and said, completely deadpan, “Oh, I can’t think worse of Brina.”

  Nick smiled in spite of himself. “She got under my skin, Gracie. I felt like a teenager again—unsure of myself, feeling like I needed permission and approval. It’s a place I don’t want to go back to. It wasn’t a partnership and there was nothing equal about it. I don’t want that shit or need it.” He looked down at her lips again, feeling the urge to kiss her hard, but he resisted. “I’m over her—way over her—and I want to keep our breakup, if that’s what you’d even call it, amicable, but I’ve had several months to digest my feelings, search my heart, and I know now that I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want hollow one-night or even several-night stands. I w
ant a friend to go through life with, and I realized what a fucking idiot I’ve been. The time last year when we slept together? When I thought back to that, it was like being hit in the head with an anvil. Why I didn’t see it right then and there…?”

  The sweet blonde in his arms giggled. “You were still Nick the Playa.”

  He laughed and touched his nose to hers. “Yeah, I guess so. I wouldn’t have known love if it had bitten me in the ass, babe. But I see it now. And…” He let the breath out between his lips before forming his next words. “I want to be yours if you’ll have me.”

  She brushed a light kiss on his lips and said, “Are you kidding?” Her voice was soft and quiet. “I’ve been yours since that night last year.” As Nick let his mind flash back, he knew she wasn’t joking. He knew Gracie had done some group partying, but she hadn’t been with a guy in all that time. Holy shit. What a fucking dick he’d been. What an asshole.

  “And you still want me?”

  “Good things come to those who wait.”

  One thing was certain—he knew for sure what he wanted now. There was no question about it. He pulled Gracie close and let his lips and body tell her everything he felt for her, everything his mouth had no clue to say.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  NICK AWOKE THAT evening to his cell phone ringing. He sat up, blinking, and grabbed the phone off the nightstand. It was Brad, so he decided to go ahead and answer it. He glanced over at Gracie, whose back was toward him. He’d been snuggled up next to her, hugging her like they were two spoons in a drawer, and he could still smell her on him.

  It was a smell he never wanted to lose.

  “Yeah, man. What’s up?”

  He got out of bed and tiptoed into the hallway so his voice wouldn’t disturb Gracie. He was going to mosey into the living room but remembered that the big front window had the curtains drawn and he was completely nude, so he instead walked into the bathroom and closed the door. While he walked, Brad responded. “Hope you’ve enjoyed your time off.”