“No,” he said. “I wouldn’t.”
“Yeah. So maybe I do care.” I sighed. “But that doesn’t mean it’s gonna stop me. And it shouldn’t stop you either.”
He didn’t say anything to that, but he didn’t look happy. I knew he was probably thinking about all the ways this might come back on me, to bite me in the ass.
“Let’s just play,” I said, turning away. “And we’ll see what happens.”
After a moment, he joined me by the window to look out over the water.
“Nice view,” he said, which was kinda putting it mildly. “Doesn’t make for the best acoustics…” He rapped a knuckle lightly on the glass. “But I can see why you wouldn’t want to cover it up.” Then he looked at me, like he liked the view inside the room even more.
“Yeah. I, uh…” I faltered under the look in those smoky eyes of his and gazed outside again. “I have a basement studio in my place in L.A., but I don’t love feeling like I’m in some dark cave while I work. This suits me better.”
“I can see that,” he said softly.
“I just bought the house this year, since I was spending so much time up here. You know, writing the new album with the guys…” I trailed off.
Seth said nothing.
He turned back to the room, and I watched as he perused the equipment. It was a fully-furnished and equipped recording studio, though it lacked a drum kit. The space and the acoustics didn’t allow for that. Originally, this was the main living room of the house, but as soon as I’d moved in, I’d sacrificed it to my music. In the end, it wasn’t much of a sacrifice. Music was the core of my life; it only made sense that it filled the heart of my home.
I watched Seth take his guitar out of its case. It was the same slightly-battered and clearly well-loved acoustic he’d brought with him to Hawaii. He looked at me as he strapped it on; I was still hovering by the window.
“You want me to play,” he said, and gave me a small smirk, “you might want to sit your sexy ass down. It’s gonna take a while.”
So I sat my sexy ass down on the couch. And for a while, I just listened to Seth play.
He played me a song that he’d written, a gorgeous ballad that he sang to me while he played. The lyrics were typical rock ballad stuff, something about being on the road and missing someone back home, then being home and missing the road, but there was something about the way Seth sang it. The way Seth played it. The little unexpected twists he threw into the lyrics, just when you thought he was going to sing something cliche and rhyming, then he didn’t. Something that kept you on edge for the next word, the next verse. That rare and heartrending something that was uniquely Seth’s.
Fucking hell, but he was an incredible songwriter.
He played me another song, more up-tempo, but just as catchy, just as haunting and addictive and bittersweet.
And then he just kept playing. And playing…
As it turned out, once he’d cracked open that can of worms… Seth had a ton of material. Ideas. Songs and parts of songs. And his fucking talent… it was oozing from his fingertips. Dripping from his lyrics.
He basically had seven years’ worth of untapped material. But not one completed, recorded song.
I was astonished.
This was Seth Brothers. A lot of bands—great bands—would’ve taken him on. Great musicians. Producers. He could’ve put together his own band, under his own name. Woo himself probably would’ve hit the studio with Seth if Seth had ever asked him to.
“I never wrote with anyone but Dirty,” he explained as I sat here, just astounded by the sheer volume of untapped brilliance, the scope of his work. I hadn’t even touched my bass yet, or opened my mouth, other than to gape at him. “I never wrote for anyone else. Guess I’ve got kind of a backlog here…”
That was putting it mildly.
And I was nothing but grateful. Humbled, actually, that he’d chosen to share his work—his passion—with me, like this.
Grateful, also, that there was so damn much of it. Because the more material Seth and I had to play and explore and fiddle around with, the longer we could draw this out. Here, in my home studio… this private little bubble where we were hidden away from the rest of the world.
Just the two of us and the music.
Several days later, Seth and I were just finishing up a long day—and half of the night—playing together in the studio, and as I watched him laying his guitar down in its case, I asked him, “How do you feel about all of this?”
His back was to me, but by the way he stopped moving when I asked, I knew he’d picked up on the fact that I was asking him how he felt about a lot more than the music we’d been playing.
That I was asking him how he felt about playing music with me… but not having sex with me.
Maybe I wanted to know if it was slowly killing him, like it was killing me.
He turned and met my eyes. I was standing just inside the arched doorway, waiting for him. Waiting to walk him out and kiss him on the cheek as he left, just like I’d done every other night that we’d been here.
“I feel… alive,” he said softly, his gray-green eyes searching my face. “For the first time in a long time, I feel like I did when I was younger. Before I was using so much. When music meant more to me than the drugs. When I had all kinds of dreams and hopes and aspirations for myself and for the music.”
“That’s good,” I said. It was beautiful, actually. And not exactly unexpected. I could tell that’s how he was feeling, more or less, when we played together. But hearing him put those feelings into words made me feel warm all over.
“Yeah.” He looked around the studio. “Before, all I wanted was to get Dirty back.” His eyes met mine again. “But now… I just want to keep playing. This… getting to play with you like this… it’s a fucking dream come true for me.”
I just nodded, because I believed him. I understood.
We’d just been working on a new song, one that he’d started writing earlier this year, and now I’d embellished the bass line on it, and we’d both been singing it together. It was definitely something we could record. I was planning to get Summer over to hear it and add a little of her magic to it, too, see what we could do with it.
I wanted to tell him how excited I was about it. That playing with him was pretty fucking dreamy for me, too. For several reasons.
I’d never written much with Dirty; that was a big reason why I’d felt the need to cut a solo album, and probably would again. But even though Jesse and Zane wrote most of Dirty’s music, Dylan and I had always been included in the songwriting credits on each song, so that we’d all get an equal split in the royalties. And of course I appreciated that, but in the end it wasn’t just about the money or the credit. When Jesse and Zane wrote music, they weren’t so… collaborative. At least, they weren’t with me. With Jessa, it was different; they welcomed her input on any song. I’d never begrudged them the fact that the music they came up with—the three of them—was undeniably better-suited to Dirty than anything I could write… but this was special.
Seth was special.
He listened to my ideas and got excited about them, played off of them, the way Summer did. We created well together. And I wanted to tell him all of that.
But somehow the words got choked up in my throat. I lost my nerve.
I just didn’t know how to do this. How to tell him how I was feeling without seeming like a hypocrite. A tease.
How to have sex with him again, when I couldn’t go the distance with him.
Having sex with him, then telling him we can’t have sex… then having sex with him again? Then getting scared, and doing the whole thing over again? Hot. Cold.
Unfair.
I didn’t want to do that to him.
To either of us.
He was closing the distance between us, and I just stood here against the wall. I looked up at him as he leaned in; he kissed me on the cheek. It was soft and warm, but quick. “Thank you,” he said.
“Thank you,” I managed to whisper.
His eyes held mine, and I was aware, distantly, of his hand moving. He was pulling something out of his jeans pocket.
My eyes dropped to the papers in his hand as my heart beat, heavy and quick, in my chest.
“I got tested.” He was unfolding the papers, carefully, and held them out to me. “I’m clean. I brought the results for you to see.” He was waiting for me to take them, so I did.
I scanned the papers; results from a medical lab, dated earlier this week. There were several pages’ worth, a whole battery of blood tests that proved Seth free of every nasty STD I’d ever heard of.
“I’m not pressuring—” He faltered, like he wanted to make sure he chose the right words, as I handed the papers back to him. “I’m not expecting anything.” His gaze collided with mine again. “This isn’t about that, Elle. I’m not trying to pressure you to have sex with me again. I just… I want you to know I’m clean, so you don’t have to worry about what happened the other day.”
I took that all in and nodded. “I know.” I appreciated it. In my experience, it was more than most men would do.
I’d had men completely balk at the idea of getting tested before sleeping with me. I’d had men debate with me over the necessity of wearing a condom.
Needless to say, in the end, I hadn’t had sex with those men.
But this man… he’d been inside me for mere seconds without a condom, and he was worried about me being worried about it.
“No matter what happens, Elle,” he said, “I just want you to feel safe with me.”
“I do,” I told him, and I realized it was true. “But… we would still have to use a condom. If we had sex.” The idea of that, the possibility… us, just standing here discussing it… it was getting me hot.
I wanted to have sex with him again. Badly.
I just feared what would happen afterward. Both of us, getting hurt.
“I know,” he said. “If we have sex again… I’m gonna carry around like ten condoms in my pockets, at all times, just in case.” He smiled a little, dimple flashing.
I smiled back. I trusted that. I trusted him. Maybe because he hadn’t pressured me. Just like he told me he would in my bedroom the other day, Seth was letting me call the shots. He was following my rules.
He hadn’t tried to touch me again.
I hadn’t asked him to.
But he did keep giving me that look, the one he was giving me right now—the one that told me he’d be naked with me in seconds, if I wanted that.
And I did want that. Not just because I was crazy-hot for him; I wanted it because I did feel safe with him—in more ways than just the physical. Because all the bullshit fears that had plagued me, virtually crippling me… the lingering doubts and anxiety left in the wake of my heartbreak… I really didn’t feel any of it when Seth was here.
I wasn’t the least bit afraid of him dumping me, leaving me, breaking my heart. He just wasn’t that kind of person.
Seth Brothers was not a heartbreaker.
Jesse Mayes had sat me down, the morning after the final show of our last tour, at my place in L.A., and told me, in a very businesslike manner, that we were over. That he couldn’t be with me anymore. Then he’d flown home to Vancouver. And that was it.
There was no further conversation, no back-and-forth. He delivered the blow, and I was just expected to deal with it. He left me to deal with it, alone. We were still friends. We’d always be friends. I knew he cared about me. Loved me, even; I was part of his band and part of his history. But as far as dealing with my broken heart, he was unavailable to me. Emotionally disinterested, or incapable, or just plain selfish; I had never decided which. Maybe he was just too happy with Katie to even see how hard it had been for me. Or maybe, in the end, he was all of the above.
As Seth stood before me, tucking his lab results back into his pocket, I knew he’d never be like that. Would never leave me broken like that and just walk away. I didn’t know how I knew, exactly. But I knew.
My heart was safe with him.
No matter what this was, or wasn’t, or how far it went… Seth would handle my heart with care.
If only I could give him that chance.
“I should get some sleep,” I told him, even as our eyes remained locked and that needy heat unfurled low in my belly, spreading through my core… that restless ache. The memories I now had of him… dropping to his knees, his mouth between my legs… fucking me on my bedroom floor as the world I’d known just kind of crumbled around me and a new and very uncertain reality took hold.
The fact was, I wanted a man I was not supposed to want.
A man who wasn’t supposed to be in my life in any significant way, and yet, I wanted him here, in my home. I’d taken him to Hawaii with me. I’d followed him to Vancouver.
I’d taken him to my bed.
And yet I still didn’t have a clue how I was going to do it: how I was going to tell the closest people in my life that Seth and I were making music together, much less that we were intimately involved.
Because we were. I felt it as we stood here, inches from one another. We were intimate, and we were involved, even if we weren’t having sex.
“Okay,” he said lightly, and if he was disappointed, he didn’t show it. “Sleep it is.” He put his hand on my arm, warm and strong, and he kissed me, softly, on the forehead.
For a breath, he hesitated there, and I knew he was giving me a moment… just in case I suddenly yanked him to me and kissed him and asked him to stay.
But I didn’t.
I wanted to. I so, so wanted to… but I didn’t.
Chapter Twenty-One
Seth
It was Monday. A new week.
I was sitting in Elle’s home studio, alone, cross-legged on the floor in front of the big, open windows, drinking coffee as the evening sun and the fresh coastal air poured over me. I was working on a new song, one of my favorite acoustics in my lap. I’d had Michelle ship it over from Boston, and had a few others shipped up from Austin and L.A.. My guitars were like the rest of my shit; strewn all over North America.
I’d played with Elle for ten days straight now, here in her studio. We’d spent most of that time working on new songs, and on the weekend, we’d started recording. Five nights ago, I’d shown her my test results, but she still hadn’t touched me. She hadn’t given me any indication that she wanted me to touch her. And even though it was silently killing me, not being able to reach out and draw her into my arms, I could hardly put pressure on her.
She said this was how she wanted it. That what happened was just sex. And apparently, “just sex” meant just one night of sex. And the morning after. And that was it.
I still didn’t believe that was all there was between us. But I was not gonna push it.
Elle was in a tough spot as it was.
I knew she still hadn’t told the guys in the band, or Brody, what she was doing here, at her house, with me. If I’d been a better man, maybe I would’ve bowed right out of her life, made it easier on her.
But I didn’t.
I’d crashed on Ray’s couch for a few more nights so I could spend time with him in the mornings, have breakfast, talk about sports and other shit I did not care about but Ray did. I cared about Ray, so I put that time in. But every day I’d been itching to get back here. I’d come over as soon as Elle texted me that she was up and ready to play.
Since I’d checked into the hotel, though, things had gotten harder. At least at Ray’s I felt like I was serving a purpose. Now, each night as I lay in my hotel bed, alone, I thought about just packing up and taking off. Just leaving Elle the fuck alone, the way I should’ve left Jessa alone all those years ago.
There were just too many uncomfortable similarities here.
The big ugly secret of it all.
The lies Elle was gonna have to tell the band because of me.
The fact that she’d probably be better off without me,
without this major fucking complication in her life.
I just couldn’t believe she’d put up with this kind of complication if it was just to make some music and have one whirlwind night of sex. She could get that from a lot of other men, without the complications.
Which just left me lying in bed at night, staring at the ceiling with the question thudding in my head: Why me?
But each day, I shoved that question aside and enjoyed this for all it was worth—which was a hell of a lot. Because each day, the days I played with Elle in her studio, felt like the best days I’d had in a long, long time.
The best days since I’d lost Dirty.
I did not know how to give this up. This, the best thing I had going in my life.
Even if it was selfish. Even if it wasn’t the best thing for Elle.
I looked around her studio… This beautiful, white room with its high ceilings and the rainbow-colored portrait of Bob Marley on one wall, a couple of platinum Dirty albums lined casually, crookedly, on another. The big, fluffy chair covered in white faux fur. The girlie magazines and music magazines all mixed up on the coffee table, with random earrings and tubes of lip gloss and bottles of nail polish. The single photo, carefully framed and set on a shelf—of Elle when she was a teenager, maybe sixteen or so, with her parents and her little sister, all snuggled up together on a couch.
This room… it felt like Elle’s sacred space.
I was still amazed that she’d let me in here. Sometimes, it was easier to fathom that she’d let me into her bed than that she’d let me into this room.
Today, she was gone. Dirty had resumed auditions. Which meant I’d lost any chance I’d had with them, if I’d ever had any at all. They were officially continuing their search to replace me.
But I still had this.
I had the music Elle and I were making, the long days spent in her studio, sometimes right into the night. And today, while she was at the auditions, she’d let me hang out here while she wasn’t even here.
About an hour ago, she’d texted to let me know she was on her way home and wondering if I wanted to stick around. A little while after that, she texted again to say maybe we could order dinner in, but meanwhile, I’d already cooked her dinner. Figured it was the least I could do, since she’d let me be here while she was out—though it felt weirdly domestic. Weird because I wasn’t used to making dinner for anyone but myself. The few days I’d spent in Hawaii with Elle and her staff, I’d cooked more meals for other people than I had in years.
Dirty Like Seth_A Dirty Rockstar Romance Page 20
