“I just thought…if we had sex enough, she wouldn’t ever leave me.” A boulder started to grow in his throat. “She was a virgin when we met, and up until The Party, I would have sworn to you that I was the only man she’d ever been with. She loved sex. Loved it. Anytime, anywhere. She was always willing to experiment, and she’s so creative. And flexible.” Logan licked his lips. Thinking about it was making him hard.
“And she wasn’t doing it to please you.”
“Hell no. She wore me out sometimes. But I knew great sex was something I could always give her, and I thought if I gave her enough, she’d stay.”
“You know a relationship can’t survive on just physical attraction.”
“I know, but it was the only thing I had to offer.”
* * * *
“What is your plan?” Trisha asked. “You have to have a plan.”
Suzi gritted her teeth and changed the channel.
“Suzi?” Trisha lifted the remote out of her hand. “Susan.”
“Don’t call me Susan.”
Trisha smoothed her neat blue skirt and sat on the coffee table. “Suz, you can’t sit around my apartment watching TV forever. Have you even written anything in the last month? In college, you never stopped.”
“I’m grieving.” Suzi estimated her chances of getting the remote back to be slim to none. Trisha had a good grip on it, and her mood wasn’t advantageous.
“You’re sitting on the couch doing nothing. You won’t even go to the gym.”
According to Trisha, that was her biggest sin. The not writing. The hiding from all her other friends. The sitting on the couch watching TV all day. The not eating. None of that trumped not going to the gym. “Trisha—”
“I’m not listening.” Trisha stood up. “I understand you were madly in love with Logan, and you just broke up with him—”
“Publicly.”
“Yes.” Trisha groaned. She tossed the remote onto the table. “Suzi, you’ve been sitting on that couch for a month. You need to do something.”
Suzi sat up. “I will. I swear.” She checked her watch. It was a gift from Logan. For two months now, she’d been taking it off every night and putting it on every morning without thinking. Unbuckling it, she tossed it on the table. “You’re going to be late for work. Why don’t you go, and I’ll figure something out. I promise, by the time you come home, I’ll have a plan.”
Trisha narrowed her gaze at Suzi before grabbing her purse and walking out.
“Not all of us started kindergarten with a detailed life plan to become a marketing genius,” Suzi muttered as she opened up her email.
A plan.
Her email was full again. She hadn’t checked it since she got here. Wally wanted to know what to do with her stuff. He’d stashed it in his garage where it was safe, and it was no problem, but… Okay, what he wanted to know was where was she, and was she all right? Fair enough. So did everyone else who had emailed. If she sorted the email alphabetically by subject, the list wouldn’t change—almost every one of them started with the word where. Except for Brian’s. His first one read *tap, tap* Is this thing on? The one after that read Nature Girl! Come out, come out wherever you are! She opened that one.
Hey Suzi, here’s another bottle in the ocean. I’m at Jason’s in WVA. If you want to fall down that waterfall again, give me a call, and I’ll pick you up. You can talk. You cannot talk. You can lie in the hammock and watch the trees grow. I don’t give a shit. I’ll even run interference for you for free. That’s got to be the best deal going because quality interference-running is hard to find, and I’m the best in the field. I’m your oxygen.
She clicked open a couple of his other emails. They ranged from silly to frustrated. He’d heard she’d seen Logan, and it hadn’t gone well. Brian said he remembered what it was like to be where she was, and back then she’d been there for him so he thought he owed her one. Remember? England? When Brian smashed that bottle on the wall fighting with her, and she ended up playing Trivial Pursuit as a drinking game with Marc and Ty and getting so wasted that he had to carry her to bed where absolutely nothing whatsoever happened? Remember?
Most of it, she didn’t remember, and what she did, she’d been trying to forget. Ever since she woke up fully dressed and alone that morning, she had known he was trustworthy, too.
And since he was offering to let her lie in a hammock and watch the trees grow to her heart’s content, she decided that sounded like a great plan.
Chapter 14
Three years ago
Suzi swallowed and braced herself. Brian was wallowing, and she couldn’t take it. His eyes hadn’t been this dim since the first time she met him when he was still married to Bonnie. Did he still love her somehow? “I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to spend every day sitting on the veranda drinking.”
Brian sneered and bobbed his head, continuing to stare across the lawn.
“You wanted to come to England to write the new album.” Suzi hooked a lock of hair behind her ear. Feet together and back straight, she felt like she was trying to give a speech to her whole university. “We could take a break and go sightseeing. Just to get out.”
“I don’t want to go look at a bunch of fucking castles. I’m perfectly happy where I am.”
Suzi clasped her hands together. She should never have mentioned castles last time. Those she could do alone. All she was doing here was hanging out, waiting for the Savitar tour to swing past and pick her up for a couple of weeks. Supposedly, she was also helping Brian with his depression, but he wouldn’t let her. “I wasn’t thinking of castles. There’s a nice Beatles tour in Liverpool. That wouldn’t be a bad day trip.”
“I don’t want to go to Liverpool.” He took another swig from the bottle. He’d given up glasses, too, but she figured that was to annoy her.
If the Beatles didn’t work, she wasn’t sure what to try. He’d already nixed Sheffield, and nothing on Earth was getting him over to Dublin. Jason had asked her to come stay with them for a while because Brian had become unbearable as his divorce progressed. They thought she could cheer him up or at least distract him. So far, no good. All she seemed able to do was irritate him more. “I was planning on making cookies. You in?”
He rolled his eyes toward her, took another ostentatious drink, and went back to glaring into the distance.
“Brian, this is ridiculous. You’re just being childish.”
“Leave me alone.”
“I can’t leave you sitting here sulking and drinking. It’s unhealthy.”
“When did you become my mother?” Brian snapped.
Suzi drew a quick breath to bolster her confidence. His mother? Is that what she sounded like? “I just don’t like to see you like this.”
“Then go away!” Brian threw the bottle onto the flagstones on the other side of his chair.
Suzi recoiled. None of the glass came anywhere near her, but the violence in his voice stung. Brian had never yelled at her before. She blinked to keep her tears back. She ached to wrap her arms around him and soothe his hurt, but that was a bad idea. “Fine.” Snatching up the second bottle of whiskey from behind his chair, she tucked it under her arm. “But you’ve had enough.”
She made it to the kitchen before the trembling made her stop. Her whole body shook. She set the bottle on the counter before she dropped it. The huge manor house kitchen had delighted her when she arrived. Now, she couldn’t do much more than lean on the table and shiver. This was Brian. Sweet Brian. Yelling at her to go away.
Before she ended up blubbering, she started mixing the sugar cookies. Suzi had the recipe memorized, and the cook had made sure all the ingredients were handy before she left after supper. Brian hadn’t joined them for the meal. He’d already been out on the veranda.
Marc wandered in as she put the second batch in the oven. “How’s it coming?” he asked.
“Fine.” She focused on moving cookies from the pan to
the cooling racks.
“Cookies, huh?” Marc picked up the whiskey bottle.
“Cookies.”
He put down the whiskey bottle. “They look good.”
“They’re still too hot.”
Brian yelled at her to go away. And he broke a bottle. Brian.
“What’s going on?” Ty asked, strolling in. He leaned over the bowl of dough. “Can I just eat the raw cookies?”
“If that’s what you want. I’m not your mother.”
Marc winced.
Ty laid his head on her shoulder. “I’ll let you be my mom if you want to be.”
Marc growled.
“Maybe later, Ty.” Suzi slipped away from them. “I’m gonna go get some work done. I’m probably falling behind on a deadline somewhere. Take those out when the timer goes off or the house will burn down.”
“Don’t go hide.” Ty grabbed her hand. “You know he’s just being an asshole. Tomorrow, he’ll be guilty and beggin’ your forgiveness. You know what you need? You need to get drunk.”
“I don’t drink,” Suzi protested.
“Exactly, it’ll be easy,” Marc said. On the way out of the kitchen, he grabbed the whiskey bottle. “Come on, we’ll play a game. You love to play games.”
“The last time I got drunk, I propositioned somebody,” Suzi pointed out.
Marc chuckled. “I solemnly swear if you proposition me while you are drunk, I will not take you up on it.”
They were not going to take no for an answer. They wanted to see her drunk. It might not be so bad.
“Me, too. I will not turn you down— er, take you up to my room—ah—on it. On it. I will not take you up on it.” Ty draped his arm around her shoulders. “Seriously, I promise. I will be a perfect gentleman.”
“Don’t strain yourself on my account,” Suzi muttered, allowing him to pull her toward the parlor.
Marc veered toward the liquor cabinet while Ty dragged her to the closet where the owner of the house kept a stock of board games. Half a dozen of them she didn’t recognize. On the bottom of the stack was Trivial Pursuit.
“You know all the answers to that one,” Ty said. “The point is to get drunk, not avoid getting drunk by being smart like a freak.”
“I don’t know all the answers, and it won’t take much for me to get drunk.”
Marc had collected three shot glasses and another bottle of whiskey and was headed their way.
“All right.” Ty winked at Marc. “Every time you get a wrong answer, you have to take a shot. Now, how do you play this game?”
Suzi rolled her eyes and explained the rules.
* * * *
Brian stared at the stars. He was hungry. Starved. But he didn’t have the courage to go into the kitchen to find food. Suzi might be there. Five-foot-three and a hundred pounds soaking wet, Suzette Miranda Bazian was someone to be feared.
It wasn’t her. It was her eyes. Fury masking shattered hurt. The fury he could handle. He’d earned that. The hurt, though. That had been like a knife to the chest. He’d forgotten she wasn’t like his other friends. She couldn’t take his foul mood. Hell, most of his friends couldn’t handle his foul mood right now. That’s why she was here. The guys in the band were ignoring him. The cook avoided him. Suzi had come here just to be nice to him.
Her being nice wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted her in his arms, in his bed, in his life on a fixed, permanent basis. But she was still with that idiot Logan, and that didn’t seem likely to change. The whole plan three years ago when he pulled the trigger on his divorce was to wait until Logan screwed up enough that Suzi would leave him so Brian could catch her when she fell. She didn’t leave him after the sex video. Or after the multitude of times she called asking about this groupie and that groupie, and were they something to worry about? Nights, he lay awake and alone imaging how it would play out when she finally called and told him she’d left Logan. His grand plan to wait sucked. Tom Petty was right. Waiting was the hardest part.
He needed to apologize for being an ass because he’d run out of patience.
Dragging himself out of his chair, he went into the house and up the back stairs. It was late, but she never slept well when she was upset. She might be up writing a whole book or big sections of one, at least. Her door stood open, and the room was empty. He ventured in far enough to make absolutely sure she wasn’t hiding in a corner or something. Maybe she’d gone for a run. When she was upset, she ran, too. She could be out pounding the pavement. He wasn’t going to sleep until he’d spoken to her.
On the way down the front stairs, he heard Ty in the lounge. He sounded smashed. “That didn’t take mush.”
“Aw, she’s a lightweight. She was winnin’, too,” Marc answered.
Since there was only one woman in the house now the cook had gone for the day, he went that way instead of the kitchen. Suzi lay passed out on the parlor floor beside a Trivial Pursuit board. Marc and Ty slumped against the couch and a chair respectively. An empty bottle of whiskey sat between them, and Ty held a half full one.
“What are you two doing?” Brian demanded. Suzi had an overturned shot glass in her hand with whiskey soaking into the carpet.
“Protectin’ Suzi from you, ya asshole,” Marc snarled and then laughed.
“How much did she have?”
“Oh, please. She had like five shots. She knows too many of these answers,” Ty snickered and took a swig from the bottle. “We should have made her take a shot for every one she got right.”
“Naw, she’d have been down hours ago, and she wouldn’t have had time to lord over us how smart she is.”
“Both of you should be beaten.” Brian knelt beside Suzi. He took the shot glass from her hand and pulled her upright. Her head lolled onto his shoulder.
“Boshten,” she slurred, waking up.
“Nope,” Marc said. “That’s another shot, kiddo.”
Brian lifted her off the floor. “No, it isn’t. It’s time for you to be in bed.”
“Now wait a minute.” Ty straightened, weaving. “We promised we would be good.”
“We promised. He didn’t,” Marc reminded him.
“Oh well, in that case, have fun.”
Brian shot him the evil eye as he started up the stairs. Suzi shifted in his arms, cuddling against him. “That’s right. You didn’t promise,” she said.
“Promise what?”
“They promised not to take advantage of me.” She traced her fingers along the neck of his T-shirt. “You didn’t promise.”
“I’m not going to take advantage of you.” No matter how much I want to.
“Why not?”
He made the mistake of glancing at her as he walked down the hall. Her drowsy, drunken brown eyes stared up at him with so much come-hither he wanted to press her against the wall and take her right here. Dodging into her room, he prayed he’d be able to escape this situation with some dignity. “Into bed with you.”
“Come on, Brian. Kiss me. Please.”
He tried to lay her down gently and back away, but she had his shirt in her clutches. “Let me go, Suzi.”
“Come on. You know you want me.” She pulled herself upright and draped one arm over his shoulder. “You’re the only one who doesn’t joke about it. Everybody else makes lewd comments, but not you. This is our chance. You could have me because I’m too drunk to stop you, and everybody knows I get horny when I’m drunk.”
He sat down before she pulled him on top of her, and then pried her fingers off his shirt, but her other hand had found its way to the base of his skull. “I don’t have a good excuse, though,” he told her. He struggled to take a deep breath. Being this close to her with her fingers tangled through his hair, he didn’t know how he managed to think straight. What had he done to deserve this? Oh yeah, he’d been an ass for three days that led to yelling at her today. Karma was a bad bitch with a nasty sense of humor.
Tomorrow, he was going on
one of those castle tours with her. The next day they were going to do the Magical Mystery Tour in Liverpool. And the day after that, Sheffield. Or wherever else she wanted to go.
“Sure, you do.” She started nuzzling his neck. “You’ve been drinkin’ all day. We were just victims of circumstance.”
“Hey.” Brian grabbed her hand he’d just gotten out of his shirt and pulled it away from his fly. She’d gotten the button open before he realized what she was doing. Not only was she randy, she was an octopus. “Suzi, no. What would Logan say?”
Suzi laughed, the hot pulse of her breath swept across his skin. “I don’t care. What’s good for the gander should be good for the goose, too.” She licked his throat. “I can make you feel all better.”
He caught her shoulders and pushed her down on her back. Then he stopped. He could lean down and kiss her. A moment after, he could have her shirt off and be tasting her bare flesh. Even if he took time to close the door, he could be sampling her delights in a few seconds. And he could be doing it all night. On five shots, she wouldn’t sober up for hours, and by then the damage would be done.
Damage. For almost three years now, he’d been giving her advice on how to keep Logan. Overruling his own desire to destroy their relationship so he could be the one to help her pick up the pieces, he’d been helping her salvage it. “Suzi, you love Logan. If you wake up next to me in the morning, you’re gonna hate yourself.” And me.
Suzi groaned. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I got fucked? And the amount of testosterone floating around this house is ridiculous. I’m gonna have to spend a solid week in bed with Logan to work it off. It might kill him.” She reached for him again, but he caught her hand before she connected. Thwarted, she licked her lips. “You could be saving Logan’s life.”
“I’m afraid it’s a chance I’ll have to take.” He kissed her hand. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
“Aw shit,” Suzi muttered.
Brian stood and threw a blanket from the foot of the bed over her. “G’night.” He risked leaning over to kiss her forehead. When she didn’t make another grab for him, it felt enough like kissing his daughter good night that the room stopped spinning.
Let Me Be the One Page 15
