My Life as an Album (Books 1-4)

by LJ Evans

  Derek frowned as we sat down but didn’t say anything. He seemed somehow out of his normal element in this place with these people. He would never have let any of the band keep us apart at a table. No matter what, I wasn’t going to cause a scene when he was obviously already feeling uncomfortable.

  Bianca asked casually if Keith was picking up the new art piece for Dylan’s offices tomorrow, and Keith nodded. “Thank God. I don’t have to make up an excuse to check on Seth then,” Locke said, brushing a hand through his graying hair.

  “Is this Seth Carmen you’re talking about?” I asked.

  “Yep, you should see the work he does now, Mia. It’s really incredible,” Keith told me.

  “Last I remember of Seth Carmen was Jake punching him in the face,” I said.

  Keith turned somber. “Yeah. He was pretty screwed up back then. But we all have our demons we have to confront and bury before we find the path to real life.”

  His words hit me hard in the chest because weren’t they true? We all had demons. Every last one of us. Mine were giving my brother a kidney and then having him die from it, and chasing a boy who did nothing but break my heart. But that didn’t mean that I couldn’t find a path to a real life. Whatever that would be. For the second time since Derek and I had gotten together, another tiny piece of hope niggled into my heart.

  “Do you want to go with me tomorrow and check out his work?” Keith asked.

  Derek was going to be at the recording studio for most of the day as they tried to finish up a couple extra songs for the bonus album, and I had planned on hanging by the pool with my Kindle. I shrugged. “Sure. Text me the details,” I said, and we exchanged numbers.

  “Dylan’s offices are okay,” Doug commented as he finished yet another scotch. His words were slurred, but you could tell he wanted to be the focus of everyone’s attention. “But they’re nothing like Hugo’s.”

  None of us knew how to respond to his comment.

  “In fact, this whole spread that Dylan has set up,” Doug waved a drunken hand around the room, “it’s okay, but when you’re back at the mansion, that’s where the glamour is really at.”

  Derek had turned toward our end of the table as soon as his dad had started talking. He was listening carefully. I cringed as Doug, who was sitting on my other side, took me in again. “I can see why Derek picked you. You’d fit right in at the mansion. Why don’t you come by? I’ll introduce you to folks who could make you over into a real somebody.”

  Derek threw down his napkin, rose, and made his way over to us. “Mia already is a somebody, Dad.” The scorn in his voice was clear.

  “What? Do you model?” Doug asked, surprised, taking in my no-makeup face and my wavy hair that I’d brushed into a simple braid.

  “No,” I breathed out.

  “But you want to, right?”

  I shook my head in the negative, but he guffawed in disbelief. “Hugo would love you. Eat you up like sugar cubes. You really picked a good one, Derek-my-boy.”

  “Mia isn’t going anywhere near the mansion.” Derek’s voice was firm.

  “Aw, ain’t that cute, son. But you really should let the girl decide. I bet she’d love to have a piece of the ol’ Brantly pie.”

  I shivered in disgust, not only at the thought of being a Brantly Babe but at the tone in Doug’s voice.

  “You should come with me. You’ll see just how fuckin’ amazing it is,” Doug slurred, and he leaned toward me as if he might kiss me.

  I backed up in my chair at the same time that Derek jerked me out of it.

  “That place is nothing more than a legitimized whorehouse. And as I said, Mia isn’t going anywhere near it.”

  Derek was pulling me forcibly toward the door. I didn’t resist. I was shocked not only by the whole scene Doug had made but also by the angry hulk that had taken over the gentle man that I adored. He was seriously snarling with the anger coming off him in waves.

  “Derek, don’t go,” Bianca cried out from the other side just as Dylan rose from his seat to protest as well.

  “Derek!”

  “I told you family dinner was a bad idea, Dylan. Next time, listen to me.” The sarcasm in his voice was eating at me. I wanted to cry. Cry for my happy, sexy BB. That this was his family. That this was his life.

  Derek slammed the French door behind us. I looked back to make sure it hadn’t shattered with the force he’d used and then tried to keep up with his long strides as he pulled me along with him.

  Once we made it to the guesthouse, he let me go and stormed into the kitchen where he grabbed his own highball glass and filled it with amber liquid. He swallowed it in one gulp before pouring himself a second which he drank slower. He hadn’t turned on a light besides the kitchen stove we’d left on earlier, so his face was shadowed, and he wouldn’t look at me as he inhaled the alcohol and breathed heavily. I just stared. I knew that he knew I was watching him. Just like my echolocation always knew when he was watching me.

  “Spit it out, Phillips,” he said. That broke me a little more because it was so cold and impersonal. I was back to Phillips, Little Bird nowhere in sight. Not even a Miss Mia.

  “I don’t know what to say.” I spoke quietly, not teasing at all this time. Instead, there was nothing but sorrow in my voice.

  I guess I probably should have been angry that he was acting this way. That he was shutting me out and calling me Phillips instead of opening up to me, but I couldn’t be. Because this wasn’t Derek. This wasn’t the man I knew. Instead, I just wanted to wipe it all away.

  He downed his drink, poured a third, and then made his way to the couch, where he sank down, head resting on the back, legs spread out in front of him. I made my way to him slowly, unsure of how to approach this Derek I had never seen before.

  I sat down, freeing myself of my shoes and pulling my knees up to my chest. My bare toes barely cleared his thighs. I wrapped my arms around my legs and put my head on my knees so that I could watch him. It was not unlike how we had sat a few hours ago, when he’d ignored talking about his past and I’d ignored talking about our future, before we lost ourselves in each other. Now, the emotion wafting through the air couldn’t be overlooked.

  His eyes were closed as a full range of expressions poured over his face, from anger to disgust to unhappiness before settling into the worst of them all, sadness.

  “I want to say I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’ll be tossed in the pool instead of a lake.” I tried to lighten the mood as he was so good at lightening my mood when I went down the dark paths inside my brain.

  “Apologizing for things you can’t control is no way to live,” he said, but he didn’t open his eyes, and it wasn’t accompanied by his cleft-tugging smile. It was said from some pit inside him.

  I reached down to where his wrist lay on his leg, the hand not wrapped around the glass of whiskey. I pulled it to me and rubbed my finger gently over the tattoo that said, “To err is human; to forgive, sanity.” I thought I finally had a glimpse of what he was trying to forgive and to forget.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” I asked quietly.

  This got him to open his eyes. He turned his head on the back of the couch, eyes meeting mine in the dim light from the kitchen stove.

  “No.”

  “It would probably help,” I told him.

  He pulled one of the strands of my hair loose from my braid and twirled it up to my lip, caressing the corner. “I don’t want to give that dipshit or my past any more energy or time or space.”

  Johnny Cash coming back to us. I nodded, and I removed the glass from his other hand, brought that wrist to my lips, and kissed the double-wrapped tattoo there. I was a chicken because I didn’t want him to give that past any energy either. I was afraid that if I knew his story, it might make me feel more for him than I was already feeling. And I didn’t know if I could handle being broken by his words about the past that was haunting him.

  It wasn�
�t the right thing. It was going to come back and implode on us both, eventually, but that wouldn’t be tonight.

  So instead, I did what I could so that he would give us all of his energy and time and space. I slowly unwound my feet from my hands and eased myself onto his lap, a move that, even five days ago, would have been impossible for me. I pushed my hands under his t-shirt, grazing his sculpted abs and tugging until he had to move, so that the t-shirt could disappear somewhere behind the couch. I started kissing him, starting at his neck with the eagle spread out and down to his shoulders and his chest.

  When I looked back up at his face, he wasn’t scowling anymore. Instead, the storm in his eyes was for the reasons I loved. That made my breath hitch because I had wanted so much for him to look at me just like that, and I was happy that I could bring him back to this moment.

  “You are so damn beautiful, Little Bird.”

  I smiled back at him because he’d said Little Bird again and not Phillips. Then we were both adrift once more in the energy and space that belonged to just the two of us. Like Ed shared with his own “Cold Coffee,” a place where we could stay forever or even just for now. Where I could give a loving hand and help him fall asleep.

  Studios

  ONE

  “Take my hand and my heart and soul,

  I will only have these eyes for you.”

  -Ed Sheeran

  The next morning, when I woke with my alarm, it was again to an empty bed. I was just getting to the point where I only resented mornings a little, instead of outright hating them, but waking to an empty bed made me hate them all over again.

  It wasn’t like I hadn’t known that Derek was leaving early. He’d told me that Rob was picking him up at the crack of dawn so they could finish off those last few tracks, but actually waking up without him tucked up against me was like having someone throw a bucket of ice on me.

  I growled at the light but got up to feed Jane the Kitten who was happily adjusting to life in the guesthouse. She’d found a place at the foot of our bed that was hers. During the day, she found the sunshine and a whole boatload of things to play with that gave me a heart attack.

  After taking care of Jane, I buried myself under the water and scented soaps in the bathroom before dressing in jeans and one of the blousy tanks I had bought in Oklahoma City, which seemed an entire lifetime ago now.

  I had just emerged from the bathroom when I got a text from Keith who said he’d be at the house in fifteen minutes. I texted Cam and told her I was going with Keith to see Seth’s studio, and she told me to hold onto my panties and make sure that I didn’t tell Derek that I was going to see a hot Cuban guy.

  That made me smile. I was still smiling when I made my way quietly through the big house toward the front door only to have Dylan’s booming voice halt me.

  “Mia!” he called, and I turned, hiding my nervousness behind the mask that I had perfected. I hid my emotions from my family. I hid them from all sorts of people at the dealership. So I was fairly certain I could hide my emotions from this one director.

  “Hey,” I said with a forced smile.

  “I heard you’re going with Keith to pick up Bianca’s latest artwork,” he said with his hands in his trousers as he rocked on his feet. It shocked me, but he was the one who actually looked nervous. This threw me off my game slightly.

  “Yes. I hope that’s okay?”

  “What? Oh, yeah. No problem,” he said, still rocking.

  I waited. He rocked. “Is there something I can do for you?” I asked. I wanted to head-thunk Good Girl Mia against the door, but it was too late, it was already out.

  He looked as astonished as I felt. “No… I just wanted to apologize for our dad.”

  “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

  “I do. He’s an asshole. And he made Derek’s life hell at the mansion. I shouldn’t have invited him.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that.

  “You…” he hesitated. “Please don’t take this wrong, but you kind of remind me of the girls there. That’s why I was surprised to see you with Derek. He doesn’t normally like anything that reminds him of that time.”

  I turned a thousand shades of red and crossed my arms over my too big breasts. God, why couldn’t I have had a nice set of B boobs like Cam? Now I was being compared to a “PlayBabe” or Hugo Brantly’s girlfriends, neither of which was something to write home about. I guess that’s what I got for running away with a sexy musician.

  Dylan looked at my flushed face and grimaced. “I’m sorry. That was rude.”

  I looked away, still not sure what to say. I wasn’t sure what he really wanted from me.

  “I’m not saying any of this right. I love Derek. He’s not just my kid brother, he’s my best friend. I don’t want to see him hurt. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t…” His words faded away.

  “A whore? A stripper? Someone hanging onto his coat tails, waiting for his fame to kick in?” I was suddenly as angry as a queen bee whose hive had been attacked, because, let’s face it, Dylan’s own wife fit that image way more than I did.

  Dylan’s turn to flush bright red. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

  He brushed his hand through his blonde hair. “That sounded awful.”

  “It did,” I agreed.

  “You just came out of nowhere.”

  I couldn’t disagree with that, because I had. But it went both ways. Derek had come out of nowhere into my life too. He’d entered it with his crazy energy and happiness that you couldn’t resist. He’d entered it like the eagle he was, swooping down to capture the mouse.

  Then, I realized that I couldn’t be mad at this big brother standing up for the little brother. It was exactly what Cam and Jake would do for me. I swallowed hard the anger as guilt overwhelmed me instead, and I was there in the guilt when his next question hit me.

  “Do you love him?”

  My brain literally froze at the question. Did I love Derek? Before I realized it, my head was nodding. I felt the nod just as Dylan saw it, but my brain and heart were still trying to catch up with what my body already knew. Oh my God. I was in love with Derek.

  Cheese and crackers. I’d been worried about his girlfriend label when I should have been worried about the fact that I was in love with him. That my stupid heart had gone in the most stupid direction ever. I’d fallen in love again. When it was only going to hurt all over.

  Dylan didn’t realize the turmoil he’d just thrown me into. He’d seen my nod, and that was all he cared about.

  “Okay then,” he said as he turned and disappeared into the depths of his house, leaving me to wonder what in bejesus had just happened.

  I hadn’t recovered. I was still in the shock of my own revelation when the doorbell rang, and then the door opened to reveal Keith. He was happy, jiggling keys to a sports car that sat in the driveway behind him and seemed to fit his new L.A. image as much as his boyfriend had. It was like he was more at home here in his own skin than he had been back in Tennessee in his cowboy boots.

  “Ready?” he asked, and I could only nod again because I wasn’t ready.

  I was nowhere near ready to be in love again. To be in love with a sexy musician whose life was even further apart from my reality than Hayden’s had ever been.

  Thank God it took longer than I expected to drive down the coast to Seth’s studio, because I had a chance to get myself together. Keith didn’t seem to notice my preoccupation. He rambled away as he drove about the Waters boys and how he loved working for Dylan. He talked about meeting Locke through Seth’s art. He talked about how he and Seth were now good friends, and how they were helping each other through AA.

  This statement surprised me enough to bring me back to the car ride and Keith, putting aside my epiphany until I had some time alone to examine it.

  The fact that Keith was in AA was startling, but not Seth. Seth had needed AA back when he was sixteen, going off the rails and
pushing girls off cliffs. But Keith’s openness about it all as we drove in the summer sunshine allowed me to focus on him as he continued his onslaught of Hollywood insider information.

  I concentrated on the sunshine along the coast, which was cool, and dry, and so very different from our humid air back home. Even though it was beautiful, with the ocean mist and spray, I suddenly missed the heaviness that filled our Tennessee air, wrapping itself around you so snuggly that there was no mistaking that you were home. I missed home. Unfortunately, that brought me back to loving Derek. Because I also felt at home when I was with Derek. And Derek and Tennessee were not anywhere near synonymous. Derek and Tennessee were antonyms. Words that would never fit together.

  Keith must have noticed that my brain kept disappearing, because he got quiet as we got closer to Seth’s. Seth’s studio was at his house that sat directly on the beach. It was a beautiful Nantucket ranch that, while not huge, was stunning. It was yet another surprise in a day of surprises. The house didn’t seem like something a moody, junk artist should own.

  “This is Seth’s place?”

  Keith laughed at my astonishment. “It is. Believe me, he’s so tame now that you won’t even recognize him.”

  But I did. He greeted us at the door, and when Seth Carmen smiled, you couldn’t not recognize him. The panther-like quality of him that made you want to run away or just lay down and give in. Except that I didn’t want anything to do with him when I had my own amazing eagle waiting for me back up the coast. The one I apparently loved!

  Seth was still all hot Cuban, though. Plus, he had his own book-worthy image going on in his jeans and gray t-shirt with bare feet. The beach and this life seemed to suit him just as Keith’s sports car and boyfriend seemed to fit him.

  Seth offered us sweet tea and something called ajiaco that was a stew that he said he made himself. I wasn’t quite sure I believed that. We sat out on the patio at a table made of stone and iron that I’d never seen the likes of before, and which I did believe he could have made.