IT’S THE CRASH THAT WAKES ME.
When I take the medicine, it drops me like a stone to the bottom of the sea, and I have to struggle to swim to the surface and break through. My body is still recovering from the abuse I put it through on tour. Not even the pneumonia, but the exhaustion. Even though the medicine imposes much-needed rest on me, I hate the way it makes me feel. My limbs are heavy and my tongue feels thick. Sleep clings to me, but the crash from below jerks me up and past the dreamless surface.
I’ve gotten spoiled waking up with Rhyson. Not because he’s famous, but because he reaches for me in his sleep and makes me feel safe. Because he can’t go two minutes without kissing me once he’s awake. And waking up alone . . . well, it’s not the same. I roll into the cold void beside me with its undented pillow and unrumpled sheets. He hasn’t been here at all. I’d smell him. I’d know.
Still in my fitted t-shirt and jeans, barefoot, I stumble from the bed and out onto the landing. Another crash reaches my ears, and Rhyson’s voice, hoarse and rough, joins the chaos. Quietly, I make my way down to the first floor and then down another to his music room.
“Fuck!” Anger and frustration strangle the word in his throat. Another crash and more “fucks” and a few “shits” and “dammits” sting the air like hornets. I poke my head just a little around the wall. I can’t face him right now, and judging by our last interaction, he doesn’t want to see me.
The glimpse I have almost makes me gasp, but I catch it before the sound gives me away. Several of Rhyson’s autographed guitars lay splintered and ruined at his feet. The side of his drum set is completely gone like a cannon blew it out. A growl, a low feral sound, rumbles in his chest as he stands drawing in labored breaths amidst the beautiful debris of his priceless instruments.
He watched the tape.
The thought sucker punches me, makes my head spin and leaves me reeling. I sink to the step, too ashamed and afraid to enter the room. To face him. So I sit there with the wall between us. Not just the wall, cool against the side of my face, but the wall of my betrayal and subterfuge.
After the crash and the destruction, there’s a few moments of complete silence. So quiet I hear his heavy breaths in the wake of the storm. I’m just about to gather my courage and walk around that wall into the room, when the music begins. I haven’t heard this song since Grady’s wedding. It’s a skeletal version of My Soul To Keep, but enough for me to recognize the song he wrote for me. He can’t be playing this song and not thinking of me, not aching the way I am. I’ve run and I’ve hidden so many times before, but I have to come out of the shadows to fight for this man. The future he dreamed about, our future, is worth that.
Hearing the notes of my song in this tight, unnatural quiet after the violence of his anger hurts. It’s like I’m in one key and he’s in another. I’ve never felt this far from him, even when I wouldn’t let him in.
I rest my head against the wall, helpless to move. I want to taste my tears, so I don’t even check them as they roll over my cheeks and into my mouth. They are salty and taste of the recriminations I deserve. I’m not sure how long he plays. That first night months ago in Grady’s studio Rhyson’s music awakened something in me, and tonight it lulls me back to sleep.
There is no better place than this. Nestled against Rhyson’s chest. The medicine still clouds my head, scrambles my thoughts, but I’m lucid enough to know I’m safe in his arms.
“Rhys,” I mumble into his shoulder, and his arms tighten around me when he climbs the stairs carrying me. “I can walk.”
“Is that why you were knocked out on the steps?” he asks softly. “Because you can walk?”
It’s too dark for me to see his face clearly, but I’d like to imagine that smile he wears just for me is back on his face, even though I don’t hear it in his voice.
“It’s the medicine,” I whisper, pressing into his neck, searching out his scent. “It makes me so groggy.”
“You still have a lot of rest to catch up on.”
I hold my breath when he reaches the landing, so afraid he’ll take me to a guest room instead of the bedroom we share. Instead of the bed where I wake up beside him. I need it so badly. Just his arms around me tonight. Just his touch in the morning. Something that tells me he still wants me, that what he saw on that tape doesn’t change any of that.
He sets me on the bed, turning on the bedside lamp. Our eyes catch and hold for a second before he drops his glance to the floor. His demeanor, his expression—everything about him is a KEEP OUT sign, when he’s only ever been an invitation to come inside.
He pulls the fitted t-shirt over my head, slides my bra straps off my shoulders, reaches behind my back to undo my bra. The lacy black cups fall away, baring me to him. His eyes rest on my breasts like breath, so hot my nipples peak and tighten. I want him so desperately. To take him into my body. To reclaim him and yield to him. His thumb strokes my collarbone for a moment, a muscle bundling along the sharp line of his jaw, but that’s all. He unsnaps my jeans and tugs them down my legs as efficiently and impersonally as my nurse in the hospital only a week ago.
He studies my Tuesday underwear for a moment. It’s Thursday, and I know he’s remembering our night in Berlin. The memory sizzles between us. I want to spread my legs and tempt him. See if my body still holds any sway over his, but I can’t. When he comes back to me, it can’t be for that. He peels the loose plain white t-shirt over his head, the rung of muscles in his stomach and chest chiseled and beautiful. A hint of the “v” at his hips just evident at the edge of his low-slung jeans. He pulls his t-shirt down over me, and I push my arms through until it covers all I want to offer him. Desire penetrates the fog floating around my head, his scent lingering in the shirt enveloping me. I can’t take my eyes off him. I’m panting, the ragged breaths raising and dropping my breasts under the soft cotton, still holding his warmth.
He pulls back the cover, waiting for me to lie down, and then tucking the comforter under my chin.
“You’ve got a few hours left before it’s morning,” he says, his tone flat and wooden, despite the heat brimming from his eyes. “Get some sleep.”
He reaches for the lamp switch, and I grab his arm, forcing him to look at me.
“Do you remember the first night we met?” I ask.
He nods slowly, his eyes filling with the same memory I’ll never forget.
“You glanced up from the piano in Grady’s rehearsal room and looked right through me.” A bitter-tasting laugh lingers on my lips. “Or at least that’s how it felt. Like you saw everything about me in a flash. It was like you brushed up against my soul. I know that sounds melodramatic, but it scared me half to death. ”
“And you ran.” He pulls back until my hand falls away. “I looked back and you were gone.”
“Yes, I ran.”
I grab my nerve and swallow my pride and press into the cold front he’s been giving me since I confessed about the tape.
“I felt you, Rhyson. Even when I ran and resisted and said we could only be friends, I felt you. For the first time since that day at Grady’s, I don’t feel you. Not in that way that was so deep, so fast it felt like I knew you before we ever even spoke. It’s the thought that we’ve lost that because of what I did that scares me. It’s scarier to me than that tape coming out, than not getting to perform for two years. It’s as scary to me as the day my mother died.”
I pour it all out, spilling it into this room we’ve shared. He says nothing. After all that, after I peel back my skin, my flesh, my bone and bare my heart to him, he says nothing. I can’t do this. I can’t be this close to him and feel a million miles away. He just looks back at me unblinkingly.
“Kai, it’s not gone.” He shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair, disheveling it even more. “I just . . . get some sleep.”
“Don’t leave me.” I don’t want to beg, but I’d rather sleep on the steps with his music wooing me than in this California king without him. I fold the comforter back, opening a space for him in our bed. “Could you just . . . stay?”
He closes his eyes and swallows, emotion working the muscles in his throat.
“Nah, Pep. I’m not doing that. Not tonight. Not yet.”
“Why?” My voice shakes, even though I try to steady it. “Is it because you saw the tape? And now . . . and now you see him when you look at me?”
He dips his head until our eyes are level, and I couldn’t look away if I wanted to.
“I did watch that tape.”
It’s a pitchfork right though my heart, calling to mind what I know he saw on that video. Drex grinning like a salacious demon, slamming into me from behind. My breasts bobbing with every thrust. My dead eyes.
“Is that why you were breaking things?” I venture, afraid to hear his response, but waiting with bated breath. “Why you can’t look at me?”
“I can’t look at you, Kai, because you lied to me.” His words come sharp and short like wood chips flying off an axe. “When I look at you, it’s not Drex I see. I see lies.”
His words land on me heavy with irony. I started down this path because I never wanted to lose that look in his eyes that’s just for me. And it’s my deception that may change the way he sees me forever. A painful backfire. If I could have that moment back, the one in the barn when I forgave him and our slate was clean, I would confess. I would tell him everything and trust his love. But I didn’t, and now I’m living with the look in his eyes.
“Rhys, I forgave you because I loved you, but I didn’t have to. We’re not entitled to forgiveness. That’s what makes it a gift.” I make myself look his disappointment in the eyes. “I’m asking you for that gift, not because I deserve it, but because I need it. I need you to forgive me.”
My words thaw something in his eyes. Not completely, but something softens. Something melts infinitesimally before he swallows and looks away, his frown almost a reminder to himself that it’s too soon to let go of his anger. That it’s too soon to relent.
“Yeah, you forgave me. After I texted and called you for two months with no answer. I just found out about your lies a few hours ago. Seems to me we’re just getting started. Give me some time and let me focus on fixing this shit.”
He turns to leave, and I hope the words that have always moved him won’t fail me now.
“I live you, Rhyson.”
He looks over his naked shoulder, one brow lifted.
“Aren’t you the one who said sometimes love isn’t enough?”
“I was wrong,” I rush to say. “Rhys, I was wrong about that. If you love someone the way we love each other, it is enough. It has to be.”
He starts toward the door, and I barely hear his last words, but I do.
“Well, now we’ll get to see, won’t we?”