The elevator dinged and the doors opened. As I stepped out, a haze of smoke and guitar music greeted me. Two security guards with earpieces recognized me and nodded as I passed. I knocked on the door of the room number Warren had given me, waited a beat then slid the key in the lock.
The door swung open.
“Addy.” Warren filled the frame, a towel looped around his waist. His hair and body were damp. I watched as rivulets of water ran down his abs. “My eyes are up here, baby. I feel so objectified.”
A smile curved up my lips. Across the hall another door opened. Scantily clad groupies spilled out, Ash with them. “Hey, War,” one of the girls said. “Want to join?”
I ducked my head. I didn’t want to be recognized. Security was fine, they signed NDAs. Ash and the guys were fine. They’d keep my secrets. But a groupie? No telling what trouble they could stir up. A story concerning Warren and me would sell to the tabloids for big bucks, especially given the history of bad blood between Billy and Wild Minds.
Warren grabbed my arm, pulled me through the door and behind him, concealing me. “This isn’t you, man. What are you thinking? What would Lily think?” He addressed his brother.
Ash sneered. “Who gives a fuck what Lily thinks? She left me. And I didn’t take a vow of chastity like you did when she”—he pointed behind Warren, at me—“took off. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to find another blonde to fuck to help forget about the blonde who fucked me over.”
Ash stomped off, groupies in his wake. Warren shut the door. The smoke and music muted. We were in another hallway of some sort, the entry to a suite. Marble floor gleamed under my shoes. I leaned against a linen-papered wall, hands folded behind my back. I’d processed Ash’s tirade and couldn’t quite believe what I’d heard. “You really didn’t have sex with anyone all these years?”
Warren ran his fingers through his damp hair, slicking it back. “I told you I didn’t.”
My eyes widened. “Do you… do you have erectile dysfunction issues?”
Warren’s frown was fierce. “Fuck, no. I have Addy issues. My dick works just fine as long as you’re in the room or I’m picturing you.”
I stuck my tongue in my cheek. “So I’m kind of like a dick whisperer.”
“Jesus, you’re fucking crazy, you know that?”
I crooked a finger at him. “You like it.”
He closed in on me. He swung me up in his arms, cradling me. “Time for payback.”
The marble floor turned into cream carpet. We passed through a living room with white sofas and exploding with flowers. Wildflowers. “My favorite,” I said, fingering a sunflower petal as Warren carried me.
“We never had a honeymoon,” Warren said.
Double doors led to the bedroom. The covers of the king-size bed had been drawn back. I yelped as Warren pitched me onto the down comforter. He came down, looming over me. His lips pressed firmly over mine. I opened my mouth. His tongue slipped inside. Somewhere along the way, I’d lost my shoes. My toes curled into the mattress. My legs opened as Warren settled between them. Warren’s hand went to my hip. He pressed himself against me. He was hard. I was wet. What a perfect combination. His tongue lashed my neck.
“Stay the night with me?” War asked.
“Yes,” I couldn’t do anything but agree.
“What about Billy?” Warren asked.
It felt as if I’d been doused in ice water. Mentioning my father? Total mood-killer. Warren’s head wrenched away from my neck, his eyes questioning, waiting for an answer. I hesitated a moment and then explained, “He thinks Gabe and I are getting a hotel room.” I put my hands to Warren’s cheeks, urging him back down to my collarbones, to my sweet spot. Gimme. Gimme. Gimme.
Warren reared back so he could look in my eyes. “Come again?”
I tried to shrug but under his body weight, it came out more like a shimmy. “Gabe’s here.”
Warren was off me like a lightning bolt. He gripped the knot on his towel, keeping it in place. Shoot, I’d been so close to having that towel off. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
I kept my expression and tone light. “It’s no big deal. Billy surprised me.” I scooted up the bed so I was sitting.
“And you didn’t think this was important to tell me?”
“When was I supposed to tell you?”
“I don’t know, Ads, how about before or after you sucked my dick?”
Even though I was used to his crass language, I winced. I didn’t know why his words hurt, they just did. I crossed my arms, heart hammering. “It doesn’t matter. Why are you freaking out?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because my wife is pretending to be shacking up with some other dude. Or maybe it’s because my wife refuses to tell her father about her husband. Or maybe…”
“Enough.” I sliced a hand through the air. I quieted my voice, tried to quiet my pulse. “You said you would give me time. Part of giving me time is easing up on the pressure.”
His chin jutted out, muscle working under the stubble of his jaw. “Yeah. I think we should discuss how much time.”
“It’s complicated.”
Warren snorted. “And lying to him helps.”
“You’re being a dick.”
I got a cavemanish grunt. “And you’re being a coward.” Warren paced away from me. The muscles in his back rippled and tensed. “I never shared well as a kid, Addy, and I don’t share now. Lose Gabe. Tell your dad.”
I wanted to scream. “Why are you forcing this issue?” The accusation was clear in my voice. Did he want me to tell Billy because he didn’t want us to hide anymore? Or did he want me to tell Billy because he wanted to piss Billy off? Did Warren still dream of revenge?
“Fucking Christ, Addy!” Warren yelled. “How many times do I have to say it? I don’t want to sneak around. I’m fucking twenty-four years old. I got the girl. I got the money. I could give fuck all about Billy. This isn’t a real marriage until you admit it to your father. And I’m sick of getting my ass chewed out by you about this.”
My mouth hung open. Nine days. We’d been back together for nine days. Does that seem like enough time to rebuild a relationship, to rebuild trust? I didn’t think so. I had a right to my reservations. Of course, Warren didn’t think so. He demanded I trust him again, so it must be so. A royal decree by the king of assholes. I rolled off the bed. “Get out.” I pointed to the door.
“This is my room, baby.” He huffed and then, to make his point, sat on the bed, leaning against the headboard. He smiled smugly. He could take that smile and shove it right up his ass.
I was sure he didn’t expect me to actually leave. He probably thought I’d swallow my pride and lie down next to him. He knew I had nowhere else to go. As usual, Warren was wrong. I swiveled and grabbed my handbag. Over my shoulder, I held up a hand, middle finger extended to the ceiling as I walked out.
I decided to go to the hotel bar and cool off, give War a chance to do the same. We still had the rest of the night. Our time together could still be salvaged. To my surprise, I found Ash at the counter, nursing a bottle of whiskey, by himself. A couple security guards stood nearby, keeping fans at bay. “Mr. Price would like to be alone,” one said. But they allowed me to pass.
I swung my purse onto the bar top and took the seat next to him. “What are you doing here? I thought you and War would be canoodling until dawn,” Ash said, sliding a glass full of amber liquid between his thumbs. A half-full bottle of whiskey sat inches away. Usually bars didn’t give you the whole bottle. But rock stars always got what they wanted.
“Canoodling?”
“It means to cuddle amorously. Lily put this word-of-the-day shit on my phone and I don’t know how to get it off.” Ash tipped the glass to his mouth, swallowing the liquid in one gulp. Miserable bastard. I didn’t bother explaining to him that all you had to do was press down on the app to delete it. Maybe he didn’t want it gone. Maybe he was hanging on to Lily any way he could. He held up the glass to me, silently asking if I wanted one. I shook my head. He shrugged and refilled his. “Lily changed her number.”
“Yeah.” I rubbed my hands together, feeling weird. This wasn’t us. Ash and I didn’t do heart-to-hearts.
“I was texting for two days before I figured it out. FYI, the phone number now belongs to a dude who likes feet. Like, really likes feet. I almost sent him a picture of my toes.”
I stifled a laugh.
He furrowed his brow. “Don’t ever tell anyone that.”
I mimed zipping my lips shut. I was so telling Warren—as soon as I forgave him, that was.
Ash’s hands flexed around the glass. He wore a white T-shirt with a blazing sun on it. Like War, his arms were all tatted up. But where War had tributes to bands, music and memories of his childhood, Ash’s tats honored art. His left forearm was wrapped in Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss, and his right forearm, Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Love and madness. He’d gotten the tattoos for Lily, for the thing she loved most, art history. Originally, she’d tagged along to Europe with me for the museums. She’d gotten a whole lot more than she’d bargained for when she met Ash.
“Do you think I’m dumb?” Ash asked, pulling me from his tattoos and my thoughts.
My mouth parted. How to answer this? There was only one way. “Of course not.” Sometimes Ash did or said stupid stuff. But he was a brilliant guitarist. He understood music in a way I never would.
Ash scoffed. “I’m not as smart as Warren. He always did well in school. But I struggled.” He looked away, wiping his face with his hand. “I felt like a fucking dumbass with Lily.”
“There are all different kinds of intelligence. Tests and school cater to a very specific group.”
Ash downed another drink. How many did that make in the last half hour? Two or three, at least. If he wasn’t drunk, he was on the fast track to it. “I asked her for an open relationship.”
All the warm and fuzzy thoughts I’d been having about Ash disappeared. That was why she’d come home with me. My heart skipped a beat, hurting for Lily. Ash wanted to have his cake and eat it, too. I side-eyed him. “You wanted that?” I asked, shocked and angry.
“Fuck, no,” he snapped. I blinked. Sometimes he sounded so much like Warren. “But she’s so… half the shit she says I don’t understand. I can’t keep up with her. And she’s so fucking skittish about commitment. On one hand, I thought maybe that’s what she needed, what she wanted: a smart guy to talk smart shit with. Then she’d keep me around too. On the other hand, I hoped she’d get pissed and finally demand we be exclusive.” Another drink went down his throat. “My reverse psychology didn’t work. She nodded. I’ll never forget the look on her face, like I killed her puppy or some shit. She said: ‘You’re right, monogamy isn’t natural.’ Then she went on to feed me some bullshit about chimps that use sex to solve social problems. I told her I had no fucking idea what she was talking about. She kissed me and the next day was gone.”
“Yikes,” was all I could say.
Ash squeezed his head with his hands. It took him a long time to speak again. I thought he might be asleep. But finally, words came. He spoke slower, a little more sluggish, the liquor definitely setting in. “Remember her books?” he asked, flashing me a small, sad smile.
Oh, I recognized this stage of drunkenness. Melancholy. “She had to pay an extra baggage fee every time we flew because the books were too heavy.” Lily read. A lot. If she wasn’t gazing at some piece of art, her nose was stuck in a book.
“I bought her an electronic reader thinking I was the shit and she’d give me an awesome thank you blowjob. But instead, she cried. ‘You don’t know me at all,’ she said. ‘I could never give up real books.’”
Lily had explained it once. She loved the feel of turning pages, the smell of paper, the heaviness of a hardback in her hands. The “you don’t know me” part was also to be expected. Men, boys, any member of the male species fell over themselves to catch Lily’s attention. Most times she didn’t notice. When she did, she’d get all indignant. “They look at my face and think they know me. But they don’t know my heart, they don’t know my body, they don’t know my soul,” she’d say, all hopeless romantic.
Ash spoke again. “I’m so sick of fucking thinking about her all the time—worrying about her, where she is, who she’s with.” Lily was a free spirit. She never stayed in one place for too long. She was in school, but transferred campuses like popping Tic-Tacs. You never knew when she would show up or leave. Ash stood, wobbling and catching himself on the bar top.
“Easy,” I said, standing.
A bald security guard appeared, throwing Ash’s arm over his shoulders. “I can take it from here, Ms. Wanks.”
“You got him?” I asked.
The bald man nodded. “Oh, yeah, this isn’t our first rodeo. Mr. Price and I are very acquainted with lonely bars and empty bottles. I’ll get him upstairs, put a few aspirin in him and he’ll be good as new in the morning.” Ash swayed, his eyes red. The bald man began to drag the huge lead guitarist away.
I chewed my lip. “Hey, Ash?”
The duo paused, turning slightly.
“I’ll try to talk to Lily. I don’t know if it’ll do much, but I’ll put in a good word for you.”
“Thanks, Addy,” said drunken Ash, giving me a lopsided smile. He leaned in conspiratorially, taking his security guard anchor with him. “You’re a good sister-in-law.” I felt a certain lightness in my chest.
I waited for surprise from the bald security guy, but his expression didn’t change. Ash groaned. “Let’s go, man,” he said, rubbing his chest. “I ache.”
I watched them leave. Then I considered my sleeping options for the evening. Despite my desire to return to Warren, I decided not to. He hadn’t texted, and I wasn’t going to be the first to the breach the silence.
I couldn’t go back to Billy’s tour bus. Instead, I moseyed to the front desk and asked for their cheapest available room. It cost me a good chunk of my savings. The room was half as nice as the suite Warren had booked and twice as lonely.