“Do you bring a lot of women back here?” I ask, still using the sugary role-playing voice, but asking for myself.

He steps out of his boots and watches me watch him unbutton his jeans. They’re my favorite on him. No zipper. Just five silver buttons. The jeans are worn and soft and fit him like he was born in them.

“Hundreds,” he replies. “They’re all buried in the backyard.”

I laugh as he climbs onto the bed and between my legs.

“Do you like my room?” he asks. “And my house?”

“So far I’ve only mostly seen the ceiling of your room,” I tease, leaning up to peer around. His room is like the others in the house I’ve seen so far. Neat. Clean. Four guitars stand in a row in front of the windows that overlook the front yard. Black and white paintings of birds hang on the walls. Several photos in silver frames sit atop one of his black dressers, and as I squint at them, I realize they’re photos of me, Lyric, and Acorn.

“You have our pictures,” I say softly.

“Yeah. I print all the ones you email me. When I feel like I might fuck up again, I look at the pictures. There’ve been nights when I’ve sat here for hours just staring at your picture, waiting for the demons to fuck off and leave me alone.”

A vision of him flashes in my mind—sitting on the floor, taunted by drugs and alcohol and staring at photos of me, his daughter, and his dog while he sweats and struggles between all the things he loves and wants the most.

I swallow over the unexpected lump in my throat. “Does that work?”

“So far.”

I don’t know if it’s good or bad that I’ve been both his muse and his therapy. I suppose some might say that’s obsession and not real love. Some might say what we have is dependency and codependency. I wonder if it matters. Maybe all that really matters is that we make a difference in another’s person life in the way they need it.

Chapter Forty

Piper,

I love seeing you asleep in my bed. You have no idea how much peace you bring me. You’re like an angel in my dark mind.

Come downstairs when you’re awake, I’ll make us breakfast.

Love,

Blue

I smile at the note he left on his pillow for me. He’s been incredibly sweet since I arrived yesterday. Dare I say romantic in many ways?

After I make his bed I find my clothes from last night and hold them against my body as I sprint down the hall to my room. I take the note with me and stash it in my purse so I can add it to all the others I have saved at home.

I shower and blow dry my hair, then pretty myself up with a little makeup. I’m not sure what Blue’s got planned for us today, so I dress casually in skinny jeans, low black boots, and a purple gypsy top with wide butterfly sleeves.

The happy, carefree feeling I’ve had since I woke up takes a slight nose dive when I find him in the kitchen. I frown in confusion at the scene of disarray around me. The countertops are covered with glasses, mugs, bowls and dishes. All the cabinet doors are wide open, showing the bare shelves. Blue is standing at the center island, looking quite boyish and young in a band T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, black sweatpants, and black and white high-top sneakers with the laces untied.

I observe him quietly from the doorway. A niggle of worry burns my stomach. His eyes are darting from one piece of glassware to the next. He touches each one, lifts it up to the light to examine it, then places it with a different group of glasses or dishes.

“Hey, you.” My voice comes out louder than I intended.

He looks up and smiles crookedly.

“Oh. Hey.” He runs his hand through his hair.

I move to stand on the other side of the island. “I thought you were making breakfast?”

He nods quickly. “I am. I was. But when I took out the coffee mugs, they didn’t match. And I hate that.”

“They don’t have to match, hon. I’m good with anything.”

He moves a few salad bowls around, then stacks them within each other.

“No, they should match.”

Reece appears in the doorway, and rolls his eyes. “Fuck me. Not this again,” he says.

Blue holds up a glass. “One of these is missing. There’s an odd number. There’s five.”

Reece blows out an exasperated breath. “You dropped it when you were wasted last year, remember? You stepped in the broken glass and bled all over the place. Guess who cleaned it up?”

“I don’t remember that.” Blue doesn’t look away from the glass he’s inspecting.

“Because you were drunk off your ass.” Reece plucks a beige coffee mug from the assortment on the counter. “Stop sorting all our shit, Blue.”

“Sorting?” I repeat.

Reece fills the coffee maker with water and adds coffee grinds from a marble canister on the counter before he answers.

“Welcome to my world.” He gestures toward Blue with his hand. “His OCD gets in an uproar and he starts to sort everything by size or shape or color or who the hell knows what. A few weeks ago it was the towels.”

“We had one white towel and sixteen gray ones,” Blue explains, shaking his head as if it’s absurdity.

“What’s wrong with one white towel?” I’m almost afraid to hear the answer.

“It’s just...unbalanced.”

Reece and I exchange a glance. He leans against the counter and shakes his head as Blue continues explaining.

“Everything was a fucking mess in the cabinets. The glasses were mixed with the coffee mugs, the salad bowls were mixed up with the ice cream bowls. The tall glasses were in the front, the short ones in the back. Why can’t you just put things back where they belong?”

His roommate shrugs. “Because it doesn’t bother me, bro. I’ve got more important shit on my mind than to worry about stacking things by color and shape. We have a maid, tell her to do it.”

“Does it really bother you that much, Blue?” I ask.

He looks at me with apology in his eyes. Like a little boy caught doing something he didn’t want anyone to see. “Not all the time. But I wanted things to be nice for you. Mismatched mugs make us look fucked up. I’m not fucked up anymore.”

“She knows we’re not a resort, man. She doesn’t give a shit about mugs.” He turns to me. “Do you?”

“No... of course not. But I can understand why he wants things to be nice.”

He’s trying to impress me, that’s all. He used to have nothing, now he has things and he wants it all nice. I don’t see any harm in that. And I absolutely hate when I have a mismatched number of socks. Where do the missing socks go? And why do they never resurface? It’s no big deal if Blue feels that way about other household items.

“I’ll help you put all this away,” I say. “Then we can have breakfast. I’m starving.”

He chews the inside of his lip and glances at all the items spread out over the counter. A moment ago he seemed so determined to tackle this self-imposed task, but now he appears overwhelmed.

“I’m going to go have a smoke first,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”

I nod and watch him go out into the backyard through the French doors in the adjoining dining room.

“Does he do this a lot?” I ask Reece.

“Not really. It’s been worse since he stopped smoking weed. I think that used to calm him down.”

“It’s good that he quit, though. I’m proud of him.”

“I am too. It’s a bad scene when he uses and I’ve battled with him over it for years. I think he’s just got some anxiety issues and without the drugs to calm it down, he gets a little batshit.”

“He’s okay, though, right?” I start to put the glasses back in the cabinet, hoping I’m putting them back the way Blue wants them.

Reece sips his coffee. “Seriously? He’s brilliant. He’s better than he’s ever been. The new material he’s been writing kicks ass. And he’s actually living life now. He wants you and his daughter to be part of his life. That’s a big thing for him, to let people get close. I think he just needs to find some balance and figure out how to deal with stress without using drugs and alcohol to fix all his problems.”

“Maybe he should be on some meds for anxiety? I used to take Xanax when I was younger when my boss was a total bitch to me and stressing me out all day. It helped.”

He looks skeptical. “I don’t think he should take anything like that. He has addictive tendencies.”

“Oh.” I’m grateful his friend knows so much about him. Things I have no way of knowing. “I didn’t think of that. I’m glad he’s got you to look out for him. It means a lot.”

“We look out for each other. He’s not just my roomie and bandmate, he’s family.” He grabs a stack of bowls and places them in one of the cabinets. “That makes you family now, too, since it’s pretty obvious he’s keeping you around if you let him.”

That’s music to my ears. “I’m definitely sticking around no matter what.”

Blue comes back into the room at that exact moment. “You two talking about my fucked-up obsessions?”

“No,” I say with a smile. I touch his shoulder and crane my head up to kiss his cheek. “We’re talking about how amazing you are.” I hold up two matching black stoneware mugs. “Look. They match.”