The next time I walked into the church, the setting sun was turning the stained glass window to liquid gold, amber, and scarlet. Candles by the dozens were lit all across the stage on candelabras caked in months’ worth of dripped wax.

Jessa and Jesse were there, right where they should be: sitting cross-legged on the edge of the stage, facing each other, bent over their guitars, their heads bowed together as they scribbled in their notebooks.

It’d been days since I’d broken Seth’s nose. The rug where we’d both bled—and I’d puked—had been removed, and you’d never know what went down here. And Jessa didn’t, exactly. She knew I’d gotten into it with Seth, but I’d spared her the details. Pretty sure everyone else did, too. The truth was, if Jude and Zane and Dylan hadn’t been here to tear us apart, and I hadn’t hit my head on that amp and gotten a mild concussion, I didn’t really know what would’ve happened.

I’d had no plan when I walked in here other than talking to the band, then confronting Seth. But as soon as I saw him, that plan changed to making Seth Brothers hurt. And once Jesse realized why, he was on board with that line of thought. Not that Jude and the others weren’t, but everyone was so shocked by the sudden bloodshed, the situation was diffused pretty fast.

Jessa had spent the last few days telling me, over and again, that Seth never raped her. He’d never forced her, never threatened to stop feeding her drugs if she didn’t put out. But her words of reassurance did fuck all to calm the ugly black rage festering inside me every time I thought about it.

Yeah; I’d have to get on that anger management thing. Soon.

I headed over to where Maggie was slumped back in a pew, feet up, half-listening to Jessa and Jesse as she worked on her laptop.

“No, no, no, you’ve got it all wrong,” Jesse was saying. “It’s ‘If you could only be…’ and then it’s ‘dirty like me…’ and then the chorus.”

“No,” Jessa said. “No fucking way. You should’ve dropped the chorus after that first hook, then it’s ‘If you could see.’ You’re fucking up the song. It’s a progression of emotion. You can’t have the ‘If you could see’ before the ‘If you could be.’ How can you see that you are something if you haven’t even been it yet?”

“It’s about the other person seeing it in me, though.”

“No, it’s about the singer of the words seeing it in himself.”

“So it’s not about you, the listener, anyway, it’s about me.”

“No. You’re not getting it.”

“What the fuck, Jessa,” Jesse grumbled, playing a couple of lines from the chorus. He hummed along irately as Jessa grinned to herself.

“This been going on a while?” I asked Maggie.

“Uh-huh.”

“I thought they already wrote ‘Dirty Like Me,’” I said, amused. “Ten years ago.”

“Uh-huh. They’re rearranging it. You know, for shits and giggles.” She rolled her eyes. “Artists.”

“Perfectionists.” I headed up toward the stage. “Quit kicking that horse,” I told them as I approached. “It’s dead, yeah?”

Jessa looked up at me, smiling. “We’re just messing around.”

“Yeah. Because my sister informs me that I played it, quote, ‘all wrong’ on the solo tour.”

“You did,” she said.

“How was it wrong?”

“I just told you.”

“Lyricists,” Jesse bitched. “Think you know everything. Learn to tune your guitar properly and we’ll talk.”

“I know how to tune my guitar.”

“Not well enough to hear how that song is supposed to sound.”

“I wrote that song, jackass.”

“You wrote the words, baby. Not the same thing.”

“Without which, you all would have no song. No hit song, which made you rich and famous.”

“She’s right,” I said. “Hate to tell ya.”

“Don’t take her side just because she’s cute and she knows how to rhyme.”

“Ugh. You’re such a dick.”

Jesse grinned a shit-eating grin.

“Can I have a word?” I asked him.

He untangled himself from his guitar and set it aside. I kissed Jessa on the head and she gave me a sweet smile as Jesse hopped down from the stage. As we headed up the aisle, I could hear her twiddling on her guitar, tuning it.

“We good?” I asked him when we stopped just inside the entrance.

“Yeah,” he said. “We’re good.”

Great. Because the other day, while I was on bullshit post-concussion bedrest and he’d come to my place, ranting and raving about leaving the band if I didn’t get rid of Seth, like yesterday, it was definitely not good.

“Then we don’t need to be looking for two new guitar players?”

“Nope.”

I stared him down. “You know you own part of Dirty, right? You go, the name probably goes with you.” It was true. Jesse left the band, we had all kinds of legal bullshit to deal with, and the other band members would have to fight for the right to use the name… and possibly lose it. If he wanted to be a dick about it, they probably would. He owned a fourth of it, on paper. They split the royalties on everything, but he also wrote a fuck of a lot of the music and could fight for more if he ever wanted to. “Not to mention you write most of the killer shit. So basically, the band is fucked without you.”

“I know that.”

“Plus, you know, the chicks dig you something fierce. You and all your fucking leather pants.”

Jesse grinned that dazzling grin of his, so like his sister’s. “Know that, too.”

“Good. Don’t forget it.”

“I’m here, Bro,” he said, getting serious. Then he pulled me in for a quick hug.

“Glad to hear it.” I slapped his back and released him. “Maggie’ll take care of the press. I’ll deal with the record company. Zane’s gonna do a couple of interviews, deliver a statement we’re preparing, and you all can vet it before the lawyers do. Jude’s got us covered with everything else. I’m hashing out some ideas with Maggs on how we’re gonna find our new rhythm guitarist. You don’t need to worry about that. Just keep your focus where it should be—writing a kick-ass album of number one shit with that sister of yours.”

“Yeah, boss.”

“I mean it. If I don’t feel the need to fight, fuck or party ’til I black out, like immediately, when I hear these new songs, you go back at it until I do.”

“I can take care of that,” Jesse said. Then he gave me a pointed look, complete with raised eyebrow. “If you can take care of my sister.”

Well, shit.

I really didn’t expect that out of his mouth.

“Yeah,” I said, tentatively. “Yeah, I can do that. Intend to. She’ll let me, that’s another story.”

Then he did something else I didn’t expect. He clapped me on the shoulder and looked at me like he hoped she would let me. Actually, he looked a little sorry for me. “She’s back, right? Let’s keep it that way.”

I sighed. “Just tell her to come outside when she’s done in here.”

Jesse nodded, but he didn’t let me go. “I’m gonna give you a little advice you gave me, not so long ago,” he said. “You care about her, give her everything you’ve got.”

Fuck me. What an asshole. Using my words against me.

That was exactly what I’d said to him, when Katie almost walked away and he had a panic attack.

He grinned. “Sucks being right all the time, huh, Bro?”

“Don’t be a prick.”

* * *

I went outside and my ass found the stoop around back of the church, where I could be alone until Jessa came. I just hoped I didn’t have to wait long. I’d been wanting to have this conversation for days, but this was the first day I’d managed to keep it together enough to get out of bed. I was fucking tired and groggy all the time, and still on painkillers.

Note to self: never hit your head on a fucking amp while a two-hundred-pound dude is on top of you.

How the hell I’d gotten in as many punches as I did before they tore him away? Pure adrenaline. And he didn’t fight back. They all told me as much.

Seth didn’t hit me. Once.

I hadn’t seen him, but I’d heard he was doing fine. Broken nose, and he definitely wasn’t looking as pretty as usual, but he’d heal.

The worst of the damage would be the shit no one could see.

Jude had gone to have that talk with him. He’d bring Piper in if he thought it was necessary, but apparently Seth had no interest in pressing charges. He’d asked to speak with me, but I’d denied him.

No interest in talking to him again. Ever.

Dirty had just made him a formal offer and he’d accepted, but it wasn’t irreversible. There was a whole lot of shit in that contract that, for the band’s protection, stated in plain fucking English that Seth could and would be terminated for any drug-related issues. What “drug-related issues” meant was open for interpretation, and we’d purposely left it wide-the-fuck-open.

I’d say getting our underage lyricist hooked on pills at sixteen, behind all our backs, totally fucking qualified as a breach of that contract. I was also pretty fucking sure our lawyers could argue that point if Seth decided to have a problem with it.

My guess was he wouldn’t fight it. If Dirty didn’t want him, he really had no legs to stand on to mount any kind of battle. He had no rights in the music like the rest of them did, thank Christ, and like the first time he was dismissed, he’d just crawl away and disappear.

And good fucking riddance.

Now I could get back to doing my job, and doing it right this time. Because it was my job to take care of everyone, look out for them, and I’d totally fucking failed.

I just couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it. Had a lot of time in bed these last few days, just laying there, to think it over. And over.

It definitely wasn’t overnight, what happened with Jessa after her mom died. It was a gradual change, and everyone saw it. Elle had tried to talk to her about it back then, but got nowhere. Jesse tried too. A lot. He and I had almost come to blows over it, one dark night, a long time ago.

“What the fuck did you do to her?”

“Nothing. I loved her.” It was the first and only time I’d admitted that to him, and he didn’t look happy about it.

“What happened between you two?”

“Nothing happened.”

“Then why won’t she talk to you? Why won’t she talk to me?”

“I don’t fucking know. Don’t you think if I knew I’d be doing everything in my power to fix it?”

And I would be. From this day on. Doing every fucking thing in my power.

* * *

I opened my eyes to find Jessa’s soft shadow melting over the grass toward me. She sat down next to me in the dusk.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hey.”

She looked at me with that concerned expression she’d been wearing since I came home from the hospital. She brushed my hair gently from my face, fussing over me. I just stared at her—her slim eyebrows pinched together, her full lips slightly puckered, the worry in her brown eyes—as the last rays of the setting sun spun golden light across her face, and I felt that thing I’d always felt when I was close to her.

Wonder.

“How’s your head?”

“Better,” I said. “Was just resting my eyes.”

She frowned.

“I’ve been thinking—”

“Maybe you shouldn’t,” she said. “Give that big brain of yours a rest.”

I grinned a little, then sighed. “I’ve been thinking, Jessa, about how all the tactics I’ve used to be successful in my life… none of them ever worked on you. You know, in business, I get the biggest bone for being a bulldog.”

She smiled.

“With you, I had to take a different approach, but I was always fucking it up. I want you to know I’m sorry for that. And I want to be crystal fucking clear that I never wanted you to leave. If I’d known what to do to make you stay, whatever it was, I would’ve done it. I would’ve done anything.”

“I know that, Brody.”

“The other night, when I said I don’t care who you get to manage you? That was a lie.”

She smiled again.

“Figured I should come clean about that. I don’t want anyone else managing you because I’d be jealous of them. I’ve always been jealous of anyone who gets to be what I want to be in your life. That’s why I’ve always hated your modeling work. Why I always tried to butt my nose in where it didn’t belong when it came to your career. I just wanted that part of you, if I couldn’t have anything else.”

“I know,” she said softly.

“And while I’m being honest, the reason I wanted it was because I thought if I had that part of you, maybe eventually, I’d get the rest.”

“I know that, too,” she said.

A comfortable silence fell between us for a while, and she rested her head on my shoulder. But I wasn’t done yet.

“I’ve been struggling, Jessa,” I confessed. “Maybe you can help me, with figuring out how to see it the way you do. Without… hating him. I’ll never be able to forgive what he did to you—”

“He didn’t really do anything to me, Brody. I just—”

“I can’t,” I said, cutting her off. She looked up at me, but she didn’t argue. “But… I can’t regret everything, either, and it’s fucking with my head. It’s hard to look back and wish it all away. Wish Seth had never come along. If he didn’t… maybe Dirty would never have become what they are. Maybe Jesse never would’ve met Katie, they wouldn’t have gotten married, and you never would’ve come back to me.”

“Maybe I never would’ve run in the first place.”

“Yeah. That’s the part that’s really killing me.”

We were silent again, this time a little less comfortably.

“You know we wrote ‘Dirty Like Me’ together,” Jessa said. “Seth and Jesse and me. But you probably didn’t know that me and Seth were barely speaking when we wrote it.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah.” She sighed softly. “I’d jam with Jesse and we’d write, then Seth would come up with the melodies, better melodies. All that beautiful, haunting, killer shit that hooks you, sucks you in and doesn’t let go… that’s all Seth. I didn’t come up with the best of the lyrics until I heard the music he wrote. You know, it was usually that way. I wanted him off that song, at first, but even I couldn’t deny he made it magic. He made everything magic back then.” She glanced away, then her brown eyes found mine again. “Musically, I mean. So, no, I can’t regret that either.”

“Your lyrics make it magic, Jessa.”

I meant that. The song worked for many reasons, but she was right. Without her words, it wouldn’t be what it was.

Then something occurred to me…

“That song’s about him? About… how you felt after what happened between the two of you?”

“No,” she said. “It’s about you. How I felt about you.”

Oh.

Shit.

I tried to digest that. To think through the words of the song and what that meant… and I was overcome.

“You felt… dirty? For wanting to be with me?”

“No. And yes.” She sighed again, nibbling on her lip. “The best I can describe it is like this. The more I wanted you, all the guilt over what was happening with Seth, with the drugs, all the lies… the secrets and the hiding… it ate me up. That’s when I started really distancing myself from you. And spending more time with him. And later, when I started distancing myself from him, too, that’s when we wrote the song. But I never should’ve gone down that road with him, even though it gave us that song. I’ve known that all along. I knew it then. I still did it.”

“You loved him,” I managed to say, looking at the concrete between my feet. “There’s no guilt in that, Jessa.” I meant that, too.

“Yeah,” she breathed. “I loved him. As a friend.”

She fell silent and I looked at her.

“I used to think about you. When he and I…” She trailed off, looking away. “But then… it just made me feel dirtier than I already did. Like I was betraying him, too. And most of all, I knew I was betraying myself.” She glanced at me. “I thought if you saw the real me… what I’d become… everything I’d done… you wouldn’t like me anymore. You wouldn’t keep me on that damn pedestal you had me on. You wouldn’t even be able to stand me. And I couldn’t stand that. So…” She swallowed. “I ran. I ran from everything that hurt, and in turn, I just got… numb. I couldn’t feel much of anything without you there to remind me I was still alive.” She looked right in my eyes, hers shining with tears in the dusk. “That’s why I couldn’t just block your number and completely lose you. Those messages you sent kept me alive, Brody.”

I took her hand in mine, but she looked down at the grass and her hair fell over her face. I knew this was a lot for her to open up about. And even if she was finally ready, it had to be really fucking hard.

“Did I ever tell you about my dad?” I asked her, knowing fully fucking well I hadn’t. I’d never told anyone that shit. “About how he hit me?”

“No.” She looked up at me and shifted closer, letting her leg press against mine like she instinctively wanted to comfort me. “You never told me that.”

“Yeah. It started before I met you. When I was small, and it went on for years. Until I was big enough to hit back.” I cracked my knuckles, remembering. “He would hit me in the chest, or the back, or the stomach. Places no one would know but me, places they wouldn’t see at school. And I never told anyone. So it became this humiliating secret. He told me if I told anyone, I was a pussy. He told me that when I was seven years old, and I believed him. I believed him for a long time, Jessa. The thing is, I don’t believe him anymore.” I squeezed her hand. “We all have shit we’re not proud of. I never would’ve judged you for what you went through.”

“Brody…” she said softly. “I never knew.”

“You remember that pin I gave you?” No stopping now; just tear that rotten bandage off, for good. “The one from the Sinners?”

She nodded.

“They recruited me. When I was twelve.”

“Oh, Brody…”

“Yeah. There was this guy I’d see at the 7-Eleven by my school—the private school I went to before your school. He rode a Harley and he was all kinds of cool. At least, he seemed to be, to me. He was so tough, you could see how people just stepped the hell out of his way when he walked into the store. I wanted that. I wanted to not be scared anymore. He could see that, I guess. Or he saw something. I don’t know.” I looked at her; made sure she was really listening to this shit.

She was hanging on my every word, her big brown eyes locked on mine.

“He got me dealing drugs on the playground. I was just a kid, you know, twelve, thirteen. And he’d have me hand out freebies to the other kids. Try to lure them in so they’d want more, spend their parents’ money. I did it for about a year before I got caught. I was lucky my dad’s lawyers saved me on that one. But I have to carry that shit, every day. That because of my stupidity, some poor kid might’ve ended up a junkie.”

Jessa squeezed my hand, tight. “You were just a kid, Brody. He took advantage of you. He used your vulnerability. That doesn’t make you bad.”

“Yeah. Well. If you feel dirty for what you’ve been through, sweetheart, believe me, I feel fucking filthy. And you should know by now that I never expected you to be perfect. I loved you, Jessa. You. Not what you thought you were supposed to be.”

She sniffed a little, fighting back tears. “You should’ve told me. About your dad. About all of it.”

“You should’ve told me about the drugs. About what was going on with Seth. Or told Jesse. Or Elle. Somebody. We would’ve helped you. We’re your team. Don’t you know that by now?”

“Yes,” she said. “I do. I know it now. But I was so afraid back then… I would’ve rather you love that girl I really wasn’t than never love me at all.” She shook her head sadly. “Why didn’t you tell us about your dad? Didn’t you think we’d believe you?”

I took her face in my hands and looked her right in the eye. “We would’ve believed you, Jessa.”

“I didn’t know. I just didn’t know which way it would go.”

“With you,” I told her, letting my thumb caress her cheek. “We would’ve had your back. And things would’ve been so different if we’d known. A lot of things would’ve been different…”

She closed her eyes for a moment as I caressed her cheek.

“Do you remember that day we first met?” she asked softly. “On the playground, when you saved me from those bullies?”

I snorted. “Way I remember it, you would’ve been just fine without me, princess. For a snot-nosed five-year-old, you sure had all the answers.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “I was eight. And maybe that was the problem, that I thought I had the answers. Sometimes I still feel like that lonely little girl, you know? Trying to carry the weight of the world on my skinny shoulders, not even realizing I don’t have to, just trying so hard to save myself and drowning. And I know it’s taken me too many years, but I’ve finally realized I can’t do it alone.”

“You don’t have to,” I said. I let my hands drop from her face and put my arm around her. “Come here,” I said, tucking her into my side. She snuggled into me, wrapping her arms around my waist.

“You know,” she whispered into the growing dark, her voice small, like she was sharing some terrible secret, “I’ve always been afraid of people leaving me? That’s why I leave them first.”

There was a silence as I took a breath.

“Because your dad left you.”

“Yeah,” she whispered. “Twice. He left when Mom was pregnant with me. That’s why she let Jesse name me. Then he came back to us. And then… he left again. Forever.”

Yeah. I knew that. And it’d definitely never been lost on me how much her dad leaving—twice—had fucked Jessa up.

“You know, Jessa, you told me the other night that you thought you had to be perfect to deserve love, when you were a kid. But maybe you’ve never stopped thinking that; that if you could just be good enough, perfect enough, no one else would ever leave you, hurt you like that, like your dad did, again.”

Jessa peered up at me. “How is it that you know me better than I know myself?”

“Because I love you.” I kissed her forehead. “Except it doesn’t work like that, does it? Trying to be perfect doesn’t make people stay.”

“No,” she said.

“Because then your mom died.”

“Yes.”

“It doesn’t work like that because no one’s perfect, Jessa. And no matter how flawless you try to be, you can’t stop people from leaving you. Isn’t it fucking freeing to finally accept that?”

“I guess I’ll let you know, when I get to accepting it.”

“Babe, when you love someone, when you really love them… you already have.”

She took that in and I could see her trying to swallow it. I knew she had to, because I knew, about this, I was right.

She couldn’t truly love me, or anyone else, if she was terrified the whole time they were gonna walk out the door. Which was why I had to stop being afraid she was gonna run away again. Because I did love her.

I loved her with everything I had.

“And by the way, there is no fucking way I’m gonna let you sit here and even try to tell me you don’t see my flaws, because that’s some straight-up bullshit, babe. And if you can still stand me with all my scars, maybe you can cut yourself some slack.”

She smiled at me, and I knew I was right on this point, too. Because I was far from perfect, and she had never expected me to be. It was probably all the weird little idiosyncrasies that made me me that she liked about me anyway.

I knew I loved all those things about her. Stubborn, dorky, scared as shit, I didn’t care. I loved her.

“You are ridiculously bossy,” she conceded. “And crazy over-protective. And I still tolerate you. Putting me on the pill, for example, while embarrassing and perhaps a tad premature, probably did me a real solid. So I guess I owe you a thanks for that.”

“I didn’t put you on the pill,” I said. “Your brother did.”

“Right. And that had nothing at all to do with you and your giant black eye.”

I grinned. “You remember that night? You told me I should stop smoking. You can be bossy yourself, you know that?”

“I remember. A girl never forgets the night the man of her dreams brings her tampons.” She looked up at me, and I looked right back at her. And yeah, she’d just said that. The man of her dreams.

“I never had another cigarette after that one,” I confessed. “Bet you didn’t know that.”

“Never?”

“Never.” I took her chin and drew her face close to mine. “I have loved you forever, Jessa Mayes. Pretty sure I was fucking born to love you. I know you didn’t really believe me when I said so, or maybe you just didn’t want to… but I would’ve waited for you forever.”

* * *

“Say it,” I murmured into her sweet-smelling skin, kissing her neck as I held her down. And yes, I was being bossy. I did not give one fuck. “I want to hear you say it, princess.”

“Say what?” she mumbled sleepily. “What is it you want from me now? Didn’t I already meet all your demands?” Her hand crept down to my bare ass and squeezed.

“I want you,” I said, kissing my way up her throat as I maneuvered between her thighs. “To stay. Here.”

“Right here?” she asked, wiggling beneath me.

“Here,” I said, thrusting slowly inside her. “In my home… in my bed… where you belong.”

“Sounds very… caveman,” she said as she took me, her breaths slowing, deepening.

I did my best cavemen grunt as I moved, sliding out, then in again. “Give me… more… pussy.”

Jessa laughed and slapped my ass. “Stop it!”

“Mmm.” I ground into her and her laughter melted away, replaced with a groan.

“Brody…”

“I’m serious.” I slowed my thrusts and pressed my forehead to hers. “I don’t go on the road much anymore, and when I do, you can come with me. Or you can stay right here, in my bed, waiting for me.”

“Sounds fun.”

“You can write, and you can still model, if you decide you want to…” I almost lost my train of thought as she moved her hips against me, urging me on. “You can do… whatever you wanna do.”

“Well, thank you for your permission.”

“You don’t need my permission. And don’t be a smart-ass.” I kissed her, whispering, “I’m not telling you to change your life for me, Jessa. I’m asking you to finally share it with me.”