Strong: A Stage Dive Novella (Stage Dive #4.5)(16)

“Well, no. But you could have asked instead of phrasing it the way you did.”

“I’ll make a note of that for next time. Now,” he said. “I believe you wanted some sort of statement from me as to my intentions.”

“Your intentions?”

Sam lifted the bottle of champagne out of the bucket of ice and topped up my glass. Next his arms wrapped tight around me before any kind of escape could be attempted. The man knew exactly what he was doing. But if ever a man was bound to have a plan, it would be him. “Have a bit more to drink. It’ll make you feel better.”

“I’m fine. Or I was fine where I was. What am I doing sitting on your lap?”

“You never did like being out of control of a situation.”

“Stop acting as if you know what’s going on in my head all the time. You don’t!”

He chuckled, the sound and the vibration of his strong chest against my side much too pleasant. “Considering I’ve been waiting for you for almost a decade, I think I’ve got a pretty good understanding of what goes in that gorgeous head of yours.”

“Almost a decade?”

“Mm-hmm.” He took a drink from my glass, wrinkling his nose at the taste. “No, I definitely don’t think that champagne’s going to grow on me anytime soon. Anyway, where was I?”

“Almost a decade…”

“Right. So—”

“That’s not possible.”

“Of course it is.”

I shook my head. No one had ever wanted me for anywhere near so long. David and I had barely lasted half that amount of time before outgrowing each other and breaking up in a spectacularly messed-up fashion. Though mostly, he’d outgrown me. Left me far behind and largely forgotten. Or at least that’s the way it felt at the time. Since then, I’d dated men for a month or two at most. Then dumped them before they could dump me because better safe than sorry and hurt. Yet with Sam came a strange sense of safety. He provided exactly the sort of shelter I’d fled New York in search of, if I was being totally honest. The comfort of loved ones, family, and maybe even friends. Things I hadn’t had for a long time. Things I hadn’t quite been able to provide for myself, irritatingly enough. But to maybe need someone, to actually make myself vulnerable…

“This doesn’t make sense,” I said in a quiet voice.

“No?”

I shook my head and sipped my champagne. It didn’t make me feel any better. So there, he didn’t know everything. “So if this thing is a decade old, then why are we here now? After all this time?”

“You’ve always been a loner. Self-contained.”

“True.”

“But, I don’t know. It just seems like there’s something different about you, ever since you’ve been back,” he said. “Never struck me before that you weren’t happy with your life, and how it was going…”

“Yes, but ten years?”

“You’re really stuck on that, aren’t you? Let me explain,” he said, taking a deep breath. “You see, when I first started to work with the boys, I was all about the job. A lot of people think that’s the only way to do what I do. Total commitment. Seven days a week around the clock. Don’t even think of having a life of your own, let alone a relationship. Which was fine in my thirties. You were still wound up over Davie and needed time to get yourself sorted. So I put it off. Told myself it was the right thing to do.”

“Wouldn’t getting involved with me when I was working for them too have been a conflict of interest or something?”

He lifted one big shoulder. “Possibly. But I’m pretty sure we could have worked it out.”

“Huh.”

“Then you up and left, moved to New York. That was a bit of a shock, honestly.”

“Was it?”

“Yeah. Though you still came back now and then. Plus there’d be shows on the East Coast and you’d usually turn up,” he said. “Thing was, when you were around, you were still angry. All pissed off about David and Ev getting together and being all happy and in love. So obviously, it still wasn’t the right time. But that’s okay. When it came to you, I was used to being patient.”

I drank my champagne. David had pretty much written a whole album dedicated to how much I sucked. While we’d both had our faults, I couldn’t exactly say he was wrong. So the less my ex got mentioned the better.

Sam smiled. “Now, however, things feel different.”

“In what way?”

“Well, these days when you see Dave, you mostly just seem awkward and a bit embarrassed about the whole thing.”

My spine snapped straight. “No, I don’t.”

“No? Okay. So I’m wrong.”

“You don’t really believe that. You’re just trying to pacify me.”

“Here’s what I believe…” He took another drink from my glass. “Martha, dearest, I’m not going to argue with you about shit that doesn’t matter.”

I just blinked.

“If you say you’re not worried about being around Dave, then great. I’m delighted to hear it,” he said. “All I care about is that you’re obviously no longer hung up on the guy.”