Fade Into You (Shaken Dirty #3)(51)
“I am from the label,” she reminded him. “I believe we’ve been accused of being a tad bit single-minded at times.”
“Yeah, well, I can be single-minded, too.” He started to wrestle her computer away from her, but this wasn’t her first rodeo, and she held on tight. They’d be prying this computer out of her cold, dead hands one day. Until then, it stayed right where it was.
When he realized she wasn’t giving in, Wyatt pulled back and looked at her inquisitively. “Something going on that I should know about? I mean, other than you plotting Shaken Dirty’s world domination?”
She took a moment, tried to decide what she wanted to say. How she wanted to say it. “You’ve got a lot of fangirls, you know?”
He quirked a brow. “It’s kind of part and parcel of the rock star thing. Besides, most of them are there for Ryder and Jared.”
“No, you don’t get to say that. Maybe in the old days you could, but I’m on a tumblr dedicated to you and you alone—wyattdomelikethis. A couple of minutes ago I was on one dedicated to you and Ryder and the oh-so-secret love you two have for each other.”
“You were on a Ryatt site?” He burst out laughing.
“So you do know about Ryatt? Even though you claim never to have been on Tumblr or Instagram?”
“I don’t have to be on Tumblr to hear about Ryatt. Or Wyred or Ryinn or Jinn for that matter. We get tweets about it all the time.”
“It doesn’t bother you that people think you’re sleeping with your bandmates?”
“Why should it bother me?” he asked with a shrug. “I mean, besides the fact that Jamison would bury my body where no one would ever find it if she thought I was making a move on her man. But, seriously? What’s the big deal? Every other day I’m linked with a new Victoria’s Secret model. Why is this any different?”
Wow. When he phrased it that way, it kind of bothered her. Not the band ships, obviously, because after meeting them and seeing how they were together, the idea of him sleeping with one of them was ludicrous, no matter how many photo manips or how many “receipts” Tumblr produced. But him being linked to model after model? Yeah, that bothered her more than it should considering she’d promised herself just last night that she wasn’t going to get in too deep with Wyatt.
Sure, she’d always had an okay body image and pretty decent self-esteem, even if she had boring brown eyes and even more boring brown hair. But she was no underwear model. Not by a long shot. The idea that that was the kind of women Wyatt was used to—the kind of women he was normally attracted to? It hit a little closer to home than she might have liked.
Then again, that so wasn’t what she’d planned for this conversation to be about. Who Wyatt had slept with in the past—and who he was going to sleep with whenever this thing between them was done—was none of her concern. Even if, right now, it kind of felt like it should be.
Determined to cut off that train of thought before it could do any more damage, she focused on bringing the discussion back around to what she really wanted to talk about. Something that had absolutely nothing to do with beautiful blondes with incredible bone structure and even more incredible bodies. And wings…
“These blog owners—the ones who have tumblrs dedicated to you—they’re pretty intense.”
“It’s rock and roll,” he answered with a shrug. “It’s intense by definition.”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay, rock star, tone it down a bit.”
He looked offended. “I’m just saying, rock is an intense musical genre. If you wanted something a little more bubblegum, you should start working with a boy band or something.”
“Wow. Arrogant and disdainful. I’m so impressed. And I’ll have you know that a lot of boy bands have really talented members.” She batted her eyes at him for a moment, daring him to say more, before she settled back against the pillows and pulled up one of the tumblrs she’d just been visiting. “But seriously, the fans who run these sites seem to know everything about you and the others.”
“They don’t know anything. They know what we tell them, what we let them see. But the real stuff, we keep that shit buried deep where the fans can’t get to it.”
Which was exactly the opening she’d been looking for. “Like what?”
“What do you mean? You’re from the label—you should know this better than anyone.”
“I do. But I’m talking about you specifically. What do you keep buried deep?”
He quirked a brow at her. “You mean besides the fact that I was doing more than an ounce of heroin a day before I checked into rehab this last time?”
God, that was so much worse than she’d envisioned. An ounce a day? She’d read up on heroin addiction the first time Wyatt had gone to rehab, had learned more than she’d ever wanted to about the hell of getting clean. But she’d also learned a lot about what the human body could tolerate, and shooting up an ounce of the pure stuff was way more than most people could handle. The fact that he’d been doing that to himself, to his body…it made her want to pull him close, to hold on tight so he could never hurt himself that way again.
All she said, though, was, “I get that you tried to keep your addiction quiet as long as you could—your basic human right to privacy with that is absolute. Or it should be, no matter who you are.”