Fade Into You (Shaken Dirty #3)(70)

He expected her to call him on it, to tell him to stop being a fraud. But she didn’t do that. Instead, she cupped his face in her hands, smooshing his cheeks a little with the deliberate pressure she was applying. “I know you’re solid. And I know you’ve got this, this time. I can see it in your eyes. You’re not going back to drugs. I’m just saying—I’m just asking—that if that resolve ever wavers, if there comes a time when the past gets too hard or the cravings get too bad, you call me.”

“Jamison—”

“You call me,” she said fiercely, her hands pressing even more firmly into his cheeks, “no matter what time it is, and we’ll get you through it. Promise me.”

“I’m fine,” he told her as best he could, considering she was smooshing half his face.

“Promise me!” she barked at him.

“Okay, okay, I promise. Can I have my face back yet?”

“Yes. You can.” She let go of his cheeks, then pulled him into a hug and held on tight. So tight. “I missed my best friend,” she whispered into his shoulder. “I don’t want to lose you again.”

“You’re not going to lose me.”

Her arms tightened around his shoulders. “Promise me.”

He thought of the drugs in his pocket, thought of the promise he’d made himself while standing in the middle of his bathroom just a few hours before. Thought of Poppy and the fact that he wanted to be clean for her because she deserved it. And because, for the first time in a long, long time, he felt like he had something to stay clean for. Someone who drowned out all the ugliness, all the pain, all the voices in his head telling him that he wasn’t good enough, that he didn’t deserve to be happy, that he was the one who should have died all those years ago.

“I promise,” he told Jamison, his voice stronger and more unwavering than it had been in forever. “I’m not going to use again.”

She pulled back then, and studied his face in the way only an old friend could. “Okay,” she said after a second. “Okay. That’s that, then.”

She let him go, crossing back to the stove to cut two huge brownies from the pan before handing him one. And as she grinned up at him, looking mischievous and happy and absolutely solid, he promised himself he was never going to make her cry again. Promised himself that he was never going to make her or Jared or Ryder or Quinn worry about him ever again. They deserved better than that…and maybe, so did he.





Chapter Twenty


When she got back to her apartment, Poppy found a box waiting for her at the concierge’s desk. It was from Waterloo Records, the big indie music store in town, so she carried it upstairs, figuring it was for the label. It was addressed to her, but if Caleb had ordered something, he might have put her name on it, since she was in town.

Still, the explanation didn’t sit particularly well with her, so as soon as she got upstairs, she found a knife and slit the box open…and nearly had a stroke as she pulled out one first edition album after another. All classic rock. All rare. All on vinyl.

The Beatles. The Rolling Stones. KISS. Cream. Queen. Bruce Springsteen. Led Zeppelin. The Who.

Each album was rarer and more expensive than the last.

Convinced now that this was some kind of gift for her father that had been sent to the wrong address, she found the card at the bottom of the box. Pulling it out, she expected some kind of kiss up note from Waterloo, asking her dad to consider them for future signings or whatever.

What she found instead…what she found instead had her hands shaking and tears blooming in her eyes.

To Poppy,

I went looking for a song that reminded me of you, and instead found two dozen that all say what I want to say better than I ever could.

Thanks for last night. It meant a lot to me. Wyatt

At the bottom of the note was a playlist, one or two songs listed from each of the albums he’d sent her. As she read the titles, the tears she’d been struggling to hold in check overflowed and ran down her cheeks.

“Beth” from KISS.

“Lady” from Styx.

“You’re My Best Friend” from Queen.

“If I Fell” from The Beatles.

That was the song that did it, that took her from tearing up to ugly sobbing. For long seconds, she just stood there, shoulders shaking, with the playlist in one hand and The Beatles album in the other.

Wyatt had done this for her. Wyatt, who thought he was a loser. Who thought he didn’t have anything to give. Who thought all of them would be better off without him. Wyatt had done this. Just to make her happy.

No one had ever done something this elaborate for her before…and until she’d opened the box, it had never even occurred to her what she was missing. She’d spent so much of her life chasing her father’s approval, trying to placate journalists and band management and label execs and temperamental musicians, that the idea of someone doing something for her, just because it made her happy—just because she mattered—was foreign to her.

This and a song written exclusively for her? How could she help but fall for Wyatt? Wounded as he was, messed up as he’d been when he’d left her apartment that morning…and still he’d done this.

She picked up her phone to call him, but decided against it when she saw the time. He was probably still in rehearsals with the band. After firing off a quick text instead—one that expressed her intense pleasure with the gift and her desire to show her appreciation with sexual favors—she crossed to the state-of-the-art stereo in the corner of the room and was thrilled to see it still had the turntable she’d added to it a couple of years ago when she’d been in town for South by Southwest.