Lick (Stage Dive, #1)(78)

“You didn’t tell me about the band recording here.”

“We’ve had other things to deal with. I thought it could wait.”

“Right. That makes sense.” I stared at the wall beside me, trying to get my thoughts in order. After a whole lot of slow and painful, everything seemed to be happening at once.

“… About tonight, Ev?”

“Oh, I’m going to dinner at my parents’.”

“Am I invited?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, you are.”

“Okay. Great.”

“Did you actually buy a house here?”

“A three-bedroom condo a couple of blocks up. I figured it was close to your work and not too far from your school … you know, just in case.” He studied my face. “Would you like to see it?”

“Wow.” I changed the subject to buy some time. “Uh, Jimmy’s looking well.”

He smiled and put his hands either side of my head, closing the distance between us. “Yeah. He’s doing good. Relocating up here is working out well for pretty much everyone. Seems I wasn’t the only one ready for a break from all the f*ckwittery in LA. Our playing’s sharper than it’s been in years. We’re focusing on the important stuff again.”

“That’s great.”

“Now, what did Martha say to you, baby?”

The endearment came accompanied by the warm old familiar feeling. I almost swayed, I was so grateful. “Well, we talked about you.”

“I get that.”

“I guess I’m still making sense of everything.”

He nodded slowly, leaning in until our noses almost brushed. The perfect intimacy of it, the faint feel of his breath against my face. My need to get close to him had never disappeared. No matter how I’d tried to shut it down. Love and heartbreak made you breathtakingly stupid, desperate even. The things you’d try to tell yourself to make it through, hoping one day you’d believe it.

“Alright,” he said. “Anything I can help you with?”

“No. I just wanted to check you were really here, I think.”

“I’m here.”

“Yes.”

“That’s not changing, Evelyn.”

“No. I think I get that now. I guess I can be a little slow sometimes picking up on these things. I just wasn’t sure, you know, with everything’s that happened. But I still love you.” Apparently I was back to blurting crap out whenever it occurred to me. With David though, it was okay. I was safe. “I do.”

“I know, baby. The question is, when are you going to come back to me?”

“It’s really big, you know? It hurt so much when it fell apart last time.”

He nodded sadly. “You left me. I think that’s about the worst f*cking thing I’ve ever experienced.”

“I had to go, but also … part of it was me wanting to hurt you like you’d hurt me, I think.” I needed to hold his hand again, but I didn’t feel like I could. “I don’t want to be vindictive like that, not with you, not ever again.”

“I said some horrible shit to you that night. Both of us were hurting. We’re just going to have to forgive each other and let it go.”

“You didn’t write a song about it, did you?”

He looked away.

“No! David,” I said, aghast. “You can’t. That was such a terrible night.”

“On a scale of one to ten how pissed would you be exactly?”

“Where one is divorce?”

He moved his lower body closer, placing his feet between mine. There was no more than a hair’s breadth between us. I’d never catch my breath at this rate. Never.

“No,” he said, his voice soft. “You don’t even remember us getting married, so divorce or annulment or what the f*ck ever is not on. It never was. I just told the lawyers to keep looking busy for the last month while I figured things out. Did I forget to mention that?”

“Yeah, you did.” I couldn’t help but smile at that. “So what’s one?”

“One is now. It’s this, us living apart and being f*cking miserable without each other.”

“That is pretty horrible.”

“It is,” he agreed.

“Is the song a headliner or are you just going to shove it in somewhere and hope no one notices? It’s just a B-side or something, right? Unlisted and hidden at the end?”

“Let’s pretend we’d been talking about making one of the songs the name of the album.”

“One of them? How much of this brilliant album I’ve been hearing about is going to be about us?”

“I love you.”

“David.” I tried to maintain the mock angry but it didn’t work. I didn’t have the strength for it.

“Can you trust me?” He asked, his face suddenly serious. “I need you to trust me again. About more than just the songs. Seeing that worry in your eyes all the time is f*cking killing me.”

“I know.” I frowned, knitting my fingers together behind my back. “I’m getting there. And I’ll learn to deal with the songs. Really. Music is a big part of who you are and it’s a huge compliment that you feel that strongly for me. I was mostly just teasing.”