Page 15 of Dedicated

“This about last night, still?”

He gave me a sharp glare, one he probably hoped would morph into acid and melt the skin from my face. Then he straightened, swiping the back of his hand over his mouth, and damn, I swear it felt like he could see straight through to the part of me that ached with how much I wanted him, even right then when he was being an obstinate, insulting ass. I liked dick, but I didn’t typically enjoy a guy acting like one, so I was annoyed that the intensity of his expression sent a flinch of heat rocketing through my groin even as I wanted to shrivel away from it.

“Why is it impossible for you to go a night without someone on your cock?”

“I’ve gone strings of days without screwing someone. I told you I was sorry. I tried to hang out with you after. You wanted nothing to do with me.” I shrugged.

He rubbed the knuckle of his thumb between his brows, then closed his eyes and exhaled a long sigh.

“Leigh broke up with me.”

“Blameshifting much?”

He grunted something that sounded likemaybe, but I didn’t respond immediately because I was chewing over this news. Even though they’d been together a while, Evan never really seemed all that into Leigh. I mean, he seemed like he liked her well enough, but not to the degree that her breaking up with him should turn him into the troll he was currently. I’d never heard him talk about a future with her. I added, “I’m sorry, though. That sucks. I guess?” I honestly couldn’t tell if he was angry at me, Leigh, or both of us.

“Fuck.” Evan blew out a harsh breath, raking a hand through his hair until it stuck out at odd angles in an annoyingly sexy tousle of blond. His shoulders curled inward a little as he pushed his plate away and started unfolding bills from his pocket, counting out a dozen twenties—much more than was needed—and laying them under the check the waiter had dropped off minutes before so stealthily Evan didn’t notice him. Which had probably been the point. I didn’t blame the guy. “You remember the first time we went to the cabin?”

I tipped my chin in a short nod when he glanced up for confirmation.

“It was just about making music. About making something good. No label on our backs, no personas to live up to, or unspoken quotas to meet. The crazy thing is, though, I knew that all of this was what I wanted. The success, the money. Like, I was actively working toward that, and now it’s here and I’m stuck on this hamster wheel of wanting it to be the way it was, but wanting the financial stability, too. And I can’t have it both ways. I get that. They’re interconnected.” He wet his lips and stared at me, and behind the brightness of blue was the shadow of an ache I recognized. Loneliness. Exhaustion. “But it gets to me sometimes. All this shit around us is so meaningless and empty. The photo shoots and interviews, all the free shit we’re given just because of our name. It’s not real. And I feel like an ass complaining about it. It’s not really a complaint even, but I need… I need something to ground me.Someoneto ground me. I thought someone removed from all this bullshit would make me feel that way. And it worked, kinda. When I was with Leigh, I was still just me. She knew the me before the person I am now. Being with her was like being home again.”

A melancholy note plinked in my chest and harmonized with jealousy. So hewasreally upset about Leigh. “Why’d she break up with you?”

“She said there wasn’t a spark. We were more friends than anything. And she’s right. ” He put his forehead to his palm and shook his head from side to side, seeming dejected as he continued. “The last time she was here, the sex was just… mechanical. We might as well have laid next to each other and masturbated. I screwed it up.”

I tried to focus on what Evan was saying and stop imagining him lying on a hotel bed jerking off. He’d rarely ever even used the word sex and himself in the same sentence, but boy it was having an effect on me. Shit, he was right. I couldn’t go two seconds without my mind free-falling into the gutter. I sucked in a breath and attempted to muster up a more convincing expression of sympathy. He was hurting, and I didn’t want him to hurt, after all.

“I’ll hang out tonight, dude, I promise. You, me, wings, and some Call of Duty. Mars got the new one. I saw it last night.”

But we didn’t doany of those things. Because after we got offstage that night—our last show on the tour—he out-of-the-damn-blue hopped a red eye and flew back to Nashville by himself.

Black Dovehasn’t done as well as your previous two albums.

Les:It’s a flop, you can say it. It’s the truth.

Anything you’d attribute that to? Any changes in how you guys approached the writing and recording.

Les:I think it’s just one of those things that—

Evan:No. Next question.

Chapter 13

Iwas the first to arrive in Gatlinburg, which came as absolutely no surprise. I’d texted Les earlier that morning and had gotten no response. I’d heard from him once in the four days we’d been off, which was probably fair turnabout since I’d jetted without warning after our last show. I knew he thought it was either his fault or because I was upset about Leigh, and it was a little of both, but not in the ways he’d probably thought it was.

As I pulled onto the downtown strip to pick up the keys to the cabin, my phone buzzed with a message from our manager, Byron, saying Les was on a flight from Vegas and Blink would drop him off at the cabin that afternoon. I wondered how much money he’d lost, how much alcohol he’d funneled into his system, how many people he’d fucked. Les never did anything half-assed, and to be honest, I was a little surprised to hear he’d actually made it onto his flight in the first place.

Evan:What kind of state is he in? Do you know?

Byron:You should probably pick up some Pedialyte.

So my next stop after picking up the keys was a Walgreens, where I roamed the aisles until I found the Pedialyte. I stood in front of the colorful display next to diapers and baby food, debating the different flavors and which one he might like until I stopped, wondering what the fuck I was even doing. I left without buying anything because maybe he could do with a little suffering. I was tired of cleaning up his messes, tired of picking him up, dragging him out of hotels, being responsible for him. All the peace I’d found over the past few days being back in Nashville in my own place, with my own sheets and plenty of room to roam around, started to disintegrate and my stomach knotted up all over again.

It eased up once I arrived at the cabin, got out of the rental car, and stood in the gravel drive, looking at the little placard hanging next to the door that read “Tune Out.” Memories poked holes in my foul mood like sunlight through clouds: the first time we came here, our gear jammed in my beat-up SUV, Les wedged in the front seat. The cabin was set into a downward slope, its rustic face framed in logs, a couple of tidy flower boxes beneath the windows crowded with a few plants I recognized as geraniums. It was homey and inviting and looked like it would smell clean and lemony inside.

“So quaint,”Les had said, unfolding from the car and stretching his long legs. His T-shirt had risen up over his stomach, revealing the tattoos that banded his torso.“You think it has a heart-shaped tub?”He’d waggled his brows at me playfully.

“If it does, you’re free to start a lonely-hearts club in it.”I’d smirked at him, and he cracked up. We used to do that more. Banter back and forth like we did onstage minus the bitter edge that seemed inherent in our conversations nowadays.