Page 33 of Dedicated

We hauled ass all the way down the alley, careening around the corner onto another street before I had to stop, bend over, and catch my breath because I was laughing so hard, mostly for the whole cockeyed situation.

“What the fuck’s so funny?” Evan skidded to a halt next to me, then rested his back against the wall. When I’d recovered enough to look up, I noted he was hardly winded. Fucker could probably run a marathon right now.

“Your exits are supposed to be clearly marked,” I mimicked.

“Well, they are. It’s a fire hazard.” He tried to conceal the threat of a smile by wiping the side of his hand across his mouth, but I’d caught it.

I pushed off the wall and scraped a few strands of hair from the side of my cheek. Then I reached for him, wanting to pick up where we’d left off, but he ducked away and started down the sidewalk, throwing his hand up to hail a cab. Whatever momentary interlude we’d had was clearly over.

I ambled after him, and when a cab pulled to the curb and stopped, he got in, scooting to the far corner without another word, looking out the window with his lips pinched in a thin line. We rode home in a thick silence that could’ve been a result of so many different things that I wasn’t sure which angle to attack it from. Or if I even wanted to bother. He was clearly struggling with everything that had happened tonight, maybe even before, and I sure as shit wasn’t a therapist.

Once we got back to the cabin, the stalemate between us seemed less oppressive since there was more room for it to breathe than in the cab. Evan pushed a cold bottle of water against my stomach while I peeled off my T-shirt. “Drink it. We have a lot of shit to do tomorrow, and if you’re hungover, we’ll lose half a day.”

“I won’t be hungover tomorrow. Fuck’s sake, would you give it a rest?” I might beslightlyhungover tomorrow, but I’d be up at the crack of fucking dawn and ready no matter what, just to spite him.

He folded his arms across his chest and gave me a look. All that was missing was him tapping his foot impatiently. After cracking the seal on the water bottle, I upended it, downing the whole thing in one long series of gulps under his watch. When I finished, I swiped my forearm across my mouth. Evan’s gaze flicked down to my chest and then jerked up again. He lifted one hand to tug at the roots of his hair, then shook his head in what seemed like annoyance.

“My dick is attracted to you, yes,” he said out of nowhere, and my pulse stammered before thrumming wildly in response to that declaration.

Unfortunately, he continued. “But I’m not a slave to my dick like apparently ninety-nine percent of the male population is, and everything else about you…” Another shake of his head. “So I don’t trust it.”

“You don’t trustme, you mean.”

“Tomato, tamatoh.” He shrugged, then turned on his heel and walked down the hall to his bedroom, leaving me standing there in flabbergasted silence. Fuck me sideways; I had no idea it was possible to feel ecstatic and crushed at the same time.

If you could relive one show you’ve played, which one would it be?

Evan:The first one on our first tour.

Les:Really? We were so damn nervous, though. I thought you were gonna hurl on my shoes.

Evan:If I ever hurl on you, it’ll be a direct hit, trust me. But no, in all seriousness, I’d pick that one. We’d played bars and smaller venues forever—college campuses, stuff like that. But right after our first album dropped, MGD put us on a big stage at a huge festival, and I guess that was the moment I really knew that everything we’d been working our asses off to achieve had finally arrived.

Chapter 24

For the next three days, I set my alarm and went running when it was still dark outside, before Les even had a hope of being up. Since the night at the wax museum, we’d spoken minimally. Maintaining a standoff in fifteen hundred square feet was no small task. That we managed to actually write through it was impressive, but we were hurting there, too. Our playing felt uninspired even though we were working on songs we’d already agreed were good. Les was either angry or letting me process, and I hated that both possibilities made my stomach knot up for different reasons—none of which I was allowing myself to address right then. We came to write an album, not for me to descend into some weird pit of emotional fuckery. It was so damn unlike me it was disconcerting. And it didn’t help that every time I closed my eyes, I saw that penetrating stare of his as he’d shoved his hand down my pants at the museum, the quiet demand in his eyes. I couldn’t have lied if I’d wanted to. And now I was trying to avoid having to do it again.

Les foundme in the music room restringing my guitar and let out a bitter chuckle as he leaned up against the doorway, folding his arms over his bare chest. I couldn’t help but look at the lean lines of his torso, the shift of muscle in his forearms as he crossed them, the ink all over his arms and pecs. It was as if once I’d admitted my attraction to him in my head, I couldn’t stop noticing everything about him. It was annoying as hell, and I dragged my gaze back down to my strings, yanking out a loop of wire so hard that it snapped against my hand with a sharp sting.

“Fitting.”

“What?” I kept my attention focused on my lap as I pulled out a coil of new strings and began sorting through them.

“Your shoulders look about as tight as those strings.” He pushed off the doorway and came inside.

“I slept wrong last night.” I rubbed the back of my neck as if to demonstrate. Hell, it felt like I’d slept on everything wrong, and the fact that Les could tell with a glance what most people wouldn’t even notice got that prickle of nerves coursing through my body again. We knew each other too damn well, and while it’d been good for our music, it was wreaking havoc on my ability to detach from him when I wanted to.

“Feels like I’ve been sleeping wrong for months,” Les mused, a smile playing over his lips as I glanced up. He brushed one hand over his bicep, goose bumps rising with the touch. “Cold down here. Coffee?” He turned away even as I grunted ano.

A few minutes later, he returned with a mug for me anyway, setting it on a nearby side table whose surface was liberally scattered with rings. “One sugar, splash of milk,” he affirmed, without me even having to ask. Then he flipped through his notebook, tore out a page, and set it on the table in front of me before dropping onto the floor and riffling through a series of records I’d stacked there. “Hit a vein, I think.” He jutted his chin toward the paper drenched in his cramped writing. “I’ve got a sound for it, too.”

He hummed a few notes, the melody ascending and then dropping low. I set my half-strung guitar aside and reached for his, trying to mimic the sound of his voice as I let my fingers skip around and find the notes. “Like that?”

“Yeah, but maybe um…” He paused, head tilting side to one side, thoughtfully. “Drop it an octave and see.”

“Yeah.” He nodded when I did. “What do you think?” His eyes were wide and imploring. I’d forgotten how he could be when it came to music, the way he sometimes seemed like he was waiting for approval, and how his smile curved so gently when I gave it, as I did then. Because I was skimming the lyrics and hearing the melody in my head, and it was good. For as cocky as he was about other things, Les truly was a collaborative writing partner, always willing to listen and experiment.

I squinted at the page, then cut a look over at him that lingered longer than I intended. “This is about us?” I meant it as a statement, but it came out almost as a question.