Page 36 of Dedicated
“I’m not ‘into’ guys.” He snorted and I held up my hand so he’d let me finish. “I’m not ‘into’ people in general that often, okay? You already know that.”
“Have you been with a guy before?”
I schooled my expression, steeling myself. Of course he had to ask the fucking question. “Yes.”
His jaw dropped as he sat up straight and stared me down like I’d brutalized a puppy or something. “Why haven’t you ever told me?”
“Because it’s none of your business really. How often do I talk about anyone I date anyway?”
He tipped his head to the side. “All right. Point. Still, it seems like something that would’ve come up somewhere along the way. I dunno, maybe one of the many times you walked in on me. Some solidarity or a thumbs-up and a ‘hey, your oral technique looks great.’”
“You’re usually on the receiving end of said technique,” I pointed out.
“Okay, point again. But why?” Then he squinted one eye and pursed his lips, like he was seeing right through me. “Wait. Who was it? Did he break your clockwork heart?”
I fought to ignore the jab. My heart was far from clockwork. It was a bastard. Fleeting images surfaced—a red skim of hair, a soft mouth, warm brown eyes. My best friend in high school. Until he moved away senior year and our friendship unraveled suddenly, painfully, like it’d never even been there at all. I told Les the first part, but he seemed unsatisfied by the answer. “What’d you do with him?”
“Mostly hand jobs, a few blowjobs. It was… high school.” It had always been hurried and hushed. Like there was something intrinsically wrong with what we were doing. That was mostly on his part, though. I didn’t have enough of a social profile back then to give a shit what other people thought; I was already invisible.
“Did you love him?”
Relentlessly, painfully. But I was confused, too. So much of high school was nothing but confusion to me. The social politics, the general obsession with body parts and who was sticking what in where and for how long. Music was easier. A place I could dissolve into. A place where I created the rules, the structure, the tone.
“He contacted me once. Sent me an email right after our first album hit it big.”
Les’s eyes widened. “Did you reply?” He lowered his voice as if we were in a crowd rather than in an empty room, and it was clear that he’d mistaken my reluctance to talk about it as embarrassment rather than hurt. “Did you see him again?”
“Nah. When I’m done, I’m done.”
And then he sussed it out. “So hedidbreak your heart. And that’s why you haven’t been with another guy since?”
I didn’t say anything. Maybe it was easier to let him think a broken heart was to blame than to tell him the deeper truth. Because that truth was far more complex than some implication of self-imposed restraint after a soured relationship. The truth was I hadn’t been attracted to another guy until Les. And if I was brutally honest, I’d never been attracted toanyonethe way I was Les. And yeah, I’d only come to that conclusion recently after a shit ton of internal turmoil, but the force of it hit like an avalanche primarilybecauseit was so rare for me to be truly into anyone. “Maybe.”
“You’re being really obtuse right now.”
I felt the corners of my mouth turn up, and Les threw his arm across the couch cushion, leaning closer to look up at me, the green intensity of his gaze brightening like a flash fire. “I won’t hurt you, you know.”
“I know. Because this isn’t real anyway.” It was both true and untrue, but it was the best kind of answer for the ridiculous promise Les was making. How could anyone predict whether they’d hurt someone else? If someone had asked me about Luke in high school, I never would’ve thought it possible that we wouldn’t somehow be connected for life, and what I felt for Les now was so damn complicated I was hesitant to label it. Lesgotme and I got him, but it was on this subdermal, subvocal level that didn’t make logical sense to me. It was like trying to break down a song. If you went too far, it would lose all its magic, but it was also a necessity if you wanted to truly understand the structure and why the song worked in the first place.
Maybe I needed to try not questioning us. With music, my trust in Les’s instinct and ability was absolute. But where I was concerned personally? Not so much. Yet, I couldn’t deny that I wanted more of this. Whatever it was. Because the sad truth was, sex rarely felt as good as what had just happened, and I was jealous. Jealous of people like Les, who seemed to find pleasure easily, in any random hand or mouth or body, while apparently it took an act of God for me to even want it. That load I’d blown in his hand felt like it’d been building up in me for a decade. So yeah, I wanted more. A lot more. But that meant I’d have to make a concerted effort to keep it casual the way Les apparently could.
Les frowned and scraped his teeth over his lower lip but nodded after a moment. “Doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun with it. Like we just did, yeah?”
I licked my lips, and somehow when I said, “Sure, yeah. I’m down,” it felt as if I’d passed through some door that slammed shut and disappeared behind me.
Chapter 25
Iwas cartwheeling inside the rest of the morning and into the afternoon. Evan might’ve been second-guessing himself over this morning, but clearly his body was into me. If I could just prove to him that there was no need for him to get all mired in overthinking, maybe this whole fake relationship could become… Fuck, was I really considering that? Yeah, I’d been lusting after him forever, but it was always accompanied by the ice-water shock of reality reminding me that that was pure fantasy because Evan was never going to be into me in a romantic way. Not to mention my track record with relationships was pretty shitty. Regardless, I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Or maybe gift dick was more appropriate.
We worked for another half hour until we had a loose chorus-and-verse structure for a couple of other songs. But no lyrics. “I think you should write them,” I said. Evan watched my guitar bob and bounce on my knee, and I knew he could tell I needed a break.
“I can try, sure.” He twisted his mouth up like he was considering it before he suggested we stop for lunch.
“Yeah.” I nodded gratefully and slid my guitar into the stand next to me. “Was thinking I’d go check out Grim’s. Dan said he’d be bringing in some new stock this week. Interested?”
Evan didn’t even look at me when he shook his head, his focus back on his guitar, absorbed by a riff we’d been working on earlier. I’d hit a wall, but I hoped a change of scenery would be enough to put a few chinks in it and some lyrics would start pouring out of me later that afternoon.
Grim’s parkinglot was tiny, and my three-point turn to back into a spot became a twenty-point tactical operation that resulted in me crawling out the passenger-side door of Evan’s SUV. I grabbed my ball cap at the last minute and popped it on my head. Not that I thought I was likely to be papped at noon in downtown Gatlinburg, but lately, who knew, and music perusal? That was my sacred time.