Page 46 of Dedicated
“Why do you think, Ev? I want your respect. I want you to think I have some clue as to what I’m doing. I constantly feel like I have to measure up, earn my place.”
Anytime we were working together there’d be these moments when he’d pause looking at me, like he was gauging my reaction. I always thought he was just a glutton for praise or that he was waiting for me to catch up or add something to the song. But now he was telling me point-blank that he was looking for my approval. Thinking about it made me feel things I didn’t want to feel toward him. An intimate tenderness that simultaneously broke my heart and made it clench up. “What are you even talking about? You’ve already earned your place a million times over.”
“Tell that to the label,” he mumbled.
“What does that mean?”
He bit his lip and shook his head. “It means just what I said earlier tonight. You’re the real breadwinner here. You’re the one with the pipes and the mad guitar skills I can’t even hope to ever live up to. I have lyrics, a decent voice, and passable talent. All of which requireyouto make them better. If you decided tomorrow you wanted to go back to writing, too, you could. Easily. You’re the full package, Porter.”
His voice, so raw and vulnerable, sank into me like stones. I wasn’t even sure where to start. “You’re selling yourself way too short,” I began, looking him dead in the eye and hoping that my sincerity came across. “We’re a team, and I’d never have come this far without you. I’m not going to abandon you.”
He grunted something and picked up the guitar again.
“Can I look?” I reached for the notebook, wanting to see what he’d been working on. The hook he’d been humming looped around through my mind, searching for some kind of grounding wire.
He pulled the notebook just out of reach and shot me a small smile. “No. It’s not finished, and you’ve seen enough of my raw parts for one night.”
My chuckle brought his gaze to me again, fierce and glittering. “You know what I mean,” he tacked on.
I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry about tonight. I didn’t mean to make you feel used.”
“There’s a way to do it without making someone feel used, you know.” The raised eyebrows that followed told me I wouldn’t be so easily forgiven.
“Yeah, well, I guess I’m still learning.” I needed to tell him why getting this close to him was a bad idea. Why it was a bad idea that he was under my skin and constantly on my mind. That I wouldn’t want to let go and that one thing I knew for certain about him was that he was never meant to be tied down.
But he started strumming his guitar again, and when I tried to speak, nothing came out. I leaned back against the couch, listening to him caress sound from the strings, the progression smooth and soothing and nothing like the electric feel of his bare skin under my palm when I reached out to touch his arm.
“Come to bed.” I left it open to interpretation, because if he got up to come, I knew I’d take his hand and pull him into my room, and though I didn’t know what would happen after that, it was frightening how much I wanted just the touch of his hand and the feel of him at my back.
He shook his head resolutely. “Gonna practice a little while longer.” And when I stood up, he said, “You’re right, though. We should just stick to the original plan. Messing around was a stupid idea.”
It should’ve made me feel better. A decision had been made. We were in accordance, on the same page. But it didn’t. Not at all.
You’ve talked before about the writing process and a certain cabin you travel to when you’re in the final stages of planning an album. Do you plan to continue that?
Evan:It’s kind of a superstitious act now, I guess. So yeah.
Les:We work on new stuff constantly while on tour, but the cabin is where we really try to lock it all down and nail it to the wall.
Evan:[laughing] You make it sound so… murderous.
Les:That’s what weeks in a cabin with you drives me to. Murderous intent.
Do you two get cabin fever? Stir-crazy?
Les:Evan doesn’t. He’s secretly a hobbit. Me? Sometimes.
Chapter 29
We hadn’t done any advertising, but the turnout for our secret show at Grim’s was overwhelming, which I guess should have been encouraging. That was the Southern grapevine for you. Dan had to turn people away and call in a couple of his local contacts for extra security. He usually hosted a few small shows a year for local artists, so he had the organization down to a science. Porter & Graves had only ever played at the main store in Nashville, but I was impressed by how Dan had transformed the Gatlinburg satellite. The displays were all rearranged to create the effect of an open glen amid a forest of records and CDs. He didn’t bother with chairs; people just packed in to the central pit. At the front, our equipment was set up on a barebones platform that mimicked the one at the main shop. It was only about a half foot off the ground, but on either side, two burly biker-looking dudes watched over it.
My heart thumped with a mixture of excitement and anxiety the same way I used to feel when I was playing in bars. When you’re that close to your audience, you can watch their expressions, which always psyched me out as much as it was rewarding. I could see them wince if I hit a note wrong as well as I could see their faces light up at their favorite song.
Evan and I waited in the storage area at the back of the store while Dan took the small stage, giving a rundown of the show to the audience, talking about how it was all about the music. I knew he was trying to keep the show focused, considering all the publicity we’d been getting lately, and I appreciated that, but it did nothing for the nerves darting through my system like fireflies.
“All right?” I asked Evan, mostly to distract myself. He’d been fiddling with the tuning knobs on his guitar for the past five minutes and looked up at me now distractedly. We’d been careful around each other for the past few days. There was a sense of tension underpinning everything, but it was different somehow than it was on the tour. More potent, it teetered between us, lingering in every glance we exchanged. But we were both stubborn as hell, and I only excelled at playing along because I’d had so much prior practice ignoring my impulses where Evan was concerned. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my usual fallback of booze and sex to distract me, so I figured I was only good for another couple of days before I’d end up doing something stupid and messing things up even more.
I was totally regretting the whole fake boyfriend thing because instead of curing me of my Evan obsession, it’d just made it worse. I’d had a taste of him now, and I wasn’t ready to let that go anytime soon. Pushing back the other night when he told me to come to bed had been a Hail Mary play to collect myself and go on about business as usual. I was trying.