Page 70 of Dedicated
Chapter 39
Iputtered around the kitchen the following day, making lunch and trying to stay out of Rita’s way as she dusted and mopped. I sucked at the rocker lifestyle, all the way down to my hired hands; I kept wanting to take one of the rags on the counter and help Rita out the way I had my mom when I was a kid. When my phone rang, Rita shooed me away as she slid it over the counter toward me. “Make a business deal, sweetheart. I’ve got the dust bunnies covered.” The ache that threatened to spread through me at the pet name turned into a groan as I glanced down at the screen. Blink. There was no love lost between us. At least on my end, but I answered anyway.
“What’s up?”
“Hey, Porter, listen.” He spoke fast, as if he was afraid I’d hang up. Probably a good instinct on his part, since I was glaring at the pantry as I threw a bag of bread back inside it. “I know you’re not my biggest fan, and I wish I could fix that, but whatever, it’s not why I’m calling. Les is doing a Facebook Live thing on his page, like now. He didn’t tell anyone he was doing it, besides me, but uhhhh… I thought it might be something you’d want to see.”
My stomach lurched into my throat, and I got off the phone with him as quickly as I could. What was Les up to now? My hackles rose at the same time I felt a stab of disappointment, recalling his social media frenzy when he’d been in Vegas. Had he fallen off the wagon already?
I tabbed over to Les’s Facebook fan page on my phone and opened the video feed. The same fluttery surge that’d raced through me last night while I’d been looking at our old photos was exponentially multiplied by seeing him live. He looked, as Leigh had said, healthy and well rested. And sober. Goddammit, he lookedgreat. He wore a plain white T-shirt, and his hair fell over his forehead in shower-damp tousles that he raked a hand through as he frowned at the screen. “Bear with me here, I’m not used to doing this. At all. Which is kind of surprising given the last tear I went on in Vegas. I don’t remember shit about that, though.”
Comments started pouring in, mostly exuberant greetings and hearts, a few bits of advice to tilt his laptop.
“Okay, how’s that?” he asked, adjusting the screen. “Good?Great. So hello.” He rubbed his palms together briskly, then ran them down his stubbled cheeks, seeming unsure what to say next. “I’ve got some things I need to get off my chest, probably against the advice of a publicist, but I’m done with publicists for a while. So you’re getting just me. Unfiltered me. Except sober this time.” Les panned his laptop around so we could see he was alone. I recognized the close-up black-and-white photographs of guitars on his living room wall. He’d picked those up on one of our stops in New Orleans because he’d thought the intricacy of detail was the coolest thing ever:“Isn’t it crazy that some human just came up with the wild idea of combining wood and strings to make some cool sounds, never having a clue it would become the obsession of a million jackasses like you and me, and that people would pay those jackasses for the pleasure of the sounds made with said wood and strings?”I think he’d been stoned at the time. I might’ve been, too.
He pinched the bridge of his nose before continuing, “For viewers out there who aren’t up-to-date, I’m fresh out of rehab after a colossal meltdown in Vegas, which I dearly wish I hadn’t vomited out in painful detail on my Facebook page. Don’t be like Les Graves, people. Just don’t.”
His self-conscious chuckle rang through the speaker, then he sighed. “But I’m leaving all of that up, because it’s reality, and I’ve got an idea that Porter & Graves’s fans have probably been feeling like they haven’t gotten enough of that lately. I’m sorry for that, and the purpose of this video today is twofold: to clear the air about rumors and own up to my mistakes and take responsibility for them. Okay, technically, that’s three things.” He glanced down and chuckled at the comment feed where someone had typed “deny, deny, deny!” then responded, “We’re way past plausible deniability now. No, fuck it, I’m gonna tell you my side straight.
“First thing I’ll say is that I won’t speak for Po—for Evan. I can’t. I can only speak for myself, which is fine because really, all of this is my fault. Every single bit.”
My next inhale got stuck in my chest. For a fleeting moment, I felt a prickle of fear that he might admit to cooking up the whole relationship thing with our publicist. I’d believed him when he said he hadn’t in the parking lot. It didn’t make sense. So I tamped down the insecurity and tried to relax my hand, which was gripping my phone so tightly my joints ached. Fuck, I missed him, and just seeing him onscreen brought the hollow ache of his absence from my life starkly to the fore.
“It’s really complex and convoluted, so be patient,” he continued, and started with the story of how he’d told Ella she could sell the tell-all of her night with us. “It would’ve been different if Ella had just decided to tell the story on her own, and she was definitely within her rights to. After all, she was a part of that night, but she was nice enough to give me a heads-up about it, and I should’ve told Evan about it, but I didn’t. I invaded Evan’s privacy thoughtlessly, without consulting him, and it was so fucking wrong it makes me sick to think about. And when I had an opportunity to come clean, I betrayed him again.
“Musician sexcapades aren’t that big of a deal, I know, and if it had come out right after it happened, it probably would have been less of a deal, but it came out months later when Evan and I were really struggling in our friendship—and that’s the other part that’s my fault.” Les’s gaze had been focused off to one side as he spoke, but now he looked directly into the camera, the sincerity in his eyes gutting me. “Purely, one hundred percent my fault. I was being irresponsible, excusing my own behavior and doing stupid addict shit because I was struggling to cope with my own feelings for Evan. Feelings I didn’t think I’d ever get a chance to express to him. Not if I wanted to remain part of the band. Because I was in love with him, and I have been for a long time.”
My eyes went wide. I could literally feel it happen.
“Rita!” I called frantically, digging through bottles of cleaning agents and the photographs still lying over the counter for my car keys.
She popped her head into the kitchen.
“I need you to drive me to Les’s.”
I turned the screen of my phone toward her befuddled expression. “I’m watching him. I can’t drive. Come on!”
She set down her broom and squinted at the live feed. “What’s he up to?”
“He’s… he’s—” How could I explain to her that he was taking my carefully constructed yet shoddy wall of defense and dismantling it word by word? “Holy hell, woman, you’re killing me, let’s go.” I exchanged the dustpan in her hands for my car keys and all but dragged her by the sleeve of her shirt out to my car, keeping my phone in my palm. Les lived in the Sylvan Park neighborhood which, in theory, was not that far from 12 South, where I lived. In theory.
Les rambled on as we got in the car, and I stared at the screen, transfixed and hardly breathing while my heart battered my chest.
“I didn’t think Evan was open to it, so I buried it in other ways. Ways that affected our friendship and our music. And when the idea came about to capitalize on Ella’s story by pretending to be in a relationship—a relationship I’d have pretty much given my left nut to have a shot at—I jumped on it, and I pressured Evan into it. At the very least, I thought maybe pretending would help get him out of my system and I could move on. It was a selfish choice and I regret every second of it, because Evan never wanted to fool anyone.” He grimaced in apparent discomfort. “That’s not who he is, but he’s also a loyal friend. Some of the stuff that happened after that is personal and I’m not going to share it, but I do feel I should own up to all those photos of us that have been in the tabloids recently. Those were all prearranged, except our scuffle in the parking lot. That was real and I deserved it, and I’m gonna try to do better. I’ve been clean for thirty-two days now, and I’ve learned enough to know I shouldn’t make promises, but I’m trying to do the right thing one day at a time, and this is how I’m starting it.”
We hit every light, and once we got on 440, traffic backed up quickly and all I could do was regret not taking side streets. I struggled to stay still in the passenger seat, my entire body limned with tension while Les kept talking.
“Turn it up, I can’t hear him,” Rita barked, glancing over her shoulder before cutting into another lane.
“Shh!” I snapped back but clicked to turn the volume up.
Fucking hell.I glanced around at the standstill traffic, looking for an alternative route. “Can we get off and take back roads? We’ll be here all fucking day.”
Rita shrugged. “I can try.” She cut down an access road and got us off 440. We sped through side streets.
“Good goddamn,” Rita muttered, and I shushed her, catching her smile as Les continued.
“So my last is my apology to you, the fans, the most important part of our music. I’m so sorry for manipulating y’all, and I hope you’ll let me bear the blame and continue to support Evan in whatever he does, because he’s the real deal, and without him, I’d still be playing for loose change.” He let out a long breath and collapsed back in the chair, rubbing his fingers over his forehead as if drained. “I’ll be happy to answer any questions I can, so let ’em roll.”