Page 72 of Dedicated
Les:Yeah, but how often do we agree, Porter?
Evan:Also constantly.
Les:Damn straight.
Chapter 40
After Evan sent Rita home, we sat at the kitchen table I’d probably only ever sat at twice, drinking coffee and talking about rehab, about sobriety, Evan’s experience with Amanda Faulks, his dealings with the label. We talked for hours, until afternoon became night. We ate leftovers from my fridge for dinner, and I kept expecting Evan to get up at some point and leave, but he didn’t. I hoped against hope that meant something, but after everything that had happened, I couldn’t bank on it, and we still hadn’t discussed what to do about our current album or the band in general. In spite of that explosive kiss at my front door, our future remained very much in limbo.
“Why’d you come here in the first place?” I finally asked once we’d migrated from the kitchen to sprawl on the sectional in the living room.
“I wasn’t really thinking about it. It was gut reaction.” Evan shifted against the cushions, his foot knocking against mine where they met at the vertex of the sofa’s L shape and then settling there. A wiggle of my bare toes against his ankle drew a faint smile from him. “Leigh came over last night and had all these pictures of us, and it made me realize how much I missed you, and then when I saw you on the screen, I just—” He stopped and drew in a breath. “I just did it.”
I folded my arms behind my head, propping myself up for a better view. I’d noticed in the kitchen that he was thinner. Not by much, but when you spent as much time staring at him as I had, even a few pounds registered. “I think you should still take that deal. It’s huge. It’s everything you always wanted. Financial security, all that.” It hurt to say it, but I didn’t want to be a liability for him anymore.
Evan sawed his teeth against his lower lip in consideration, so I kept going, just in case he was trying to be nice about it, which was totally something he’d do. “Really, you should go for it. I’m not just saying it and I’ll secretly resent you later. I want you to do what you need to do.”
“But maybe it’s not what I want to do.” His glance became a longer gaze, and damn, I’d missed having him look at me with that perfectly Evan expression—sincere, slightly troubled. “I don’t want to make music without you, Les. I’ve tried and I can’t make it feel right. We were meant to do it together, and the only way I wouldn’t want to is if you thought it wasn’t right for you anymore or if you thought it would threaten your sobriety.”
“I want to, but…” I shook my head and sat up on the couch, pulling my knees in and resting my chin on my forearms. “I don’t think I can go on tour for a while. I can handle the studio and playing shows here, but I don’t want to mess up on the road, and I don’t trust myself yet.”
“Even with me there?”
“I don’t want you to be my babysitter. It’s not your job. I wouldn’t be able to stand it. Just thinking about our last tour makes me want to crawl in a hole. How I treated you. The dumb shit I did. I need time. I need to take things slowly.”
“Yeah, I get that.” Evan nodded and drew in a breath. “Slow is good. We need time to think.”
Admittedly, right then I wasn’t thinking about much aside from how damn grateful I was just to have Evan in the same room as me again, and that we’d been able to talk,reallytalk like we used to. Like friends. And in spite of that kiss he’d given me, if he just wanted to be friends, I promised myself I’d respect that no matter how much it hurt. Because I owed him that, and because I didn’t want to hurt him again.
Silence stretched and finally, Evan pushed himself upright and glanced at the door. “I guess I should probably go home.”
I clenched my lower lip between my teeth, then nodded, rising after him. “Sure. I can drop you off. Let me grab my keys.”
I retrieved them from the kitchen, and when I returned, Evan was standing in front of the big black-and-white photographs on the wall. “I remember you buying these. That was a great show.”
“Right after we found out we’d hit platinum for the second time.” I smiled.
He studied the pictures a moment longer, then turned toward me, an odd expression on his face. “I mean, I should go home, yeah? That makes the most sense. There’s a lot to think about and…”
“Yeah,” I jumped in quickly. “I can touch base tomorrow.”
I followed him to the door, and he’d pulled it open halfway when he paused, shut it again, and turned around, bumping into my chest.
“I don’t want to leave,” he said softly.
“You want to stay with me?” I held my breath. Because I didn’t want him to leave. Not at all. Not ever.
“I mean, if that’s okay?” His gaze searched mine, hesitant, as he feathered a light touch across my cheek, then my jaw that kindled a warm spark of hope and a rush of desire.
But God, the awkward politeness was going to kill me. “I want you to stay. Christ, Porter, I’m about to climb the walls wanting to touch you again.” Sitting across the table and then across the couch from him all those hours made me physically ache, but I didn’t want to push my precarious position when we still had so much ground to cover. I didn’t know if it was the bald confession or because I’d called him Porter, but the tension that’d been hanging over us since that kiss broke and he grinned.
He was still grinning when I hauled him in by the waistband for a kiss, and we made our way back to my bedroom at the speed of slugs on a sidewalk in August, pausing to peel off our shirts, tripping over the top step of the stairs.
By the timewe got into the bedroom, we were both panting and hard, grinding against each other. I yanked his pants the rest of the way off and backed up for a second, just to stare, just to feast my eyes on the delicious man in front of me that I could never seem to get enough of.
“You’re looking at me like a cannibal right now.” Evan arched a brow at me with an amused tug at one corner of his mouth, but I could tell he enjoyed every second of it.
I snickered. “Sorry, rehab only served vegetarian fare, so I’ve worked up a huge appetite for some—”