Page 8 of The Long Refrain (Sweet Southern #4)

8

NOLAN

OCTOBER 2027

S ix shows down and Benji keeps to his word because he’s supremely annoying. Golden retriever piece of shit. Before every show he kisses me senseless until all the tension bleeds from my body like a balloon slowly losing air. After shows, he fucks me however I want, which usually means a quickie in the bathroom of the VIP room in the arena. When we’re finished, he always rests his forehead against my shoulder, panting like he’s run a marathon.

A small part of me is pleased that I can break him down.

But he’s not a cure-all.

The stage is still one of the worst places in the world. Standing in front of the crowd, hearing them sing my own words back to me, feels like a thousand fire ants crawling over my skin, biting me until their venom finally stops my heart. One of these days, I’m going to drop dead on the stage. A cautionary tale that sometimes the thing you want most in the world is the thing that kills you in the bitter end.

“It’s date night,” Benji announces as he brushes his teeth.

“I have to do an interview with the local news.”

Benji rolls his eyes. “Tomorrow after the show,” he mumbles around his toothbrush, foam creeping out of the corner of his mouth.

“Yes… I need to prepare for it, you see,” I say blandly. “Do my due diligence.”

I watch as he spits the toothpaste into the sink, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand like a fucking caveman. Why the hell does that turn me on? Everything about this man is so annoying. Benji hurriedly grabs his ratty shirt from the counter and slips it over his head, looking way too good for only wearing dark jeans and a navy V-neck. His eyes are so startlingly light blue that sometimes I get caught up in staring at them. It’s like staring at the sky after a storm, with no cloud in sight. That’s Benji, no clouds at all.

“Don’t try to wiggle your way out of it. You know the rules.” Benji crawls back onto the bed to lie over me. His warmth seeps into my slightly chilly skin. “Nolan, be good.”

And then he kisses me despite my morning breath. I try to turn the kiss from slow and gentle into filthy; maybe he’ll fuck me if I’m nasty enough. But Benji pulls away to smirk down at me.

“Stop.”

“I’m not doing anything!”

“You think if you distract me with your nasty mouth, I’ll change my mind about the date.”

Well, he’s got me there. I shove him off, but instead of getting mad, the fucker just laughs as he falls back onto the bed. His messy hair and easy grin stir some odd feeling in my chest that I can’t explain. I don't want to try to explain it either. Benji is dangerous. Not in the sort of way I’m used to with the guys who fight back, but in the way that I think if I let him, he could do serious damage to my already tenuously hanging-on heart.

“I’ve never been to Ireland, so I want to see the countryside,” Benji says as he tangles his fingers together over his chest. He’s the picture of absolute serenity.

“We’re in Dublin.”

Benji turns his head to aim those annoyingly beautiful eyes at me. I have to suppress a shudder as I tug on a pair of ripped jeans. Black is my go-to color because it attracts the least amount of attention. So, black jeans, black T-shirt, and a black hoodie are my standard outfit. Plus, a good hoodie covers up all my tattoos which are my most recognizable feature.

Benji rolls off the bed with an annoyed sigh, at least I assume it’s annoyed. After tugging on a grandpa cardigan, he comes to an abrupt stop in front of me. Using his knuckles, Benji tilts my head up slightly so that he can press a soft kiss to the hollow of my throat. He nuzzles against my skin, taking a deep breath.

“You always smell so good in the mornings,” Benji whispers against my skin.

What the hell. I back away from him and roughly smack his hand. “Cut it out.”

I leave him standing forlornly in the middle of the bedroom. After brushing my own teeth, I stride toward the entrance of the penthouse, knowing that Benji will follow me without a word. Benji orchestrated the driver to take us somewhere that I have no clue about.

Surprises suck. I always want to know what’s happening. The driver is thankfully quiet as we climb into the car. I hate chatty drivers. Downtown Dublin rolls past outside the window in flashes of dark green. Everything is sort of dreary, the air crisp. Ireland reminds me of Northern California.

Benji makes a small sound, tugging my attention back to him. He’s wearing this dopey sort of smile that makes my stomach do that weird fluttery thing again. I push my sunglasses up over my eyes and turn back to the window so I don’t have to look at him. We ride along for almost an hour until we come to a stop in a small town hidden among grassy hills.

“You’ll wait?” Benji asks the driver.

The guy looks at him like he’s crazy but nods anyway. Poor Benji doesn’t realize this guy has been paid to take us wherever we want without question. Like the goddamn puppy he is, Benji grins at me as he comes around the car to grab my hand.

“There is a castle,” Benji says excitedly.

I want to reply something sarcastic, something caustic, something biting but I can’t in the face of his genuine excitement. His hand is warm in my own. He leads me along the cobbled streets, fingers squeezing mine as he navigates us toward a castle in the distance.

“Isn’t that fucking cool,” Benji says breathlessly.

Sure, the castle is pretty cool. Kind of looks familiar. I tilt my head to the side thinking about it for a moment, going through the rolodex of images in my brain.

“It was in Braveheart .”

Benji turns freaked-out eyes toward me. “What?”

I point toward the castle. “It was in the movie Braveheart . They’ll never take our freedom!” I do a really poor Irish accent that has Benji somehow looking even more startled.

“You knew that just by looking at the castle? That was a neat fact I was going to share with you as we walked around…”

Benji looks so put out that I yet again feel kind of bad. With a sigh, I start walking toward the castle and tug him along with me. “We can pretend I don’t know, stud. Okay?”

“It’s not the same…”

“Oh my God.” I stop in the middle of the path leading to the castle. With wide, dramatic eyes, I turn toward Benji. “Isn’t that castle so big! Look at it! I wonder if they’ve ever used it in a Hollywood movie. Wouldn’t that be cool?”

Benji’s puppy dog eyes turn grateful and he grins at me. “It was in Braveheart .”

I gasp in feigned shock. “Seriously?”

He stands up straighter. “Yes, they shot parts of the movie here.”

“So cool,” I say very seriously.

Benji tugs his hand out of mine and slings his arm over my shoulder. “Come on.”

Despite my perpetual want to stomp my feet in the ground, the day ends up being pretty nice. Benji plays the perfect tour guide, giving me facts about the castle as we walk around. Once we venture out of the castle, he even gives snippets of facts about the town.

“Did you google this place before bringing me here?” I ask curiously.

Benji smiles shyly. “A little. One should always be prepared. Oh, do you want to go into this pub? I know you can’t drink but maybe we can get some real Irish food?”

I’m oddly helpless against denying him when it’s not in the bedroom. He leads me to the pub that’s half full considering it’s a weekday and early evening. Air thick with the smell of beer and fried food smacks me in the face when we push through the door. But the plus side is no one here seems to recognize me. Maybe there are still some parts of the world where I’m just Nolan Hastings.

A small table in the corner calls to us. When we sit down, Benji sits at the chair beside me instead of the one across from me. I realize it’s to block the view of me from the outside of the bar. Jesus. Why is that also hot?

“Hello.” A woman stops by our table with a sweet smile. Messy blond hair, kind eyes, she grins down at us totally unknowing that a worldwide rockstar is seated at her table. “What’ll ya have?”

Benji grimaces as he looks down at the menu.

I grin up at her and wink. “Bring us your favorite dishes. We want to experience the real Ireland.”

“Ya sure?”

I nod. “And bring a beer for him. Guinness, right? Just water for me.”

She happily stuffs her notepad back into her small apron. “Easy enough.”

Benji blinks over at me, sheepish. “I was going to impress you by ordering like I knew what the fuck I was doing.”

“You don’t have to impress me,” I reply.

That weird look flits across his face again. The look that I have trouble parsing. Like maybe I’ve hurt his feelings somehow. I’m not good at this sort of thing, talking to people, being pleasant. When I meet fans, I have to fake it until I make it but Benji and I are living in each other's pockets.

“It’s boring sitting here staring at each other. Tell me a story.”

“What kind of story?” Benji asks.

I wave a dismissive hand at him. “Anything.”

Benji’s lips purse thoughtfully as he thinks about it. A few moments pass by before he grins again, obviously having thought of something.

“I almost drowned when I was six years old.”

“What?”

“So there’s this pond on the commune and apparently I just assumed that I could swim. I’d seen the older kids swimming. My moms had me in the shallows sometimes. So, I was out wandering alone, which was pretty typical for the commune. But, anyway, I was wandering around and just decided to swim. I got undressed, waded out, and when my toes couldn’t reach, I just kept going… but then I got scared. The water was so dark and the bottom of the lake disappeared…” Benji trails off with a frown, lost in the memory. He shakes himself loose from it. “One of the older boys was passing by and saw my hands waving. He came in to save me. After that, he spent the summer teaching me to swim. My first crush. Cody Carrol.”

“That’s a serious name,” I say but really I want to ask him why he was wandering alone around this commune he speaks about.

A crimson blush dots Benji’s cheeks and suddenly I’ve never wanted to murder someone I don’t even know so badly before. Fuck Cody.

“He was sweet. He left for college and never looked back. I think he’s a doctor now, the last my cousin told me. Well, she’s not really my cousin. But all the kids that grew up with me are basically my cousins.”

I lean forward on the table. “This isn’t some polygamy thing, is it?”

“No!” Benji shouts frantically, waving his arms around. “No, it was very normal. My moms are just fucking hippies.”

“If you say so.”

“What about you? What about your childhood?”

I scowl just as the waitress returns with her arms laden with food. Thank God. The food smells delicious and my traitorous stomach growls just at the sight of it. What was I thinking? Ordering all this damn food. Hopefully Benji won’t notice when I eat just a few bites.

“This is a lot of food,” Benji mumbles right before digging into his plate of steaming food.

I pick at my own plate, carefully moving food around so it looks like I’ve eaten a lot. I’ve been a professional at appearing to have eaten a lot over the years. It’s not that I don’t want to eat. Not even that I don’t like food. My anxiety just constantly makes me not hungry. When hunger does finally hit me, I feel like a garbage disposal that can’t stop consuming until I’m sick with it.

The bread is good at least. That’s a safe choice. I dip the bread into the stew, watching as the thick brown gravy drips from it. Flavor bursts on my tongue, rich and hearty. It’s not too bad.

“Good?” Benji asks around a mouthful of food.

“Good,” I reply, because it is good.

We eat quietly, the conversation ebbing as Benji gorges himself on the spread before us. Every time we share a meal together I’m always surprised just how much he can put away. But I don’t know why I’m surprised considering how often he works out. If we aren’t fucking, going on these stupid dates, then he’s at whatever hotel’s gym working out. Not that I’m going to complain because he has the body of a Greek god.

Benji pays the bill with another shy grin. I stay quiet on the ride back to the hotel, some odd feeling creeps up inside me that’s threatening to break loose. Most days are a blur. Every day takes so much effort just to keep on going. Sometimes, I think about stopping it all together. That deep, dark seed of something inside me that whispers terrifying thoughts into my ear. Thoughts about going to sleep and just never waking up because the world would be a better place without me in it. What a fucking thought.

I didn’t know there was a word for what happens to me before a show until I googled it a few years ago. My brain disconnects from my body until I’m just going through the motions, just barely hanging on. On stage, I become someone else. I become Nolan the rock god that they all clamor to tear apart. Every single person seated in the crowd wants Nolan Hastings. They either want my voice, my body, or my money. Something about me belongs to them. And the entire time I’m singing, it’s for them, not one single moment of it is for me.

I miss when singing was mine. When it belonged to me. Nothing belongs to me anymore. Nothing has for a long time, except for Benji.

The arena blurs in front of me until all I know is the microphone in my hands, the sound of my drummer behind me. If Chris didn’t carefully curate the people backstage, I know there would be no way for me to remain sober. Despite years of sobriety, the temptation would be too much with how my brain feels off-kilter by the time I stumble off the stage after a three-hour set.

“Nolan,” Benji says loudly, hands gripping my shoulders.

I blink everything back into focus. “Hi.”

Benji’s smile barely meets his eyes and I hate that. I can’t explain why but his smile being dimmed when he looks at me is like a cloud passing over the sun. Miserable. Covered in sweat, feeling like I’m dead inside, I reach up to push the corner of his mouth up with my thumb.

“Smile like this,” I instruct him.

Benji’s lips quiver as he fights a smile. “That was a good set.”

I look back out to the emptying arena, feeling some weird, too-big emotion that I can’t put to words. Pieces of myself remain out on the stage, pieces I’ll never get back. Everyone out there is leaving with a part of me.

“You know what would make it even better?” I ask as I walk forward, forcing Benji to walk backward.

Benji arches a curious eyebrow. “What?”

I lean forward to whisper in his ear, smiling when a shiver rolls through him at the touch of my lips to his overheated skin. “Fuck me in the bathroom, hand over my mouth so no one can hear me scream.”

“Whatever you want,” Benji agrees quietly.

I return to myself bit by bit as Benji shoves me against the wall, covers my mouth with his hand, and takes me so hard my toes lift off the floor with each torturous thrust. In these charged moments, I belong to myself, and Benji belongs to me. My pleasure and his pleasure blend together until the world spins only for us, only for the soft gasps, the bites that almost break skin.

Afterward Benji leans against the wall, eyes closed as he pants through his release. I carefully tug up my pants, grateful for the twinge in my ass when I lean against the sink to slap at my cheek. As I take a rare glance at myself in the mirror, I see my eyes are dull and lifeless, hair flat, and I don’t recognize myself at all anymore. There’s solace in knowing everyone thinks they know me, but no one really does. Not even myself.