It wasn’t a traditional love song, wasn’t filled with sappy metaphors or promises of happy ever afters. What it was, was raw and broken and real. So real that as the words poured out, she forgot anything—she forgot everything—that wasn’t this song. That wasn’t this moment. That wasn’t him.
I spent all night watching you dreaming
I spent all day just looking for meaning
I spent all night lying beside you
I spent all day just trying to hide you…away, from me
I spent all night watching you sleep
I spent all day getting in too deep
You should be running far away
But baby all I want is for you to stay…with me
With me
Baby all I want
Baby all I need
Baby all I dream
Baby all I see…is you…and me
Just you and me
And I know…I know you need to go
I know you want to take this slow
But baby, I need your touch
Baby, you make me feel too much
I spent all night just holding your hand
I spent all day sinking in quicksand
I spent all night just counting your heartbeats
I spent all day trying to break you free…from me…from me
I spent all night just trying to get close
I spent all day remembering I’m broke…into pieces
You should be running far away
But baby all I want is for you to stay…with me
With me
Baby all I want
Baby all I need
Baby all I dream
Baby all I see…is you…and me
Just you and me
And I know…I know you need to go
I know you want to take this slow
But baby, I need your touch
Baby you make me feel too much
I want to hear you breathe
I want to watch you sleep
I want to taste your kiss
I want to feel you keep…me close, to you
And I know…I know I ask too much
But baby, I need your touch
Baby all I want
Baby all I need
Baby all I dream
Baby all I see…is you…and me
Just you and me
And I know…I know you need to go
I know you want to take this slow
But baby, I need your touch
Baby you make me feel so much
When it was over, when Wyatt’s voice finally faded out over the last word, she couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Hell, she could barely breathe. No wonder he’d played until his hands had bled. If she could make something that real, she might never stop either.
For long seconds, nobody said anything. Then the others were clapping and laughing and all talking at once as they told Wyatt how good the song was, how much they liked the lyrics, how much they wanted to record it, to see how it sounded when it was professionally arranged. And she, who had already thrown her objectivity out the window days ago, did something even more out of character than letting Shaken Dirty’s drum player eat her out in an alley behind a club. Something that shot straight to hell the promise she’d made to herself about playing things cool.
As the other guys moved back, she called Wyatt’s name and then launched herself around his drum kit and straight into his arms.
He caught her, just like she knew he would. And then he was doing what he always seemed to do when she was in his arms—backing her up against the nearest wall as his mouth crushed down on hers.
Vaguely she was aware of the other guys laughing behind them, of Ryder saying maybe this was a good time to break for food.
And still Wyatt kissed her.
He kissed her as Jared put down his guitar and Quinn turned off his keyboard.
As Ryder hit the light switch near the door and plunged the room into an inky kind of twilight.
As someone opened the door and they all started to file out into the night.
He kissed her and kissed her and kissed her, until Quinn called, “Don’t fuck on the couch, man.”
Wyatt pulled his lips from hers then, but only long enough to say, “You can’t tell me that you and Elise never fucked on that couch.”
“Yeah, well, it’s my damn couch.”
The door slammed closed behind them on that warning and then she and Wyatt were finally alone.
“I love your song,” she whispered into the darkness as her hands slid down to cup his ass through his well-worn jeans.
“Oh, yeah?” His mouth was on her collarbone.
“Yeah. No one’s ever written a song for me before.”
As soon as the words were out, she wanted to take them back. Wanted, even more, for the floor to open up and swallow her whole. Thinking he’d written the song about her was one thing. Saying it, though, was a hell of an assumption. Especially after how they’d left things that morning.
She waited for him to freeze, to shut her out. But all he did was press closer as his bruised and battered hands worked at the small buttons on the front of her blouse.
“I’m glad to hear that,” he murmured as he dropped hot, open-mouthed kisses along her neck, her shoulder, the tops of her breasts. “Considering I’ve never written a song for a woman before.”
“You haven’t?” she asked, holding her breath because she didn’t want the answer to matter but it did. It really did.
“I haven’t,” he told her as he started moving her gently across the room.
“Wait,” she said, and he stopped right away.
“You okay?” he asked, brows raised inquiringly.
“I was about to ask you the same thing.”
He nodded, his jaw working. “I don’t know. But I’m trying to be. I’m trying to listen to what you said, trying to think it through. That’s going to have to be enough for now.”
“It is,” she told him softly. “It’s more than enough.”
“Good.” He grinned wickedly, started walking her backward again.
“Where are we going?” she asked, breathless now with all the feelings churning inside of her. Love, lust, fear, hope…so much hope that she felt like her whole body was lit up with the stuff. “Quinn says the couch is off-limits.”
“Yeah,” he agreed with a wicked grin, “but he didn’t say anything about his favorite chair…”
Chapter Nineteen
“Well, you certainly look happy,” Jamison observed as Wyatt walked into the kitchen a little over an hour later. “And well-exercised.” The grin she shot him was amused, and he knew the guys hadn’t exactly been discreet about what he and Poppy were getting up to in the studio.
Which had been quite a lot, and right now he didn’t care if the whole world knew it. He’d just walked Poppy to her car after making her come half a dozen times. If it had been up to him, she would have stayed and he would have made her come half a dozen more before the evening was over. The sounds she made as she went over the edge were rapidly becoming his favorite addiction—as was the taste of her against his lips. Add in the fact that she’d let him fuck her—twice—on Quinn’s favorite chair, and he was feeling pretty good all the way around. But she’d insisted he and the guys needed to talk, and she was probably right. So he’d let her go and was now trying really hard not to regret that fact.
“Exercise is good for the soul,” he told Jamison as he walked over to the drinks fridge. A cursory look at the contents told him all the alcohol had been removed from here, too—which normally would have bothered the hell out of him. But right now he was in too good a mood to get messed up by the fact that his friends were afraid to trust him. Besides, maybe Poppy was right—maybe they really were just trying to help.
He grabbed a bottle of cranberry juice, then walked over to the center island and snitched a slice of cucumber from the vegetables Jamison was cutting up for dinner.
“
Take a seat,” she told him, nodding at the kitchen table, where pretty much every important discussion happened while at Quinn’s house.
He followed directions, brows raised questioningly. Jamison was pretty much his best friend on the planet, and if she wanted to talk, he would talk. Even if doing so felt a little like opening a vein.
She didn’t answer his silent inquiry right away. Instead, she made up a plate of cheese and crackers along with some grapes and a handful of salad vegetables and slid it onto the table in front of him.
“Eat.”
He rolled his eyes. “What is it about the women in my life that makes them keep trying to feed me health food?”
“Gouda is not health food,” she retorted as she grabbed a bottle of freshly squeezed orange juice for herself.
“It’s healthier than chocolate cake or heroin.”
“Yeah, well, so is just about everything. That doesn’t make it health food.” She grabbed a slice of red pepper and bit into it with a resounding crunch. “Besides, you need the nutrients. You’re pale and skinny.”
“Wow, you really know how to make a man feel good about himself,” he deadpanned.
“You know me. I’m all about the cheap flattery.” She ruffled his hair as she dropped into the seat across from him.
He reached for a handful of grapes under her watchful eye, because he knew it would make her happy. But as she continued to stare at him long after he’d eaten the grapes and a couple of pieces of cheese, he could feel himself becoming defensive. Uncomfortable.
“What?” he finally demanded, when he could take her scrutiny no more. “What’s the problem?”
“No problem. It’s just…you look happy. It’s kind of weird. I mean, good weird, but still weird.”
“Seriously? You used to get freaked out because you thought I was miserable and now you’re freaked out because you think I’m happy?”
“I know.” She popped a grape into her own mouth. “It makes no sense. And I’m thrilled you’re happy. It’s just a little weird.”
“I just got laid,” he told her bluntly. “Why wouldn’t I be happy?”
She leveled a mock glare at him. “Some things I don’t need to know.”
“Really? Because you’re certainly acting like you need to know everything.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, just as the buzzer on the oven went off. “Calling me a wannabe know-it-all isn’t a smart move when I’ve just baked your favorite brownies.”
“That’s what I’ve been smelling!” He crossed the kitchen to peer over her shoulder into the oven. “You made the ones with the chocolate chunks and caramel in them?”
“I did.” She hip-checked him to get him to back up. “But they aren’t for you. They’re for some other guy who is actually nice to me.”
“I am nice to you.” He waited for her to put the hot pan down on the stove before he grabbed her and waltzed her around the kitchen. “You’re just pissed because you want to pump me for information and I’m not playing.”
She sniffed in mock annoyance. “Please. Like Ryder doesn’t tell me everything. I just wanted your perspective.”
He whirled her around, then dipped her with a big flourish, right in front of the refrigerator. She laughed, holding on tight.
“I’ve missed you,” she whispered as he carefully brought them back up to standing.
There was a little too much emotion running through those three words for him to be comfortable, so he eased back, shot her a cocky grin. “Don’t get sappy. I didn’t come back from the dead. I was just in rehab, and you visited me there at least once a week.”
“I didn’t mean that. I just…” She made a helpless little gesture that he thought was supposed to encompass their impromptu dance around the kitchen. “I’ve really missed you. It’s good to have you back.” There were tears in her eyes as she said it.
Emotion twisted sickly in his stomach, and he tried to tamp it down like he always did. Tried to ignore it, just like he tried to ignore the guilt that burned right under his skin. It didn’t work, though, especially not when he saw tears blooming in Jamison’s eyes.
“Fuck,” he muttered, even as he pulled her back in for a hug. “I’m right here, you know. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere this time.”
She clung to him like a limpet, the little sister he’d never had. “Promise?”
“I promise.” The words had a peculiar taste, felt heavy on his tongue. It was the second promise he’d made today, the second promise he had every intention of keeping. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry for everything I put you guys through.”
She pulled away, and the look on her face was as fierce as he had ever seen it. “You don’t need to apologize to me, Wyatt Jennings. You don’t need to apologize to any of us—”
“Yeah, I do—”
“No, you don’t. I don’t give a shit what that program says. We’re family. We love you just the way you are, fucked up addiction and everything. You don’t have to say you’re sorry because you were hurting and trying to find a way to deal with that hurt. All you have to do is promise me that if the pain gets bad again you’ll come to me. Or Ryder. Or Jared or Quinn or this pretty little girl you’re dating. I don’t care which of us you talk to,” she told him as she pulled him in for another hug. “I only care that you talk to one of us.”
This whole conversation was getting more uncomfortable by the second, and he couldn’t take it. Couldn’t take the naked affection in her eyes any more than he could take the plea she was making.
“I’m okay, Jamison,” he said as he eased away. “Poppy confronted me this morning, forced a lot of stuff out of me. Then she got in my face about the past and—I’m not going to lie. It was rough. And I’m not fixed. I’m not…good. I don’t know if I’ll ever be good. But right now, I’m solid. And that feels like enough.”
He expected her to call him on it, to tell him to stop being a fraud. But she didn’t do that. Instead, she cupped his face in her hands, smooshing his cheeks a little with the deliberate pressure she was applying. “I know you’re solid. And I know you’ve got this, this time. I can see it in your eyes. You’re not going back to drugs. I’m just saying—I’m just asking—that if that resolve ever wavers, if there comes a time when the past gets too hard or the cravings get too bad, you call me.”
“Jamison—”
“You call me,” she said fiercely, her hands pressing even more firmly into his cheeks, “no matter what time it is, and we’ll get you through it. Promise me.”
“I’m fine,” he told her as best he could, considering she was smooshing half his face.
“Promise me!” she barked at him.
“Okay, okay, I promise. Can I have my face back yet?”
“Yes. You can.” She let go of his cheeks, then pulled him into a hug and held on tight. So tight. “I missed my best friend,” she whispered into his shoulder. “I don’t want to lose you again.”
“You’re not going to lose me.”
Her arms tightened around his shoulders. “Promise me.”
He thought of the drugs in his pocket, thought of the promise he’d made himself while standing in the middle of his bathroom just a few hours before. Thought of Poppy and the fact that he wanted to be clean for her because she deserved it. And because, for the first time in a long, long time, he felt like he had something to stay clean for. Someone who drowned out all the ugliness, all the pain, all the voices in his head telling him that he wasn’t good enough, that he didn’t deserve to be happy, that he was the one who should have died all those years ago.
“I promise,” he told Jamison, his voice stronger and more unwavering than it had been in forever. “I’m not going to use again.”
She pulled back then, and studied his face in the way only an old friend could. “Okay,” she said after a second. “Okay. That’s that, then.”
She let him go, crossing back to the stove to cut two huge brownies from the pan before handing him
one. And as she grinned up at him, looking mischievous and happy and absolutely solid, he promised himself he was never going to make her cry again. Promised himself that he was never going to make her or Jared or Ryder or Quinn worry about him ever again. They deserved better than that…and maybe, so did he.
Chapter Twenty
When she got back to her apartment, Poppy found a box waiting for her at the concierge’s desk. It was from Waterloo Records, the big indie music store in town, so she carried it upstairs, figuring it was for the label. It was addressed to her, but if Caleb had ordered something, he might have put her name on it, since she was in town.
Still, the explanation didn’t sit particularly well with her, so as soon as she got upstairs, she found a knife and slit the box open…and nearly had a stroke as she pulled out one first edition album after another. All classic rock. All rare. All on vinyl.
The Beatles. The Rolling Stones. KISS. Cream. Queen. Bruce Springsteen. Led Zeppelin. The Who.
Each album was rarer and more expensive than the last.
Convinced now that this was some kind of gift for her father that had been sent to the wrong address, she found the card at the bottom of the box. Pulling it out, she expected some kind of kiss up note from Waterloo, asking her dad to consider them for future signings or whatever.
What she found instead…what she found instead had her hands shaking and tears blooming in her eyes.
To Poppy,
I went looking for a song that reminded me of you, and instead found two dozen that all say what I want to say better than I ever could.
Thanks for last night. It meant a lot to me. Wyatt
At the bottom of the note was a playlist, one or two songs listed from each of the albums he’d sent her. As she read the titles, the tears she’d been struggling to hold in check overflowed and ran down her cheeks.
“Beth” from KISS.
“Lady” from Styx.