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“I wouldn’t have thought they were quite your thing, though,” Rhys said, pointing at the computer screen. “Although…” He leaned closer and I felt the irritation creep under my skin. “Ohhh, I get it. Okay. I see. Sorry, never mind. Wow. He is…beautiful, damn. And totally your type.”
“Okay, okay.” I grabbed the laptop out of Rhys’s hands and closed all the tabs. “Show me what you’re gonna show me. And I don’t have a type,” I grumbled.
He held up his palms in a peacemaking gesture, and clicked over to his email to play me the MP3s.
They were good, just like everything of Rhys’s. He’d spent most of his time playing with other bands, or writing songs for others. But it seemed like it was time for his own album. He was more settled, since he’d married Matt, and his songwriting had matured. I could imagine this album just from the three songs he played me—one-third smoky and wistful, one-third playful and teasing, and one-third classic and gritty. It would work. It would definitely work.
He could see in my face that I wanted to do it, and he leaned close, a brother-in-arms.
“I don’t want you to do this if it feels risky to you. I want you with me on this, of course. But it’s not worth it if—”
“Thanks. I know. I…want to. But I’m not sure I’m ready. I need to think about it, okay?”
Rhys nodded, steady as always.
“It’s not you, Rhys, it’s…”
I didn’t know how to explain the way certain thoughts—certain ways of thinking—sparked other thoughts, like a match touched to a line of gasoline. How I was still learning what they were, and how terrifying it was, wandering around with a lit match all the time.
“I think, soon. But I need a little time. When I’m ready, it will be you. Okay?”
There was that impulsive grin. Rhys excitedly talked logistics and timelines, studio musicians and producers, and around ten I sent him home to Matt.
I was giddy with energy, thinking about Rhys’s offer, cleaning everything in sight to keep myself from calling him and saying that I’d changed my mind. That I was ready now. When I couldn’t clean anymore, I went and sat on the porch to have a cigarette and stare out into the dark. I remembered how Theo had canted his head backward and looked at the sky, like he could will the stars to show themselves. Here, they were lavish.
Theo was beautiful, as Rhys had pointed out. But it wasn’t just that. Something about him had…touched me. Something subtle and intoxicating had pulled me to him. The feel of him—in my arms, in my mouth, around me—awoke something in me I didn’t recognize. It was a bone-deep yearning that had only been oriented to one thing for as long as I could remember. And now that that thing was gone, everything in me had reached out tendrils to plant in something new.
Which was why I had left before Theo awoke that morning. Left him sex-open and sleeping like a fantasy come to life, sinewy arms clutching the pillow he’d stolen from me at some point in the night, thin legs akimbo. His black hair had been a cloud of ink against the white sheets and I hadn’t been able to resist pushing some of it aside to expose the black slash of his eyebrow, sweep of dark lashes, cut of cheekbone, and blade of nose. And that luscious mouth, softened in sleep to a pout.
I’d left him with a kiss to his eyebrow that he’d never know about and a curse that I would never see him again. Because that part of my life—the part where I got to simply want—was over now.
I lit a second cigarette off my first and blew smoke in front of me so the sky might as well have been the one over New York City that night. Then I told myself all the reasons that I couldn’t be with Theo. I told them to myself again and again, until they were a mantra.
Then I did what I had done so many thousands of times over the last year, and would likely do forever. I took the thing I wanted and put it in a box. Then I dug a hole and buried the box inside.
Chapter 5
Theo
I crept along the winding country road, my ears still buzzing from the tour, watching the blue dot on my phone move closer to the destination marker, and for the hundredth time in an hour, considered turning around.
Caleb had fucked off while I was asleep the morning before I left for the tour. Chances were great that he had no interest in seeing me again. Chances were also great that he was going to think I was a creepy stalker if I knocked on his door.
