Love Song (Stage Dive 4.70)

“What the fuck?” He turned back to Martha, who helpfully shut the door in his face with a sly sort of smile. You’d almost think she was enjoying herself. Bon the bodyguard climbed into the front passenger seat, and we were moving.

“Seatbelts, please,” said Mac.

Both Adam and I did as told while giving each other wary looks. Now I’d known it would be difficult to get near him. He had a posse of people around him these days for protection and other purposes. And I’d known it would be awkward as all hell to talk to him again after all this time. However, I’d had no idea it would be this bad. My heart stuttered, and my brain stalled. I’d thought I was over him. I mean, I was. I definitely completely had to be. Yet even reeking of sweat and clearly exhausted, he continued to play havoc with my hormones.

This was awful. A terrible mistake. I should have just texted him maybe. Or taken the money and never gone near him again. Much safer for my heart and soul.

“It’s really you,” he said, a line forming between his brows. About as much as he committed to being curious about anything outside of music. One small line. “What are you doing here?”

“You sent me that check,” I said, tone terse.

“Yeah?”

“Well, it’s a bit excessive, don’t you think?”

He just shrugged, pushing back the towel half covering his face. “Figured you helped support me while I was coming up. Plus, you were sort of the inspiration for some of the songs, so…”

“Sort of?” I just blinked. “Which ones?”

“What?” He blinked back at me. There was always something boyish in his gaze that got to me. Something pure, almost. He loved what he loved, and as far as he was concerned, it just was that straightforward and simple. Not that any of that mattered anymore. Right now, he just seemed tired and confused.

“Which songs was I sort of the inspiration for?” I asked, pushing onward.

He took a long pull on the bottle of Gatorade. “You know.”

“No, I don’t, actually. Though I’d very much like to.”

Nothing from him.

“I’m a little perplexed, Adam. You see, I thought you’d written the whole damn album about how abhorrent I was. All about what an utter backstabbing, Satan-worshipping hussy I turned out to be. I mean, you basically told the entire world I was the worst of the worst. But apparently, it was only some of the songs. What a relief. Phew.” I blew out a breath. “So, which ones?”

“Jill—”

“How about Hard Little Heart? Did I inspire that one?”

“Um.”

I tapped a finger against my lips. “‘She’s solid rotten to the core, guaranteed to make your heart sore.’ Those are the lyrics, right?”

“Yeah, but—”

“And Devil in the Woman?”

“I kind of take inspiration from everywhere,” he blurted out, sounding all sorts of soundbite and desperate. The idiot.

I cocked my head. “That’s strange. I could have sworn in that interview for Music Monthly that you’d only ever been in one serious relationship in your life, and it was the basis for almost all of your recent music.”

“You’ve been following me online?”

“Focus.”

“Right,” he said. “Well, I meant what I said. Almost all of the music.”

Mac gave us an amused glance in the rearview mirror. Beside him, Bon shifted in his seat slightly, all the better to watch me out of the corner of his eye. That the bodyguard considered me a threat was kind of cool. A huge bolster to my wounded ego.

“What about Better Off Gone?” I asked. “I like that one. It’s sort of bluesy. I mean, the woman you’re singing about obviously ruined your whole existence for all of space and time, but still…nice tune.”

His gaze skipped about the interior of the vehicle. “Um, yeah, I don’t really remember. Look, about the money—”