The Boy Next Door

Even if he promised to try to be faithful to me, there was no way I could expect him to uphold that end of the bargain. Just like I couldn’t trust him not to wake me up in the middle of the night with his drumming. It was just the person he was, and there was no changing that.

I didn’t have any right to try to change that.

No, that groupie was right. He would be better off with someone who could handle the lifestyle that he lived. That person wasn’t me. I had surprised myself with everything I had done since I had come to LA, but there were certain things that would never change about me. I would never be with someone I couldn’t trust to be faithful to me. That was all there was to it.

I couldn’t help but feel a little depressed as I headed back to where I had left Piper before.

“Are you okay?” Piper asked immediately, seeing the expression on my face. I didn’t want to talk about it, though, so I waved the question away.

“I’ve got early meetings tomorrow,” I told her. “I think it’s probably time to call it a night and head home.”

Piper frowned. “Do you want to at least wait for Jayson?” she asked. “Sounds like they’re just going to stuff the guitarist in a car; I’m sure it won’t take long.” I could hear from the hopeful note in her voice that she was hoping I would stick around so that she would have a reason to hang around waiting for Luke.

I just wanted to go home and forget that tonight had happened. I couldn’t seem to get the blonde’s words out of my head. This thing that Jayson and I had, there was no way it could last.

I still didn’t know the rules of the game, but all the other players did. Not only that, but I was sure they knew how to take advantage of the rules to make sure I could never win.

Best to forget about all of it, put my head down, and focus on my career like I’d intended to when I’d moved out here. No matter how much I wished I was still in that back room with Jayson, with his hands playing across my skin.

“Even after they’re done dealing with Carter, they’re going to have to break down the whole stage and everything,” I pointed out. “That’s going to take a while.”

Piper frowned for a moment, but something about her expression told me that she knew exactly what I wasn’t saying. She looked sympathetic. I looked away from her, not wanting to see any of that.

“You can stay if you want,” I said, shrugging one shoulder. I faked a yawn. “But I think I need to get home. Sorry. This has been fun, but I’m still kind of a grandma.”

Piper laughed and shook her head. “Come on, let’s go, then. We’ll catch them another night.”

“Sure,” I said, even though I knew I couldn’t let myself keep doing this.

I wasn’t one of their groupies. I never would be. That was the whole problem.

It felt like each time I saw Jayson, I got more and more entangled with him. We were getting closer, and I was losing my heart to him. But that was such a huge risk. I couldn’t handle dating a musician who was trying to break into the big time. This just wasn’t my scene—the long nights, the parties, the women.

That wasn’t the kind of lifestyle I could realistically be a part of.

I looked around the bar one last time on the way out. No one was looking at me, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that they were all judging me somehow. Like that blonde groupie, they all knew I didn’t belong.

I wished I could talk to Piper about it, but I didn’t know how to tell her what I was feeling without betraying just how much of a country bumpkin I was.

Instead, I kept my thoughts inside and later spent the night tossing and turning, I kept thinking of what it would be like to start a relationship, but then eventually, I would come around to remembering that I couldn’t be with him. I didn’t know why I couldn’t seem to get him out of my mind.

I didn’t know why I was so disappointed when I didn’t hear him come home.

19

Jayson

I listened to the guitar die away into silence. For a moment, none of us said anything. Then, Mark threw a fist in the air, letting out a little whoop. “That might be perfect,” he said, grinning ear to ear as he turned toward me.

I nodded. “That was pretty good,” I said cautiously. But I couldn’t help grinning as well. “Better than pretty good, I guess,” I corrected. “We might be able to put that one on the album.”