Kiss Me Goodnight (19 page)

He stopped and blinked up at me. “Huh?”

I used his momentary confusion to slide out from beneath him. “You called me Nadia.” I turned my back and fixed my clothes. “Get out.”

He sat up, parking his ass on his heels and his hands on his thighs. “I didn’t mean to.”

Neither had at least two of my married boyfriends. And because they’d “loved” me, I’d gone out of my way to be understanding. Forgiveness had been easy because I hadn’t felt worthy of having a man to myself. Things were different now. I wanted more. I wanted it all. Fury wrapped around my heart. “Doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter, or else you wouldn’t be throwing me out.” He reached for me, but I backed away, shaking so hard my teeth chattered.

“You’re not over her.”

“I’m over her.”

There was no point in arguing. I knew I was right. I closed my eyes, trying to stop the gathering storm, but tears spilled down my cheeks. The angrier I became, the harder it was to keep from crying.

“Lacey.” He reached for me again, this time getting up and coming toward me.

He may as well have tried to hit me. I backed away, not stopping until I bumped against the window. “No. Don’t touch me. I’m not doing this. I promised myself I was worth more than being a secondhand lover.”

He wrinkled his brows and spread his palms. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’m not going to be the replacement woman. I deserve more from a man than that. I deserve a man who likes me for me, who wants to be with me and nobody else.”

“I agree.” He clamped his hands on my shoulders. “I want to be with you and nobody else. That’s why I’m here—to prove that to you.”

He’d done quite the opposite. I shook my head.

“Lacey, you’re being unreasonable.”

Item number one on the list of things not to say to a woman who is hurt and angry, and he’d said it. My temper erupted through my damn tears. “Unreasonable? Is it unreasonable to expect you to get my name right? For you to remember who you’re fucking?”

I tore from his hold, scooped up his shirt, and threw it at him.

“I have rotten taste in men. The first man I dated was married. So was the second. It started an inescapable and vicious cycle of settling for men whose hearts belonged to other women.” I realized I was shouting and lowered my voice to just above a wobbly snarl. “Two years ago, after I broke it off with the last one, I promised myself I would never do it again. I’m worth somebody’s whole heart. I want it all, or I want nothing. I haven’t really dated anyone in two years because every single time I find one I like, he’s married. I thought you were married the first moment I saw you.”

Dylan tugged his shirt over his head and tried to pull me into his arms.

I scrambled away, holding up my hand as a warning between us. “Thomas isn’t married. He has no ex-wife or dead wife who already owns his heart. He likes me a lot, and I like him too. Maybe I don’t want him as much as I want you, but I can work on that. I deserve him, Dylan. I deserve a man who wants to love and cherish me. I deserve a man who sends me a text just to let me know he’s thinking of me, who knows my favorite color and why I don’t like flowers, and to whom I can reveal my deepest, darkest secrets without fear that he’s going to psychoanalyze me.”

“Lacey, you can tell me anything. I would love to hear everything about you.”

But I didn’t want to tell him anything. He already looked at my hands as if they were some problem he’d rather not see. What would he say if he found out I was a liar—and something even worse. No, I’d rather he leave pissed off than look at me with horror or loathing.

I forced the tears to stop, and I steadied the tenuous notes in my voice. “I want you to respect my right to be with Thomas, because he’s who I want. He makes me happy.”

“Lace—”

“No.” I pointed at the door. “No arguments. Leave now and forget tonight happened.”

He ground his teeth so hard I heard his jaw pop. “You have no interest in hearing my side of this.”

“None.”

Whatever explanation he had wouldn’t be enough. I’ve heard it all before.

He left, slamming both my bedroom door and front door on his way out.

I wanted to call him back, to give him another chance, but I managed not to act on that impulse. I meant what I said, and from this day forward, I’m going to respect myself and demand that others treat me accordingly.

Chapter Thirteen

T
HAT
W
EEKEND
I
N
B
OSTON
, Thomas took me to a fancy restaurant (shocker), but we didn’t dine alone. Several of his friends joined us. I met Patrick Westman, the man who let me use his name to book dates for Kiss Me Goodnight. He was there with his partner, and two other couples rounded out the crew.

Thomas and I held hands and laughed, and he stole several small kisses when he thought nobody was looking. I felt guilty about almost sleeping with Dylan, but that feeling evaporated when Thomas refused to identify me as his girlfriend. He introduced me to his buddies and their significant others as his
friend
. They treated me like I was a little more than a friend, but not like I was firmly attached to Thomas. It seemed I was auditioning for the part. Phase one had been the Thomas interview (two dates), and now phase two was meeting the friends. This might continue through the next date, and I suspected phase three involved meeting his mother since we had time to kill before our sexual encounter on the sixth date.

After I thought about it, I appreciated the logic of his approach too much to be offended.

The next weekend, I didn’t see Thomas because Kiss Me Goodnight had their first mini-tour. They were playing Cincinnati, Columbus, Akron, Cleveland, and Ann Arbor: five venues in five days, and I had to go with them. It’s amazing how much crap a manager has to do. The band just has to show up, set up, and play. I have to deal with the management and contracts at each venue. They ran my ass ragged, and I earned every cent of what they were paying me, and then some.

Daisy, Gavin, and Levi treated me in the same friendly way they always had. Dylan remained distant, though he was cordial. I sometimes caught him glaring at me. He could pout all he wanted; I wasn’t going to change my mind.

Onstage, the band revealed two new songs, which because of my other duties I didn’t hear until we were in Akron on the third night. The first one, “Avalanche,” featured a haunting melody—who knew Levi also played the violin?—and an angry beat. Dylan’s vocals managed to reflect both feelings.

The things I do wrong
Pile up like dead snow.
Stale and listless, it covers me,
Overwhelms me,
Consumes me.
Sometimes it seems like I can’t catch a break.
I’m damned no matter what I do.
I want to bury myself in that icy grave.
Love doesn’t work; it’s not for me.
An avalanche seals my fate.

It has another depressing stanza, and it’s a beautiful song. You’re going to die when you hear it. I’m sure it’ll be one of their biggest hits. Of course, this one, aptly titled “Wrong Name,” will be even bigger.

The devil in my head
Invaded me in bed.
It made me shout it out—I didn’t want to shout—
The wrong name.
I didn’t mean it when I said
The wrong name.
Please forgive me when I said
The wrong name.

I wanted to kill Dylan. He’d made one of the most humiliating moments of my life into a catchy, punk-rock/ska-inspired song that had the audience singing the chorus before he was halfway through. By the end, he just held out the microphone and let them shout the refrain. I was by turns mortified and more pissed than I’d ever been in my entire life.

For the first time ever, I was too upset to even wash my hands. First I wanted to punch Dylan. Then I might calm down enough to freak out and head for the washroom. I paced in the lobby until they finished their set. The moment they completed their signature, self-titled song, I hightailed it back to the dressing room.

I made it there before they did, so I waited in the empty room. It smelled of sweat and body spray, makeup and chemicals. I could hear the four of them laughing and talking as they approached, on a natural high after their performance.

In my sane, rational mind, I knew it had been an incredible concert. They were accruing fans by the hundreds. Their social media following had exploded, and the single we had available for a dollar had over three thousand downloads the last time I checked.

But I’d left rational thought in the dust. I was firmly in downtown Going to Rip Your Face Off.

Dylan was the third person over the threshold. Daisy and Gavin took one look at me, and their heads swung to follow where my laser vision pointed. I marched across the small space—the five of us in there didn’t leave much room for moving around—and socked him in the nose. His head snapped back, probably from instinct and astonishment, but I like to think it was because I packed a wallop.

Gavin snagged me around the waist and pulled me away. I didn’t fight him because that one hit and the sight of a drop of blood trickling from Dylan’s nose sent me straight back to the terror of my childhood. I blacked out.

When I came to, Levi stood over me. They’d set me on one of the folding chairs in the room, and he was doing his best to keep me from falling to the floor.

He grinned when I opened my eyes. “It’s good to know you’re only capable of a small-scale assault. Tell me, if I ever piss you off that much, can I fake the blood? Will that have the same impact as seeing the real thing?”

I pushed him away and got to my feet.

“Slowly, now. I’ll catch you, but I’d still rather you don’t keel over again.”

Dylan sat on a chair as far away from me as the room would allow. He held an ice cube in a plastic bag to his nose. My pulse leapt. Guilt at what I’d done combined with latent self-loathing to make me feel like a worthless ass. I wanted to throw my arms around him and sob. At the same time, I wanted to punch him again.

One thing I knew for certain: I could not go on this way. This fiasco with Dylan had destroyed my ability to be near him. I snatched a flyer lying on a vanity, scrounged for a pen, and wrote my resignation on the paper. The contract I’d signed had an escape hatch, but it required a fourteen-day notice.

Daisy read over my shoulder. “Lacey, no. You can’t quit. We need you. Whatever Dylan did, he can apologize.”

“I didn’t do anything.” He set aside his ice pack and got to his feet. A harsh light darkened his eyes, which weren’t circled in black, so I hadn’t broken his nose. “I’m not apologizing, but I will accept one.”

I felt like punching him again, but I clenched my fists instead. “You didn’t do anything? You took the single most humiliating experience of my life and wrote it into a song with a catchy tune.”

He shrugged, but that casual gesture didn’t diminish the ferocity of his expression. “We already had the music. I just needed the words. Did you want me to dedicate it to you?”

I could take a lot of things, but his sarcasm at that moment wasn’t one of them. I was too upset to think of a snappy reply, though I’ll probably wake up in the middle of the night with several playing through my head.

Gavin and Levi exchanged looks, and Levi put his arm around me. “Lacey, how about we go back to the hotel and sort this out? There has to be a way we can resolve this without losing you.”

I shook my head and swallowed against the burning behind my eyes. I refused to cry in front of Dylan. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how deeply he’d hurt me. If my father had taught me nothing else, he’d driven home the point that weakness makes you prey.

“Oh, come on.” Dylan jerked my note from Daisy’s hand and crumpled it up. “I’ve been singing that song for three nights, and now you object?”

“This is the first night I wasn’t too busy to catch part of your show.” Finally calm enough for the motion to be soothing, I rubbed my hands together. “I just knew you guys were impressing the crowds, and that you had some new songs.”

Dylan curled his lip and regarded me with undisguised derision. “Maybe if you weren’t so busy sexting your newest piece of ass, you’d have heard them sooner.”

I didn’t want to respond. My relationship with Thomas was none of his business. “You have two weeks to find a new manager. I’ll prepare the records and contacts to turn over to whomever you get.”

With that, I extricated myself from Levi’s arm and exited the room. I had no reason to wait for them, and our hotel was only a block away. I walked to the room I shared with Daisy and washed my hands 102 times.