Love Struck (Miss Match #2) (17 page)

It was a shame he didn’t fight more for himself. It definitely couldn’t be Eli who was changing all of Folx’s songs since he was so deferential. Maybe it was Wes. Or Other Guy.

“He is, yeah. It’s cute to see a grown man so excited.” As she noticed Kat was feeling it too, finding excuses to touch Jax. Seriously, couldn’t she keep her hormones in check?

Lacy squashed the momentary thought that someone could say the exact same thing about her.

“It is. It’s good to see him like this.” Eli looked so serious. Lacy knew there had to be more to the story.

She looked expectantly toward him, wanting to hear more about Jax. Wanting to learn the personal side of Folx she’d never gotten the opportunity to learn. Also wanting to hear Eli say more just because she liked the sound of his voice.

He paused, seeming to consider what or if he wanted to share. Finally, Eli said, “He’s had some rough times. I think this tour is doing him a lot of good.”

“Not just him.” She squeezed Eli’s shoulder, and something passed between them, something like an understanding. And maybe something else, something more charged and confusing.

But this was a happy day, and not time to dwell. Later, she’d spend more time with Eli. Alone, where she could appreciate him—and, yes, use him—in ways that were too complicated in the company of others.

Now, though, was her chance to get to spend time with the man who hid her Folx within him. It was also her chance to make sure that Kat didn’t have more of his attention than Lacy felt was appropriate. So she skipped ahead and landed in between Kat and Jax, slinging an arm around each of them, leaving Eli behind.

*   *   *

Trailing Jax was a position Eli seemed to find himself in more and more these past few years, but he didn’t have to like it. Especially now that Jax assumed many of Eli’s thoughts and ideas as his own. It hadn’t always been that way between them. When they’d first met in college, Jax had been innovative and daring. He’d written half of the songs on their first album and had been the one to get the guys together in the first place.

Now … well, now Jax was still innovative and daring, but also less interested in the
music
than the
show
. It was as if somewhere along the way he’d decided that image was more important than the craft. He let everyone else deal with the actual art, and then he came in and made it all
performance ready
. The last album had been ninety percent Eli’s songs, but Jax changed them, morphed them
just enough
to feel like it was acceptable to call them his own. Eli had the credit on the liner notes, of course. But how many people read those? Many fans assumed they’d been written by Jax, and he never bothered to correct them.

Lately, it wasn’t just the songs, but Eli’s ideas that Jax had “borrowed.” Even the things Eli liked. It was Eli who had introduced Jax to John Waters. Sure Jax had come to love the director too, but certainly not more than Eli did. And who the hell didn’t want to become a photographer after watching
Pecker
? The strip-club scene had surely spoken to every teenage boy who’d seen it.

Honestly, sometimes Eli wasn’t sure why he put up with the guy anymore. Except, that was a lie. He put up with him because he still remembered the guy who’d overheard him singing in the shower and convinced him to join a band. He put up with him because Jax made him feel like he belonged when Eli was a lonely kid. He put up with him because he worried about the Jax of today. And with Jax’s recent past, it was only natural that Eli worried.

Which was why he was already feeling shitty about his bitter thoughts. Besides, he knew the reason that he was irritated with Jax had nothing to do with John Waters—it had to do with Lacy Dawson.

The thing with Lacy—it was weird and guilt laden, but that was his. Something Jax couldn’t take and twist and make his own. Even so, watching the three of them up ahead, there was more than a hint of jealousy rising in his gut.

Eli kicked at a pebble on the sidewalk in front of him and laughed inwardly. Why on earth he was jealous was beyond him. Jax, actually, was a very good solution to his whole Lacy problem. If she had another guy to lean on, Eli could feel less guilty about telling her that what happened last night—incredible as it was—couldn’t happen again. And wouldn’t it be good for Jax to find someone as amazing as Lacy?

Somehow, his reasoning didn’t do anything to ease the tight ball of envy. Perhaps it wasn’t even Jax he was jealous of, but Lacy. It had been a long while since Jax and Eli had just hung out like the brothers they once were. Today would have been a perfect day to reconnect, to see what kind of friends they could be after all the bullshit that had gone down.

Unfortunately, Eli had been the last one to notice this impromptu gathering was even happening. He glanced at his watch. They didn’t have to be back at the venue for another four hours. Four more hours of watching the girls fawn all over Jax while he tagged along like the designated driver. Eli sighed. When had he become such a bystander in his own life?

“Are you coming, or what?” Lacy’s eyes were sparkling as she called back to him from the vintage record store Kat was pulling them into.

He snapped himself out of his stupor in time to respond, “That’s what she said.” But, even though Lacy gave him a genuine laugh, he still felt glum.

Snap out of it, doof.
What was wrong with him, anyway? Besides his tormented friendship with Jax, his regretful affair with Lacy, and his overall lack of cojones, life was great. It was a beautiful afternoon and he was in one of his favorite cities. And he had Love.

Well, he had Love virtually, and that was really what was wrong with him.

Eli wanted to spend a beautiful afternoon in one of his favorite cities with LoveCoda, not with his tourmates. He wanted to take the Poe tour with her, to grab drinks in his favorite dive bar, to catch a show by local musicians. His problem wasn’t the band or Jax or even Lacy, it was that nothing in his life was going to be as colorful now that he and Love had set a tentative date. It was like all the hue in his world had gathered and ran ahead to settle on Christmas Eve leaving him with dull watered-down grays.

He meandered through the record store, picking up vinyls then setting them down without even reading the titles. He passed by Lacy, and she winked at him. His stomach dropped.

All right, he’d been lying to himself. The problem wasn’t the date. It wasn’t even that he’d had Lacy’s legs wrapped around him only the night before. It was that he couldn’t stop picturing the online girl of his dreams with that face, that hair, and that salacious wink. He couldn’t stop wishing that Lacy was LoveCoda.

God, honesty sucked.

He had to put a stop to the thing between him and Lacy. Had to cut things off with her with one clean slice. As soon as he could get her alone, he’d do it. He had to.

Now, he needed another drink. “You guys wanna go grab another beer? There’s a place not far from here with crab mac and cheese that Lacy
has
to try.” He waited a beat. “And I’m buying.”

Suddenly, everyone was in agreement.

“So do you spend a lot of time here? You seem to know the city pretty well.” Lacy linked her arm through his, sending a rush of electricity through him that was already making him rethink the clean slice idea.

A little friendly-friendly couldn’t hurt, right? He relaxed into her grip. “I grew up here. Moved up north after middle school when my dad died, that’s when I met the guys. But Baltimore is always going to feel like home to me. The bar we’re headed to? I had my first beer there, just before I moved. Seven years later I hopped a train to go back, and have my first
legal
beer in the same place. It tasted better, the second one, probably because it wasn’t the dregs of my friend’s brothers’, gulped down in the men’s room.” Eli suddenly realized he was rambling.

“Anyway, this bar has been here for two hundred something years. It served Poe his last drink. I think everyone who comes here should put it on their must-do list.” He fell silent, a little embarrassed, a little unsure what the hell he was doing talking to her so openly.

But Lacy was looking at him with that piercing stare she sometimes got. “So why have we been following Jax around? You should be playing tour guide.”

He stared back at her, not really sure what to say. No one had called him out on bowing to Jax before. Probably because everyone else knew why he did it. “Eh, he likes to be in charge. It’s no biggie.”

She started to press him, but he pointed ahead to the wooden sign swinging outside the tavern. “There we go.”

“The Horse You Came in On,” she read aloud. “Well that’s about the best bar name ever. It would be a good song title too. Dibs.” They strolled in and found a table. This time Kat managed to shove her way in next to Jax, leaving Eli and Lacy to slide in on the other side. He noticed Lacy’s frown, but tried to pretend it meant nothing. As her bare thigh grazed his, he had to admit he, for one, wasn’t altogether upset about the seating arrangement. He decided that while he was in his favorite bar, he wasn’t going to think about Jax’s history with him or his own missing balls or the strange dichotomy of being so incredibly turned on by the girl next to him while his heart belonged to a girl in a chat room.

“Crab dip! Crab cheesesteak! I’m getting both,” Lacy informed the table, daring them to judge her. Or maybe daring them to try and sample her precious, it was hard to say. Either way, Eli was not happy. Because it was adorable, and his heart was getting tugged again.

Some Best Day Ever.

Chapter Fourteen

After the Poe bar and a bit more city traipsing, the foursome headed back to the hotel with a couple of hours left before their call time. Though the afternoon had been a nice variance to their routine, Eli was grateful for it to be over. He needed space away from Lacy and the war she started inside his mind and body.

But first, he had to give her the talk he’d been putting off all day. Well, not exactly putting off—he hadn’t gotten a real moment alone with her. Certainly not enough time to tell her what he needed to say. He’d thought he could catch her alone at some point, but then she’d been glued to Kat and Jax all afternoon. Which had bothered him.

God, he just needed to get this over with. Hopefully when the words were out, he’d be able to put the stupid attraction behind him.

He trailed behind Lacy in the hotel as she headed toward her room. Ahead of her was Jax, whose room was at the other end of the hall. Eli watched Lacy stop at her own door and her eyes follow longingly after Jax before opening it and disappearing into her room.

Jesus, if she wanted the guy as badly as it seemed she did, why didn’t she just follow him to his room? Jax wouldn’t turn her down. He never turned any chick down.

With that thought came an intense pang in his chest. A pang that had to be removed once and for all.

He crossed to her door and held his fist up, ready to knock. Then he paused. He had to make sure he knew what he was going to say. Dammit, why hadn’t he thought about this earlier? He practiced the speech in his head now.
Lacy, last night was great
.

It had been fabulous, actually. Really fabulous. Even just the thought of how snugly she’d fit around him, and he was half hard.

Shit. That wasn’t how the conversation was supposed to go. He tried again.
Last night was great, but it can’t happen again. There’s someone else.

Someone else whom he felt committed to. Someone who didn’t flirt with another man in front of him. Someone he hadn’t even ever seen a picture of.

Was this idiotic? Giving up a real-life person for someone he’d bonded with online?

And was Lacy even his to give up? The way she’d eyed Jax this afternoon, was this conversation even necessary?

Actually, it probably wasn’t. Which was a relief.

But was also kind of sad.

He’d wanted their night together to have been special enough for at least a word of closure, but, hell, it really wasn’t. It was his artsy sensitive side pretending it had been more than it was. It wasn’t the first time this had happened. He imagined it wouldn’t be the last, either.

If there’s nothing between us, why am I even doing this?
If he was doing it only for himself, well, that seemed a waste of time. He had better things to do than construct a not-even-necessary breakup. Like go apologize more to LoveCoda.

He began to turn away when the door flung open unexpectedly.

“Oh! You’re here.” Lacy’s smile brightened her whole face. Almost like she was glad to see him.

“Uh, yeah.” Now that he’d changed his mind about talking to her, he was caught off guard. Might as well stick with his original plan, then. He ran a hand through his hair, composing himself. “I thought we should … talk.”

He would have sworn her gaze darted down to his lips before returning to his eyes. “We should. I was just coming to your room, in fact.”

“You were?” He almost got excited before he remembered he was ending things, not starting them up again. Besides, she’d likely prepared a similar speech. Yeah, that had to be why she’d been on her way to see him. At least she’d also thought something needed to be said after their time together.

He wondered why that disappointed him as much as it did. There was that irritating pang again. It was probably the spicy aioli.

“Yeah. I was. Wanna come in?” She stepped aside to let him past her.

He walked in, stopping just inside the door. No reason to get too far into the room. Otherwise he’d see her bed. Then it would be so much harder to say the things he needed to say because he’d be picturing her laid out on top of the bedspread. Naked. Spread. Wanting him.

What was he thinking? He didn’t even need the bed to be picturing that. Just the sight of her and he wanted to spend an hour making her come.

Fuck. He had to get this over with.

He waited while Lacy closed the door, his mouth open to speak.

But when she turned around—before he could get any words out—she pounced.