Without You (3 page)

“I’ll do it.” The words spat out of my mouth before I changed my mind. I reached across the coffee table and offered Luke my hand. “I’m honored, bro.” I may not have been his brother by blood, but he was right. We were best friends. If he needed something, I had to be there for him.

He accepted my hand eagerly, smiling like a fool. A flicker of concern crossed his face. “What about Madison?” he asked.

“She has obviously moved on, Luke. She should be fine. Besides, this isn’t about me or Maddy. This is about you and Genna and your wedding day. We’ll just have to deal.”

“Thanks, man.” He picked up his controller and unpaused the game. “I appreciate it. Genna is going to be relieved. This is all going to work out.” He sat back, relaxing into my leather couch, and sighed. “For all of us.”

If I hadn’t known any better, I would’ve said that Luke and Genna had something up their sleeves. Genna had never been one to mind her own business when Maddy and I were concerned. Hell, we had her to thank for kicking us in the ass to get together in the first place.

We were on our third game of Madden Football when I finally got the balls to bring up the night before again. It could have been that Luke had beaten me the last two games and I was trying to distract him before he killed my ass again.

“So who was that prick with Maddy last night?” Okay, I shouldn’t have called him a prick, but I couldn’t help it. The dude looked so uptight. He was probably an investment lawyer who was raised in a country club.

I didn’t miss Luke’s eyes rolling back.

“So you like him?” I joked. “Best buds?”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “That was Michael.” He rolled his eyes again. “Michael Smith.”

Michael Smith? Could he have been any more original? “Sounds boring.”

“He is. He’s a total tool and I can’t figure out what Maddy sees in him. I would have paid money to see his reaction last night when she told him who you were.” Suddenly, Luke appeared amused.

Still tapping on the buttons of my controller, my quarterback went for a short pass to my open tight end. “You think she told him?”

“She probably had to. She reacted like a lunatic and there’s no doubt in my mind that he would question her about it. He’s wound super tight, and for her to react like that, it probably threw him off. She’s usually very prim and proper around him.”

That didn’t sound like the Maddy I knew. She was my whimsical girl, wind flowing through her hair, bouncing barefoot through the park with an ice cream in her hand kind of woman. Prim and proper was never a description I would have used for her. She was the one who could brighten my day with the gleam in her eyes and the tiniest of smiles.

“He doesn’t seem like the type of guy who would care. I’m her ex-boyfriend and he’s hers now.” Fuck, just saying that made me cringe.

“He’s the reason why we don’t advertise you’re our good friend. He’s the type of guy that would go all fangirl on your ass and try to exploit you for his gain.”

I had always been proud that my friends kept our connection under wraps. They could have easily thrown my name around for whatever reason, but they didn’t. Unless you were in our circle in high school or college, you wouldn’t have known I existed to them. It made it easier for both sides.

With that, Luke’s corner picked off my QB and returned the ball for a touchdown. Maybe I should have kept my trap shut. Looks like the chatter was distracting me more than it was him.

“Fuck.” I turned off the game and fell back resting into my chair. “You’re a liar. You’ve obviously been playing. I’ve never even seen some of the plays you pulled out of your ass today.”

He put his hands up in defense. “Well, maybe a little.”

Faint chuckles filled the room. “Beer time? Play some pool?”

Luke stood. “Tired of getting your ass handed to you so you want to remind me who’s boss?”

We both laughed at that one. Luke was onto something. He could never beat me at a round of pool and I doubted that had changed much.

“Yeah, I need an ego boost.” We headed toward the other end of the room where a pool table sat. The balls were racked and ready to be smashed.

While I could afford it, I never felt the need to get a huge place with several rooms like many other people in the business. I wanted something more practical. I never would have considered living in the community if it weren’t for the paparazzi. If I hadn’t needed the security, I would have bought a house in the valley near my friends and family, where I grew up.

Even though it still felt funny to consider myself as rich or a celebrity, I was forced to live with that crowd so I could maintain some semblance of privacy. Although my place
was
one of the smallest in the community, if not
the
smallest, my one-story home had four large bedrooms, a super sweet gourmet kitchen, five bathrooms, and a great room fit for a king, or a single dude who liked his toys. Instead of using the great room for all its glory, decorating it as it should have been with beautiful drapes and designer rugs and furniture, it was the ultimate man cave. Leather sofas, big screen TV to watch sports or play video games, pool table, stocked bar, and oh, a mini fridge filled with beer and orange soda.

Luke examined the pool cues while I grabbed the brews.

“Dude, you can inspect those all day and it’s not going to do you any good.” I tossed him a bottle and he caught it with one hand.

“Watch it, bro. Madden may not have been the only thing I’ve been practicing.” He raised a brow at me, trying to hide his grin.

Our game started with Luke doing a terrible job breaking the balls. I took a quick shot to bust them up even more, sinking a solid in the process.

“So tell me how long Maddy has been with Michael Smith?” I asked, torturing myself with questions that I didn’t want to know the answers too.

Luke appeared to be thinking. “A year or so. Maybe less.”

“It’s serious then?” I questioned, my lungs feeling like someone was sitting on my chest.

“I guess. She thinks it is. He does too. But anyone around them who knows her knows it isn’t real. She doesn’t love him even though she might tell you she does.”

And that was all I needed to know. As long as she didn’t love him, I still had a chance. I had never been one to go after a girl who was with another man, but damn it, I couldn’t just sit by and let her get away this time.

I came home for a reason. I came home for her. I was kidding myself to believe that my music could be enough. Or maybe it was my pride. She had pushed me away and I hadn’t wanted her to think I needed her when she didn’t need me. But, I didn’t care anymore. I was willing to shout it from the rooftops, from every stage in front of a sold-out crowd. I needed Madison Grey. I fucked it up before. I wasn’t about to do it again. I was ready to get my girl back.

There were so many things I should have done. Should have said. And I hadn’t. I thought she would always be there. But then she wasn’t, and it almost killed me. Not that the world would have ever known that. I played it off really well, pretending to be the ultimate player in front of the cameras, but then drowning in my loneliness behind the scenes. Music was nothing without my heart, my soul, my reason for being, and I needed to get her back.

Luke broke my train of thought when he let out a hearty laugh. “Dude, where are you? I can’t believe you missed that.”

Neither could I. The shot was perfectly lined up to sink two balls in and I totally shanked it, sent each one in different directions not getting either of them in a hole. “If we keep talking about Maddy and her new man, you might just win this one.”

“Come on now, you guys have been apart for years. You can’t expect her to be sitting around waiting for your sorry ass to wise up and fight to get her back.”

Leaning against the wall, I let out a growl. I reached up, scratching the back of my head and brushing my fingers through my hair. “Honestly, I wanted to fight for her the moment I left. I never thought it would go on this long. As time passed, it just got harder to step up and fight. I just hope I’m not too late.”

A shit-eating grin spread across Luke’s face. “So you did come back for her? That’s what that song was about?”

I didn’t respond with words, but I’m sure my eyes gave it away.

“Genna was right. She’s going to flip her shit.” He laughed, a huge smile lighting him up. “All the tabloids have been saying you’ve been in hiding and they are expecting something big from you when you resurface.”

Damn rags. I tried not to pay attention to them. “When the tour finished, I just wanted some quiet time. I went up to the cabin in Arrowhead and relaxed. My manager has been sending me offers for gigs and songs from other writers, but I haven’t been feeling it. The only song I’ve worked on is the one I sang last night. Sam said I would know when I was ready to get out there again, and I guess he was right. I was driving down Sunset and it hit me. I wanted to sing. I wanted to sing her song.”

“And she heard it. Loud and clear.”

“That’s just crazy.” I still couldn’t believe it. It was surreal to me that she had been there. Like a fucking romance movie. She was sitting there in the audience on the night that I finally decided to sing in public after months of seclusion. She was right there listening as I sang about her and all the “would haves, should haves, and could haves.” Like Luke said, she heard it loud and clear. “I just hope that she felt it, too.”

Seeing her there only confirmed my need to have her back in my life. I saw the sadness in her eyes, the sheer anger. Even after all those years, it was still there. I had put it there. Those devastating looks didn’t belong on Maddy. Her eyes were supposed to be lit up with happiness. And I was willing to do the work to make her happy again.

I just hope she understood the words I sang for her, to her.

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M
ADISON

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A
pound at my door startled me causing tea to spill over the top of my cup.
Damn it
. I wasn’t dressed for visitors nor did I want them. The pounding continued as I tried to dab at my wet yoga pants that I decided to settle into earlier. Not a beat later, shouting followed. It didn’t take long for me to discover who was at my house. The shrill sound of my best friend came through the door, through the windows, through the friggin walls. She made no attempt to be discreet. She knew that I would eventually let her in if she caused a scene. I wasn’t one to draw attention to myself.

“What the hell, Genevieve Marie White? I heard the first knock.” I rested a hand on my hip and stood in the doorway. It wasn’t the inviting look she was hoping for and I didn’t care. She knew I was angry. I hadn’t used her full given name since eleventh grade.

“Slow your roll, Madison Grey.” She raised her brows, looking down her nose at me through her glasses. If I wanted to use full names, I guessed she would too. “You better apologize to me this minute or your ass is not going to get any of the vanilla vodka and orange soda I have in this bag.” Staring at the grocery sack in her hand, I contemplated my next move. “I have rainbow sherbet ice cream too.”

Shit. “Okay, but why am I apologizing?” I had been a mess since the night before and all fingers pointed to her and her fiancé as the culprits.

“Because I didn’t know that Evan was going to be there. Neither did Luke.” She pleaded with me and I believed her.

Genna had no reason to lie. She was brutally honest to a fault. She had no filter, no desire to hold back. It didn’t matter if you had just bought what you thought to be the sexiest pair of shoes in the world. If she thought they were ugly, she’d tell you.
“What the hell are you wearing? It looks like someone threw up on your feet,”
she had once told me of a pair of patterned wedges I found. It was a big step for me to buy heels, and she knew it. I hated to wear them, but I guess she hated my shoes more given she didn’t stop telling me they looked like shit. Some people would have been offended by her brash nature, while I took it as a sign I could always trust her.

But seriously, who in their right mind would have thought this was all a coincidence? Not me, that’s for sure. Genna and I had finally found the time to go out for an evening—not for a quick lunch in passing at a local coffee shop. On the one night we decided to drive to Los Angeles for a night on the town, we run into my ex-boyfriend? He just happened to sing at the same bar at the same open mic night that we had decided to go to on a whim? Some might have said that the stars aligned that night to bring us back together. Me? Not so much. It was more like some random blip in the universe caused our paths to cross in a failure of epic proportions.

Genna shut the door behind her and followed me into my kitchen. I knew she’d be ready to make a drink. Hell, we all knew I needed one. Or two.

“Well, fine. I’m sorry. I just find it hard to believe that it was totally random that we all ended up in the same place last night.”

She placed her bag on the stainless steel countertop, and rummaged through the sac, taking one thing out at a time. She stopped, looking at me until my eyes settled on hers. “Maybe it wasn’t random, Maddy. Maybe it was fate.”

See. Just what I had thought people might say. At least she didn’t mentioned stars aligning. I may have had to kick her out. Vodka, ice cream and all.

“Whatever.” I removed two highball glasses from a mocha-stained cabinet, and filled them with ice from the freezer dispenser. As I moved throughout the kitchen, I smiled at the remodel. The sleek style was amazing. Not practical for a family, but for this single lady, it had been perfect.

Genna and I shuffled past each other, gathering things we needed to make our cocktail. She knew where all the utensils were and it didn’t take her long to dig out an ice cream scoop. Within minutes, we had an orange creamsicle cocktail with a dollop of sherbet inside. It was delish.

My friend took a seat at the counter and sipped her drink. I did the same, but downed close to half the glass in one long pull of my straw.

“You ready to talk about it yet?” She peered up at me through long lashes. Her long black hair was piled high into a bun, so she couldn’t hide behind the dark curtain like she usually would when she tried to broach a taboo subject. And Evan was definitely taboo. He had been since he walked out the door.