A Rocker's Melody (Dust and Bones) (22 page)

He wanted to comfort her. He wanted to protect her from any upset that his bandmate had caused. Hell, he just wanted
her.
His grip on her tightened and he pulled her closer, pressing her body against his chest. He reached up, taking her head between his hands and gently pulling her down to place a lingering kiss on her lips. She snaked her hands around his neck, tangling her fingers in his hair.

You aren’t temporary,
he wanted to say.
You’re so far under my skin that I’ll never be rid of you.
He couldn’t offer her words like that yet, not even to take the sting out of Rip’s biting comments, but maybe he could offer her something else. Something she wanted for him, maybe more than he wanted it for himself. But if he had a hope of getting his head on straight, this was the only way. He pulled away from the kiss and looked into her eyes again.

“You know, I’ve been thinking…” he started.

“Thinking of?”

“I think I want to go see my dad,” he said quickly, the words rushing together. He felt her body tense in his arms.

“Are you sure?” she asked. That was a funny thing to ask, considering she’d been dropping not-so-subtle hints of encouragement for weeks.

“Hell no,” he said. “But I know you’re right. It’s holding me back.”
It’s why I can’t tell you I love you. I need to be able to tell you, even if you don’t say it back.

There was a chance she might, though. And he’d never know unless he did something to cauterize the open wound in his chest that had been infected and festering since his dad had walked out all those years ago.

“So when do we leave?” she asked, with that small, sweet smile she seemed to reserve for only him.

While he’d hoped she would agree to go with him, he hadn’t imagined she would volunteer so easily. “We?” he asked, surprise evident in his voice.

“Oh,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I assumed—wow, clingy girlfriend much?” She started to pull away from him, which he found totally unacceptable. He tightened his arms around her until her chest was flush against his, her knees touching the back of the couch. His mouth sought and found hers, open and waiting, and his tongue took a few brief, longing strokes inside her to soothe them both.

He
had
to give her something, even if he couldn’t give her the words in his heart, the ones he was still too afraid to say. She had given him far more than he deserved, and even though she projected a tough exterior, Dylan knew that Rip’s comments must still be eating at her.

“Come along.” He breathed the words against her lips, so quiet that she would be the only person to ever hear them. “I need you, Mel. You are not, and never have been, just a piece of ass to me. There’s no one else I’d rather have by my side for this. Please come.”
Please don’t give up on me.

“I’m here,” she breathed back, her expression trying to tell him something that he was obviously too stupid to get. “I’ve always been here.”

**

Oklahoma was exactly the same as he remembered it.

Dylan’s leg bounced against the seat of the rental car. Melody was driving because she had pronounced him too jittery to be trusted behind the wheel.

“I can’t believe he only went twenty miles away,” Dylan muttered. It wasn’t the first time he’d made that observation, but Melody didn’t seem to be upset by his endless repetition.

“Maybe part of him wanted to be close by,” she offered.

“Maybe,” Dylan said.

“What do you remember about him?” she asked. He knew she was trying to distract him from what he was about to do. It wasn’t working, but he appreciated the effort.

“Not much,” he admitted. “I was too young to remember much. So I really only remember the bad, traumatic shit. I remember that he never wanted to go to church with my mother. They fought about that. They fought about everything. He drank. My mom hated it.”

“Well, you’ve inspired your fair share of motherly pride over the years,” Melody observed dryly.

Dylan grinned. “Yeah. I’m tragically unoriginal. Never quite grew out of my teen rebellion phase.”

“At least you’re honest with yourself,” she pointed out. “Denial is what gets you into trouble.”

Denial had been getting Dylan into trouble for over a decade. Probably longer, if he was being honest with himself. Which he wasn’t, because…well, denial had always worked so well for him. Instead of dealing with his problems, he could just ignore them until they faded away, or drown them in a bottle of bourbon.

“You might pull off the hat trick yet, Hopkins,” he murmured softly.

She glanced in his direction. “What hat trick?”

“The one where you save the album, the tour, and my immortal soul,” he quipped. Except he wasn’t really kidding.

“That’s a lot of pressure,” she warned. “You might scare me off.”

“You mean I haven’t yet?” Dylan looked at her seriously. “Because no one would blame you if you bailed.” He didn’t know why he kept giving her outs. The last thing he wanted was for her to take him up on one. It was perverse, sadistic. He needed her with him, but he knew it was only a matter of time before he lost her.

“Are you trying to get rid of me or something?” she asked teasingly.

“They’ll have to pry you out of my cold, dead hands,” he promised.

She laughed. “That’s a disturbingly romantic vow,” she said, as she turned into a driveway. The car came to a stop outside a small house with peeling gray paint and a broken screen door.

For some reason, Dylan didn’t want to go inside without being clear with her.

“I’m in this, you know?” he said, feeling emotionally stunted, wishing he could just say the words he wanted to say. “With you. I’m in this.” He forced himself to look her in the eye. Her chest rose and fell as her breathing stuttered for a moment. He’d surprised her; was that a good or a bad thing?

“I’m in this, too,” she said quietly back to him. “Whatever happens. Whatever we’re dealing with. I am
so
in this.”

Dylan wrapped his fingers around hers and placed a long, lingering kiss to the back of her hand, her palm, and the inside of her wrist where her pulse beat and life pumped through her veins. He wanted to toss her into the backseat and lose himself with her for a few hours, but he forced himself to remember why they were here.
Connection or closure.
He was trying to convince himself he would be satisfied with either.

Melody broke their staring contest first. “Come on. Talk to your dad and I’ll buy you a snow cone later.”

“Do you know how much sugar is in a snow cone?” he groused.

She rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’ll buy you and your vag a tofu kale salad.”

“I hate tofu,” he muttered. He looked back out at the decrepit house. His brain told his body to open the car door and get this surprise reunion started, but his nervous system obviously wasn’t sending the message through the right channels. Melody allowed him to sit there in a silent stupor for a full minute before she spoke.

“What is it?” She had her hand on his thigh. He was pretty sure she put it there to distract him. Unfortunately, he was so keyed up that she probably couldn’t have distracted him if she had stripped down to her skivvies and started washing the hood of the car. Although...to be fair, that
would
have distracted him quite successfully.

“I’m scared,” he confessed. “This is him, you know? This is the guy who blew up my whole world.”

“The man who blew up the world,” she mused. “Sounds like a sad song.”

“Maybe the sad song has a happy ending?” He wasn’t sure if he said it for her benefit or his, but he wanted those words to be true so badly he could taste it.

“Let’s go find out,” Melody said. She opened her door and walked around to his side. He remained in the passenger’s seat, stuck in place. As she reached for his door handle, he had the childish desire to hit the lock and refuse to get out. Thankfully, he resisted the urge.

“I’m here,” she promised, standing back so he could get out.

He took her hand and held onto her tightly as they walked up the front porch together. The doorbell was cracked and broken, so he knocked on the dirty white paint of the door.

They waited for what seemed like an eternity. Then the door swung open...it suddenly was as if Dylan was four years old again. His mother was crying in the bathroom, Grace was destroying everything in her room in a fit of rage, and Dylan was in the sitting room, staring up at his father. Suitcase in hand, the old man had barely been able to meet his son’s gaze. He’d leaned down and placed a hand on the top of Dylan’s head, one of the more affectionate gestures he’d ever bestowed on him.

“Be better than me,” he’d muttered before he had opened the door and vanished forever. Dylan had forgotten those words until just now. He hadn’t remembered his father saying anything before he left. How could he have failed to remember?

Twenty-seven years later, his father’s eyes were older. Dylan realized, for the first time, that he had his father’s eyes. His mother also had blue eyes, so he’d just assumed he had gotten them from her. But as he stared at his father, he understood that all the features he’d believed he had inherited from his mother had been decoys, disguising themselves so he wouldn’t suspect the truth: Dylan Bennett was his father’s son, down to the smallest molecule.

Melody tightened her hold on his hand. Dylan could only imagine what she could be thinking, seeing Dylan’s future self before her eyes.

“Mr. Bennett?” Melody asked quietly. Dylan was glad she broke the silence. Left to their own devices, he was sure the Bennett men would have just stared at one another on the porch forever.

“That’s what the bills say,” he said with a voice that sounded raw and unused to speaking. “That you, boy?” He laughed, the sound even more brittle than his speaking voice. “Course it’s you. Might as well be looking in a mirror.”

Dylan opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He was starting to get the feeling that this had been a horrible, cataclysmic mistake.

“We were hoping to speak with you,” Melody said, giving him an expectant look. “
Dylan
was hoping to speak with you.”

“That so?” His father moved back from the door, holding it open for them. “Be my guest.”

Melody moved forward, but her firm hold on Dylan’s hand halted her, because he had remained in place; unmoving. She looked back and widened her eyes at him. “I’m here,” she mouthed. This time, when she gave him a gentle tug, he allowed her to pull him off the porch and into his father’s house.

The walls were bare—there were no photographs in the house. A recliner was set up in front of a television, empty bottles of tequila sitting on the tray beside it. The kitchen was little more than a small nook right off the living room. Empty pizza boxes and containers of instant soup littered the counters. A folding table was set up by the room’s only window, and four folding chairs sat around it. Dylan wondered why his father bothered with the pretense. It was obvious that no one but him had set foot inside this house in years.

“So, you finally decided to look me up?” the old man said. He nodded to himself as if that made sense to him. Then he looked at Melody in a way that made Dylan curl his hands into fists with the desire to make contact with human flesh. “What’s her name?”

“My name is Melody,” she answered with a bright smile. “What’s your name, sir?”

“Sir,” he scoffed. “No one’s called me that in years. Name’s Blue.”

“Blue?” Dylan was shocked. His father’s name, as far as he had ever known, was Carl. That was what his mother had always called him.

“Carlton’s my given name,” he grumbled. “But I’ve gone by Blue all my life. Your mother never liked it.” The bitterness in his voice resonated in the room, lingering in the silence that followed his words.

Melody cleared her throat, obviously feeling awkward. Dylan couldn’t blame her. This reunion was the very definition of awkward. Dylan could feel cynicism coming off his father in waves. It was acidic, thickening the air with a foul, sour taint. He didn’t know how the three of them didn’t choke on it.

“Well...this is nice,” she said in a hesitant voice. “You know Mr. Bennett, if you’d like, I could make you some coffee while you and Dylan talk, or—”

“Out of coffee,” Blue said. “Keep meaning to get down to the store.”

Why bother, when he could get cheap pizza delivered, and he could buy tequila from the local liquor shop in bulk?

“Well then, why don’t I make a quick grocery run?” Melody offered. “I’ll pick up some coffee and eggs, maybe some toast, and I’ll make us something to eat.”

Panic rose in Dylan’s chest at the idea that she was leaving him alone with
Blue
. He wasn’t even his father anymore. He was a stranger...a stranger who happened to look exactly like an older version of Dylan himself.

Melody pressed a kiss against Dylan’s temple, promised to be back in a few minutes, and slipped back out the door. Tough love. That was what she’d say if he had bothered to ask what the hell she thought she was doing. Melody was a big fan of tough love. Dylan was not.

“Cute girl,” Blue said, once she was gone.

“Amazing girl,” Dylan corrected. “I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

Blue laughed. “That was how I felt about your mother”

“It was?” Dylan didn’t know why he was surprised. He imagined his parents must have loved each other at some point; they had gotten married and had two kids, after all. But so many of his memories were of them fighting that it was hard to imagine his father loving his mother in a way that even remotely resembled the way Dylan loved Melody.

“Genie, Genie, with the long brown hair,” his father murmured, and Dylan felt his heart gasp an unsteady beat.
The girl with the long red hair—
that
was how he sometimes still thought of Melody.

“You never remarried?” Dylan asked.

“If I couldn’t make it work with your mother, I wouldn’t have a prayer with anyone else,” Blue said.

“So you’ve lived alone for almost thirty years?” Dylan asked.

“Had a cat once,” Blue said with a shrug. “But he ran off a while back.”

Another painful similarity. Apparently, they were both incapable of nurturing a living being as low-maintenance as a simple house cat. “Sorry to hear that,” Dylan muttered.