Love Exactly (14 page)

“Yes, at dinner.”

“I have to wait?” I pouted at him, but he didn’t relent. Instead he headed towards the door.

I stood and pouted more. He shook his head. “Good things come to those that wait, mhmm?”

I narrowed my eyes before submitting, “Fine, let’s go get some food.”

Even after Evan’s promise he refused to show me the cover art at the restaurant and had driven all the way back to my house with a smug look on his face. He kept glancing over at me; his lips curled in just the slightest and when I would pout at him he would break into a full smile that caused the dimples to show in his cheeks. His happiness was infectious, and I found myself not really caring because for once it felt like we had forever. When we pulled into the driveway I yanked his keys from his hands and jumped out of the car.

“Show me now!” I squealed jumping on to him as he came around the front of the car.

“I can’t show you them if I can’t get to them,” he said through laughter as I dangled the keys above his head, just out of reach of his free hand because his other was wrapped firmly around my waist to keep me from falling to the ground.

I stopped and looked down at him. “Where are they?”

His eyes widened to tease me in how obvious it was. “In the trunk of the car.”

I narrowed my eyes at him and slid off his body in a way that made the vein in his forehead pulse.

“Fine, you can go get them,” I said as I handed him the keys.

“Thanks, for your permission,” he teased with a roll of his eyes. He went to the trunk and pulled out a black bag, using his free hand to shoo me away. “I’m not showing you them outside.”

“You have the keys to the door,” I answered with crossed arms.

He smirked at me and planted his feet, dangling the keys in front of him. “Now who’s in control?”

I ran towards him, hands reaching for the bag, but when I got to him he grabbed me by my waist and swung me around. “Oh, no you don’t.”

He held the bag to the side, using only one arm to hold me back. I stopped struggling and he smiled at me.

“If you were a good girl we could just go inside and look at them,” he commented as he let me go.

I stood and leaned on my tippy toes so my lips were hovering over his, our eyes locked.

“I thought you liked it when I’m bad,” I whispered.

His chest rose against mine as he took a deep breath and shook his head. “You’re going to be the death of me, woman.”

I bit his lip quickly and stole the bag out of his hand before rushing towards the door.

“You!” he shouted as he ran after me. When he got into the house I was sitting on the coach, legs crossed, waiting patiently with the black bag in front of me on the coffee table.

“See, I’m not
that
bad.”

He shook his head and took a seat next to me before leaning forward and opening the bag. He looked over his shoulder at me. “Now you’re patient?”

I nodded, but the truth was it unnerved me that my pictures could either help or hinder his album.

“You look scared?” he said, turning to face me. “What’s wrong?”

“How important is the album art?”

I watched his face as he thought about the question, tapping one of his feet. “Pretty important…all of the advertisements are based off of it.”

“Right, well show me then.”

“Everyone loved your pictures…There’s even some I took in here…and of course, there’s some you didn’t take of the band,” he explained as he produced the album booklet.

I’d seen the cover, so when he handed it to me it was a little bit less overwhelming, but at the same time it made it that much more real. Evan put his arm around me as he watched me open the booklet with shaking hands. The first few pictures were ones I hadn’t taken of the band together. Evan was standing at the front, old fashioned microphone in hand, and the guys played their instruments in the background.

“I really like this one,” I commented.

“Anything but the one you took, right?”

He shook his head and flipped to the next page. It was the page giving credit for
Love Exactly
and it was a picture I could never have taken because it was me. I knew it was me, but most people wouldn’t because I was framed by the sun and cast in its shadow as I stood by the French doors, wrapped in a sheet, staring out across the lake.

“I hope you aren’t mad?” he asked, studying my face as I gawked at it.

“No,” I managed to stutter as I looked up at him. “It’s beautiful.”

He took my face in his calloused hands so I was looking at him.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, his eyes searching mine.

“You make me feel like it,” I replied, knowing there were tears building in the corner of my eyes. “In so many ways.”

I let the booklet drop to the floor as he pulled me into his arms with a gentle kiss.

“I’d do anything to make you happy, you know that, right?” he asked as his lips left mine and kissed my forehead.

“You don’t have to do anything to make me happy except be you,” I replied, pulling his body over mine.

I could feel the smile on his lips as they touched mine again. “That’s why I lo—”

His words were cut off by the loud ringing of his cell phone in his back pocket.

“What the hell?” he snapped, supporting the weight of his body over mine with one arm and reaching back with his other. “Who’d be calling this late?”

When his eyes saw the screen they darkened, and his smile faded into a stern line.

“I’ve got to take this,” he said. I nodded and he headed outside.

I waited a moment before following the sound of his agitated voice to the entryway. He had left the front door open and was pacing in the driveway. His free hand was clenched in a fist at his side and his face was red as he tried to control the tone of his voice.

“What are you saying? That I have to come back to LA tonight for some god damned emergency meeting about the tour schedule?—That’s nice it’s not going to happen…who’s pissed about us recording in Boston?—Well, the album came out the way you wanted it just the same…no, I don’t really understand what your point is…You aren’t going to like what I think I’m hearing—What? You want to know? I think you’re saying that because I’m the front man I get screwed…What the hell else would you mean?—Bad influence? Really, buddy, you want to go there?—You can thank her for the fucking album you—You think I’m going to regret what I’m saying—what the fuck does that mean? You don’t control me…you’re right, the fucking contract does.”

The iPhone flew out of his hands and slammed into the tree in front of him with such force that it shattered on impact. Evan’s back was turned to me as he bent his knees; his hands went into his hair and he took a fistful of it, shaking his head. His muscles tensed as he heard my feet crunching on the gravel, but he didn’t turn. Instead he stood and let me wrap my arms around his chest, my hands resting on his shoulders. His chin dropped there before he pulled me around and into his arms with his face buried in my hair. I could feel the tears hitting the waves of brown, and I knew in my heart that it was over. It didn’t matter how much we cared for one another. It didn’t matter that in his flaws I’d found perfection. The truth was nothing this perfect could last forever. In time the media would tear at it; wear it down until it was just an empty shell. We had known that, but neither of us had expected in a matter of seconds the recording label, which didn’t care about anything but the bottom line, would rip us apart with one word.

Contract.

They owned him, and I owned his heart.

When I woke the next morning Evan was staring at me intently, his fingers tracing the skin on my arm.

“Hey,” he said, but his voice cracked and a sad smile came to his face. His eyes ran over my body, seeming to memorize it.

“Please don’t go,” I whispered, closing my eyes so tight it hurt almost as much as my hollow chest.

He pressed his lips against my forehead, then each of my eyes.

“I swear to god I’m coming back,” he whispered, reading my mind. “I swear.”

I opened my eyes as a tear rolled down my cheek. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

His thumb caught the drifting water.

“I swear,” he repeated. “Look in my eyes and tell me it’s a promise I’m going to break.”

I let my gray eyes drift to his and the answer was there. He truly believed he would be coming back, or he truly wanted to.

“I believe you,” I whispered.

“I have something I’ve been meaning to give you,” Evan said as he stood and went to his jeans lying on the floor. He pulled out a small package and sat back down on the bed before handing me a worn baby blue pick. I knew it was the one from the Boston concert, and the one he taught me how to play guitar with, but now it dangled from a delicate silver chain and was coated with something to protect is patina.

I ran my fingers over it and looked up at him.

“For so long my music has been my heart,” he explained as he flipped the pick over in my palm to reveal a heart drawn in permanent marker. I smiled at its awkward shape, knowing he had drawn it himself as he continued, “But now it’s you…you’re my heart.”

“Evan,” I breathed out as he took it from my hands to put it around my neck.

I lifted my hair that was covering my bare chest and watched as Evan’s eyes washed over my body with longing. He seemed to have stopped breathing as he leaned around to secure it.

“Evan,” I whispered again as I kissed his collarbone.

His forehead dropped to my shoulder. “How could you ever think I wouldn’t come back?”

“I’m afraid there are people out there who could keep us apart if they wanted to,” I finally admitted.

I lay back in the bed and he rested his body on his forearms over me before he kissed the middle of my chest and up my body to my lips.

“No one, no matter how hard they tried, could ever keep me away from this,” he finally replied as he moved his hands into mine, pressing them into the mattress.

I responded by rolling my body over him and pulling him into me; watching as his back arch in pleasure. His hands raced up my back and pulled my chest to his lips as I sighed. Each kiss and movement was heartbreaking in its slow perfection, for we both knew he would leave as soon as the moment was over. A goodbye that was supposed to be a few minutes turned into an hour of his body curving into mine, hands and lips moving over every inch of skin.

Evan looked down at me and the pick dangling around my neck. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“I’ll be waiting,” I whispered, and we kissed for minutes that felt like a lifetime before he pulled away and got dressed. I sat in the bed watching, clinging to the necklace around my neck.

“I’ll stop at a store at the airport and get a phone—it’ll have the same number,” he reassured me, leaning across the bed and moving a hair out of my face before cupping my chin in his hands. “Then we’ll finish up were we left off last night.”

I watched him leave, and listened as the car revved out as he hammered on the gas in frustration. He didn’t want to go. I sat there in my bed, staring at the guitars in the corner, the pictures of him now canvas prints on my wall and watched the digital clock as it shifted times motionless. An hour. Two hours. Three hours. Then my phone rang, but I knew it couldn’t be him yet. I picked it up without saying a word.

“Hey, it’s Paul—we can’t get a hold of Evan?”

“He’s on the plane,” I said before hanging up the phone.

Evan called as soon as he landed and again reassured me he would be back as soon as he could. He texted me a few hours later to say he missed me. When I asked him how it went his response was he couldn’t wait to get back to see me. The days began to pass in a blur, one week, then another.
 
Love Exactly
was an immediate hit and my picture flooded the internet. Everyone wanted to know who the girl was. Everyone wanted to be that girl when he told the MTV host it was his girlfriend with a smile. I watched carefully, my knees drawn to my chest, as his foot tapped not to a beat but in irritation. When he performed his eyes were intense, and as the song came to an end he began a guitar solo he apparently hadn’t told the band about. It was an angry, quick riff and it matched the feeling in his eyes. The rest of the band caught on quick enough and started hammering on the drums and bass in a frustrated rhythm that matched his own. The band seemed to get where he was coming from and I did too, especially when he jumped in the air with the guitar on the last riff, and then turned as the lights dimmed to black. Only moments later my phone beeped:

I’m coming home tonight. Pack a bag. I have the perfect weekend planned.

It had been three weeks since I had seen him. A week since I heard his voice. Desperation had set in; one that occurs with the misfortune of knowing everything you have is about to crumble over right on top of you, and in doing so it’s going to suffocate you—bury you alive. Evan hadn’t even acted differently, but there was a tone in his voice I hadn’t heard before. It sounded like he had given up, too. When Evan greeted me that night with a one armed hug and a kiss to the forehead the feeling only thickened.

He gave me a weak smile before nodding over his shoulder and saying, “I’ve got something special planned—you packed a bag like I asked?”

I nodded and showed him the bag I had in my hands that he must have overlooked. We drove in silence, Evan with a vacant stare and two hands on the steering wheel; me with my hands in my lap as I pressed my forehead against the window. He knew something was wrong as much as I did, but he wasn’t saying anything. The three hour drive dragged on in utter silent chaos. My mind was a mess as I jumped from one conclusion to the next. When Evan finally shifted the car into park in front of elegant hotel on the water I just sat and stared at it.

I had wanted forever. I had thought forever and now I was losing it.

Evan opened the door for me, and I practically fell out of the side of the car. He grabbed for me before I could hit the ground, his face red and eyebrows furrowed.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

It was enough to make me come unglued. “No.”

“What’s wrong?” he continued to pry as if he didn’t know.

“You’re not telling me something,” I snapped as I slammed the door to the car and leaned against it.

“Let’s go inside?”

I swallowed and followed him into the hotel lobby. It was just as elegant as the exterior and as Evan got our room keys I couldn’t help but wonder why he would bring me here if something was wrong. We rode up in the elevator in more silence and when Evan shut the door behind him I turned on my heel and stuck my finger in his chest.

“If you’re breaking up with me, why in the hell did you bring me here?” I demanded, throwing my hands up as I turned away from him.

He was quiet for a moment before pulling me into his arms from behind and resting his face on my shoulder. “I’m not breaking up with you,” he whispered.

“Then why did we just spend a car ride in utter silence! Why have you been acting so strange?” I asked. My exasperation showed as my voice cracked.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what? Please, Evan! Just tell me what’s going on!” I turned to look at him, running my hands through my hair. “Please!”

“The band was nominated for a bunch of Grammy’s,” he replied, his hands in his pockets and his eyes on his feet.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I’m just anxious.”

I couldn’t help but raise my eyebrows at him. “I don’t know I believe you.”

He heaved a sigh. “I know I promised a perfect weekend and that’s what I plan on giving you.”

“With you moping around like this I really doubt that’s going to happen,” I retorted as I flopped down on the bed and looked at the ceiling. I felt the bed compress as Evan sat down next to me.

“The label and the publicists…they found out who you are…they were over interested when I told them we would be recording in Boston. Even more so when I demanded that the cover art and album leaflet be exactly the way I wanted it to be. They didn’t like how I was taking charge.”

I sat back up and looked at the sadness washing over his face.

“That’s what this is about, isn’t it?” I asked. My voice wasn’t filled with anger anymore. I’d known this was coming from the phone call. I knew it had to be about me.

“They think…they think you’re a bad influence—that you’re using me to get famous. They’re going to try to keep us apart,” he admitted as his head went into in his hands.

I stood up and went to the window that over looked the water.

“Maybe we’re not good for each other,” I finally managed to choke out.

I didn’t feel that way, but I didn’t want to be selfish. I knew I wasn’t good for him anymore.

“Don’t say that—” he snapped, standing and throwing his hands up. “You know it’s not true.”

“When are the Grammy’s?”

He grimaced and I knew the answer before he said it, “I’m supposed to be on a plane heading towards some press events now—but they can wait. The show isn’t for two weeks. I don’t need to be doing all the press events anyways, and we can rehearse closer to the show.”

I shook my head as I wrapped my arms around my body. “Think of the decisions you’ve made since you met me. You bailed on your Canadian tour, you almost beat the shit out of my ex-boyfriend, and here you are when you should be on a plane for press events for the Grammys—the Grammys, Evan! Maybe they’re right, maybe I am everything you never needed.”

“That’s not true Em, and you know it!” he said with his jaw clenched in frustration.

“Maybe this sort of thing can’t work—someone like you with someone like me,” I said, biting my lip to keep the sobs from rising up my chest and to the surface.

“Not that again! Come on. So, what—I’m never supposed to really know love? That’s my punishment for having everything else?”

I shrugged as fresh, hot tears ran down my face and he walked forward to pull me into his arms.

“Screw everything else, all I want—all I need is you. Come with me to the Grammys. We can get you an amazing dress…you can meet Sting and Paul McCartney.”

I laughed at the idea and how amazing it sounded until one thing rushed back to my mind. “Everyone watches the Grammys.”

“And?”

I pulled away and walked towards the balcony. I took a breath and turned.

“What if Eric sees it and realizes who you are?”

Evan shrugged. “I’m willing to deal with it if it happens. Celebrities do stupid shit all the time.”

“But you don’t. Everyone will just blame it on me…and it is my fault—don’t you see the label, the publicists, they’re all right.”

Evan threw his hands up. “No one who knows me thinks they’re right. They only want me to do what will get
them
the most money. Don’t you see—you’re the reason we’re up for this Grammy. It’s you Em. It’s always going to be you.”

“You really want me to go?”

He nodded, but the fear was all encompassing. I couldn’t be there for him on one of the biggest days of his life. When I looked up at him, he saw the answer in my eyes. The look he returned was devastating and his shoulders slumped in response.

“This is my first Grammy performance, and I might even win one,” he explained, his voice hoarse. “It could be a once in a lifetime thing, and I really just want to spend it with you…”

“I know how much this means to you,” I whispered, turning back to the window.

After a moment of strained silence, Evan replied with his voice barely audible, “I’m not afraid to say I need you…because I do.”

When I turned Evan was already gone.

I stood there, paralyzed by my feelings; by the fact I knew I had hurt him by not going with him, by not being willing to face any of my fears for him. I had, though, I trusted him, let him in. That was a big step. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, but it wasn’t enough. I knew it wasn’t, not when he wanted to let me into his world that he rarely, if ever, shared. He was the model of celebrity strength. He never really let anyone in, just like me, yet he had and I let him down. I closed my eyes and took a shaky breath before sitting down on the bed. I didn’t know how long I sat there, my legs pulled to my chin, staring out into the empty hallway.

“Err…hello?” a head peeked its way into my line of vision, a cart being towed behind him. “There was a call for room service?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t.”

He looked down at the chart before saying, “No, Mr. Levesque did, about an hour and a half ago in person.”

“Sure,” I muttered, standing and running my hands through my hair and tying it into a messy bun.

“He left this note for you as well,” the guy shrugged, and his eyebrows rose at my disheveled appearance. “Can I close the door for you?”

“Yeah,” I replied, waving him off as I stared at the cart and the letter laying folded on it. I must have looked like a crazy person in my now wrinkled plaid button-up and ripped jeans.

I sat back on the bed and stared at the letter before giving in and unfolding it.

I’m not mad…I know you don’t believe me, but I’m not. I meant what I said. Promise me you will watch the Grammys? It will make me feel better to know that you do. I have some press obligations for the next month or so after the show. I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye the way I should have. It seems like I do that a lot. I’m just not good at it–not with you. It’s so hard to say goodbye to you. Please, know this, I won’t let anyone come between us, not anyone on my end and sure as hell, not him, never him.

Evan

I was running from my past. If it wasn’t the Grammys, or some other show that Evan needed me to be at it would be my publishing the book I had worked so hard to write. God was I sick of letting Eric control me. Years later that kid still had me plastered in fear. That was what he wanted, for me to shrink into nothing at his power. The sick bastard was winning, and I was letting him. I stopped writing because of the things he said to me—the way I’d let him make me feel. I had the strength to fight it. I wrote a full length novel for Evan, for myself and yet I couldn’t even let myself go on camera. How was I going to be a published author? How could I ever truly be with Evan? The pain, the memories that crept in like monsters had been banished, but now in place of them was guilt. What had I done to myself? If I didn’t get over it I would lose two people: myself and Evan.