15. Dylan

CHAPTER 15

DYLAN

True to his word, Alex didn’t sleep with me that night. I went the next day to get tested and met him that afternoon with results in hand, but he simply put them in his pocket and kissed the top of my head. I had to work at Tryst Monday night and Alex left me to my own devices, showing up at my apartment at four-thirty in the morning, barely two minutes behind my arrival. He didn’t fuck me then either. He undressed me, settled me into bed, and tucked himself behind me, arms tight around my chest and breath hot against my neck.

It was the best sleep I’d had in months.

I woke up just before lunch, the other side of my bed cold. I assumed Alex had left, but after a quick stop in the bathroom, I found him on my couch, his feet propped up on the coffee table and a half-finished crossword puzzle in his lap.

“Don’t you work?” I asked.

“Well enough that I don’t have to be there,” he said, setting the paper and pen down beside him. “Get a cup of coffee and your guitar. You have a gig on Thursday.”

“I what?” My feet were on autopilot, taking me into my room and then to the counter so I could do what I’d been told. I took the coffee and guitar to the couch, where I sat down beside him, similar to the position we’d been in the night before.

“I got you a gig,” he said, “so play me some songs. Get your practice in.”

Alex made me play until lunch, when he took my guitar out of my hands, told me to get dressed, and then took me to lunch. He ordered for me, barely picking at his own food until I was halfway done with my sandwich. After we finished eating, he took me home, walked me upstairs, and told me goodbye.

Wednesday night, I worked at The Black Door, and I expected to be unsupervised like I’d been the night before, but Alex showed up just before midnight, taking a seat at the bar and ordering a martini. For the most part, he let me work, ignoring the way I tried to flirt with him, but when I went on break, he cornered me in the bathroom and pushed me up against the wall. Alex shoved his hand down my pants, crashed our mouths together, and jerked me off until I came all over his fingers. He made me lick them clean, watched as I washed my hands, then told me he’d see me Thursday for my gig.

By the time Thursday night rolled around, I was an absolute livewire. The only physical touch Alex had given me since we decided to be together was the snuggles on Monday night and the hand job on Wednesday. He was about as forthcoming as a puzzle box, and I hated it. I texted him when I got out of the shower on Thursday to tell him as much.

This isn’t what I signed up for.

Alex

What part? The show so you can play music, which is the one thing you’ve been willing to ruin your life over? Or was there something else?

The way you’re treating me

How am I treating you?

Worse than you did when you paid me.

It was a low blow, but I was horny and angry. I was confused and thankful and needy, and it was all too much after so long of going without. Alex had promised me a lot, but so far all he’d given me was an in at a venue and one orgasm. At least when he was paying me for sex, I was getting off and getting hurt. This almost felt like being ignored, and I hated it.

I glared at my phone, watching the three dots indicating he was typing out a reply disappear and reappear over and over until I finally got a short message, which definitely didn’t take that long to type out.

I’ll see you shortly, Dylan.

Fuck him.

Fuck him.

I threw my guitar case onto the couch and propped the lid open. He could be an asshole all he wanted, but that wasn’t enough to make me not take the stupid gig he’d arranged for me. It paid almost as much as he had, and I would take advantage. Angry as I was, I was always careful with my guitar, setting her in the case just as the front door pushed open.

Even though he didn’t have a key, I still expected to see Alex there somehow. Instead, it was Tate, a broad and well-fucked smile on his face. I’d barely seen him since he started dating Brooks, and I missed him. But in light of the weekend’s events and the developments with Alex, I wasn’t overeager to see him now.

“Hey,” I said.

Tate’s happy expression fell when he saw me dressed with my bag and my guitar case ready to go.

“Are you leaving?”

“I got a last-minute gig,” I lied. “I know I haven’t seen you in a few days, but I need the money.”

Before Alex, before Brooks, Tate was my biggest cheerleader. There wasn’t a show I’d played in the city that he hadn’t been front row at.

“Right. That’s fine. Of course.”

“Did you want to come?” I asked.

Tate was still dressed for work, and he pulled his dress shirt out to untuck it. “Of course. Just let me change and we can head out.”

I fidgeted with the strap of my messenger bag while Tate got ready, trying to figure out what to tell him about Alex before we got to the show. I settled on next to nothing, which seemed fine enough for Tate until we got across town to the venue.

It pained me to admit Alex had done good. The place was an actual music venue, way bigger than a coffee shop with a full bar in the back and an actual stage in the front. When we got there, I was shocked to find Brooks with Alex, leaning up against the bar with drinks in hand. They whispered to each other, a thousand secrets between them, I was sure.

Alex hadn’t seen me, so I ignored him, heading through the venue until I found the small dressing room behind the stage.

“I want you to tell me about Alex,” Tate finally said after following me in.

“What about him?”

“Brooks said Alex had called you. That he was…”

Tate trailed off, which was a blessing. I took my guitar out of the case and checked the tuning. “I don’t want to talk about Alex with you, but I promise I’m fine. We can talk about the rest of it if you want to after the gig.”

“We don’t have to,” he said. “I don’t want to press.”

“I’m not ashamed of it.”

“I know.” Tate closed my guitar case for me and propped it against the wall so he could sit across from me on the small stool I’d used to open it up. “I don’t want you to be defensive with me. You’re my friend and I love you. That’s all.”

“I made some bad decisions, but I’m not going to do that anymore.” It was as much the truth as anything else was. My stomach growled, but Tate looked satisfied with the answer. I thought about Alex out there with his friend, both of them drinking and having a great time. I thought about the shitty way he’d been treating me since Sunday and it was enough to make my blood boil.

Clearing my throat, I stood up and said to Tate, “We have time for a drink before I have to play.”

It was against the rules, but if he didn’t care about me, I didn’t care about him.

“I’ll get water,” Tate said with a laugh, moments before his tone dipped down and his expression turned serious. “Did you know Alex was going to be here tonight?”

We left the dressing room and I dropped my guitar off on the stage, hooking my arm through Tate’s and hoping a drink would distract him from the answer.

“Alex got me the gig.”

“Oh?”

Tate and I made it to the bar, finally spotted by Alex and Brooks, who looked like Tate was a waterfall in the middle of the desert. I ignored Alex and leaned over the bar to order a water for Tate and a whiskey sour for myself. I knew Alex heard the order, but there was no way I could stop myself from placing it. Even as he pushed his body against mine so hard it shoved my ribs against the rounded corner of the bar, stealing my breath, I couldn’t take it back.

I didn’t want to.

“Rules two and three,” he whispered into my ear.

Don’t drink and don’t be an asshole—I remembered them well.

“Rule number four,” I hissed, “ You don’t be an asshole.”

The bartender set both drinks in front of me and Alex dug his fingers into my waist.

“If you drink that whiskey, you’ll find out just how much of an asshole I can be, pet , and I promise you that you won’t like it.”

The emphasis on pet had me convinced Alex hated me, regretted our arrangement entirely. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes and I closed them tight, hopefully able to push them back so Tate didn’t see them slip free. Alex brushed his lips across my cheek, bringing his face so close to my mouth and nose I could smell the gin on him.

“Why can you drink, but I can’t?” I asked.

“Because I’m in charge.”

“I thought you said that was me.”

“Do you want to use your safe word?” His lips moved against the corner of my mouth and I turned enough to taste the threat in his words.

To taste the way he wanted me.

“No,” I rasped.

I didn’t even have to think about the answer, which was frustrating. I didn’t want to safeword, but I didn’t want things to go on the way they had been for the past few days. I didn’t want to be ignored, to be tortured, to be so fucking aware of how desperate I was for his attention and how miserable I felt without it.

Alex uncurled his fingers from their perch on my waist. He reached around me for the drink I’d ordered, and he downed it in one swallow.

“I hate you,” I hissed.

“You know how to end this,” he said simply, and the corner of his left eye twitched.

I answered him with a nod and stalked off toward the stage to warm up.

Playing guitar was like coming home for me. Even as a kid, it had always been my favorite instrument, the one that came most naturally to me. My guitar was an escape, a release, an hour-long lesson where I could forget all the pressure that came with having parents like mine. My father was an absolutely ruthless businessman and his skills as a parent weren’t much softer. I would never understand what my mom saw in him.

Alex held much of the same appeal. He was like a drug, intoxicating in his newness, but capable of taking me out entirely. My love of music had sent my life down the road that brought me to him, and I had no idea where he would take me next. The uncertainty of things with Alex was what had me the most up in arms. He was mercurial, except when he was with me, I had no doubt of his interest, his passion. It was the times we were apart that I wondered. When there was space between us, it was almost like I didn’t exist to him. Those were the two extremes I couldn’t find balance in, the place my anger toward him festered.

Licking my lips, I could still taste him on my tongue, and it made me hard.

I wanted to tear my hair out at the roots and fall on my knees at his feet. Wanted to beg him to make sense of all the feelings inside of me so I could understand why home used to feel like a guitar with six strings, but not anymore. The stage lights came up and I blinked quickly, the audience going darker under the glow.

The manager of the venue came out and told me it was time, and I tapped my mic to make sure it was on. I tried to ignore Alex through the rest of the gig, but it was impossible to pretend I didn’t see him there beside the bar. Tall, broad, imposing, immoveable, and singing along to every single one of my lyrics until the house lights came back up.