Page 148 of Dirty Like Dylan

I was kinda dreading heading home at the end of the day, facing those two people I cared about so much. Knowing that one of them might get hurt by what I was gonna have to do, if things continued like they were.

The problem was, I wanted Amber to myself in a way I hadn’t wanted a woman since Ash and I started doing the threesome thing.

Maybe I’d never really wanted a woman this way.

Getting serious about a woman had always seemed to get in the way of the other things I wanted.

But not Amber. She just fit, in every way.

And then there was Ash…

Putting his hand on me the other night.

Fuck.

What the fuck was I gonna do?

I flopped onto a couch, barely listening as the band talked about the song we were planning to record today, “Blackout.” It was one of my favorites, but I really wasn’t tuned in. There was some breakfast stuff laid out on a table, but I didn’t touch it. Didn’t put in a coffee order when Maggie asked what we wanted.

I just tried to look like I was here, when in reality, my head was gone.

I never realized until now how much I could want this. A woman who understood me. Who gelled with me like Ash did, but challenged me, too. Kept things interesting. Held my attention.

I’d never had a woman in my life who just fit the way Ash did. Someone who I just had that easy, effortless chemistry with.

I knew Amber had chemistry with Ash, too.

But the fact was, I couldn’t be with Ash in the way I was starting to suspect he really wanted me to. It was never about that, for me.

“You okay, man?” Zane asked, tossing a bagel at me. I caught it and nodded.

“I’m good,” I said. “Let’s get going on this song.” I wanted to play so I couldn’t think about this anymore.

“Still waiting on Jesse,” Woo said.

Right. I glanced around… I hadn’t even noticed he wasn’t here yet.

Elle frowned at me and patted my leg. She was sitting next to me, and I hadn’t even noticed that either.

“Rough night?” she asked. She was with me last night, here at the studio, so I could only assume she meant whatever happened to me after that.

“Just tired,” I said, and I got up to go tinker with my drums. I tossed the bagel back in the box and grabbed an apple, stuffing it in my mouth. Figured maybe if my mouth was full, no one would try to get me to talk.

Why did I let it go that far?

Let Ash touch me like that?

Because you want him to be happy.

I knew that much was true, in my own defense. Stupid, maybe, but true.

And the way I felt about Amber… I knew I couldn’t share her with Ash forever.

When did this shit get so fucking complicated?

I sat down behind my drums in the drum room, and tried to shut out all the noise. The noise in the studio. The noise in my head. But I couldn’t quite tune it out. It was consuming me, in a really fucking bad way.

When Amber walked into my life, I really didn’t see this coming. I really wasn’t looking for a relationship. Now, I didn’t know what to do about it—or what I’d do without her.

---