Page 56 of Over You
“It’s hot when you talk nerdy to me.” He nipped at my neck. “We should buy a house here. That way you can have the ocean in your front yard. We’ll have to make sure there’s a little alcove on the roof that faces the water, though.” His lips continued down to my shoulder. “I’m sick of LA, babe.”
My stomach kinked. LA. I’d almost forgottenwhohe was. What his job was. I stared at the white caps in the distance.
“You went tense.” He leaned into my line of vision.
“You’re going to leave California?”
“You’re here, aren’t you? You’ve got school.” His lips pressed below my ear. “And I’m thinking of leaving the band.”
As much as it terrified me, as much as I hated the fame, music had been Spencer’s dream long before I had. And while he may think it’s what I wanted, the last thing I needed was for him to resent me for making him walk away from something so few people ever achieved. “Don’t do that for me.”
“I’d do it for us.”
A few waves rolled in. It had only been six days, and we were already acting like it had been forever. I knew there was every possibility that Spencer would relapse. From what I’d read, chances were high.
“Our contract with Devil’s Side is up at the end of November. I don’t want to screw Nash and Leo over, but I just. . . I want to go back to making music for the art.”
“If you want out, they’ll have to understand.” I exhaled. “Talk to them.”
“We don’t even need a label. . .”
Silence stretched between us, and I knew Spencer well enough to know he was going down a rabbit hole of what ifs. “They can’t get mad at you for wanting out, Spence. They, of all people, must know that lifestyle’s not what people think it is.”
And it wasn’t. It was like a swirling, churning vortex of drugs and death and arrogance fueled by insecurities. The one thing I’d come to realize, most of those guys—most of those girls—they feigned confidence. They craved validation for the weaknesses they’d been led to believe they possessed.
“Bands split up all the time, and everyone’s fine.” I needed to lighten the mood. “Look at One Direction.”
“You didnotjust compare Midnite Kills to a boy band.”
“I did.”
“Tell me you don’t listen to them?”
“Sometimes.”
He shook his head. “The tabloids would have a field day with that.”
I went back to tracing the pattern of tattoos on his arm, and he tightened his hold. “Speaking of tabloids. . . wanna hear some shit?” He swept hair from my face. “My mom called me a few weeks ago.”
“What?” I pulled out of his arms and faced him.
“Some lady named Vicki Dunn.” He snorted. “Dunn. How would you like to be Georgia Dunn?”
“It’s a little lackluster.” I laughed while my mind went ninety to nothing. “How did she get your number, though?”
“Ricky gave her my cell—thought it would make great headlines.”
“What an asshole.”
“Right?” He scooped sand into his hand and let it run between his fingers.
Spencer had grown up with a sense of abandonment most people never felt. One I somewhat understood. While my mother may not have left me at a truck stop, I often wished she had. Then I could have made her up to be whoever I wanted her to be instead of the monster she really was.
Spencer’s mother left him. Mine beat me.
He never knew his mother’s name. I cursed mine.
“I mean, did you talk to her or. . .” Knowing Spencer, he had hung up.
