Always (27 page)

Ian scowled slightly. “I’m not interested in drafting off my wife.”

“That’s not what you’d be doing,” Justine murmured, touching his hand, but Ian didn’t seem to notice. It sounded like a piece of an argument they’d had before.

“I’ve loved writing about rock and it’s been an invaluable experience,” he went on, “but I’m really looking to transition to covering politics. It’s much meatier stuff, and better exposure. I’ll never really be taken seriously as a journalist as long as I’m writing about pop stars.”

“Huh,” Dillon murmured non-committally. It was an odd thing to say when he was standing next to his wife, one of the world’s biggest pop stars. Dillon felt offended on her behalf.

But Justine didn’t seem bothered. “Ian’s political writing is great,” she chimed in. As she smiled up at Ian, he could see her love for him all over her face. For her sake, he’d do his dead level best to like the guy, even though right now it wasn’t easy.

How could her ankles be swelling already? She was barely six months pregnant. But as she sat on the edge of the bed massaging her foot after kicking off her heels, her ankles looked decidedly puffy. She was also exhausted. It was only 2 a.m., not very late, relatively speaking, and she was stone-cold sober. If this was a sign of things to come, she’d be in bed by eight by the time she was done with this pregnancy.

Ian returned to the bedroom after checking the locks and setting the alarm system, pulling off his tie as he headed towards the closet.

“It was a nice party, Justine.”

She gave a weary smile. “Thanks. I wanted to show the team a good time. Everybody’s been working so hard on the record.”

“You did. Looked like everyone enjoyed themselves. Even Dillon.”

Her eyes flicked up to him. “What’s that mean?”

Ian shrugged, his back still to her. “He’s fresh out of rehab. I thought it would be tough for him to be in a situation like this.”

“He’s been out of rehab since March. He’s fine.”

Ian didn’t respond. He was silent as he shrugged out of his dress shirt and changed his suit pants for sweats. Justine had wiggled out of her pretty but uncomfortable dress and into one of Ian’s t-shirts when he finally spoke.

“Can I ask you something?” He sounded far away and slightly curious.

“Sure. Anything.”

“You and Dillon. Did you ever…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but Justine felt a flash of panic anyway, remembering the kiss last spring. She hadn’t instigated it, or even responded, really. But she’d gotten too close, in an intimate situation that fairly sparked with sexual tension. On some level she knew it and instead of backing off, she
stayed
too close. And got burned. She’d done her best since then to forget it ever happened. Dillon had, too. They were together all day every day working on the album and it was never weird or awkward. And now Ian was the one to make her finally feel guilty about it.

“No, never.” It was mostly true. True in spirit. Ian watched her, his face inscrutable as he turned her answer over. He wasn’t accusing. It didn’t feel like an interrogation. He sounded simply curious.

“Because I always get this feeling when you two are together. It’s like there’s nobody else in the world.”

“We’re friends, Ian. Really close friends. He’s my best friend. That’s all.”

Ian looked down as he took off his watch and shrugged. “It’s just funny, you two have been so close for all this time and nothing’s ever happened. I would have thought, back when you were on tour together, he would have tried, at least.”

She sat up in bed, her hands fisting in the sheets, desperate to end the discussion. “Nothing ever happened,” she insisted. “Trust me, he had plenty of opportunity and I was more than willing—”

“What?” Ian looked up, finally sounding engaged. Alarmed, in fact. She wanted to shoot herself. What a stupid thing to blurt out. If she was looking to reassure Ian, it was the last thing she should have said.

“Nothing. Just… back when I first met him, I had a huge crush on him,” she said, trying to sound as dismissive as possible.
Hopelessly, totally in love with him was more like it.
But she pressed on. “It was probably more hero-worship than anything else. I was already a huge fan of the band and his songwriting. I idolized him before I ever met him. It’s not surprising it turned into a crush.”

Maybe if she repeated the word “crush” enough, she’d succeed in making it true. Nothing but a simple childish infatuation she outgrew. It was true she’d gotten over Dillon, but there was nothing simple or childish about it.

“Did he know?”

“No. Not entirely, anyway.”
But then I told him all about it when he kissed me.
“But like I said, in spite of months on the road and the close quarters and the drinking and the drugs, he never touched me. Okay? And when I came off the road, I moved on. End of story.”

“But— when we first met? That night? Did you feel that way about him then?”

She sighed. “Ian, why are you doing this? It doesn’t matter. I love you. I married you.”

“It’s just… he’s this huge part of your life and I had no idea there are all these other feelings at work—”

“Were,” she said firmly. “
Were
other feelings. Over and done with by the time we met again. I swear it.”

He stood uncertainly in the closet door and she could see on his face how much the information had rocked him. It seemed like such a silly guy reaction to her. How could something so far in the past, something that had never even
happened
, matter so much to him? But she knew it would be a mistake to laugh it off or ignore it. He needed reassurance and all she could do was give it to him.

She held out her hand. “Come here.”

Ian didn’t hesitate, crossing to the bed and standing beside her, holding her hand in his. Justine looked up at him and ran her free hand over his stomach up to his chest.

“Only you, Ian.”

He finally gave her a small smile. “I believe you, sweetheart.”

“Come down here and let me prove it.”

He broke into a full-blown grin before lowering himself down next to her.

February, 2012

It was all about finding the right goal. Close enough so it felt within reach but far enough that it pushed you past where you thought you could go.

As Dillon tried to think of anything but the burn in his legs, he focused on the next elusive goal, a tree at the crest of the next hill. He cranked the pedals over, one after another, certain he could feel each individual synapse in his thigh muscles firing and protesting. Sweat sheeted down his face. His breath burned in his throat and lungs. His hair and t-shirt were soaked. He couldn’t tell anymore where the bike ended and he began.

In those pain-fueled moments on his mountain bike, the world fell away. There was no failed career, no dead Ash, no married, pregnant Justine, no endless void of a future to deal with. There was only him and the bike and his dogged determination to make it up the next hill. The bike was turning out to be the best therapy anyone could have devised.

He’d started biking when the hikes became too predictable. There were only so many times he could walk the same trails before he felt he’d memorized every rock and bit of scrub brush. And at the end of the day, he was just
walking
. One of the guys he’d met in group at Vistas had turned him on to mountain biking. He’d found a store, bought the bike the salesman pointed him to, and set off towards the hills. The morning after his first ride, he could barely get out of bed. It would have reminded him of the bad old days, waking up unable to tell if he was hungover or still drunk, except his head had been remarkably clear, even as his body protested sitting upright.

It was enough to get him back out that day, and the next, and the next. Muscles he hadn’t even known he had ached. It was a good ache, though, and it gave him something to focus on every day. He had a goal again, even if it was only making it to the top of a hill.

It got him through producing Justine’s album. Frankly, producing her album was what made him take on biking with such fervor in the first place.

The first and only time he’d produced an album had been Outlaw Rovers’ last. He’d been under immense pressure, both to rise to the challenge and also to hold the band together as it kept falling apart. He’d buckled under the pressure and lost himself in a bottle. Or two hundred bottles. While he was excited about working on Justine’s album, he was equally terrified, maybe even more so. His wasn’t the only career on the line this time. He was desperate not to let her down.

Then there was the persistent presence of Justine herself. He’d come to terms with losing her— or rather, never having her. But it didn’t lessen the feelings. It had settled into him like a bodily ache, one that, once he realized it wouldn’t kill him, became as expected and familiar as his own skin. It was always there. She was always there. And so was Ian.

In all, it was the most stress he’d subjected himself to since he’d left rehab. He was determined not to fold in the face of it, so every morning for hours, he rode. Justine and the session musicians didn’t get started in the studio until close to noon, so he left the house at seven and rode until he could barely stand. When he was pushing his burning, exhausted legs up one more hill, or five more miles, he couldn’t think about anything else. No album, no rehab, no Justine. By the time he got to the studio every day, he’d left all his stress and anxiety back on the road, sweated out of him until he could breathe again, until he felt he could handle anything life threw at him.

Gritting his teeth till his jaw hurt, he powered up the hill until the spindly fucking tree that had been mocking him for the last five minutes was finally, blessedly behind him. After the crest, he coasted down, letting the breeze blow the sweat out of his eyes and whipping his t-shirt against his chest like a sail.

As he made his way at a slower, less brutal pace back towards Echo Park, he let real life flow back in. As always, the music came first. He had his best ideas on his cool-down rides. Problems he hadn’t been able to solve in the studio the day before fell into place with ease. He had flashes of inspiration for bridges and could hear in his head the exact effect for the stubborn chorus. He’d started carrying a tiny digital recorder in his pocket so he could hum his ideas into it before he lost them again.

His new place in Echo Park was a whole lot more modest than the old place in Silver Lake. He’d moved out of the big house right after he’d gotten out of rehab and had no idea if he had any money left. Since then, Justine’s dad had taken a careful look at his finances and given him some solid advice on managing what was left. And now he had a steady stream of royalties from Justine’s massive hit album, so the financial picture, while not luxurious, was at least dependable, even modestly comfortable.

In the end, he’d been glad to shed the house in Silver Lake. He’d gotten it right after the Outlaw Rovers album hit big, mostly because he felt he should. After growing up broke, sleeping on more sofas than beds, the big house on the hill came to symbolize the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, proof that he’d finally risen above his beginnings. In retrospect, it was only another place for him to hide from reality, every bit as empty and soulless as everything else in his life. He’d been on the road for most of the first year there and nearly unconscious for most of the second. When he gave it up and moved out, there was barely anything to pack.

The new place in Echo Park, a small two-bedroom bungalow, was in a ragtag, funky artists’ area. He was one of many musicians who lived there, and not even the only formerly-famous, formerly-addicted one. The house and the neighborhood were a good fit for where he was in his life now, the person he was gradually discovering after years of struggle. It felt real, and finally, he did, too. On the whole, he couldn’t complain, in spite of the opportunities he’d had and lost through his own stupidity. As Keith always told him, looking back accomplished nothing.

He left the bike in the garage and entered the house through the side door in the kitchen. Grabbing a bottle of water out of the refrigerator, he drank it down in one long gulp, letting the air from the open fridge cool him down.

His phone beeped on the counter. It was a text from Justine, asking him to remember to bring her the CD he’d promised the day before. He was in the middle of texting her back when the phone vibrated in his hand again, this time with an incoming call from an LA area code.

“Hello?”

“Dillon?”

“Jon Verlaine,” he murmured, half-smiling. “Long time, no hear.”

“How are you, Dillon?”

“Good.” He took a deep breath, feeling his aching muscles protesting and the sweat drying on his back. “Great, honestly.”

“I’m really glad,” Jon said, sounding equally sincere. “I’ve been hearing some of the stuff you’ve been working on with Justine for her album.”

“You have? I didn’t realize she’d sent anything to the label yet.”

“Just a few tracks, the ones she’s really excited about. We’re excited about them, too. I gotta tell you Dillon, it’s good. Really good.”

“She’s talented. Always has been.”

“She is, but I wasn’t talking about Justine. I meant the songs. Your producing.”

“Oh… thanks.”

“You were good on the last Outlaw Rovers album, too.”

“The album bombed,” Dillon shrugged dismissively, grabbing the kitchen towel to run over his neck.

“Not because of the producing, Dillon.”

“Well, I’m glad you like Justine’s new stuff. Thanks for telling me.”

“I didn’t call just to pay you a compliment, you idiot.”

Dillon chuckled. “You always were a direct son of a bitch, Jon.”

Jon laughed, too. “Seriously, we’ve got this new band signed. Four guys, kind of punk-pop, more pop than punk. Lots of promise, but their songs are a little all over the place right now. I wondered if you wanted to take a listen and see what you think.”

“Think about what?”

Jon paused and laughed again. “What you’d think about maybe producing their album, maybe writing some songs for them.”