Still Into You (34 page)

They stood there, staring at each other. The club went silent as the rest of the band and entourage trained their eyes on the two of them.

“I’m sorry,” they said at the exact same moment, which made them laugh, dissolving the tension. She took the step to him and draped her arms around his neck, her face against his. She felt his smile against her cheek as he hugged her tight.

“Welcome back,” Mia said.

“Thank you.”

She kissed his smooth cheek before stepping back to regard him again. He looked leaner, younger—healthier. But his face was still tormented.

“I don’t know what I would have done . . .” he spoke, the words stumbling out of his mouth. She put her finger to his lips to quiet him.

“Nothing happened. I’m here. You’re here. It was our wake-up call.”

“I never . . . I wasn’t trying to take advantage of you, Mia.”

“I know that, Todd. I was a willing participant. If I hadn’t done that last line of cocaine, we would have . . .”

“Done it?” he said, finishing the sentence for her.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

Their eyes spoke what they couldn’t say out loud. She had thought about it. She had wanted it. So had he. It wasn’t just the drugs talking that night. It was a build up from St. Paul.

Instead of expressing that, Todd surprised her with his next words. “What happened that night will never happen again,” he said.

Mia knew he wasn’t talking about the sex they almost had, even though that wouldn’t be happening either. The after effects of her overdose incinerated any lingering sexual feelings for him. No, Todd was referring to the drugs. Nodding her head, she answered, “I know.”

“You’ve been more than just a friend these past ten years. Losing you . . .”

She knew. Mia didn’t have a large family and her hand-picked one was pretty much all she had. Losing any of them would wreck her. Hell, losing Tom almost killed her.

“I know, Todd. The last couple years without you . . .” she let her words fall off, not wanting to dwell on that. She put on a smile and continued. “I am so glad you’re back. I missed my drummer. My rhythm has been off without you.”

“Thank you,” he said, pulling her to him again and placing his lips on her forehead. With a contented sigh, she left his embrace. He slipped his arm around her shoulders as they walked to the stage. “So, I hear you have a new boyfriend,” he said, the topic change throwing her off-balance.

“No. I don’t.”

He raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

“I just sleep with him. Difference.”

He laughed with gusto. “If you say so.”

Luke

Indianapolis, April 2010

Luke pounded on Ethan’s front door. He and Ethan had made it a habit to try to watch the Pacers’ games together, but tonight Luke was late to watch because Kaitlyn’s mother, Taylor, had been her selfish self yet again. She had the simple job of picking Kaitlyn up from school but forgot. So, he had to leave work to handle that. Nothing ever went smoothly with that woman.

The door swung open and Ethan stood before him. “Dude, so late!”

“Yeah, I know,” Luke said, walking inside. “Taylor.”

“Ohhh . . .” Ethan said over his shoulder as he made his way to the basement bar. “Want a beer?”

Luke nodded, shrugged off his coat, and sat down in one of the four booths Ethan had set up down there. This bar was one of his favorite places to be. Ethan sat across from him and handed him a beer.

“Pacers are down at the end of one,” Ethan informed him.

Damn!
He’d already missed a quarter of the game because of the drama with Taylor. “Shit,” Luke exclaimed before asking Ethan how he was doing. He’d been worried about the quarterback ever since he last spoke with Mia. This movie she was doing scared them both. Plus Ethan had broken up with Kristen and had been on a tear since. Mia also appeared to be involved with someone, if the Internet tabloids were to be believed.

“I’m doing good—maybe a little stir-crazy.”

“Told you to get out of this town.”

Ethan laughed. “Trip planned to visit my family next week.”

“Fun. I should do that, but I have to wait until Kaitlyn is out of school because there is no way I’m leaving her with Taylor.”

“I understand. What did your lawyer have to say?”

“Well, I’m suing for full-custody. Kaitlyn deserves better. Hopefully I’ll have her full-time by the start of the new school year.”

“Whatever I can do, just let me know. I want her away from Taylor too.”

“Thanks, man.”

The commercial break was over and the game started back up. About ten minutes later, the pizza came and Ethan went up to get it. While Luke watched the game, he checked his phone and couldn’t help but read a message he’d gotten earlier.

Allie

April 6, 2010 547 PM

I can’t get your message out of my mind.

Luke smiled. The sexual overtones in his texts with Allie had escalated over the past month for which he was grateful. He enjoyed the way her wicked mind worked, though it definitely left him wanting more.

He was about to reply to her text when his phone buzzed. He smiled when he saw it was a text from Mia. They had been texting a lot while she was on the set of the movie. She waited a lot and his job was to keep her entertained. A job he was happy to have.

Swiping at the message, he opened the text and his mouth dropped when he read it.

Mia

April 6, 2010 818 PM

Sex scene time.

He furiously tapped his fingers on the screen, hoping she was joking. She’d told him there would be some nudity, but not how much. He didn’t like the thought of her baring it all for the world to see.

Seriously?

Yeah. Standing in my robe, naked and waiting. Sending a pic right now.

He tapped on the picture to make it larger and he couldn’t help but grin at her smiling face. His eyes then took in the big, pale pink bathrobe that fell to her ankles and wondered what, if anything, was under it.

Goddamn. Are you completely naked under that?

Yep.

Are you sure about this?

Yeah, what’s a few more people who see me naked?

More like a few million.

You’ll like it when you see it. This movie . . . I’m very proud of it.

Even with all these sex scenes?

Yes. It’s not porn, Luke. Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.

I wish I was there.

Haha! So you could see me naked?

He had gotten over his desire to see her naked years ago, but that still didn’t mean he liked the fact that she was being so casual about her nudity in this movie. So many things seem to be changing with her because of this movie. Chief among them her relationship status. Time to get it from the source.

Uh, changing the topic now . . . I saw something online yesterday concerning you.

What? Spill it.

It was an article linking you and Joshua Carstons romantically.

Oh.

That’s all you have to say?

Do you have the link to the article?

He sent her the link and waited for her response about what the article said.

Wow . . .

Her short response was not what he expected at all. That made him wonder if she was hiding something.

Mia . . .

There is no romance, Luke. Just sex.

Luke didn’t like the sound of that. It made him think back to the last time she slept with someone other than Ethan—right before her overdose.

You need to be careful. Ok?

I am

I’d rather you weren’t having sex.

What? Because I’m a woman?

No. Because you’re my best friend and I don’t want you getting hurt.

I’m not going to get hurt by him.

That’s not the him I’m talking about and you know it.

That is in the past.

Past, Present, and Future

Buzzkill

LOL

Luke laughed and looked up from his phone, hearing Ethan come back with their extra-large pizza. Between the two of them it should be enough. Ethan placed it on the table and popped the top. Luke inhaled the heavenly scent of sausage, peppers, and onions. He glanced down when Mia’s reply came.

He has moved on.

Luke inhaled three slices before replying to her.

That’s not moving on.

It’s not? What is it then?

He’s not serious about them.

Them? Nevermind.

Aww, fuck,
Luke thought when he saw her reply. She didn’t know. Then another text came almost immediately after.

I am not serious about Josh. He’s a friend that I have sex with. Sound familiar?

I’m glaring at you.

I’m not going to be alone for the rest of my life. I can’t do that anymore. I need to live my life. Feel good about myself. Ok?

Whereas he was proud of her for what she had said, it also made him sad. Mia was finally moving on from Ethan.

Ok.

Sex scene. Gotta go. ILY! <3

Luke sighed in frustration—he knew she was running away from that conversation. He flipped his phone over and looked up to find the amber eyes of his other best friend locked on him.

Shit.

Ethan

“Who were you texting?” Ethan asked Luke. Almost the entire time he’d been here, his friend had been on his phone, tapping away. The guilty look Luke gave him answered his question. “Mia.”

Luke nodded. “Sorry.”

Mia.

Her name opened the flood gates of memories. Her smile. Her laughter. Her honey scent. The way she felt pressed up against his body. Her moist, plump lips on his. Each and every time her name was mentioned, this deluge happened, making him ache, miss her, and remember what they’d had together.

An unforgettable love.

Ethan flicked his eyes to the TV and responded to Luke. “It’s okay, man. How is she doing?”

“Still filming.”

“Great,” he said, not meaning that at all. That movie was a sore topic with him. Scared didn’t even cover how he felt about her doing it. He was fucking terrified. He wanted her nowhere near drugs, nowhere near that mindset, but she’d called it a test and was adamant that she had to follow through with it.

“And?” he asked, needing Luke to tell him more.

“Well,” Luke began, scratching the back of his head. “I think I may have said something to her that I probably shouldn’t have.”

Ethan had no clue what this could be, but whatever it was, it didn’t bode well. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

“So, I was texting with Mia and we were talking about you moving on and I may have said that you’re not serious about
them.
‘Them’ being the key word. That upset her.”

“She was upset?”

“Yeah. She was.”

That meant he still got to her; he still meant something to her.

“That’s good.”

Luke slowly shook his head back and forth. “No, I don’t think so. It means she moves on, too.”

Mia moving on? No.

“But she hasn’t,” Ethan replied, his voice rising. This couldn’t be happening.

“Ethan . . . she has, though she says it’s not serious . . .”

Almost two years they had been apart. Two years in which he prayed that this moment would never happen. He felt cold.

“How do you know this?” Ethan asked, his voice clipped.

“I saw an article and asked her about it. She confirmed what it said.”

“Send it to me.”

“Eth—”

“Dude, just send the damn article,” he yelled, cutting Luke off.

Resigned, Luke grabbed his phone and a minute later Ethan’s phone buzzed in his back pocket. Grabbing the phone, he pulled up the article. The first thing he saw was a picture of Mia performing. She looked different—her hair much shorter than he remembered and a different color—still brown, but a much lighter shade, almost a dark blonde.

He scrolled down and wished he hadn’t. The next picture was of her dancing with Joshua Carstons. Not lingering on that picture, Ethan scrolled down to the article.

Mia Devereux was spotted with Joshua Carstons, her co-star in the much talked about movie,
Burn for You
, at The Revival, a nightclub near their filming location in Georgia, dancing intimately close.

Earlier that night, Mia performed an hour set with her band, Last Star, for a special show celebrating Todd Hendricks’s return to the band after his trip to rehab and extended leave. They stayed afterwards to party with the locals, along with Joshua and her other co-star, Austin Panner.