If I’d known a leaked dick pic would make him get to this point, I might have done it myself two years ago when my feelings for him started to change.
It had been weeks of him texting me to come help get rid of his one-night stands from his hotel room. Every time I’d do it, I’d feel … ick. There was something stirring in my gut. I told myself for months that it was because he was degrading my job, but deep down I knew it wasn’t. It was because I hated the thought of him with someone else.
“Do you really think Lemon is your future?” I ask.
“No, but Andrew could be. I’ve never actually tried before.”
Try with me, I want to scream.
I want to yell at him for being blind because the only reason Lemon is here is for a free vacation with a rock star.
He probably doesn’t even care to get to know Seb. He won’t be stage side, watching him play, watching his moods, and wanting to make him feel better when he’s going through shit.
But it’s better for Seb to learn that shit on his own.
“Okay, he can stay. But you have to give it a real shot. I will not bail you out the minute you realize you have nothing in common and he’s only here for one thing. You have to make him leave on your own.”
“I promise. I’m getting better at kicking them out.”
I cock my head. “Do I need to pull up the photo again of you sleeping because you forgot to kick someone out of your bed?”
“Fine. Touché. Whatever. It’s going to be different with Andrew.”
“Lemon,” I mutter as he walks off.
He definitely hears me though because he shakes his head.
Seb wants a relationship? I never thought I’d see the day. I didn’t even know relationship was in his vocabulary.
And now it’s here, I get to watch it all unfold because I’m too chickenshit to tell him how I feel. There’s too much at stake to offer myself as his relationship guinea pig. Which means, I have to continue to keep my mouth shut.
If seeing him hook up with someone was hard enough, I really don’t want to think about what watching him fall in love will do to me.
Chapter Four
Seb
We board the private plane, and Andrew immediately tries to climb into my lap. I wrap my long, guitar-playing fingers around his narrow hips and push him onto the seat next to me.
He pouts. “What, no mile-high club stuff?”
My dick gives a little twitch, but that’s about it. “It’s the law we all have to be in our seats for takeoff and landing.” I’m relieved when Andrew stops touching me to fasten his seatbelt.
Relief isn’t what I should be feeling, so that’s not a good sign.
I went out tonight trying to find someone to fuck. To try to get out of my head. But then it somehow turned into projections of finding my own Locke.
Cash found his soul mate when he was seventeen years old. They were apart for a long time, but they made their way back. I’ve never felt anything like that.
The chance of going out and finding it in a stripper is slim to none, but when that photo was leaked, my sense of control slipped. I had no control over that situation. This one I do.
My gaze finds Thorne’s who’s sitting opposite us. He’s using that judging stare I’m used to seeing from him, and it’s as if I can read his thoughts.
Ready to back out yet? We haven’t left the tarmac.
He thinks I can’t do this. I can’t try to have a proper relationship. And now he’s all but said he won’t get rid of Andrew for me, I’m doubly stubborn about making this a great vacation. One where I can fall in love.
Real love.
I want to be able to go to sleep next to someone and not worry about them posting a photo of me naked. I want to be able to not worry about them going to the tabloids to tell them about “My one night with Sebastian Rose” where they claim I serenaded them with a Cash Me Outside song while I was balls deep inside them.
Totally false.
Because that would be creepy as fuck.
Maybe they imagined it because they wanted me to sing to them.
Thorne gives us an assessing gaze and then focuses on Andrew. “So, Lemon. You’re a stripper? Paying your way through college?” He mutters under his breath, “Or high school?”
“Nope,” Lemon … Dammit, Andrew, says gleefully. “I just like doing it.”
“Sex positivity,” I say. “I like that. You’d know what that is if you ever got laid, Thorne.”
“It must be good money.” Thorne takes another jab while our flight attendant brings him his usual scotch on the rocks.
Andrew smiles like Thorne’s implication isn’t intrusive as fuck. “It’s not rock star money or anything, but I can earn anywhere between one to two grand on a good night.”
Thorne’s drink goes everywhere as he almost chokes on it. “A night?”
“Five nights a week. I do okay.”
Thorne does the math quickly in his head. “Fifteen hundred on average times five, that’s almost four hundred thousand a year.”
I snort. “Isn’t that more than what we pay you?”
Andrew giggles. “Don’t tell the IRS. I don’t think prison orange would suit me.”
“Orange is the new lemon,” I quip.
The flight is only a couple of hours, and it’s in the wee hours of early morning, so the cabin is quiet, but I can feel Thorne’s stare on me the whole time. I understand he’s disappointed in my actions, but he’s making me all self-conscious and shit.
Which is why when Andrew pulls a blanket over us and reaches for my cock, my first instinct is to swat it away.
“Sorry,” I whisper. “Just ... not here, okay?”
He looks confused but nods.
“Are you tired? You should sleep.” I open my arms so he can lie across the seats and put his head in my lap instead.
“Thank you. You’re sweeter than I thought you’d be,” he whispers.
Yeah, I might have a reputation for being the complete opposite of how I’m acting, and not that long ago, I probably would’ve accepted a silent handjob in front of my bandmates, but I want this to be different. I need this to be different.
I mindlessly run my fingers through Andrew’s bleached blond hair while he rests, and I throw my head back on the seat to try to get in some sleep too, but it’s useless. Because that stare. I lift my head and meet Thorne’s eyes.
Fuck, those blue orbs are intense.
I can feel everything he’s putting out. Anger. Disappointment. I don’t have the energy to fight him though.
He glances down at Andrew, and I swear his eyes turn green with jealousy, but that can’t be right.
My cock responding to that thought and not the dude’s head in my lap is also mystifying. When Thorne’s eyes roam back up toward my face, something passes between us.
I don’t know what, but it’s confusing. I’ve never seen Thorne in this light. I don’t even think I’ve seen him rattled. There’s something definitely there, though.
Or I’m mentally exhausted from the last twenty-four hours, and I’m projecting crazy thoughts because maybe, just maybe, Thorne is the closest thing I have to a stabilizing figure in my life.