He eyed me rather warily when I turned my focus to him. “What about you, Dom? Is there a Mrs. LeSalle in Destitute’s future, or are you a one-night man like Nick?”
Dom raked a hand through his brown hair, shaking it out a little at his shoulders, and fixed his steel gray eyes on me. “I don’t believe in one-night stands. It’s simple. I want perfection. Music, relationships, it doesn’t matter. I treat them the same way. Most women just can’t handle that kind of intensity for too long, so it makes it look like I’m going through a lot of women when I’m not really.”
The air itself seemed to still while Dom spoke. The man was definitely intense—he had that right. It wasn’t uncomfortable exactly. It was more like it made you want to sit up and listen to what he had to say and then go dig into a cocktail on a beach to relax again when he was done.
The men of Destitute were a force to be reckoned with. That was for sure. Having now spent some time with them all, some more than others, I was quickly learning why they all had fans the world over and why their personalities drew in people from all different walks with all different beliefs and styles.
I was interested in getting their take on Caleb, which shouldn’t ring too many alarm bells because the piece was supposed to be centered around him, but I wasn’t sure how to approach it. The first part of the Caleb Larsen piece ran the week before, and our readership skyrocketed since Caleb was generally so tight lipped. As a result, my editor wanted me to keep going, and I was happy to do it. Surprisingly, so was Caleb.
Today’s interview was specifically set up with the other guys to add a bit of their perspectives to the next piece, but I’d still been hoping Caleb would show. So far, there hadn’t been so much as a peep from him. When I’d parked in the spot Alicia had reserved for me at her office building, I sneaked a peek at the VIP band parking area, but Caleb’s truck hadn’t been there.
“Thank you guys for being so candid with me about all this,” I said, smiling at each of them in turn.
“No prob, little Diamond,” Nick said, drumming his fingers on his thighs. “Hope you got what you were looking for. We done here?”
“Almost,” I said. Nick’s face fell a little, but he sat back again and waited for the next question. “Just so I get this rounded out properly, what do you think Caleb’s approach to romance is? Where does he fall on the ‘one-night stand to eventually settling down’ scale? I think we all know where Jared stands on that.”
“I guess we do know where Jared stands on that now.” Matt smiled. It actually seemed like a genuine smile, like he really was happy for his friend. Or maybe he was just happy that the interview was almost over. “Caleb though? I’m not speaking for him.”
Interesting. “Personal opinion?”
“Nope.” Matt chuckled, folding his arms. “Not going anywhere near that question. Boys?”
He raised his eyebrows at the other two and looked from one to other sitting beside him, but they both shook their heads. Dom gave me a curious look and shifted so he was facing me more fully.
“You should just ask him. In fact, why haven’t you?”
“Oh, I, uh…we’ve been talking about Jared and Alicia and the impending nuptials so far, along with the new album, the tour, and the likely impact of their relationship on it. Today is the first day I’m venturing into the rest of your feelings about relationships.”
I silently congratulated myself on what I thought was a pretty decent save, though Dom didn’t look convinced. “Well, I think you should probably just ask him. None of us will speak for him.”
“Understood,” I said, trying not to look as disappointed as I felt. I tapped ‘Save’ on my tablet and clicked the sleep button. “In that case, we’re all done.”
“Whoop whoop,” Matt cheered dryly, then surprised me by reaching out and giving me a quick, one-armed hug. “Thanks for making that relatively painless, little Diamond. I’m sure we’ll be seeing you soon.”
“Sure thing,” I told him, not able to stop from smiling. Matt’s easy way brought that out in me, it seemed. “Have fun with whatever it is you do later.”
He laughed and sauntered over to the door, stopping to shoot me a wink. “Always do. You too, Kelly. Peace.”
Without a backward glance, he pulled on the door handle and was gone. Dom and Nick said their goodbyes too, seeming to forget that I was even in the room as they left. They were heading off to practice next, and Dom was saying something about the setlist while Nick was muttering about how they’d better finish on time.
They followed Matt out the door with brief, final waves, and when it shut behind them, I sagged back into my seat and just took a minute to pull myself toward myself—proverbially speaking. I’d just interviewed three of the most adored, most desired, and undoubtedly most beloved sons of rock ‘n roll of our time, and I’d lived to tell the tale. And to tell it with some pretty cool, down-to-earth, and honest quotes.
Mentally congratulating myself on not having had a superfan moment or something, I couldn’t help but think about the members of Destitute who hadn’t been in attendance. And I didn’t really care where Jared had been. I was pretty sure he was out smooching my sister.
The missing member of Destitute I was thinking about was the other Larsen. Caleb’s deep brown eyes played in my mind as I wondered how he might have answered my questions. He didn’t seem like any of the other three, but he was still known for his one-night stands.
Even so, I hadn’t seen him photographed with anyone else since we’d started sleeping together, and it was really starting to mess with my head about what we were doing. He kept saying it was just fun, and boy, was it fun, but it still felt like something deeper was happening.
We’d slept together several times, sure. But we also kept going out to dinner together, and we always talked straight through. We weren’t worried about being seen out together since we had a cover: if a tabloid showed up, it would just look like a reporter interviewing a subject. Because of our cover, we could stay out for as long as we wanted to, and we took advantage of that, staying out for hours and eating wherever we wanted to, cameras be damned.
The more time we spent together, the more it started to feel like something more than fun. Caleb was so insistent that it wasn’t, though, that I had to be imagining things. Maybe I was in a state of semi-permanent, post-orgasmic bliss, and that was why I was seeing things or making things up that weren’t really there.
The man was a god in bed. Surely, my orgasms were what was actually messing with my head. There was nothing going on between me and Caleb. I just really liked sleeping with him. That was it. I had to stop imagining that it was anything more.
Chapter 11
Caleb
“I think that’s a wrap, boys.” Jared spun his microphone in the air, caught it in one hand, and grinned like a maniac. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta get out of here.”
“And into your fiancée,” Matt offered with an equally wicked grin and set his guitar down in its stand.
“Fuck yeah, you got that right.”