Give Me Love (Give Me #1)(40)
Author: Kate McCarthy

Jared, his lips pressed together in a thin line, did not look delighted about me bringing Jessica into the conversation. “You think I don’t trust you? It’s everyone else I don’t trust. You gotta learn not to put yourself in situations where people take advantage of you.”

“Oh I do, do I?” I folded my arms, copycatting his stance as my snit started to take hold. “You think I’m stupid enough to let people take advantage of me? You think I can’t take care of myself, recognise the real people from the frauds?”

“Baby, you don’t understand―”

“No, you don’t understand, Jared.” I unfolded my arms and reached for the door behind him. “But I don’t have time to explain it to you right now.”

He put a gentle hand on my arm to stop me and spoke softly. “Is this what you’ve been stewing on for three weeks? Because I’ve felt you pulling away from me since the first time you met that a**hole. What did he do to make you start shutting down?”

It was true.

Since my chat with Matt, I freaked out as the cold feeling took hold little by little and began closing myself off. It wasn’t even deliberate, simply an instinctual type preservation, yet I could still feel myself doing it.

“Shit,” I muttered. “I have to go.”

It was later, after the show finished, that it came to a head in a manner that was both messy and downright hostile.

The boys, Henry, Jake, Frog, and Cooper were lost to the bar, completely wankered and in no condition to know where they were or if they had a name or even a home. Mac was missing in action, and it appeared so was Jared. I sat myself down at a private table between Matt and Travis with conflicted emotions. Excited, because we had a tour in two days, and edgy because of Jared. I noticed, as I glanced around, female eyes were trained on me with resentment, so I smiled a little smugly. I was sitting at a table with one of the hottest bands of the moment, and Travis, and if I didn’t take a moment to bask in the glory just a little, my female membership card would have been revoked.

Travis leaned over. “What’s going on with you and Jared?”

“Nothing,” I lied.

“Doesn’t look like nothing.” He turned his head towards the bar to indicate where Jared had now re-appeared, wedged between Henry and two blonde skanks.

“Fuck.” My first instinct was to wade into the pile of bodies and throw a hissy fit big enough to rival a Britney Spears meltdown. Then I realised my reaction was in complete alignment with Jared’s earlier assumption. Would this be our life now? Constantly defending ourselves to each other?

Jesus.

I threw back a shot, set down the empty glass, and picked up my beer chaser.

“I can’t do it,” I admitted to the table.

The table didn’t respond, but Travis did. “Can’t do what?”

“Relationships. Jared and I.” I shook my head and sucked the beer down as though it was last call at happy hour. Realising that I didn’t want to be the only one sober, I put down my now empty beer glass and reached for Travis’s drink.

He stilled my hand and I paused to give him a look that told him I really needed that drink.

“Don’t say that, honey. Don’t.” His lips were tight and he looked unhappy.

“It’s only going to get worse,” I declared.

Travis looked even more unhappy. “Evie, don’t cut him loose. You’ll break his f**king heart. Just give yourselves a fighting chance. Talk to him in the morning when alcohol is out of the equation okay?”

Travis ran his fingers through his hair and huffed out a breath, glancing towards the bar and at Jared. “I don’t wanna see him hurt, and watching him shut down over the whole Jessica farce was f**king torture. With you, Jesus, it would be even worse. When you get back, we’ll have Jimmy out of our hair and everything can go back to normal.”

“Even worse?” I repeated.

“Yeah. He never loved her like he loves you.”

“Jared loves me? How do you know?”

“Come on, Evie, it’s him you need to talk to about this shit, not me. Okay?” Travis exhaled loudly and ran his fingers through his hair.

“You know going back to normal after the tour isn’t an option,” I pointed out. “We’re on the verge of signing a major record deal, and we’re about to go on tour with one of the hottest bands alive. If we don’t f**k this up, when we come home people are gonna know us, and life’s gonna be different. We’ll be recording more songs, doing interviews, more shows, more tours, music videos.” I waved at the Sins of Descent members crowding around the table laughing it up and drinking. “This shit is our life, and we choose this. We live for this. How does a relationship fit into all that?”

Travis shook his head impatiently at everything I said. “You make it work, Evie. It’s that hard and it’s that simple.”

This time, when I reached for his drink, he didn’t stop me, so I downed it too.

That was about when I felt a hard wall press up behind me, heavy hands coming to rest on my shoulders. I knew it was Jared, not because I had eyes in the back of my head, but because I knew the feel of his hands and the sweet clean scent of his skin, even over the smell of alcohol so strong it damn near seeped from the walls.

He leaned down close to speak and his warm breath against my ear gave me shivers until his words sunk in. “Out of all the chairs in this place, and after what just went down between you and me, I find you sitting here, next to him.”

I half turned in my seat, incredulous, my voice loud enough for the whole table to hear, and I didn’t care one bit. “You aren’t going to tell me where I can and can’t sit now, are you?”

He lifted his arms from my shoulders, straightened, and took a step back. “Damn straight.”

I stood up carefully because three drinks thrown back in rapid succession wasn’t for the weak. Then I raked him over with a scathing glance that was, unfortunately, fuelled by alcohol. The table went silent and rather than embarrass myself by turning into screaming basket of drunk trash, I hissed quietly. “We need to talk.”

Matt, eyeing our conversation with a knowing look, turned to face me in his seat. “I warned you, Evie.”

My eyes widened and I shook my head to indicate he should shut up, but my non-verbal warning was foolishly unheeded.

“This is what f**king happens. Better now than later.” He waved his hand towards Jared dismissively.

Turning towards Matt, Jared unfolded his arms. They were now tensed by his side, fists clenched, knuckles white. It wasn’t looking good for Matt, and before I could open my mouth to speak, Jared beat me to it.

“What the hell did you say to her?”

All eyes at the table swivelled to Matt, including mine. “Nothing she didn’t need to hear.”

I closed my eyes at the reckless statement.

“Let me guess…” Everyone turned back to Jared and his seething tone. “Three weeks ago, you stuck your f**king nose into business that wasn’t your own. You did this by spouting a load of bullshit, and it must have been bullshit because you don’t know me from Adam. Then that bullshit you spewed got her so wound up she shuts down and can’t even talk to me about it. Are you happy now? Is that your mission? To make other people as miserable as you? Because you let that shit fester inside her and sat back for the fallout. Tell me, because I really want to know, exactly what it was that you f**king said to her?” The last part ended on a shout, making me flinch and effectively silencing the tables surrounding our already subdued huddle.

Matt had stood up in the middle of Jared’s rage. “I f**king told her that she’s better off without you!” he shouted back.

That was when Jared had cocked back that clenched fist of his and slammed it in Matt’s face.

“Holy shit!” Henry’s voice startled me out of last night’s recount of events and back to the dirty pile of weeds at my feet. “Where was I when this happened?”

“I told you, Henry. You were wankered at the bar.”

I grabbed the nearby bucket and started shovelling in the pile of weeds. It wasn’t easy because Peter was running through them like it was a sprinkler on a hot day. I paused a moment to admire his joie de vivre.

“Well, what happened after that?”

“I told him we were over and to leave.”

“Did he?”

I nodded because watching him leave made my chest hurt and remembering it made it hurt worse. “Yeah,” I muttered.

“Have you heard from him?”

My phone had remained determinedly silent. No sweet or funny messages from Jared and no angry or appeasing ones either. “No,” I whispered, putting down the bucket and wrapping my arms tightly around my knees.

“Now that answers the question.”

I tilted my head to look at Henry. “What?”

“Of why you’re up at f**king eight in the morning weeding the garden. Right. I’m going to get a coffee, and when I get back, you’re going to tell me what Matt said to you, and we’re going to sort this stupid shit out.”

I picked the bucket back up and went back to shovelling the weeds into it with determination, Peter dancing and barking at my feet. When Henry returned, he shoved a cup of tea in my face and growled at me to “Sit the eff down.”

I sat. Henry sat.

“Talk.”

I talked.

Henry summed it up. “So basically what you’re telling me is that some guy―”

“Matt is not just some guy. He’s got experience in this kind of life.”

“Don’t interrupt me. Some guy tells you the life of a rockstar is a rocky road and all relationships lead down the path to Shitsville. Rather than voice your concerns to Jared, your boyfriend and the man you’ve known for how many years…”

“We were only together for―”

“That wasn’t a question.” Henry’s voice steamed over mine. “You listen to some guy you’ve known for like…a day. Then, when the going gets a little hostile, which mind you, I too would punch a guy out if he stuck his nose in my business like that, rather than act like a normal person, you put your silly ‘I’m a f**king idiot’ hat on and tell Jared to get lost?”

I was still riding the tails of anger, but as he spoke, I felt a sinking sensation in my stomach that evolved into a dull thumping ache in my heart. I’d said I’d never hide anything from him, so why didn’t I just talk to him?

“This is the first guy you’ve been with that I actually like, but I don’t think you see him, like really see him. He’s wanted you since the moment you both met, but you were so swamped in your pile of emotional dork bullshit you couldn’t see the light. Now you two finally get your shit together, and not even waiting until you reach the first hurdle, because every relationship has hurdles, you create one out of thin air just so you could dump him before he breaks your heart. You’d be lucky if Jared would take back a lunatic like you. Tell me this, did it work? Because from where I’m standing, you’re already in love with him, so you’ve already done what you were trying to avoid doing and gone and broken your own heart anyway.” Henry leaned forward in his chair as he spoke the words that cut deep. His eyes were hard and angry and directed at me.