Her breath catches against my mouth.“Eddie ...”
“Say it.”I thrust a little deeper, still slow but firmer, making her feel every inch.“Tell me you’ll stay.Tell me you’ll let us love you.”
Her hands cup my face, trembling.“I promise,” she whispers.“I’ll stay.I’ll let you both love me.I’m not going anywhere.”
Something inside me loosens, breaks.A low sound rumbles from my throat as I kiss her hard, swallowing the words, sealing them against her lips.
The pace changes without thinking.My hips roll deeper, faster, still holding her close but now each thrust carrying a little more heat, a little more want.She moans into my mouth, gripping my shoulders as I start to move with more intent, still inside her promise, still inside her.
“Good,” I murmur against her lips, voice rough.“Now hold on to me.”
And then I drive into her again, the tenderness curling into hunger, the rhythm building under us as her body opens to mine.This time I won’t let her go.
ChapterThirty-Five
Barret
Around midnight, almost everyone has disappeared upstairs, only Dexter and I remain.Roderick was the first to vanish, mumbling something about Kit needing help with Arlo.After that, people trickled out, leaving us in the dim hum of amplifiers cooling down and the faint echo of conversations already gone.
Dexter leans over the keys, glancing at the crumpled sheet music I’ve been nursing for hours.“So, what’s this for again?”His fingers drift across the piano like he’s not even trying, and it still sounds fucking perfect.
“My next album.”The admission slips out quieter than I intend.My shoulders roll back in a fake shrug.“Not sure when it’ll come out.Next year, next decade ...who knows.”
He snorts, rolling his eyes.“You’re always working on something.Bet you’ve got enough material to feed half the industry.”
“I could,” I admit, though the shrug is more performance than truth.
In reality, I do produce albums for other artists.Kit taught me how to redirect my talent—how to let go of the urge to hoard songs I no longer feel like performing and give them to others.I get the spark, I write it, but once it’s born, I can’t make myself play it again.It lives, but it doesn’t satisfy.
So now I’m producing, shaping sound for others.Eddie keeps pushing me to start a label, turn everything into money, deals, contracts.That’s his high.Mine is just ...creating.Existing in the music without strings attached.
Dex’s voice pulls me back.“If you ever do and need someone in your corner, I’m here.”
I lift a brow at him.“I thought you were playing with ...what was that band?”The name slips from me mostly because he’s constantly changing.
“It was just a gig.”His shrug is too casual, too hollow.“Feels like I can’t land anywhere, you know?Everything, nothing.People expect me to top Dead Moth Parade, and it’s like—fuck—it’s impossible.”
My throat tightens.“We were good.”The words scrape out, quiet, almost reverent.My eyes close, just for a beat.“Until we weren’t.Grunge collapsed, or maybe it just shapeshifted.And Roderick?—”
Dex cuts me off, voice dipped in regret.“We were all lost.We fired Connor, and then we didn’t know who the hell we were anymore.That’s the problem—we let him drive everything.Our careers, our sound, our fucking lives.Mistake after mistake.”
I let out a humorless laugh.“Like your sex tape?”
His groan ricochets through the empty studio.“Fuck, don’t remind me.This internet shit—it’s ruining people’s lives.You think it’ll ever go out of style?”He shakes his head but then laughs, softer, self-deprecating.“My new PR team’s keeping me on a short leash.Image management, blah blah.They’ve got me patched together while I figure out my next move.”
“You have a PR team?”
“Yeah.”He flashes a grin, cocky and boyish all at once.“My person works for that company Eddie bought.I actually introduced him to the owner—some prick that was happy to cash out and leave everything to Edgar Reznor.In any case, my agent is building a saint out of the ashes.You should see the spin—’troubled artist,’ ‘bad boy misunderstood.’They’ve got me fake-dating some baby-faced actress so I look like I’m redeeming myself.”
Bad idea.Every instinct in me says it.Dex has this fucked-up brand of luck—disasters that somehow land him in a soft spot after a scare.He’s a disaster with nine lives, always tumbling headfirst into fire.And he stumbles into ruin and walks away singed, with gold dust stuck to his hands, and smiling.
That’s how we got him in the first place.
He wasn’t meant for Dead Moth Parade.He had his own band, one that imploded in a spectacular shitshow after their drummer torched a motel mattress and their bassist disappeared during a set.Dex swore he’d never touch another group project, but somehow Eddie roped him into playing keys for us.He hated us at first—called us children, said we were amateurs, destined to collapse.He was only two years older, but he looked at us like he’d aged a decade in the trenches.
And still, he stayed.Even when he could’ve left.Even when we broke apart.
That’s Dexter.The lovable fuck-up, the broken boy who turns every disaster into a punchline, the one who pretends he doesn’t care while secretly needing the people who refuse to give up on him.
