Chapter Eleven:
Words Are Worthless
Sidney
Pointedly staring at the ground, I pretend I just can’t hear Bash when he repeats back what I told him in that incredulous, judgy voice. I managed to make it a full two weeks of this tour without telling him a single thing that happened with Leo or Levi, but the little shit caught me on a moody day and dragged me into his trailer.
There isn’t enough wine in the world for this.
“When you say it like that, it sounds bad,” I finally argue. ”It’s fine, this is all fine.”
“Fine? It’s all fine?” Bash lets his head fall back like he’s biting his tongue from saying more. “Alright, so answer this before we go any further. Do you want to fuck him? Or do you not want to fuck him unless you know it will be more than that?”
“... Yes.”
The deadpan look he sends my way could win an award. “Yeah, you’re right, it’s all fine. So how long are you going to lie about Leo? Until the tour is over?”
“No,” I huff. “It’s only been a couple of weeks since the tour started and I’m already struggling. Levi keeps asking when my boyfriend is coming to visit and I’m running out of excuses.”
“My man is fishing for information,” Bash says with a chuckle. “He’s obsessed with you, Sid. You have to see that.”
“I do,” I admit with a nod. “I’m not blind. But obsession isn’t love, it has an end point. You see something shiny or something popular and you suddenly have to have it, no matter how much it costs or how long it takes. Until you have it, that’s all you think about. It’s all you care about. But then you get the thing and a few weeks go by and you play with it, sure. You use it. But one day you wake up and look at it and wonder why you wasted all that time and money buying something just to say you had it. There’s something else to obsess over now, so the old thing just gets put up on a shelf or... sold on Facebook fucking marketplace. I’d rather not be sold alongside someone’s old couch and the treadmill they swore they’d use.”
Lost in thought, Bash seems to really contemplate what I’ve said as he picks at a hangnail, and when he meets my gaze again he almost looks scared. “Do you think Alaina will want to sell me one day?”
The thought makes me want to die. After everything they’ve been through, no one deserves to go the distance more than they do. “No, I don’t. That woman loves you more than I think most humans are capable of. Hell, she married you, remember? She didn’t wait until she couldn’t have you to start pursuing you, she tracked you down from old memories and scoured the fucking country to find you. Bought tickets to all your shows and did whatever she had to in order to get herself in front of you. You have to understand how that’s a little different than Levi getting fucked up and trying to kiss me when he knew without a doubt I’d say no.”
Nodding, he finally seems to see the whole picture clearly now because he cusses under his breath at Levi. “I wish he had made a move sooner. I mean, the first time he ever hinted at it was right after he met you. I told him to keep it in his pants. Ididn’t mean forever, I just didn’t want him going after you if he wasn’t serious.”
“I’m glad you did,” I say honestly. “He wasn’t ready to settle down back then. It would’ve ended exactly as poorly as you thought, and I don’t really see that changing now. I wonder if I should just give in, enjoy it while I can, and get the inevitable breakup over with.”
“I’m glad he didn’t back then either, but he’s had years at this point to stop being a bitch about it. Do you know how many Christmases he’s gotten you a gift that he never gave you? It’s ridiculous.”
My phone vibrates in my pocket, but I’m a little too hung up on what Bash just said to care about something someone texted me. “Pardon?”
His eyes widen slightly before he outright gaslights me. “I didn’t say that. Nope. Not going there. Did you ever find out who was breaking into your trailer to jizz?”
“Not yet, but it was probably one of the crew. They heard, they know, and they won’t risk my 145lbs of sheer sex-deprived rage coming at them. Going back to Christmas though, excuse me? What kind of presents? Levi doesn’t buy presents.”
“I know, that’s why it’s hilarious — wait, we’re not talking about that, remember? It’s probably butt plugs or something dumb to annoy you.”
The look in his eyes tells me he knows much more than he’s sharing, but I already look stupid enough admitting everything I have tonight. I don’t want to add begging to the tally, so I just shake my head and check my phone.
It was just a text from my mom, but I see I also missed another notification. A more important notification.
A notification from the nanny cam.
“Holy shit,” I mutter, butterflies swarming in all the worst ways. “Someone was in my trailer earlier.”
“No shit?”
