“Fucking heartbroken,” I say and walk back over to the couch, where I drop with a huff. “Devastated, okay? So yes, you were right about the music.”
“I’m just surprised no one else comments on it,” he says as he joins me. “Just listen to the lyrics. You’re obviously sad.”
I gesture to my guitar. “But I’m performing like a rock god. My songs are all guts. That’s what everyone hears.” I frown at him. “Well, everyone but you.”
Spencer nods. “Acting tough to cover it up. Now that is a sentiment I understand.” His gray and blue eyes are wide as he gazes at me. “Do you want to tell me about the breakups?” he asks.
Despite having every reason to say no, I realize that I actually do. Spencer might have zero relationship experience of his own, but he’s the perfect person to listen to my story. I trust him with it.
With a deep breath, I unburden myself.
“First time I fell in love was with Amos. That was in high school. I was young and naive, and he was cheating on me the whole time.”
Spencer tenses, and I see the anger in his eyes. It’s something that happened fourteen years ago, but I see him rearing to defend me anyway, and it’s a nice reassurance as I sink into the sad story.
“When I finally figured out the truth, I was wrecked. It was like the world was burning down. Wrote and recorded my first album that month. The shit was, though, by the time anyone discovered the album, my high school band had broken up. It happened after an epic teenage fight that started over an Xbox game.” I lean back, amazed how long ago this all seems but how fresh it is in my memory. “That’s how I got my second band and fell in love with Aurora.”
“You signed to a label, right?” he asks. “I read about it.”
“They gave me a backing band like you could only dream of, session musicians with skill that still make me blush. I thought I had it made. And I didn’t have to totally lose my old life, either. Aurora was the drummer in my high school band, and after the Amos fiasco, she was there for me. Everyone else ran away, but Aurora stayed by my side, and I fell hard.”
Spencer makes a fist. “If she cheated on you, too, I swear to god.”
I shake my head. “We were together for over three years, and they were the most intense three years of my life. I was suddenly famous. I was trying to write an album for this new band under intense scrutiny, traveling the world and touring, and everywhere I went, Aurora was there, too. You didn’t hear about her because I didn’t go public with that relationship. Aurora was a private person, and as a painter, she wanted to make her own name. The label liked me single anyway.”
Spencer frowns. “So what happened?” he asks sternly.
“I came back from a mini tour one day, and all of her stuff was gone. No note. No explanation. Still to this today, I don’t know why she left.”
“Fuck.” He reaches out and grabs my shoulder. “You deserve better than that, Gabriel.”
I’m not allowed to feel comfort like I feel from his grip. So even though it kills me, I lean back, pulling gently free again.
It would be so easy to fall in love with Spencer.
“After Aurora left,” I continue, “I went to a quiet island for six months to mourn the relationship and write another album. Spring to fall, I paced around the trees and the beach and stayed up until sunrise with my guitar, and when I came out the other side of it, I had a hit album. On that global tour, I met Zel.”
He arches an eyebrow. “A groupie?”
I laugh. “No. A music tech. A producer. We’d started out as a fling, pure passion. Twenty minutes in the dressing room, airplane bathroom, that kind of thing.”
“Right.”
“That was a couple years after Aurora left,” I tell him. “I didn’t even think I was ready to fall in love again, but Zel stole my heart. After two years of sex and passion, I put it all on the line. He kept me waiting for months with no answer, then finally turned me down at the Grammys. Like, thirty seconds before I had to walk on stage.”
“What the fuck?”
“Thank you.” I shrug, playing it off like I don’t still feel the gut punches, one after the other. “I learned my lesson that time.”
Spencer’s eyes widen. “The Fortress.Your third album. It’s entirely about that breakup. I can see it now.”
“I’m done with that bullshit,” I tell him. “It’s like burning your hand on a stove. You might do it once, a couple times, but eventually you learn that the stove is fucking hot.”
He frowns at me. “In that analogy, you’re a man who touches a surprising number of stoves.”
I shake my head. My emotions are stirred up, and my voice comes out emphatic. “Sex and relationships aren’t the same thing. You can have one without the other. I’ve closed the door to committed relationships, and now I get to enjoy something else.”
Spencer opens his mouth. He look like he has a million things to say, but he stops himself from saying any of them.
