Chapter Eleven
Elle
After dinner,I found Seth sitting on the back patio, alone. Joanie had found us a luau to go to, but I really just wanted to stay in, so we’d grilled some fish instead. Or rather, Seth had grilled some fish. He wouldn’t even let me toss the salad to go withit.
I still wasn’t sure if the man hadslept.
He was seated in front of the stone fire pit where several chairs were arranged, facing the ocean. As I walked up, he was strumming out a song on an acoustic guitar that wasn’t his. Several other acoustics were propped up on the chairs, or lying in open cases that had been carefully laid out on a blanket in front of him. He wasn’t singing, but as I grew closer, I recognized Paul McCartney’s “Band On theRun.”
And I stood listening for awhile.
Seth was one of those natural guitar players who learned songs quickly and made what he did look easy, even when it wasn’t. I knew he would play for the rest of his life, even if Dirty never took him back, even if he never made another penny from playing. He could play with his eyes closed, could probably play in his sleep, and when he wasn’t playing, he was writing or humming or tapping out a rhythm with his fingers. The music was just in hisblood.
I’d known a lot of musicians like that. Musicians who were crazy-passionate about music, who oozed talent and seemed to eat, live and breathe what they did. Like Jesse and Dylan. But I knew very few musicians who actually gave the impression they might die without music in theirlives.
Zane was likethat.
AndSeth.
And both of them were addicts, so go figure… maybe there was some connectionthere.
They were also both incredibly cool, but Zane had a jagged edge that, as a woman, I’d never wanted to get near. Seth had an edge of his own, but it was far less… volatile. And he was always kind of a mystery man. He never seemed to crave the admiration of the fans the way Zane did, yet he had this effortless charisma that was magnetic, made people want to be around him. The guys liked Seth. The girls likedSeth.
Just like the other guys in Dirty, he was a man born to be a rockstar.
As he reached the end of the song, he started into a classic Dirty tune, “Runaround.”
Then he seemed to sense me standing here and faltered; he glanced over, at my sun dress flickering around my bare thighs in the breeze. His hands went still on the guitar and his eyes metmine.
“Woo said I could help myself to the guitars in his studio,” he said, like he felt the need to explain. Then he removed the guitar from the chair beside him, clearing a space forme.
“He must hold you in high esteem,” I told him. “Those are his babies.” I sat down in the empty chair, facing the fire. “You spoke toWoo?”
“This morning. Thought I should, since I’mhere.”
I wondered what else Woo had said to him, but I didn’t ask. “Have you slept atall?”
“Not yet,” he said. Then he added, “Didn’t really feel like Icould.”
“Why?”
His eyes left mine. “Hard to sleep, thinking you might hateme.”
My stomach turned. My chest squeezed as I said, “I don’t hate you, Seth. You can sleep if you wantto.”
He nodded, but didn’t look at me. And my heart ached. My throat constricted with emotion, with sympathy forhim.
I cleared my throat and offered, “You know… I know ‘Dirty Like Me’ gets all the girls tied in knots, but ‘Runaround’ was the best song you ever wrote. If you askme.”
“I wrote it withJessa.”
“Yeah. You two were quite the creative team.” That was putting itmildly.
I had no idea if he knew that Jessa was back with us, writing songs with us again. Or how he might feel about that if heknew.
My gaze dropped to the mug, half-full on the small table next to him. He’d been drinking coffee again. When I looked up, our eyesmet.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know why I keep doingthat.”
