Page 77 of I Do With You

“Hope?” a familiar and unwanted voice says.

I can’t stop the sigh that escapes. The last thing I need is another spectacle.Clean up in aisle twelve!

Rolling my eyes, I turn. “What, Roy?”

“I heard that Taylor guy left town,” he says, his face carefully neutral. But I can see the spark in his eyes. He thinks that’ll be enough to finally make me come back to him.

It’s not.

The problem is, I know exactly who Roy is. To his credit, he was at least honest about that. I just excused the parts I didn’t care for, pretending they didn’t exist as I molded myself to fit the image he had of a girlfriend, fiancée, and almost-wife while very nearly making that image my own ideal too.

But no. I don’t want to pretend like a naive girl anymore. Not with Roy, and not with Ben. I want it all—the good, the bad, the ugly—and I want it laid bare before me, with someone who trusts that I can handle it. In return, I’ll give him all my heart, trusting him to care for it like the fragile bird it is, despite it being encaged in steel.

“Listen ... it wasn’t about him. It was about you and me—”

“Us,”he corrects, giving the word weight it no longer holds.

I swallow thickly, trying once again to find the words to make him understand. “Who we were once upon a time and who we grew up to be. I ran because things weren’t right between us. I think you know that, too, deep down. I should’ve talked to you sooner. Maybe we could’ve worked it out, but it’s too far gone now. I’m too far gone, Roy. I truly do want better for the both of us, and if we try to pretend like this”—I point from me to him—“is enough, we’ll waste our whole lives settling.”

“I just want you,” he answers, carefully inching closer.

“You don’t even know me, Roy,” I return, trying to be calm but not backing down. “Not because you didn’t try to, but because I didn’t know me well enough to give you that. But I’m learning. I’m figuring it out, and you will too.”

He dips his chin, and his eyes fall to my lips for a split second where I think he’s going to try to kiss me. But slowly, they trail back up to my eyes. “I hear you. I want you to know that. And when you figure things out, maybe I’ll still be here, because I do love you, Hope.” I start to argue and he steamrolls over me. “Or maybe I’ll have moved on. I don’t know anything right now. But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry we aren’t married and eating dinner together tonight.”

He glances at the pizzas in my hands, then turns and disappears around the corner before I can formulate anything to say to that.

That was really insightful and heartfelt. Sure, it could be another ploy, a tactic to woo me back, but it didn’t feel like it. It felt like Roy did actually hear me, maybe for the first time ever. He’s doing some growing of his own.

Decision made, I put both the supreme and margherita pizza in my basket. I’m going to cook them both and eat half of each. Because I’m growing too. Getting stronger and more confident, expressing myself with more clarity, and expecting more of life.

BEN

“These are great, but ...,” Sherwood tells Sean, Trent, and me as we finish playing one of the new songs we’ve written. I never asked, so I’m not sure if Sherwood is his first or last name, or if he changed it to something “unique” when he got into music. Not that he’s a musician. He’s so much worse—our AMM-assigned talent manager.

He rolled into our lives with the last album, wearing a plaid suit, an open three-button vest, and a Bruno Mars concert shirt. He favors slick loafers with no socks so his bony ankles show, scarves that drape down his chest and flat stomach, and more jewelry than the queen, including a watch that costs more than my first three cars combined. I’m not sure how he got stuck with us, but none of us are particularly thrilled with the assignment.

When he came striding into our practice session like a man on a mission earlier, I thought for sure Hope had told someone, news of our identities had gotten out, and Sherwood was here to read us the riot act. I was almost relieved by the idea of being done with it all. All the charades, all the stress, all the drama. None of that has happened, though. It’s been complete radio silence, from Hope and AMM.

“Great? They’re the best fucking thing we’ve ever done,” Sean interrupts, coldly correcting Sherwood as he tosses one of his drumsticks end over end toward the wall. After hitting the soundproofing panel, it falls cleanly into the trash can below. That’s the third stick he’s broken today—not in anger, but because the drumline is that intense and he’s playing that hard.

He’s right. Of course he is. Sean’s right about everything, which only pisses me off more and more.

I’ve funneled all that anger—over losing Hope, at Sean’s interference, at the utter unfairness of life—into the songs that’ve been pouring out of my heart and onto the page. The lyrics are dark and ugly, speaking of hatred and loss and retribution, so of course, AMM loves them.

“Yeah, yeah, agreed.” Sherwood nods along pleasantly, not wanting to upset the talent, a.k.a. Sean. News flash: Sean’s always upset at something. Lately, it’s been me. And between the two of us, other than sniped comments about the music or mutters of “fucking asshole,” we’re not talking.

It’s not the same. Nothing’s the same.

Even if AMM doesn’t know that someone outside this room knows the truth about us, I’m this close to saying fuck it all and walking away.I do this for Sean, and right now, I don’t want to do shit for him except hold his head underwater. Or maybe cheap whiskey, because at least then he’d wake up in hell with a hangover he’d suffer from for eternity.

“There are a couple we’re thinking of scratching from the album, though.” Sherwood cuts his eyes to me, and I already know what he’s about to say. The time in Maple Creek was supposed to be a reset, but instead I came out of it with half a dozen songs, and I’ve written at least ten more since then. Some of them are crap, but most are bangers.

Except one.

“‘Hope’ stays,” I declare. “AndLosing Hopeis the name of the album. It’s not open for negotiation.”

Sherwood pans back to Sean, hoping for reinforcements. “I know it’s from your heart, but the sound is basically the antithesis of everything Midnight Destruction is about.”

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