Page 9 of Rock Candy

“I do, obviously. Listen, if you want to spend your life wallowing, I’ll find a way to spin that PR-wise, but I’m just saying maybe you should explore other options.”

“I’m not spending my life wallowing. Maybe I’m just asexual.”

He laughed and shook his head. “I said you didn’t have a mate, but I go to the same parties as you. So I know Eddy Meyer keeps the company of men, generally dumb burly ones.”

“Are you keeping tabs on me, Marcus?”

He rolled his eyes at me and said, “I keep tabs on all my artists, Eddy.”

That was his job, really.

Signaling that he was done conversing, he broke eye contact, leaned forward, grabbed his phone off the coffee table, and went back to work without leaving the living room couch.

HatingMarcus’s assessment of me and desperately wanting to shake the way the conversation made my stomach knot, I had my driver take me down to the festival. I wasn’t playing until tomorrow night, but no one was going to turn me away. I wanted to watch other bands from the wings, and I had some hope that maybe another musician might distract me by asking me to play with them. But when I got to the grounds, the group on the main stage was in the middle of a set and it was cool enough for me to wear a hoodie, hat, and sunglasses, so rather than act like a VIP, I went incognito and walked out into the crowd. Under the Trees wasn’t a huge festival. It took place in a state park. Part of it was a semi-cleared space with a smattering of tall trees, hence the name. The majority of the festival took place there. It was where the main stage and vendors were located.

But I liked the other half of the festival better. It was made up of a campsite that wove through the woods that surrounded an amphitheater at the bottom of a hill and in front of a natural lake. The amphitheater was made of natural materials, stone steps, and grass. It was small and couldn’t support the larger acts, but some really great folksy solo and duos took advantage of the gorgeous venue and chose to play the smaller space. I would have loved to play like that, but they didn’t let me because my fandom would overrun the place. A tiny part of me always secretly lamented my early success. As a kid I pictured gigs in coffee shops and small venues like the amphitheater at Under the Trees, but I skipped that phase in my career because I was being catapulted by LSA Records straight from busking to billboard charts.

So I treasured days like this one, when I hid in the shadows and took part in the more homespun presentations of good music. Traipsing through the dirt, I made my way there. I thought I would just sit and listen, disappear into someone else’s music for a while. But I didn’t even get a chance to see who was playing before I spotted Henry. He was sitting in the corner on the very top stone step of the amphitheater, alone. He had a notepad on his lap, and he jotted something on the page, and then tucking his pen behind his ear, he turned his attention back to the performer. He didn’t see me. I stayed in the shade of the tree I was next to and just watched him.

It was late in the day, bordering on dusk, and the sunlight had that ethereal quality that renders everything golden. So Henry was sort of glowing, framed by light like a painting of a saint on a church wall. I'd thought about him a lot over the last few months. He was irritatingly unforgettable and not just because he was tall, dark, and fucking sexy. Henry was also funny, odd, talented, and fucking sexy. He was the kind of man who sucked the sanity right out of a woman. On Martha’s Vineyard, my heartbeat quickened as soon as I heard the deep resonate hum of his first note.

But it didn’t matter how hot, smart, or sexy he was. That kind of immediate attraction isn’t real and it doesn’t last. Instant explosive chemistry was a crazy high, but relationships were messy, dangerous things that left scars. When you loved someone, you opened yourself up to getting hurt—even if they didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t have the time or the energy for heartbreak. I had my music. That was enough.

And still, the night I spent with Henry stayed with me. When I put my head down on the pillow, my mind would drift to thoughts of him. The sound of his laugh. The crevice between his brows. The feeling of his hands on my skin. It was like he infected my psyche, and I didn’t know how to cure myself of him. Sure, the way he took control and played my body like I was his instrument might have been the sexiest thing that ever happened to me, but I was right to push him away. He obviously wasn’t looking for a real connection because he did not really try to be friends with me.

I did what I said I was going to do. I spoke about him to Bruno and Ava, the couple who ran LSA Records, and a few weeks later his name came across my phone.

The text read,Thank you for the referral, Eddy.

I responded,You’re welcome. How are you?

He wrote,Not bad. Still thinking about that song we were writing.

I wrote,Me too. We should finish it.

Then he wrote,We should.

And then nothing.

But he looked mighty fine sitting on the amphitheater’s stone step, and after my shitty afternoon, the playfulness of spending time in his company seemed like it would offer me relief from the reality of my life. So I threw caution to the wind and approached quietly, sidling up and taking a seat right next to him.

He didn’t really look at me initially, but his shoulders tensed up and he shifted his weight in the opposite direction.

Teasingly, I said, “You know, you should really try to tame that social anxiety of yours. If an unsuspecting woman sat down next to you, she might think she smelled.”

Knowing me from the sound of my voice, he relaxed and leaned back in my direction without taking his eyes off the folk singer who was performing. “People can’t just tame their social anxiety, Eddy.”

“True, very true,” I said sincerely and then teased, “but I’m seriously worried that despite those broad shoulders and sultry gazing eyes, you are missing out on a ton of opportunities to get laid.”

He rolled his eyes and then leaned back on his arms, pressing his palms against the stone beneath us. “Not every man is looking to bury his bone any chance he gets. Why would I want to sleep with women who make me feel anxious?”

I shrugged awkwardly.

“Sex is only really good when you utterly trust the person you’re fucking. You know that.” I nodded like I did, but I wasn’t really sure. “To really get deep down in it, you have to be willing to totally let go. You have to be willing to give someone else control over your pleasure and your safety. That’s the deep shit. Totally impossible without trust.”

Memories of being in the ocean with him raced through my mind. That night, the game he played with me, all the teasing and withholding, I thought that was his kink but maybe not. Don’t get me wrong, he was smoking hot either way, but maybe Henry had been courting my trust. Somehow knowing that felt terrifying. I swallowed and my right knee started to jackhammer, but I managed to sound sane when I said, “Of course, totally. Trust is so important.”

Henry seemed to buy the nonchalance I was selling or if he didn’t, he pretended he did by changing the subject. He teased, “So, tell me, what is a star like yourself doing down in the dirt and mud, traipsing around with the riffraff?”

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