He looks at his hands, thinking. "When our lives did connect, when the bubbles broke, things didn't make sense. If she was home for the summer, we didn't know what to do together. The quick intense bursts—that was normal. A weekend to squeeze in everything we could. Or a long phone call that ends with… You want to hear this part?" He motions to his crotch.
"As long as you're not going to say the sex was better with her."
"Fuck no."
My lips curl into a smile. It's not possible to stay on the other side of the bed. I move close enough to take his hand.
Pete chuckles. "Phone sex was amazing. But when we were actually together… not as much."
"Fantasy trumps reality."
"Or I'm that good."
My cheeks flush.
"It was nice having somebody to call at the end of the day. Even if it was clear we were growing in different directions. By the time we finished our first tour, I felt like the only people who knew me were the guys in the band, Mom, and Cindy."
"And your friend, the one who slept with her?"
"Yeah. And him. I couldn't let go of that. The bigger the band got, the less I connected with everybody else. People always wanted to use me somehow. Or they put me on this pedestal. Soon as we were on the radio, all our musician friends were too jealous to be happy for us. I get it. It's hard seeing someone else with everything you want. But it meant nobody knew me. Nobody gets what it's like to be on the road five months a year. To lose track of where you are one day. It's easy to talk about, but to feel it… hearing your music playing at some store, seeing your picture in a tabloid, catching strangers talking about you… It's a mind-fuck. Guess that's not eloquent."
"It is, in a certain way."
He nods. "The bigger the band got, the more I needed that Pete and Cindy bubble. That was my only normalcy. That and Mom." His lips curl into a smile. "She always tells us we're not as good as Fleetwood Mac. Stuff like that. To keep us humble."
"Yeah?"
His smile spreads ear to ear. "You heard what she said about our last single?"
"No."
"Said it would be better if we went country with it. Should have heard her and Tom go at it."
His eyes meet mine. There's something on the tip of his tongue. Then he swallows and it's gone. He blinks and the vulnerability in his eyes is gone too.
"Want to hold you right now, but I'm pretty sure it means I'm not getting to the end of this story," he says.
"No. Keep going. I want to know… I can tell it hurt you a lot, what happened."
"Yeah."
"Did you love her all that time?"
"Hard to say. Not sure what love is supposed to feel like anymore."
"You love your brother. Your mom."
"It's not the same."
"You see Tom and Willow-"
"It's different from the outside. I know what love looks like. But I'm not sure what it feels like here—" He presses his palm to his chest, over his heart.
"You're lucky you're as hot as you are or that would be cheesy as hell."
"You saying you don't want to fuck me?"
"Absolutely not." I shift a little closer. "But you haven't finished your story."
