CHAPTER 20
LILY
“Want me to wipe that drool off your face?” Mikey raised a brow, cracking open an egg.
“I’ll allow it if it’s with your lips.” I was kinda drooling because the man had somehow lost his shirt and was now making breakfast, showing off his glorious abs.
He laughed, leaning over to capture my mouth in a sweet kiss.
I bit my lips, cradling my cheeks in my hands as I watched him cook for me.
Michael and I settled into a domesticated routine of sorts. With no work for me and with the band being on a break till Emmie gets back, we were holed up in my apartment, just the two of us.
My brother was so not going to like what Mikey taking care of me had turned into.
“Do you know when Emmie is getting back?”
“Nope,” he said as he added the eggs to the pan of sizzling butter. “Maybe in a week or so. That ass had already sent over a dozen voice memos for us to look over. Matty and I need to start working on them. ”
“Oh, I’m so excited for this album, I think this one is going to sound more like you guys than the past few ones.”
Thankfully, the guys had enough money and fame to produce their own music and take it slow. This time off was good for them because the past six years they’ve been working nonstop for that fucked-up label who were basic pieces of trash that did a lot of messed up shit.
“Yeah, me too, I think it’s going to be amazing. I listened to a few and let me tell you, your brother has cooked up something amazing. I think that E being back in his life brought out all his creative juices to the surface.”
“Yeah, I think so too.” I smiled, nodding thanks as he set the plate in front of me, dropping a kiss on my cheek. “I can’t wait for her to be my sister, officially.”
“I think that it’ll happen a lot faster than we think, that is if Emmie doesn’t fuck it up, again,” Mikey added.
“I don’t think he will but hey, even if he did those two would somehow find their way back to each other,” I said, stuffing my mouth full of the incredible food that he made for me.
“That’s true. They are insufferable together.”
“Oh, come on, I think they’re sweet.”
“Yep, diabetes worthy though.”
I held him in a narrowed gaze but it didn’t last long because a rowdy cough rattled my chest. It was one of the newer symptoms, a heavy cough followed by a bout of wheezing, strong enough that it took a while to catch my breath.
“Fuck,” Mikey cursed, his brows pinched as he rubbed my back .
A sharp pain throbbed on the side of my head as the cough wrecked my rib cage.
“You okay?” he asked, concerned. “That’s it, you’re coming with me to see Dr. Karlfield now. You’re clearly not well.”
“Michael,” I rasped, giving him a pointed look. “I’m fine. I think I might be coming down with the flu.”
“It’s not even flu season now.”
“Anyone can get the flu anytime, Mikey.”
“No, you either get ready or I’m going to be carrying you out of here.”
Fuck . “Michael, but I don’t want to,” I told him firmly. “Look, if I’m not fine in two weeks, I’ll make the appointment myself, okay? I had the same symptoms last time I caught the flu but now maybe it’s a bit heavier because I’m weaker than usual.”
He heaved out a frustrated exhale. “Fine but only a week.”
“No,” I moaned. “Two weeks, pretty please.” It wasn’t much but it was enough to think of some other excuse.
“No, Lily. You can’t put off your health, one week and that’s it.”
“Mikey.” I wrapped my arms around his neck, rising on my tiptoes as I met his intent greens. “That is only if I’m not fine but I am, okay? Maybe this was all because I’ve been stressing out a lot lately, maybe taking a break was what I needed. And…” I leaned closer, pressing my nose to his. “You’ll be there to take care of me, right?”
He shook his head, pulling me closer to him, his bare skin was burning through the thick of my hoodie. “Fine, two weeks but if you’re not fine by then I kidnapping your ass to the hospital.”
“Perfect.” I grinned, clashing my lips to his, he groaned inside my mouth and swept me off my feet. My body was electrified by his taste, it was a heady, heady rush. A rush that I’ve been wanting forever and now it was mine.
“How about we watch anime all day?” I asked when I finally jumped off his arms and resumed eating my breakfast.
“How about we go out for a while and then binge on anime?”
“But go out where?” I raised a brow, wiping the crumbs of my buttery toast from my hoodie.
“Let’s go out for a ride.”
I nodded an excited yes, finished my breakfast in record time, and dressed myself in a cute dress and my leather jacket.
Michael matched me dressed in all black.
“Beautiful.” He kissed my cheek and put his arms over my shoulder as we walked to the parking lot.
It almost felt like I was his girl now.
“Whoa.” I gaped at the sight in front of me. “I didn’t know you had this.”
“I’m a man with a few tricks up my sleeve.” He grinned. “She’s a new addition to the family. I just got her delivered last week.”
“She’s beautiful,” I mumbled, tracing my hand along the shiny fluted panels on the back. It was a deep violet 1960s Cadillac Eldorado. “So can I drive? ”
“Absolufuckintuley no, Miss Jameson.” He pushed me to the passenger side while I pouted. “Now get your ass inside.”
The car had a bench seat so I slid right next to him, my hand draped over his inner thigh.
I watched in satisfaction as his breath hitched.
“Lily, behave,” he said, starting the car. The engine purred underneath us and he rolled down the top.
The warm sun drenched us and my hair went wild as soon as we exited the basement.
“Fuck,” I mumbled, trying to tame it.
He laughed. “Here.” He produced a baseball cap from the glove box.
“Thanks.” I contained all my hair in a makeshift bun and lowered the cap over it.
I twisted my body toward him. “How convenient that you have your hair in a ponytail. This was planned, wasn’t it?”
He broke out in a laugh once again. “Maybe,” he snapped his eyes to me. “Guess you’ll never find out.”
I elbowed his ribs, sharply, to which he only laughed louder. Rolling my eyes, I leaned my head against his shoulder, wrapping my arms around his warmth.
“Where are we going?” I mumbled, tucking a wild strand of his golden hair behind his ear.
“Anywhere.”
We’d just exited the city and were driving up north.
“A road with no destination, uh?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, there’s no one else that I would rather do it with.”
His lips curved into a wide smile .
It danced on his face the whole time he drove us, one hand on the steering wheel and the other on some part of my body.
Michael and I didn’t really need to make small talk to pass the time, we already knew each other, even though our friendship was over a long time ago when we barely realized the realities of the world, the connection still thrummed with life.
I knew there were plenty of unspoken conversations between us but I tried not to think too much of it, it wasn’t like we really had a future.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mumbled just as the sign for the town we entered came into view. “Sleepy Hollow, really?”
“It was on the way.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why does it feel like some pre-mediated shit to scare the shit out of me.” Mikey knew very well that, as much as I loved even the goriest anime, horror freaked the fuck out of me.
“No, babe. Never. They’ve got a park, and we can stroll around till sundown.”
“Yes, Sleepy Hollow and walk till it gets dark, sounds perfect.” My voice was layered thick with sarcasm. “Look, Mikey, even the clouds have turned gray. Maybe it’s a sign from God that we should head back.”
I wasn’t sure if it was because it was offseason or the time of day, but the town was very quiet, and the streets were almost empty.
It was eerie and gloomy; I certainly didn’t like it one bit .
“The fresh air will do you good, Lily. Don’t worry, I won’t let any Horsemen take you away from me,” he joked.
“That didn’t make me feel any better, even one bit.”
“It’s just an urban legend, Li,” he said, just as the car pulled up by a sign that said, Rockwood Hall State Park.
I sat frozen in my seat as he came over to my side and opened the door for me.
“Come on, let’s go.”
“No way, look at this place, it’s creepy.” And it was, I could count on one hand the number of people who were loitering around.
“It’s not, I swear.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve been here before.”
“What?” I snapped my eyes to him.
“Yeah,” he mumbled, running a hand over his hair. “I just like to get out of the city sometimes.”
“But that doesn’t mean we have to go venture out in a spooky forest, Mikey.”
“It’s just a park, now come on.” He clamped a hand around my wrist and pulled me to my feet.
“I’ll never forgive you if I die out here today,” I muttered under my breath as we headed down the trail.
“You’re not going to die.” He laughed, linking our fingers in a tight grip.
There was a gentle breeze rustling our skin and a picture of serene blue waters surrounded by the vast green mountains to our right.
“Even that tree looks like it’s about to get me.” I pointed at the section of dried-up trees that we were crossing .
“Oh no.” He grabbed me by the waist, lifting me right off my feet as he ran us away from it. “I’ve got to get my Lily away from the monster trees.”
“Michael,” I squealed through my giggles. “Let me down, you silly.” My giggles didn’t stop, my eyes were a blur of motions as he sprinted us deeper down the trail, till we reached a more peaceful scenery when he finally let me down.
“Fuck it’s so good to watch you laugh.” He backed me up against a tree and swallowed my laughter with a deep, long kiss, gliding his tongue along my soft lips.
His kiss was beautiful.
He was beautiful.
All my earlier creepiness faded when he let me down and we continued our walk.
“This path is quite nice, do you come here a lot?” I questioned.
“Not particularly, I’ve only been here once. But I do like to drive away and find spots like this.” His eyes darted to mine. “I love the quiet and peace.”
“I didn’t know that, I mean, you were always quiet when we were kids but then you changed. You surprised me when you turned into a completely different boy as a teen. Not like the smart boy I once knew more like what’s the word, hmm…” I paused. “Maybe like a goofball that only cared about drinks and women and parties.”
His chuckle carried through the wind. “Maybe, maybe not.”
“That’s cryptic but it’s the truth though, don’t you agree? ”
He paused for a minute, only the sound of our shoes crunching the dried leaves filtered through. “I felt like I had to change.” His thumb brushed the back of my hand. “Change into someone more carefree and fun.”
“Why?” My nose scrunched.
“Because I didn’t like the other part of me.” His voice lowered into a haunting whisper.
“What other part of you?” I frowned.
The seriousness in his eyes faded. “I think that’s enough questions about me today, Ms. Lily.”
“But I was just getting started.”
“Nope, now it’s your turn.”
“Fine.”
“Did you have a boyfriend back in college?”
I froze, not the question I thought he would ask. “Why do you want to know?”
He shrugged nonchalantly but I could feel that he was curious. “I hardly know anything about that time of your life, I knew you didn’t date anyone in high school. I know you dated in college and I want to know if there was someone serious.”
He was right, we both didn’t see each other much till I moved to New York. I did join the boys on tour sometimes, but even then, I was mostly hanging out with Katy while he was busy partying off his liver. But I still got to watch him, only because his pretty face was splashed over the news.
“I kinda did.”
“Kinda? So he was not your boyfriend?”
“I think he was, but it didn’t lead to anything.”
“Why not? ”
“Isn’t that one too many questions?” I raise a brow. I didn’t really like speaking about college, I hated every second of it.
“Answer me, Lily.” He held me in a stare.
“It just didn’t work out.”
“What the fuck did he do?” He grunted.
I sighed; he wasn’t going to let me go without an answer. “Nothing really. It all started fine, perfect even. I was so ready to start college after spending half my life being hung up on a boy who would never reciprocate my feelings.”
“Lily.” His greens softened.
“No, it’s fine. But yeah, I was so excited for a fresh start, to live the college life, to make new friends—friends that weren’t associated with my brother, and ultimately find someone who maybe one day I could fall in love with.” With each word out of my mouth, I could feel the tension radiating off him. “I met Troy at a frat party in freshman year and I, the loner wallflower, now had so many friends and was even invited to a frat party, can you believe that?” I breathed out an empty chuckle. “Troy was cute, was very nice, ticked off all the things that I like in a man, we dated for six months. I thought I had fallen in love till I overheard him talking to my roommate, Nyah. Not just talking, more like mocking and talking shit about me.”
“Why?” His gaze narrowed.
“Well, turns out, Nyah found out my connection to the band and she brought in all her friends to devise a plan for an opportunity to get closer to you guys. Turns out that Troy was someone she knew from school and he had always had a crush on her. She told him if he ever wanted a chance to be her boyfriend, he had to date me. In the end, it was all fake. I immediately changed my room and confronted that I wanted nothing more to do with them but that bitch spread the news around. And everyone in college knew who I was, they were plenty of rumors and shit they stirred up but I just kept my head down and prayed to get the hell out of there and went back to being the lonely wallflower.”
“The hell, Lily. Why didn’t you say anything to Emmie? He could’ve gotten you into a different school.” He frowned, pulling me into his lap. We both settled on a plain grass field overlooking the waters.
“I just didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.”
His frown deepened as he regarded me. “Are you kidding me? Those people made your life a living hell. You know you have all of us, right? You shouldn’t have to go through all of that alone, Lily.”
The statement hit a bit too close to home. I did that a lot, not really sure when it stemmed, but I considered myself to be a burden if I spoke up or did something bad.
“I know but it’s hard to just shake out of it.” I sank closer. His warmth enveloped me, the smell of his citrus, so familiar and comforting.
He sighed, pulling me tight as a gentle breeze washed our skin. A moment of silence passed before he asked, “Was it really bad?”
I swallowed the dryness bleeding through my throat. “In a way, after that, it was hard to open up to anyone, even as a friend. I tried my hardest to keep who I was a secret. Though college was a nightmare, I wasn’t mad about it. I just want to forget it all and move on. But now I am fine, I feel like I’ve found some amazing friends and you know how Jack and Riana know who I am but don’t really care and they genuinely like me for me.”
“It’s hard not to like you, Liliana Jones,” he stated, grinning. “Those fuckers were losers who lost an incredible girl.”
“Yeah, right.” I rolled my eyes. “So, you do like me, Michael Saint?”
“Of course I do.” He placed a butterfly kiss on my nose as we gazed at the fluttering waters.
“But I miss the girls, though, I wish Evy would get back soon and Katy would move closer to us.”
“I’m sure Emmie will drag her back soon and if Lan and K, gets their head out of their ass, Katy will be here with us.”
“Yeah, I think there’s something troubling her though. She hardly replies in our group text these days.”
“I don’t think Matty is going to wait much longer if she continues this. He’s going to storm to LA and bring his sister back home.”
“But I think he is a bit preoccupied at the moment.”
“You might be right about that. I think there’s something brewing between him and Sierra.”
I sighed. “Do you think she has a crush on him?”
“I think it’s more the other way around.”
“Well as long as he’s happy. But she is young.”
“Not young, quite young. She’s eighteen.”
“But it’s Matty, he is the more reasonable and level-headed one out of all of us.”
“Yep, a.k.a. boring motherfucker. ”
“Oh, come on, Matty’s not boring. What do you want him to do? Go out and have a threesome like you?”
He gave me a sheepish look. “Those were wild days Lily; I don’t do that anymore.”
My insides burned with jealous rage. I didn’t like the idea of any girl having a share of him, let alone two girls at once. “Oh, don’t you dare lie!” I un-pocketed my phone and scrolled through the internet for a headline that I had read a few months ago. “Here, let me read Michael DeClere, the notorious playboy of the ‘Four Foxes’, was rumored to be entangled in a steamy night with pop princess, Leonara Lee, and heiress, Jackie Lon. So what do you have to say to that, huh?” A pang of an old familiar ache laced with jealousy. If only we’d remained friends, would we have been together?
“Lily, that’s just a rumor. I never had a threesome with Leo and Jackie.”
“But you know them on a first-name basis?”
“Yes, we got acquainted a while ago. What really happened that night was, they met up with me at a party and decided to take me back to their hotel room and some fucking did happen, just not between me and them.”
“What? So you watched?” I asked, baffled.
“Nope, they have a thing. As soon as they wound up in the bedroom, I left through the private exit. The paps saw me entering with them so they put the whole thing together as a threesome.”
“But why would you go with them in the first place?”
“Jackie’s family can’t find out that she doesn’t like boys—they would disown her. So they asked me to help them out.”
“They do that even these days? ”
He shrugged. “No clue.”
I pulled his hair, tilting his chin upward. “So, what? You went back to the party to find someone else?”
“Nope.” A wide grin spread across his lips. “I went back home and slept like a baby dreaming of a girl with violet-blue eyes.”
My cheeks turned a shade of rosy pink. I didn’t think he would say that. “That’s an absolute lie.”
“Contrary to popular belief, I’m not really a manwhore who fucks women left and right. It’s all just an image that I had to maintain. I will say I did have my time a few years ago, but that quickly turned boring and I wasn’t interested anymore.”
I suppressed the joy that sparked my heart at his words. “So what you’re saying is that you’re not really a manwhore, I find that a bit hard to believe.”
“It’s the truth though, hell I don’t remember the last time I fucked a girl, I think it was years ago.”
“What?” My eyes widened. “Don’t lie. I saw you bringing that bimbo back to your apartment and that was what, just like a month ago.”
He chuckled. “As I said, an image. PR sends me these girls to be photographed sometimes, I invite them back for a drink to take a few pictures for their social media but then I make sure they leave.”
“What? That’s crazy! They made you do shit like that?”
“That PR was in liaison with the label. But Katy made sure to cut all ties associated with them so we’ve got a new setup now. ”
“You better because I’m not going to let them use you like that.” I steeled. All this time I’d thought Mikey was having the time of his life doing shit like that and maybe he had in the past but using him to keep up the cool rock-star image was pathetic.
“Awh, you feeling protective of me, Lily baby?”
“Of course, I am. I know we still have plenty of catching up to do on our lost time and I’m still mad at you for ghosting our friendship but I do care about you, Michael. I always have and always will.”
“I don’t know how but it feels like some insect is flying up my gut.”
I giggled. “It’s not insect you dumbass, it’s butterflies.”
“You’re right. Definitely butterflies.” His face softened. “Come on, it’s getting late, let’s head home.”
“Well, this was fun.” Peaks of orangish purple started to filter through the sky as we drove home.
“Yes, it was.” He cast me a longing gaze that made my heart skip a beat before refocusing on the road.
I still didn’t understand what was going on between us.
But I knew I was stepping into dark, dangerous waters.
Because my heart was slowly softening for this man, once again.
And I knew that never did end well.