Chapter 31
Then—Dante
Dante paced outside the front door of the house, rubbing the words along his forearm.
Logan had coerced her. That was what it was. She wouldn’t have agreed if she hadn’t been coerced.
His phone buzzed with a text from Casper.
How’s it going? How is she?
Despair yawned within him. How was she? She was terrible. She barely made it out of bed. She barely ate. She barely looked at him.
It’s ok.
Casper texted back almost immediately. Damn twinning.
Bullshit. Want me to come down there?
Dante sighed. He was supposed to have gone home over a month ago.
He had postponed his contract with the cruise line, and they had not been super cool about it.
Not many people wanted to work on cruise lines since the pandemic, so now they were short-staffed.
Which meant they were pissed but open to him returning.
No, it’s cool.
What are you waiting for? For her to ask you to stay?
Dante leaned against the wall of the house overlooking the small side street, two turns down from Ventura Boulevard.
In the background, he could hear people moving along the busy thoroughfare, going to restaurants, taking their babies for walks in strollers, heading up to the hills for a hike. Living.
And what was he doing? Waiting.
Dante: What if she doesn’t?
Casper: Idk. Shit, bro. You love her, right?
…
Casper: So, yes. Only you know what you want and what you’re willing to sacrifice.
If you stay, what does that mean? You join the band again?
You sign that stupid nonfrat clause? Don’t get me wrong.
I love Ellery. She’s awesome. But she’s going through a shit-ton of real life stuff right now. Do you want to take that on?
Did he? Yes. If she would ask him. Also, no. He remembered how all the hiding before he had come out had worn away at him, like an archaeologist chipping at stone. He didn’t want to go back to that either.
And there wasn’t a place for him anymore. At his own urging, they had found another bassist. What was Dante supposed to be, Ellery’s partner? The person holding her purse at runway events and keeping her bed warm while she was off playing their music?
The cons kept adding up.
Casper: Think about it. What do you really want and can you give her what she needs?
Dante slipped the phone into his pocket and left it on vibrate. He couldn’t deal with his brother’s intelligence today.
The front door opened and Logan stepped out, still as polished and shiny as a brand-new quarter. Revulsion and dislike warred for space beneath Dante’s skin.
Logan tapped repeatedly on his phone but did not make eye contact with him. Fine. He could ignore the asshole too.
“You have an opinion, Baker?”
At first, he wasn’t sure Logan was addressing him, despite him using his name. Mostly because Logan didn’t break his gaze from his phone.
“I think you’re an asshole, Logan.”
“Most people do.” The unmistakable sound of a text flying through cyberspace rang from his phone. “It doesn’t mean I’m not right.”
Dante shook his head, the rage curdling his stomach. “You’re using her. You’re using all of them, for your own purposes. For money.”
Logan scoffed. “Money is not the enemy. Without money, you can’t buy food, water, pay for your phone plan, find a house.
Hell, especially not in LA. I’m not asking anything of them that they’re not willingly agreeing to do.
” Logan leveled a cool gaze at him. “Are you pretending your dislike of me is about me wanting to make money? You took it before.”
“That was different.”
“Why? Because it was about Ellery? Or because it was about ‘the music’?” Logan rolled his eyes as he added air quotes. “You think I don’t know about the two of you?”
Dante’s blood ran cold. They had been so careful those months they had been together, and even though a few photos had leaked, they had been grainy and after he’d already left the band. It had been so long ago he’d forgotten to fear the fallout. “What do you mean?”
Logan tapped on his phone screen, then brandished a series of photos. Dante’s heart sank. He and Ellery, kissing on the fire escape behind his old apartment. Holding hands backstage. Locked in an embrace in an alley behind a restaurant in Venice Beach.
Logan arched an eyebrow and removed the photos from his view. “I’m not an idiot. I knew you two were seeing each other. I knew you were violating your contracts. How do you think those leaked photos disappeared? I made it happen.”
Dante clenched and unclenched his fists, unable to manage more at the moment. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Patience is a virtue, Baker. Even in our industry.” Logan cocked a half-smile. “It wasn’t the right time before. It seems like it is now.”
“Why?”
For the first time since Dante had met him, Logan slipped his phone into his pocket and gave him his undivided attention.
It was simultaneously comforting and sinister.
“Because I don’t think you can do this. You’re a good musician, Baker.
A damn good one. But you’re not ready.” Logan nodded toward the house.
“I don’t give a shit about photos, Baker.
But I give a shit about my band and my investment.
Do you really think you’re the best thing for them right now?
For her? Do you know how to dig them out of this hole?
Can you be that person, to lead them out of the darkness and back to the light?
Can you make them famous while she’s singing about loss and grief and feeling abandoned?
Can you watch her change into who she needs to become to do that? What is that going to do to you?”
Heat built behind his eyes, choking him. Was Logan right? After all this time, Logan fucking Groff was right? Was Dante not enough?
All of his long-buried self-doubt roiled through him. Not enough. Not enough of a musician. Not enough for Ellery. He had worked so hard to maintain his own identity…
Logan punched him lightly on his deltoid, but it left him numb rather than aching. “Think about it. I’ll be here either way.” With that, he strode to the SUV that had just pulled up to the curb, ready to whisk him off to wreak havoc somewhere else.
Ellery
Ellery huddled underneath her covers in the mattress divot shaped like her fetal body. The meeting had been a lot, too much, for her current condition. Abe and Logan had left, but she could hear the lowered tones of Selene and Lorraine in the room beside hers.
She wanted to check her phone but knew if she did, she would only spend the time scrolling through the photos of her family. Which would lead to doom-scrolling of photos from the wreckage of Hermosa Key.
No, she was in no position to do that at the moment.
Dante’s footsteps hesitated outside her door for an instant before padding barefoot across her rug. She didn’t emerge, but his weight sank into the mattress beside her.
She waited under the covers, numb and brittle and wanting so many things she couldn’t have.
“El?” Dante said at last. “Can I talk to you?”
A sob caught in her throat. This was it. This was the moment he was going to tell her he was leaving. She didn’t blame him. Really, she didn’t. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
His breath caught, then he exhaled a world-weary sigh. “Is that what you want?”
“What I want—” But she couldn’t name it.
The words caught in her chest, making it hard to breathe.
She wanted Dante, she did. But she also wanted things to go back to the way they were.
Laughing and joking and writing songs when they were both blissed out in her bed.
She wanted to have never met Logan Groff, for her family to have never moved to fucking Florida.
She wanted too much and hurt too deeply.
Dante shifted on the bed, and the duvet over her head peeled slowly down, revealing the familiar, worn angles of his face. He had a line of stubble along his jaw, and his eyes were tinged with red. “Talk to me. Tell me what you want.”
“I don’t know.” Sobs racked her body, curling her, but he was there to hold her. “I don’t know.”
He pressed a kiss against her temple. “Yes, you do.”
She had spent so long hiding from the world, and here was this amazing person, this kind, brilliant, talented person who gave up so much for her. It wasn’t fair to him. He deserved to get credit for being his own wonderful self, not someone standing in her shadow.
He cupped her chin with his hands, the ones that had played over her body, the ones that strummed those beautiful notes from his instruments.
He rested his forehead against hers. “I love you, Ellery. I always have. If you’re not ready for this, I get it.
But if you ask me to stay, I’ll do whatever it is you need. I’ll be whatever you need.”
Dante loved her. For some reason, this shattered her battered heart even further. Did she love him? Yes. Did she know what he was saying, what he was agreeing to? Yes. He would give up his own precious identity and wants for her. He deserved his own spotlight.
Which meant she needed to let him go.
She pulled away from him, needing the distance, needing the space.
“Dante. This is too much. I can’t—I can’t do this.
What’s been between us, it’s always been overwhelming, a tidal wave.
” She paused for a sob to break her speech.
“I can’t handle that, not now. I’ve lost so much.
If we do this, I’ll lose you too. Eventually. You’ll resent me.”
His jaw hardened and his gaze flicked away from her. “Never. I could never resent you.”
“You would. I would, if our positions were reversed.”
He stood, and a thrill of want coursed through her, even as the truth of what she was saying steeled her resolve. “I want you,” she said softly. “I do. But it’s too selfish.”
He faced the window, crossing his arms over his chest. “Ask me to stay.”
She knelt on the mattress, evening the playing field. Under typical circumstances, he stood less than half a foot taller than her. Somehow, this felt important when she was about to break their hearts.
“I can’t, Dante. I can’t ask you to stay.”
She watched as the words sank into him, needled into his skin. He nodded once, twice, then turned, pressed a swift, warm kiss to her forehead, and left.