Chapter Eleven
We spend the next hour brainstorming, recapping everything I’ve gotten from the four guys so far and plotting how best to structure the two-part article.
By the time I leave for Dax’s, I’m a weird mix of fortified and crumbling beneath the pressure of it all.
A bigger article gives the content more room to breathe, but it also means an even bigger lift.
Knowing how long their fans have waited for a new interview, it only makes the task more Herculean.
I can’t please everyone, but I want to do it justice, to give the fans the answers they crave and set the record straight for the guys.
I just have to figure out how to make the truth more sensational than the lies told for the past eight years.
I hope that after interviewing Dax, one of our ideas will naturally surface as the obvious direction for the article.
I type Dax’s address, which is still scrawled on my forearm, into MapQuest before I leave the office, and I have to pull over twice to check it, frustration prickling my eyeballs when I have to turn around after missing my exit.
Despite having lived in Cleveland for months, I only know how to get to a handful of places.
I walk to the grocery store from my second-story apartment above the Vietnamese restaurant—the proximity to pho half the reason I signed the lease—and only know how to drive to work and a handful of concert venues.
By the time I reach his apartment, I’m only a few minutes late, but my emotions are frazzled. I take a few steadying breaths, trying to remember the last time I felt rested. Even with the two-week deadline extension, it will likely be a while until I know rest again.
I park—and then double back to move my car when I realize halfway down the block I’m in a tow zone—and make my way into Dax’s building.
The last time I was here was on our first “date,” which was just me spending the afternoon with him, a rare day off on tour.
He showed me all his favorite places around the city, and then I asked him to take me here.
It was the first time we were ever truly alone together. We took full advantage of that.
The smell of cooking carries me down the modest hallway to Dax’s corner apartment, and I realize the aroma is coming from his place.
I probably should have asked to meet him somewhere else.
I did all the other guys’ interviews on a rickety picnic table outside the dive bar down the street from the studio.
And while they were incredibly open with me about everything—well, everything except the album they hid—their demons aren’t the ones that have been the butt of the joke for the past eight years.
It makes sense to do this somewhere more private.
I just hope our dance of one step forward, two steps back is at an end, and we can simply move forward.
I haven’t allowed myself to think too hard about our conversation in the back of the car last night.
It feels like a weight has lifted, finally having some clarity on how it all ended.
It doesn’t change anything, but it’s nice to know his lack of fight wasn’t for lack of caring.
But there’s still something to how he said I always knew you were going to leave that feels like I always knew you were going to leave me that I can’t shake.
The way he whispered into my hair, Don’t leave.
I’m not planning on going anywhere, and it was good to clear the air, but it doesn’t change what we are now.
I’m a reporter. He’s my assignment. That’s all we can be to each other right now.
I knock, my heart in my ass and my throat at the same time.
The door swings open, and my heart falls out of my body entirely. It’s inconsiderate that he’s so attractive. Black sweatpants hang low over his hips, and a thin, half-translucent white Henley teases the colorful tattoos beneath.
“Hey,” he says. He’s softer today, yesterday’s melancholy no longer darkening his amber gaze, and the smile he gives me in greeting is easy, light.
“Hi,” I say back, stepping inside as he holds the door open for me. I catch a whiff of his evergreen soap amidst whatever he’s cooking. Toeing off my Chucks, I tuck them next to his assortment of black Vans before stowing my backpack under the small foyer table.
Following after him, I take in his apartment that feels more familiar than it should.
I’ve only been here once before. The far wall is exposed brick, with floor-to-ceiling windows that provide a view of the waterfront.
His bedroom is off to the right, the door closed.
Thank god. As we pass through the living room to the open kitchen, I give the couch a wide berth.
It knows a little too much about me. His place is exactly as I remember it, though slightly more lived-in.
Walls that were once blank now sport gorgeous framed prints that I recognize as stills from Studio Ghibli films. Personal touches tastefully clutter every surface, as if he’s finally given himself permission to take up space inside his own home.
I pause beside the island as he continues into the kitchen, grabbing two bowls from an open shelf.
All I can think is how my mismatched Goodwill bowls would be embarrassing to display.
His space is so clean, so adult, while mine is still furnished with the hodgepodge belongings I accumulated in college, most of them found on the side of the road.
Without asking if I’m hungry—I’m always hungry, but I tend to get so hyperfocused on work that I forget to feed myself until I’m well past hangry—he scoops a hefty portion of noodles into two bowls, and I plop myself onto one of the barstools with my hands out eagerly.
He laughs quietly when he spies me, sliding the bowl into my waiting hands.
“Let me guess: You’ve only had a granola bar so far today.”
I think as I chew, trying to separate the days that compose the marathon this week has been. “I ran out yesterday,” I admit. My fridge and pantry are empty, and my laundry is in shambles.
Dax sets his bowl down, grabbing the wok and tonging more food into my bowl.
“Okay, okay,” I say around a laugh, curling over my food before he can add another helping, shoving noodles into my mouth all the while.
He smiles softly before digging back in, and I study my food instead of him.
We’ve eaten together before, at craft services and whatever late-night haunt was still open after midnight, but sharing a meal with him, in his home, a meal that he made…
It’s so domestic, so novel. I can’t help but think how many things we never got to do that summer, how many of them we could do now.
But this is business, not pleasure, and no matter how easy this feels, I can’t think like that right now.
“Thank you,” I say once I’ve finished, circling around the island to wash my bowl. He tries to take it from me, but I fend him off by sticking out my ass, stubbornly cleaning everything in his sink while he finishes eating.
“Thank you,” he says when he loses the battle to clean his own empty bowl. As I place the cleaned dishes on the rack to dry, we meet each other’s gazes. “Guess we gotta do this now, huh?”
I scrunch up my nose, nodding.
“Unless you want dessert?” he offers.
“I’m listening.”
He laughs, his hand snaking under his shirt to scratch at the hair below his navel. I yank my gaze away. “Well, I don’t have dessert,” he laments. “But we could go get some,” he says wistfully.
“Sit your ass on the couch, Nakamura,” I call, already halfway to the foyer to retrieve my bag.
He flops onto the cushions dramatically, and I desperately wish he had a dining room table or that I’d told him to sit at the bar, not the couch where, three years ago, he slowly peeled my clothes off and made me hear colors.
Settling onto the opposite end of the couch, I take a bit longer than necessary extracting my notebook, phone, and pens from my bag, waiting for the flush to recede from my cheeks.
“Okay,” I say finally, meeting his gaze where he’s watching me from across the couch, arm propped along the back, absentmindedly tracing his lips with the pad of his thumb.
I’m not the only one remembering the last time we were on this couch together.
I take a breath meant to steady me, but I’m straining at the seams, and it only frays my edges further.
“What do you want to know about me, stranger?” he asks, smirking.
I try to make words but my mouth refuses to do anything but curve into a smile. We sit there, smiling and gently laughing at the absurdity of this. I shake my head at the ceiling. “This is so much weirder than I anticipated.”
He grins, his dimple on full display. Whatever force creates that dimple is tugging on my heartstrings in tandem. “It’s a little weird,” he agrees easily.
“It was your idea,” I say petulantly under my breath, and his head falls back as he laughs.
My own laugh rattles around inside my hollow rib cage, sticking in my throat on the way out. I cough to cover it. “So, uh, with the other guys, I started with how they got into music.”
When he doesn’t say anything right away, I grow self-conscious. “It’s cliché, I know, but it’s a good warm-up question.” Fuck, this is awkward. “Sorry,” I mumble, shuffling through my notes.
Dax shakes his head, brows creasing in the middle. “Why are you apologizing?”
“I, well, this is how I started my other interviews and they went well, but despite that, I have no idea where I’m going with this article, to be honest, so I probably should have thought of a better approach rather than just”—I gesture limply—“doing the same thing.” I sigh heavily, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Sorry, it… It’s been a long day.”
Dax scans my face, nodding. “Tell me.”