Uninhibited

I walk outside, slowly descending the steps to the beach and picking my way across the sand until I reach him. He’s sitting by the shoreline, his shoulders tense as he watches the waves break. It’s cooler now, the evening sun sinking behind us, casting hazy golden light across the bay.

I sit beside him quietly. My heart aches for the pain that he’s clearly been carrying for so long, the mysterious events that have carved their wounds so deep.

“Talk to me,” I say softly. “Dex, please. Whatever it is…I’m here.”

19.

DEX

She stayed.

I can’t believe it. After I freaked out like that, I was sure Alicia would just throw her stuff in the car and get the hell out of here as quickly as she could. I wouldn’t have blamed her. Hell, this is’t what she signed up for. I promised her a sexy week of dirty fun, not this: the mess of a man I’ve become, flinching to every damn song on the radio, unable to keep the past locked tight in the vault where it belongs.

She sits quietly beside me on the beach. I can smell the sweet scent of her shampoo and tanning lotion, and every instinct in my body just wants to hold her, possess her—lose myself in her warmth until the darkness falls away and I can forget the terrible damage I’ve done.

“Dex,” she whispers, her voice full of compassion. “I promise, you can trust me.”

Dammit.

I have to clench my fists in the sand to keep from reaching for her. Can’t she see I’m damaged goods? That I’ll fuck up her life, leaving nothing but carnage in my wake?

It’s what I do, it’s what I always do.

“I’m sorry for yelling at you back there,” I manage to say, fighting to keep it together. “All this bullshit…I know it’s not why you’re here. You can go,” I add, hollow. “I’ll understand.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Alicia places her hand on mine, and I can’t help but turn to look at her.

God, she’s so beautiful: her delicate features, and those bright hazel eyes, staring at me with such tenderness it makes my heart clench in guilt.

She thinks I deserve her sympathy. She thinks I’m worthy of her care.

“Please,” I growl hoarsely. “You don’t understand.”

“So try me.” Alicia blinks. “Just talk, I’m right here.”

“But you shouldn’t be.” I swallow back my self-loathing. “I was selfish, even bringing you out here when I’m in such a mess.”

“So why did you?”

I look at the confusion on her face. She doesn’t realize her power, how one look—one touch—from her is my saving grace, the only light I’ve found to keep the emptiness at bay.

“I just wanted to forget everything,” I admit, ashamed to have used her like this. “You’re the only thing that makes it go away.”

“But I haven’t,” she murmurs softly. “Don’t you see? It’s still there, and if you keep going like this, you’ll never be able to come to terms with it. I’m here, Dex. Please, talk to me.”

I turn back to the ocean, trying to fight the truth in her words. I’ve been pretending I’ve got this shit under control, and for the last year, maybe I have.

But running isn’t solving anything. There’ll always be a reminder: a song on the radio, a memory slipping unbidden into my mind.

The long dark nights when dreams don’t obey me, when I wake shaking in a cold sweat from the glimpses of the past.

Alicia’s right.

I can’t keep hiding. And when she looks at me like that, I can’t lie to her either. I don’t have the strength anymore.

“It was last year.”

The words slip from my mouth before I can stop them, as if they’ve been stored up for so long, desperate to get out. I keep my eyes fixed on the horizon, knowing that if I look at her now, I won’t be able to say this, not if I see the disappointment in her eyes.

She thinks I’m a good man. I’m about to prove her wrong.

“The second record hit in summer, and everything got out of control,” I start to explain. “We thought it was wild before, when we first broke through, but this was next level shit. Private jets and mansions. Partying, clubs, girls…” I pause, remembering everything, every shameful late night, every willing groupie, every careless, arrogant stunt I ever pulled. “The tabloids couldn’t get enough of us,” I continue, hollow. “We all went crazy, living it up. Everything we ever wanted.”

It was a fairy tale, a dream come true. How quickly it became a living nightmare.

“I didn’t…I didn’t notice, at first, what was happening,” I force myself to continue. “We all got lost in our own little worlds. Austin took up with some supermodel, I was hitting the clubs hard. So I didn’t see what was going on with Connor. What he was doing to himself.”

I pause, feeling that familiar stab of grief, but I don’t stop. I can’t now: the words I’ve kept locked up inside for so long tumbling out of me in a broken flow of sadness and dark memories.

“Connor was with us from the start.” I sigh, thinking back. “The band was me and Austin at the beginning, but we weren’t anything until Connor came along. We found him playing with some shitty punk band at this club on the Sunset Strip. He hit those drums like nobody I’ve ever seen: attacking them like they pissed of his mother.” I give a wry smile, remembering his ferocity, that total commitment to his music. “Everyone pays attention to the guys up front: singer, lead guitar. But the truth is, there’s no band without the beat. Connor was the glue, he kept us all synched together. And he knew it.” I give a hollow laugh. “That guy was a cocky son of a bitch. He could talk the panties off any woman, walk into a room like he owned the damn building, even if nobody knew who the fuck he was.”