She stared at him for long seconds, her gaze so fierce that he couldn’t help feeling like she was trying to see inside of him. He was about to look away, to break off this unwitting battle of wills, but she did it first, shaking her head like she couldn’t believe he was real. But she rattled off her cell phone number, so he counted it as a win.
Before either of them could say anything else, he heard gravel crunch on the trail behind him. He didn’t need to look up to know it was Jared who had come after him. He was the impatient one, after all…
“I’ll be there in a minute, Jare,” he said without ever taking his eyes off of Poppy.
There was a disgruntled silence—Jared was also really good at speaking without uttering a word—but eventually he heard footsteps retreating, and they were alone again.
“How did you know it was Jared?” she asked.
“Because I know him and the other guys better than they know themselves.”
She looked surprised, but all she said was, “And they know you the same way?”
He’d walked into that question like an idiot, but that didn’t mean he had to answer it. Didn’t mean he had to tell her anything he didn’t want to, no matter how perceptive she was. Or how much he wanted her.
When he just shrugged, she looked like she was going to say more. But if it was about the label or the band or how he should deal with Bill Germaine, he didn’t want to hear it. Not right then and maybe not ever. Some things really were better left unsaid.
And so he kissed her one last time, making it count, making sure she felt it from her sex to the soles of her feet. Then he helped her into her car before she even knew that was what he was doing.
For long moments, she just sat there in the driver’s seat like she’d forgotten how to operate a vehicle. But eventually she turned it on, turned it around, and headed back down Quinn’s long, winding driveway to the isolated street that led off the island.
And he was left staring after her, wondering what the fuck he’d just done.
Chapter Twelve
When he finally made it back into the studio—ten minutes after the five he’d allotted himself—Wyatt found his bandmates waiting for him. And if he’d thought they’d looked pissed before, it was nothing compared to what this latest wait had done to them.
Ryder was pacing, hands yanking at his too long hair. Quinn was muttering to himself as he scrolled through his phone like a madman. And Jared…well, Jared was glaring at the door like he was waiting for Satan himself to walk through it. And the second Wyatt did, the guitarist was out of his chair and across the kitchen.
Wyatt knew the punch was imminent, but he didn’t try to defend himself. Hell, after all the shit he’d caused, he figured Jared had at least one free shot coming. They all did. Of course, that was before the guy’s fist connected with the side of his face—it had been a long time since they’d settled things by fighting, and Wyatt had forgotten just how hard a punch Jared had.
No time to categorize the damage, though, not when Jared was already pulling his hand back a second time. “What the fuck did you think you were doing?”
Wyatt just raised a brow at him, his gaze going between Jared’s face and his fist. “I gave you one.”
“Is that supposed to scare me? After three months in rehab you look like a gust of wind would blow you away. You sure as shit laid down for Germaine like it would.”
That set him on edge despite himself, and he gave up discreetly trying to catalog the damage to his face so that he could shove Jared, hard. “Fuck you. You don’t know anything about it.”
“I don’t know anything about—” Jared broke off. Ground his teeth together. Worked at unclenching his fists. “Fuck you. Nobody knows more about your shit than we do. And we’ve always had your back. Always. So you want to explain to me why the fuck you pussed out the second Germaine put a little bit of pressure on you?”
“I didn’t puss out.”
“Sure as hell looked that way to me.” Jared glanced over his shoulder at the others. “What about you guys? Didn’t it look like that to you, too?”
“Stop being a dick,” Quinn told him, his voice ringing through the room with an air of finality. “And both of you come sit down so we can talk this out.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Ryder said, even as he pulled out a chair to sit down. “Wyatt quitting the band isn’t an option.”
“It’s the only option. You know the label’s just going to keep pushing you about me—”
“And we’re just going to keep pushing back,” Jared interrupted, looking at him like he was a moron. “Why the fuck do we pay a small fortune to our lawyers and management if we’re just going to roll over and let them fuck us?”
“It’s not about rolling over! Can’t you see that?”
“All I see is you backing off from a fight. And that isn’t like you.”
Wyatt snorted. “Who the fuck are you kidding, Jared? It’s exactly like me.”
“No,” Ryder interjected. “It isn’t. If you were going to walk away from this fight, you would have done it a long time ago.”
“I tried. You wouldn’t let me.”
“Damn right,” Jared snorted.
Quinn shot him a look. “So what makes you think we’re going to let you do it now?”