The Ex Factor - Erin McCarthy Page 0,67
could write a song with a potbelly pig if you needed to,” he teased her.
She snorted. “That would have been less painful. A pig wouldn’t ask me to describe how I felt seeing you at the CMAs with another woman.”
Yeah. That hadn’t been exactly been a stroll in the park. He didn’t want to go there again. Not tonight when they were both strung out and busted. “Maybe we needed this?” He heard the question in his own voice. He pressed a kiss on the top of her head. “I love you, you know that, right?”
“I know.” She glanced up at her, her eyes tired and glassy. “I do know that. But this is a reminder that we need to communicate better. We need to discuss what we want, both as a couple and as a professional duo.”
He thought about it. “Do you want to talk about this now, or tomorrow when we’ve had some sleep?”
“I think we should clear the air before we go to bed.”
It encouraged him that she was still planning to spend the night. There had been a point or two where he’d been convinced she was going to walk out and he’d never see her ever again. Hell, he’d debated doing that himself. “Career wise, I would like to look past this album and plan what we want to do. In a perfect world, I’d love to play smaller venues again with you, like we did at the Blue Bird the other night.”
“That’s not practical, but I know you know that.”
It frustrated him that somehow they’d gotten swept up along into a career that they now had no ability to control. “I do know that. But I guess if we commit to one more stadium tour for this album, in my mind, we back off and go a little more acoustic the next go round. Do we really need a huge ass tour every single year? It might even be a way to do a reboot. I mean, these songs we were working on today are more suited to a more intimate venue anyway.”
“You’re right.” She yawned. “But how do you stop a train that’s already rolling?”
“You put on the brakes.” He ran his thumb up and down the soft skin of her arm. “What do you want? Really?”
“I want to keep being successful. I want to grow as an artist. I want to be around this business, to stay. And I want you.” She reached up and brushed his lips with hers. “I want this to stick, Rivers.”
His chest felt tight. “I want it to stick too.” He pulled her tighter against him. “I want to whisk you away to a private island and play my guitar while you swim in a coconut bra. Is that so much to ask?” It was. He knew it was. He was asking her to change in a way that that wasn’t fair.
“The thing you’ve never figured out is that we are on a private island. Yes, we’re in the spotlight, but don’t you understand what money affords us? We’re immune to the day-to-day bullshit that destroys most couples. Financial stress, boredom, the mundane tasks of bill paying and repairing the broken down car. We’re on an island, built on our success.”
He got what she was saying, he did. But there was another element. It was called fame. “Yet you just spent days reading comments from people online calling you all kinds of terrible names.”
“It’s part of the territory, plain and simple. Does it bother me sometimes? Of course. Do I feel like I need to be strategic about what I do and say in response? Absolutely. But the world is seriously our oyster. Let’s just enjoy it, honey. Can you do that?”
She made it sound like he was purposefully being difficult. That wasn’t the case. He just didn’t have her ability to let it go. But he did want to enjoy his success. He wanted to enjoy her. “I can try to do that. I want you happy.”
“I want you happy. See how easy that is?”
He tipped her chin up so he could reach her enticing lips. “We’re easy. This time we’re going to be easy.”
He wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince her or himself, but either way, for a second there he actually believed it.
“Let’s go to bed,” she said. “I’m beat.”
There was no place in the world he’d rather be. He stood up and held out his hand.
Jolene slept like a log, and