I needed to be more careful. He wasn’t as tough as he seemed.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He gave me a weird look. “About what?”
“Saying you’re a narcissist.”
“I repeat, I could give a f**k,” he ever-so-clearly enunciated the words. “Straight out told you I was vain, didn’t I?”
Right, he had no deeper emotions, my mistake. The man was so repressed he made my teeth ache. Though when you thought about it, it made definite sense. Not only had his mother done a job on him, but he’d been hiding his drinking and drug taking since the age of fourteen or fifteen. A secretive reclusive nature must stem naturally from that sort of situation. I didn’t need to look up stuff on Google to figure that one out.
“I looked up what narcissist means,” he said, nearly reading my mind. “And I don’t think I’m in any danger of spending days mooning over myself in the mirror. I think you seeing nothing but flaws every time you look in one is more of an issue. Maybe me being a bit conceited isn’t such a bad thing.”
“I don’t see anything but flaws.”
“But you’re not happy. That makes no sense to me.”
I frowned.
The movie went on. Nothing was said.
I passed him the tub of ice cream before I ate the entire damn thing. “Though I’m not convinced you are a narcissist after all. I think I was way off about that.”
He gave me a questioning look.
“I thought about what you said, about how your looks are like a tool to you. And I think your appearance is just an area of your life where you’re used to exercising extreme control.”
The man just shook his head. “Lena, no more pop psychology, okay? It’s for your own good.”
He might have a point there. It wasn’t my strong suit. “All right then, let’s change subjects. Tell me about the songs you write.”
“Didn’t say I wrote any.”
“You didn’t say you didn’t, either.”
“I’m just the singer, Lena. That’s all.”
“You play guitar. I heard you downstairs earlier.”
“Christ, you’re annoying.” He dug around, excavating another chunk of chocolate chip goodness. “I’ve been teaching myself how to play, all right? No more. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Does David know?”
“No.” His eyes flashed. “And you’re not telling him either.”
“You have my word.”
My immediate agreement seemed to soothe him. He pressed back into the couch, exhaled hard. A muscle in his jaw moved repeatedly like he was grinding his teeth. “We’re supposed to be bitching about me or something.”
I groaned. “Can’t we just hang out instead? All of this constant jogging and deprogramming is tiring. You’re not half as interesting to talk about as you think you are.”
He gave me one of his not-quite-a-smile smiles. “Works for me.”
I grabbed the ice cream back from him. So sue me. It was good.
“Do we really have to watch this?” His nose wrinkled with apparent disdain. It was cute.
“It was your bright idea.” I smiled. “What other movies did you get?”
“Titanic, Thelma and Louise, and Silver Linings Playbook.”
“Interesting mix. Put Thelma and Louise on, I think you’ll like it better. It’s got a happy, uplifting ending.”
“Done.” He fussed with the remote and Brad Pitt’s sexy voice came on the giant screen. Such a great film. But Brad Pitt really was a superb specimen of manhood.
“Can you put it back to the beginning please, King of the Remote? This is about halfway through.”
He did so.
“Blondes have more fun, everyone knows that,” I said. “You ever thought of bleaching your hair?”
He gave me a snotty look.
“Maybe I should go blonde instead,” I said.
“No, don’t,” he said shortly, face creased with concern. “I mean, you’re fine as you are. I’ve been telling you that for days.” He stole back the tub and hoed in. “You don’t listen.”
Huh.
“I guess I thought you were just being kind.” Melted ice cream dripped off my spoon, onto my jeans. I scraped it up with a finger, licking it clean. This was why I couldn’t have nice things.
I looked up to find Jimmy staring at my mouth. His own lips were slightly parted, his eyes hazy. I froze.
No way.
He wasn’t having those sort of thoughts about me. Impossible, and yet the evidence in front of me told a distinctly different tale. A knot twisted and tightened deep in my belly, a thrilling sort of rush pouring through my veins. Just that easily, he’d flicked the switch, turning me on. I don’t think he even realized what he was doing.
“Jimmy?”
His gaze jumped from my mouth to my eyes and the frown descended. “I’m not kind. And I don’t say stuff I don’t mean. Stop fishing for compliments if you’re not going to believe them. It’s a waste of my time.”
A curiously snappy response, even for him.
“Thank you,” I said. “That’s really very sweet of you … in a strange way.”
He watched the movie, giving me no response whatsoever.
“You know, if I do end up leaving,” I said. “We can still hang out sometimes, do stuff together. I wouldn’t just disappear on you.”
He threw his spoon onto the coffee table where it landed with a violent clank.
“Jimmy?” I’d meant the words as a comfort. Clearly, they hadn’t been received that way.
“To answer your question, I’ve been on the cover of probably hundreds of magazines. I don’t know. Got a stack of platinum records and a current net worth of about sixty-two million,” he said, voice flat and unfriendly. “Messed up some product endorsements and part of a tour with the drug use or it’d be more. I own this house and another in LA. That’s where I keep my collection of cars. I also got a few paintings I took a liking to.”
“Impressive. I have about four-grand in the bank in savings. My watch is a swatch. Probably not really worth anything.” I dragged the sleeve of my sweater down over the poor unimpressive thing lest it get performance anxiety. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because, last time I OD’ed, Dave made it clear. Get clean or I’m out. Out of the band, out of his life. He’d had enough, they all had.” He stretched out his arms along the back of the sofa, fingers kneading at the leather. It might look the pose of a man relaxed, but the reality was worlds away.