Broken Open

Satisfied Ezra was all right, Ira relaxed and gave him the rundown before leaving him alone in his dressing room. Even though Paddy was the leader of Sweet Hollow Ranch, it was Ezra who was the founder. The true leader everyone, including Paddy, turned to.

That trust never ceased to amaze Ezra. They shouldn’t trust him. Not after heroin. But they did and he would white-knuckle it through every damned day to never disappoint the people counting on him again.

Once he’d finished his shot of wheatgrass juice, he sat back on the couch and put his feet up. With a long, slow exhalation, he leaned back, closing his eyes.

The last time Ezra’d been on a stage this big he’d had a public meltdown that had led him to a stint in rehab. The small club dates they’d played at the start of their tour had been thrilling. It had fed that thirst in him that only playing live could seem to quench.

He’d worried back then that he’d lost his performing mojo. But when he’d walked onstage it had leaped into him as easily as it had the last time he was on stage. Easy, like it had never gone. He’d been the Ezra Hurley once more and it had reawakened something inside.

He had something to prove. Not just to his brothers and the fans, but to himself.

* * *

TUESDAY’S SKIN STILL tingled where he’d brushed his lips against her neck. It had been so...wow.

She watched his retreating back. Took in the stretch of the soft fabric of his T-shirt at the width of his powerful shoulders. Down to the narrower waist. His brothers were in denim but Ezra chose worn brown leather pants. And cowboy boots with superpointy toes.

His hair was a little more tousled than usual and she noted the tattoos she could see on his arms. Once she saw him all sweaty after they’d gone out ATVing and that was a memory she’d cherish forever. But this? Well now. Rock star Ezra just earned a place next to sweaty, muddy Ezra in her fantasy bank.

Also, he had a fantastic ass.

And he walked like a man who had a big dick.

Natalie sidled up next to her as they both watched him until he was out of sight. “He really works a pair of leather pants,” Natalie said in an undertone.

“Indeed. He has big-cock walk, too, don’t you think?”

Natalie snorted a laugh. “I can never unhear that!”

“Am I lying?”

“Hell no. What’s true is true.”

They turned to face one another, grinning. “So things are okay with Paddy?”

Her friend had a huge heart and she was deeply in love with Ezra’s brother Paddy. They’d just had a rough patch and had come back together, working hard to get past it, just like Tuesday had known they needed to.

“Yeah. We’re good. What’s going on with Ezra?”

Which was what Tuesday had been wondering. So she decided it was easier to think on this as a fun, casual thing.

“He wants what I got, duh. Also, I want what he’s got so there’s a nice synchronicity there.”

Mary, Damien Hurley’s wife and a new friend, came over to where they stood. “Not going to lie, I am so relieved to be sleeping in my own bed tonight.”

They’d been out on tour for three months, which was short, Tuesday knew, owing to the fact that Mary was due to deliver a brand-new Hurley in six weeks. The tour officially ended the next night but Portland was close enough to Hood River that everyone was headed home instead of to yet another hotel.

The gong sounded that indicated it was time to head to the stage. How weird was it that this stuff was totally normal in her life all of a sudden?

Paddy approached, smiling at Tuesday. Tuesday hoped she managed an I-forgive-you-but-if-you-hurt-my-best-friend-I-will-maim-you smile in return.

He got it, nodding again and hugging her briefly before he took Natalie’s hand and they walked toward the stage. At the end of the hall, Ezra came out of his dressing room looking fine as hell. A little more tousled. But focused and relaxed.

As if she’d said this out loud, he turned, his gaze locking with hers until she felt the tug between them. He waited until she reached him and fell in beside her. Neither of them spoke. She got the feeling he needed the silence.

At the stage, the brothers moved off, speaking to one another intensely for long moments before breaking apart. Damien went out, followed by Vaughan and then Paddy. Ezra stood beside Tuesday, throwing off crazy amounts of charisma and sex appeal.

“Aren’t you going to wish me good luck?” he asked, a teasing smile on his face. But she saw a tiny bit of doubt and it shouldn’t have been there.

“No. You know why?” She moved a little closer. “You don’t need luck. You’re Ezra Hurley. You wrote this book.”

He relaxed, taking her hand to kiss her knuckles briefly before he stepped forward, grabbed the guitar Ira held out and slung it on as he hit the stage and started to play.

* * *

ONCE HE LEFT the wings, everything changed. He unleashed his energy, powering through, taking the roar of the crowd, the singing to his lyrics, the applause and the interplay between him and his brothers and feasting on it.

Though the other three had been out together a whole tour, Ezra fit in exactly where he always did. They might have been more used to doing this every night, but he was fresher, so it balanced things out.

For those hours, it was Hurleys Against The World once again and everything was absolutely perfect.

At the first encore break they came offstage and he hit the john, rinsing off his face and neck, changing his shirt.

As he approached the stage Tuesday waited. The look on her face was all about him and it sent a slice of longing down his spine.

He’d wait, though. Just as she did, letting him keep his head in the music. Seemingly assured he’d give her the proper attention when the time came.

That sort of confidence was hot.

He grinned her way as he took his guitar back from Ira and they went out once more.

Three encores later and it was time to go home.

* * *

AFTER A SHOW was even louder and more chaotic than it was before the show. When Ezra came offstage, he ended up at Tuesday’s side as they all headed back to the greenroom.

The energy seemed to spiral through him and he needed to clean up and get himself together.

He leaned in toward Tuesday once they got to the greenroom. “I’m going to shower and change. Okay with you?”

She nodded. “Of course. I’ll be here when you’re finished.” Her mouth, good sweet Christ, he wanted to lean in and kiss it. So much his hands shook a little.

Tuesday tipped her chin at him. “Go on then. You won’t break me.”

He halted, stunned. “What?”

“You were looking at my mouth like you wanted it. So take it.”

In two steps he’d slid his arm around her waist as he met her body, his mouth sliding over hers, over lips that opened on a sigh as she gave over to him.

He sucked her bottom lip, grazing it with his teeth. Her fingers dug into the front of his T-shirt, holding him to her.

Need clawed at him, sharp and insistent. He wanted to back her up to the wall and fuck her right then and there.

With a groan, he stepped back right as a bunch of people came into the room.

“We’ll continue this conversation when I’m cleaned up.” He licked over his lips and tasted her again.

She breathed out slowly, one corner of her mouth tipped up into a smile.

But he got waylaid before he could reach the door, as his brothers surrounded him, slapping his back and hugging him.

His energy mingled with theirs and it was okay. This was okay to want. This was part of how it was between the Hurley boys and it was good and elemental and he needed to hold on to that.

But it sure didn’t hurt to hear Paddy nearly shout, “Best fucking show in years, man. Ez, you fucking ran that shit out there tonight. Well done.” Paddy grinned at his brother and Ezra gave him one right back.

There was a flurry of hugs from Mary and Natalie and their other friends who’d come to the show.

Tuesday got tugged away to meet someone so he watched her move as he drank some tea and listened to Vaughan and Damien.

Mary patted his arm, following his gaze. “Looks like we interrupted something when we came in here.”

Ezra shrugged. It would happen. He’d been sure from that first time he’d kissed her downtown and then, just three weeks earlier, in the darkness between the grape arbor at her house and the wall.

They’d been heading toward a naked collision for months now. He smiled at his sister-in-law. “No worries, sweetheart.”

He managed to escape to his dressing room nearly an hour later and by the time the water hit his skin, he was ready to run a marathon or fuck.

No marathon that night. Maybe fucking—they certainly had chemistry. Maybe not. Yes. It would happen, though. Ezra found the slow pace, this long seduction of Tuesday and Ezra to not only be sexy, but it gave him the time to work through the way he felt about her. All that desire was seriously hot but the want...he needed to find a way to handle it so he could enjoy it and stop being wary.

It made him feel alive on a whole new level.

CHAPTER THREE

“SO.” EZRA PAUSED at his car, a sleek, sexy, low-slung Porsche. He backed her to the door and her arms slid around his neck as he stepped close for a kiss.

“So?” she breathed as he pulled back after smooching the wits right from her head.

“Nothing really. I just wanted to kiss you again before you got into the car.”

Tuesday laughed, delighted. Sometimes he came off so serious and broody that when he cracked a joke and exposed his dry sense of humor it always felt like a delicious secret.

“All right then.”

She got in, bending to unstrap her shoes and slide them off.

When she straightened, she found him staring.

“You have great legs,” he said in that snarly voice of his and she smiled, leaning back into the buttery-soft leather seats.

He drove with the same sort of intensity he did everything else she’d seen him do. Though their show had ended nearly two hours earlier, the surface streets around the venue were still busy. He seemed to be doing some sort of complicated geometry so she looked out the window as he wended and wove his way to the freeway.

Once they’d got away from the crowded streets he relaxed a little. Enough that she felt she could speak again.

“You were on point tonight.”

He smiled, keeping his attention on the road. “Yeah?”

“I saw you once. I mean before. When you were still touring. In Louisville. I was there visiting my family.”

“It’s crazy to me that we both have family within a forty-mile radius of one another in Kentucky.” Wariness edged his words. She talked about family but she bet he thought about his addiction.

“It was early,” she said because it was important he know she saw him at his best. Preheroin. “I think maybe right after Ten To Midnight came out. Anyway, that’s a long way to say I saw you play before so I have a comparison to make. You were good at the club shows last December. You were like that times a thousand. Tonight, Ezra Hurley was a rock star.”

And it was hot. So hot she’d nearly melted just watching him move. The Ezra he’d been out there, utterly self-assured, sexy, in charge, made her shiver. When he played and wasn’t singing, he’d worn a smirk like he was thinking of something really dirty.

Best of all, he’d owned it, putting it on like a shirt that fit perfectly. All that hot, in-charge stuff had rolled off him in rushing waves. Tuesday wondered what he did with all that energy when he wasn’t onstage. Except for those brief moments when he turned it on her and she nearly drowned in it, he was pretty chill.

From a distance.

There was a darkness to Ezra. Something the darkness that lived in her seemed to respond to. A bone-deep grief he didn’t use as a shield—in fact he tried to downplay it. But it was there and she bet it was part of what motivated him to succeed now.

She shivered at the idea of being the focus of that sort of attention. She had a very strong feeling Ezra didn’t hold back in bed. At all.

She also had a very strong feeling she’d know. Soon.

She’d never been so attracted to another person. Not in the whole of her life, which also made her uncomfortable and feeling as if she was being disloyal to Eric even though he’d been dead four years. It wasn’t like she’d achieved expert-level widow status or anything. Nope, she had zero idea of how to begin to think about it.

Thank goodness Ezra spoke to pull her out of that particular self-punishing reverie. “It felt right. Tonight I mean. There’s a rhythm onstage. It’s different than anything else you do as a band. I’ve been off tour for years now. Enough that my brothers have a timing that’s apart from me at this point.

“In the studio, well, that’s one thing. Out on the road they’re working with tour musicians, who are really good, no lie, but it’s about the three of them. The club shows were more like jamming in the studio. Tonight, that unit of three opened up and I fit where I had belonged at one time when there were four of us in Sweet Hollow Ranch.”

She wondered if it was hard to see that they’d moved on without him. Or if he was tempted to go back out on tour after tonight’s performance. But she didn’t know him well enough to delve deeper. Not without knowing if she’d make it worse.

She liked Ezra a lot and she didn’t want to screw things up, but she wanted to know him better.

“Do you find yourself, you know, wishing you’d be able to go back out on tour? I mean... I don’t know what I mean. I mean, I do, but in my head it sounded better than it does out loud.”

He snorted. “It’s fine. I’m not sure how to feel about it. Not yet. Not entirely.” He paused and she left it, hoping he’d elaborate but knowing he might not.

“The album just dropped. Mary and Damien are about to have a baby and of course they’ll want to be home, close to family. Paddy and Natalie are going to be intertwined for a while—it’s not like he’ll be willing to leave her behind. It’s time to put our lives first. Take care of what’s important.”

Tuesday didn’t miss the way he referred to the band as we.

“We should have done it for Vaughan,” he muttered.

“Do you want to elaborate?”

“You’re not just going to insist I share?”

She waved a hand. “Who am I to do that? I say things out loud sometimes that I may not mean to. Or maybe I do, but I’m just tossing it out to talk about it later.”

“I suppose with Vaughan it’s more a tossing the idea out there and maybe we can chew over it later.”

“Okay.”

Things settled into an easy silence for a while. Tuesday liked quiet. She grew up in an insanely loud house. Always alive with kids, family and friends. It meant she cherished silence and guarded her life zealously, keeping the number of people who didn’t appreciate the same to a bare minimum.

Except her family. They were loud and crazy and there was no changing that.

“So tell me what you’re thinking right now,” Ezra coaxed in his supersexy voice.

“You really want to know?”

“I’m a grown man, Tuesday. I say what I mean.”

Okay then. Why was that so hot? Why did he make her itchy and sweaty and a little lonely after they parted?

“I was thinking about quiet. About how I like it and how we’d been sharing a nice quiet moment. I wish more people liked it.”

“Quiet amplifies loneliness for some people. Maybe for most people.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being lonely sometimes.”

He hummed. A sound of agreement and approval and it, too, was hot. God, everything about him was hot. How did that even happen? How did one person come with so much on every damned level? What sort of cosmic Scooby Snack was Ezra Hurley anyway?

“I didn’t come to appreciate silence until I was in rehab.”

* * *

TUESDAY SETTLED INTO the seat, looking out the window as he spoke. Ezra had a gut feeling it was because she knew he’d prefer she not watch him as he revealed himself.

He didn’t know why he was sharing this stuff. Other than he liked her. He liked being with her and the slow getting to know one another thing was new. And slightly disconcerting because she was such a stupid choice for him to make and he was going to make it anyway.

“They sent me to this place in the middle of nowhere. Just trees and fresh air and mountains in the distance.” He’d gone straight into their detox unit for the first week. “Rehab is loud. I mean, and look, I know how lucky I was that the place I went was as great as it was. But there’s a lot of crying in rehab.” Puking, too. He hated that part worse than all the crying.

“The rehab was on acres of land and the main house and the outer cabins were fenced off. It was, I remember even now, a three-mile circuit and I’d walk it like four times a day just to go be alone.”

“Did you feel lonely?”

“Yes.” He’d alienated everyone who’d ever mattered to him. He’d fallen so low and had hurt so many people the loneliness had nearly drowned him.

“When it’s quiet you can’t avoid it.” Her words, the tone in her voice, told him she knew this firsthand.

“No. No matter how much it hurts. No matter how much of it is your own fault.” He shook it off. “Anyway, I had to find better ways to process all my shit. What I’d been doing was killing me.” It wasn’t in a group when he’d first been able to say he was a fucking heroin addict out loud. It was under a tree, by himself at that fence line. It had been Ezra who needed to say it. Needed to hear it. Needed to believe it.

Her head moved in a slow nod. “I do think sometimes that it’s when I’m avoiding being alone that I need it most. I can’t lie to myself with the same ease I can to other people.”

“It’s pretty badass to be so—what do you call it? Self-aware?”

“Ha!” She laughed. “My mother is a hippie disguised as an engineer. She made us keep dream journals when we were growing up. She’s really into speaking the truth and shaming the devil.”

“Is it as annoying as I’m imagining it to be or am I seeing it wrong?”

She started to giggle. First a tiny burst and another and one more until she’d erupted into a full-on fit and he couldn’t really do anything but smile.

And want more.

“It’s totally annoying. She’s all woo-woo and hippie-dippy and she’s an engineer, too. So imagine organized woo-woo. Anyway, she still goes once a year to a holistic healing retreat where they do yoga for fun and eat loaves of mung beans or whatever. Makes her happy, which is the point of such things. Essentially, I was raised to face the unpleasant stuff. Because that’s what you’re supposed to do.”

He’d bet her mom was pretty fantastic. “You mentioned your dad is a roofer?”

“You were telling me about rehab and silence. Then it’s my turn.”

He sighed. “I guess I used the chaos and the noise to keep from confronting my shit. And then I had so much noise and nothing but time so I found some silence and it wasn’t until then that I could really do the work.”

“Talk about self-aware.”

“Therapy.”

“Ah. Well.”

“I see you know what I mean.” The moment he said it he wished he could recall the words immediately.

“I’m sorry. I forgot. It was careless.”

She blew out a breath. “It’s all right. I promise. In this case, though, I had therapy when I was a kid. Before I knew Eric even existed. I was nine. There was an accident on a field trip. Our van flipped and ended up in a river.”

Her voice had gone faraway.

“Two of my classmates and one of my teachers died. I’d been motion sick and the window had been open so I wouldn’t throw up. It’s how I got out so fast. Anyway, my parents made me go to a psychologist to deal with the nightmares and the grief counseling stuff. Wow, I’ve made this rather heavy. I’m sorry to be a buzzkill.”

Buzzkill his ass. She was incredible. He made a disapproving sound as he pulled up the drive to the large Victorian Tuesday shared with Natalie. The motion sensor lights flooded the front of the house, exposing pretty front gardens and a porch with furniture that invited you to sit.

He keyed the car off and turned to her. “So we both found our silence it looks like.”

She nodded. A shadow across her features meant he couldn’t see her expression very well. “And owned our loneliness, huh?”

Maybe so, but he didn’t have to be alone right then and neither did she.

He ignored her rhetorical question. “Let me walk you in. Make sure everything is all right.”

“Is this a pity good-night hand squeeze for the widow?”

Holding back an annoyed snarl, he got out and circled to her side, opening the door and helping her to her feet.

He moved in close. “Is that what you want from me, Tuesday? Pity? I can give you pity at a coffee shop in broad daylight. I can send you a book about grief but I’m betting you’ve written one of your own.”

Her gaze flicked up, snagging on his. Defiant. Good. He didn’t want her afraid or cowed; he wanted her to know who he was and want him anyway.

She licked her lips and then shrugged. “I want you to touch me and never make me think you feel sorry for me. People die, Ezra. It happened. It happened when I was nine and it happened four years ago. I’ll die. You’ll die. It’s what we’re born to do. I don’t need your pity. I need your dick.”

He barked a laugh, surprised. She clearly didn’t want to go into it any deeper right then so he let it go because he knew what that felt like. “I think I can manage that.”

“All right then.” She linked her arm through his and walked, her heels dangling from a fingertip as they headed up her front porch steps.

Ezra was sure the house was fine; they had good locks and security. It wasn’t really that he had to walk her in, or that he was concerned for her safety. Sharon Hurley’s sons might have been an unruly handful at school, but they always opened doors for people; they said please, thank you, sir and ma’am; and they walked their dates to the door. Hurleys had a protective streak when it came to people they considered theirs.

Theirs. She was his brother’s girlfriend’s best friend. And he considered Tuesday a friend. So that’s what it was. Nothing more.

Ezra paused at that for a moment but let it pass.

He wanted to be with her. Alone in a place he could lay her out and enjoy her awhile. Natalie would be with Paddy so they’d have the house all to themselves where they’d be far less likely to be interrupted by someone whose last name ended in a Y.

Tuesday turned to him as he heard the snick of a lamp turning on. The main living area warmed with a golden glow. He’d been there before with Natalie, but this was the first time he’d been inside, alone with Tuesday. It was a nice enough place but he wasn’t there to look at the furniture.

“The smile on your face?” One of her brows slid up. “Should I be delighted or worried?”

“All my smiles when it comes to you are ones that should delight you.”

“Wow. That’s a really bold statement, Ezra.”

“I’m full of bold statements, beauty.”

She hummed as she dropped the shoes and then headed to him, not stopping until one of her hands rested on his chest. “I think I’m going to like finding out. Come upstairs. I’ll show you my side of the house.”

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