Decades

Fighting is Bad

They had spent two nights and a day together a few years earlier, and it had been the closest they'd been in the years before that. It took Lindsey by surprise that Stevie let him get close to her at all. Before that, she'd kept her distance and treated him in a coolly friendly, extremely platonic, completely impersonal, ridiculously professional way.

Except on stage, when she allowed him closer.

He'd hated every single thing about it.

So, to shake her out of it, he tried to pick fights with her, and had taken digs at her when he could, but those opportunities were rare because she limited the times they were even in the same room. It was so obvious that she was avoiding him, and she still wouldn't admit it.

So, he tried to get a genuine reaction from her through his management team by having his team suggest things that he knew would bug her. He tried using the other band members as well. But, nothing.

He wanted to lure the real Stevie out of hiding. This polite, sterile, robotic version of her frustrated him to no end. When the band was together or when they were in big groups, he realized the distance was strictly for him. She was herself with Mick, Christine, and John. He saw her being herself with her friends who tagged along with her to various cities.

He'd hear her laughing, joking, and generally charming everyone. Everyone except Lindsey. She wasn't ugly to him, obnoxious, or mean-spirited; she had just checked out. Even when she made eye contact with him, he felt like it was so surface level, a fake platonic thing that made him want to shake her.

It was irritating because she was a total fake with him. She had the nerve to act like it was normal, which absolutely set his teeth on edge. He had known her long enough to know when she was pretending. And she'd done nothing but pretend for years at this point.

But now, she suddenly dropped the facade. Her mask came off, and she was his Stevie again. It had been years since she'd allowed him close enough to have a genuine conversation, much less any physical contact that wasn't strictly on stage.

When it happened on stage, he tried to exploit it to see if it was real. He wanted her to react to him, to be unable to resist him. He could swear that sometimes, the touches and looks they exchanged were authentic, and she was close to connecting with him. But she immediately turned them off when they left the stage, leaving him wondering if he'd been mistaken.

Sometimes, he'd ignore her, as much as it was possible to ignore Stevie Nicks. He hoped it would garner a reaction from her. Frustratingly, it never did. She was probably relieved when he ignored her, which was the opposite of what he was going for.

She never broke character. She had assumed the role of his bandmate, the ultimate detached professional—nothing more—and so she behaved as such.

The night in New York, she told him that she'd suffered what sounded like a nervous breakdown. She told him how she'd come back hoping to marry him, but he'd moved forward with Carol Ann, so she'd never explained any of it to him. Her stupid secrets and lack of communication had cost them a future, Lindsey thought. However, he conveniently omitted the part where he didn't give her a chance before he had another blonde in his bed.

More than once.

He'd been unable to be alone long enough to let Stevie have a chance to sort things out when they were young. Way too quickly, he'd spitefully replaced her with Carol Ann. And later, when she needed time to think before committing to him, he couldn't give her that either. Instead, he'd rushed to find a warm body to substitute for Stevie's when he spent the night with Kristen—wrecking any hope of a future.

But, tonight, he preferred not to dwell on his role in the Lindsey and Stevie tragedy. This was about her.

The more he thought about how things were between them, the angrier he became. When he thought about what he'd lost due to Stevie's inability to be open and honest with him, he felt the pain that was always just below the surface, rising to the top again. And with it came his anger.