“True, but why do I get the feeling that was directed at someone specifically? It’s not like you to throw a dedication out there like that.”
He wasn’t wrong. I never dedicated a song to anyone, ever, but tonight I was feeling turned inside out and I couldn’t get a handle on it so I shrugged.
“There’s a first time for everything.”
Normally, we had a huge after-party when we played a weekend show, but with Rule and Shaw being all coupled up and Nash and Rowdy surely hooked into whatever girls it was for them tonight, I knew no one was going to be lingering around. The idea of trying to pick up some girl, or more than likely letting some girl pick me up after what had happened with Ayden, made me kind of queasy. I didn’t really want to go to the house, but after killing as much time as I could backstage, I finally had to go. There was no one left to hang out with or tell us how wonderful we had been, so I left and made my way across town to Wash Park, dreading a confrontation with my sexy roommate the entire way.
It was dark when I walked in the front door, but there was a light coming from under Cora’s door. I tried to be quiet as I made my way down the hall to my room, but my combat boots sounded like a heard of buffalo on the old wooden floors. Ayden didn’t stick her head out of her room, which I was both grateful for and seriously annoyed at. After stripping down and showering off all the sex and sweat that clung to me, I went to my room and sat on my bed, rubbing a towel over my head and staring at my closed bedroom door until I couldn’t take it anymore. I pulled on a pair of black sweats and walked barefoot across the hall to tap on her closed door.
“Ayd? We need to talk.” I waited for a second and frowned when I got no response. Granted we had crossed a major line tonight, but we lived together and were just going to have to figure it out so things weren’t weird or weirder than they already were.
“Ayden, come on. Don’t be like this, open the door so we can talk.” I pounded the door with the side my fist and was seriously contemplating taking the damn thing off the hinges to get at her if I had to, when I heard Cora’s door open and saw her blond head poke out. She was glaring at me, but the effect was kind of lost, considering she had on hot-pink fuzzy pajamas.
“She isn’t here.” She sounded surly and I didn’t like the nasty gleam in her eyes.
“Where is she?” The idea that she might have gone home with that jackass and his idiotic sweater vest made my blood start to explode in my head. I felt my hands curl into fists at my sides and had to concentrate to keep from putting a fist all the way through the door. Cora crossed her arms over her chest and lifted a pale eyebrow at me.
“Do you care?”
I gritted my teeth and counted to ten to avoid shaking her tiny frame like a rag doll. “Of course I care. I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t care.”
“Well, that’s interesting, because she came back from talking to you looking a little . . . manhandled . . . and a whole lot pissed off. Shaw offered to take her home, but she said she wanted to stay and watch the show, that is, until you started with that song. What in the hell were you thinking, Jet? Ayden isn’t a moron. She isn’t one of your groupies who think you’re just perfect because you have a pretty voice and a nice ass. She knew exactly what you were trying to say and it made her flip out.”
I felt my heart lurch in my chest and my throat go tight. I closed my eyes and let my head fall back so that it banged against the bedroom door. “Where did she go?”
“That guy she’s been seeing offered to take her to his place.” I bit out a swear word so loud I saw her start. “Chill out. She told him no and said she would figure it out, but lucky you, Rowdy is an awesome friend and he swooped in to play knight in shining armor. She went home with him, and hopefully you’ll take this time to get your head removed from your ass, because if you don’t, I’m going to take that ring I put through the tip of your junk and do things to it that will make you cry every time you even think about having sex. I don’t know what’s going on with either one of you, but knock it off.”
She turned in a huff of spiky blond hair and fluffy pink, slamming the door behind her with enough force to make me grimace. I was just pissing off every important lady in my life lately and it was wearing me out. I shuffled back into my room and went to dig my phone out of my pants, which were in a pile on the floor. I tapped on Rowdy’s name and waited for three rings until he picked up.
“What’s going on?”
He was silent for a minute and when he spoke, I was surprised to hear the censure in his tone. “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”
I sank down to sit on the edge of the bed and rubbed my forehead. “I fucked up.”
He snorted. “Big-time. I’ve got the girl you’ve been pining for sleeping on my couch because you’re pissed off at your old man and acting like an idiot. You need to figure your crap out before you blow whatever shot you might’ve had with her. She had one foot out the door with that guy who dresses like a high school teacher, and I don’t think he even cared that she came back looking like someone had put it to her, twice.”
I swore softly under my breath and let his words ring in my head. I flopped back on the bed and stared at the dark ceiling.
“I don’t have any idea what I’m doing with her.”
“Messing shit up.”
“Besides that.”
“No one is perfect, Jet. We all have things that have happened, that are going to happen that make us who we are, and maybe you need to look past all the superficial stuff you see when you look at this girl and see what’s underneath.” I was starting to think that she had been right, that I didn’t know half of what I thought I did, but he went on.
“Yes, your dad turned your mom into a shadow of who she once was, and that sucks, but get over it. That doesn’t mean you can’t be in a relationship or that history has to repeat itself.”
“Dude, I don’t even think it’s like that between us. It’s just a lot of mutual attraction that finally reached a boiling point. My future and her future don’t really click.”
He muttered something I didn’t hear and then called me another name that made me grin, despite how awful I was feeling. “I seriously doubt she was thinking about your futures clicking when she was busy letting you sex her up in a backstage bathroom. She told me she has to work tomorrow at ten, so get your ass over here to pick her up and make this right. I thought you would have managed to figure it out on your own by now, but after that stunt tonight, I’m starting to wonder why we’re even friends.”
I snickered a little laugh and rubbed a knuckle between my eyes. “Because we’re idiots and no one else really wants to hang out with either of us.”
“Good point. Jet . . . ” I could hear the seriousness of his tone so I shut up. “I’m not letting you screw this girl over. I like her, she’s smart and sassy, plus she’s Shaw’s girl and I don’t want to deal with Rule if you make an even bigger mess of this. Get your head on right, or just let it go, but knock off the middle-of-the-road bullshit because honestly, dude, it’s pissing off more than just me.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that, so I told him “later” and tossed the phone on the stand next to my bed. I lay across the mattress sideways and crossed my hands on my chest and continued to watch the shadows on the ceiling.
Rowdy had a very valid point: I wasn’t my dad. I hated everything about the man, so I tried day in and day out to purposely make decisions that would lead me in the opposite direction from the road he walked. Part of that meant I didn’t allow room in my life for any one girl to get close. I dated, I slept around, and I crashed with girls who were easy to leave, easy to walk away from. I tried to pick ones who knew the rules so that when I left on tour or moved on, it was no big deal. I was twenty-five, successful, had an awesome group of friends, and more opportunities at my fingertips than I could count, and yet I had all of that alone. There was no one to share it with, no one to enjoy it all with, because I was always deathly afraid of what would happen if I let someone matter that much.
That night with Ayden, all those months ago, I think I knew.
I think even then, when we were still basically strangers, I knew that if I had gone into that apartment with her I wouldn’t have been able to just walk away, to just shake her loose and let her not matter. I think even then I recognized how important she could be to me and was absolute terrified by it. I could suddenly see myself starting to worry about my nonexistent financial portfolio or what tax bracket I was going to fall into, and that just wasn’t cool with me. She set me off balance and I didn’t like it at all.
I didn’t know if hooking up with Ayden for anything long-term was even something worth contemplating, but I did know that the idea of morphing into a stockbroker to make her happy wasn’t an option, not when I knew I was never going to sacrifice music and what I loved for any girl. I just didn’t know what to do with any of that from here, because after that kiss things clearly had to change.
Chapter 5
I hardly slept at all, even though Rowdy went out of his way to be a good host. He bundled me up in a pair of track pants that were way too long and way too big, and gave me a T-shirt with a logo on it from the tattoo shop where he worked. He gave me a soft blanket and a pillow for the couch, and even more helpfully, he gave me a shot of Jäger from the freezer and let me bitch about how pissed off at Jet I was for more than an hour without trying to defend him or justify his actions.
He was like a gigantic, blond teddy bear, only covered in ink and rocking badass chops and sporting a wicked tattoo of an anchor on the side of his neck. He did a whole lot of nodding and grunting in response, but never interjected or told me to calm down. The sun was coming up by the time my eyes were finally too heavy to keep open, and even as I drifted off to sleep, all I could see was Jet sneering and telling the crowd that he didn’t play any kind of love song.
I woke up done. Done feeling caught between the past and the present. Done trying to think twenty steps ahead, because no matter what I did, good or bad, I ended up getting hurt and feeling awful. I was hurting good people and acting impulsively, and all I had to show for it was some seriously twisted feelings for a guy who I couldn’t even get to see the real me.
The resolve was great, and I felt ten feet tall until the front door to the apartment opened while I was folding up the blanket and putting away my makeshift bed. I turned to see the current cause of all my strife come waltzing in with a couple of coffees, as if he hadn’t turned my everything upside down last night with a simple touch and a kiss to end all kisses. Those dark eyes were even more shadowed than normal, and his mouth was pulled tight, like he had to stop himself from saying something that would set everything off once again. It pissed me off even more when I remembered that he looked really, really good with a little overnight scruff on his face in the morning.
I glared at him and crossed my arms over my chest. “What are you doing here?”
