Jet
Jay Crownover
The second book in the Marked Men series from Jay Crownover - a sizzling story of love, lust and longingWith his tight leather jeans and a sharp edge that makes him dangerous, Jet Keller is every girl’s rock and roll fantasy. But Ayden Cross is done walking on the wild side with bad boys. She doesn’t want to give in to the heat she sees in Jet’s dark, haunted eyes, but even his touch sets her on fire.Jet can’t resist the Southern Belle with mile-long legs in cowboy boots who defies his every expectation. Yet the closer he feels to Ayden, the less he seems to know her. While he’s tempted to get under her skin and undo her in every way, he knows first hand what happens to two people with very different ideas about relationships.Will the blaze burn into an enduring love… or will it consume their dreams and turn them to ashes?
JET
Jay Crownover
Copyright
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
77–85 Fulham Palace Road
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by Harper 2013
Copyright © Jennifer M Voorhees 2013
Cover photograph © Getty Images
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014
Jennifer M Voorhees asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
Source ISBN: 9780062302410
Ebook Edition © June 2013 ISBN: 9780007536306
Version: 2014-06-30
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Contents
Title Page (#udfafa9c9-8e66-553d-b83b-b6c2728d5cb7)
Copyright (#uebb3342e-19fc-541c-8f71-930fcb4b5432)
Ayden (#ufdac3ec8-a909-597b-8b89-aefff686cb7e)
Jet (#u028aeb9e-3ab7-5f98-a860-2704ddc7469e)
Prologue (#u9a549432-37c6-5347-9090-aef4543e9434)
Chapter 1 (#ud20ffcb9-2532-523f-8558-9fd707c431f9)
Chapter 2 (#u88bdefa3-f5e2-518f-b506-185631566480)
Chapter 3 (#u9ede1619-6073-5d86-bbf4-5ffe4c3ed017)
Chapter 4 (#u4c7fada3-7bf1-5152-8853-3805c22da4e4)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Jet’s Playlist (#litres_trial_promo)
Jet’s Playlist for Ayden (#litres_trial_promo)
Ayden’s Playlist (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep reading for more from Jay Crownover (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Jay Crownover (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Ayden
Jet Keller was all kinds of temptation wrapped up in too-tight pants and with too many personal demons hidden in those dark, golden-rimmed eyes. He was every girl’s rock-and-roll fantasy, with an edge that made him just sharp enough to be hard to handle. And boy, oh boy, did I want to handle him in every way possible.
The trouble was that I was supposed to be making better decisions and walking a clean and much narrower path now. There could be no stops for the kind of things Jet inspired along the way, and no detours for the spontaneous combustion he brought with him. Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on who was looking at the situation—it was a two-against-one battle, with my brain coming up short and my body and heart repeatedly overruling my better judgment.
Jet
Ayden Cross was a puzzle that, every time I thought I was close to solving, proved to have five extra pieces and no corners. For a long time, I thought she was a Southern belle, complete with mile-long legs in cowboy boots, but then she would turn around and do something that knocked me on my ass.
I had the feeling I didn’t know the real Ayden at all. I would gladly spend the time it took to unravel it all, to undo her in every way I could. But I knew firsthand what happened when two people who had opposite ideas of what a relationship should be tried to force it to work. I wasn’t up for that, even if she made all the parts of me that scorched and blazed manageable in a way no one else ever had.
So It Begins
Ayden
It was totally against everything I was supposed to be doing in my new life—to ask a really cute boy in a band to take me home. There were rules. There were standards. There were simply things I did now to avoid ever going back to being the way I was—and sticking around to wait for Jet Keller was right on the top of the no-no list. There was just something about him, watching him wail and engage the crowd while he was onstage that turned my normally sensible brain to mush.
I knew better than to ask my bestie what was wrong with me.
She was all about boys covered head-to-toe in ink and littered with jewelry in places the Lord never intended boys to be pierced. She would just say it was the allure of someone so different, someone so obviously not my type, but I knew that wasn’t it.
He was entrancing. Every single person in the packed bar had their eyes on him and couldn’t look away. He was making the crowd feel—I mean really feel—whatever it was he was screeching, and that was amazing.
I hated heavy metal. To me, all it sounded like was yelling and screaming over even louder instruments. But the show, the intensity, and the undeniable vibe of power he was unleashing with just his voice—there was just something about it that drove me to drag Shaw to the front of the stage. I couldn’t look away.
Sure, he was good-looking. All the guys who Shaw’s boyfriend ran around with were. I wasn’t immune to a pretty face and a nice body; in fact, at one point those things had proven to be weaknesses that had gotten me in more trouble than I cared to think about. Now I tended toward guys who I was attracted to on a more intellectual level.
However, one too many shots of Patrón and whatever crazy pheromone this guy was emitting right now had me forgetting all about my new and improved standards in men.
His hair looked like he had just shaken off whatever girl had messed it up. At some point during the set he had peeled off his wife-beater to reveal a lean and tightly muscled torso that was covered from the base of his throat to somewhere below his belt buckle in a giant black and gray tattoo of an angel of death. He had on the tightest black jeans I had ever seen a guy wear, decorated with a variety of chains hanging from his belt to his back pocket, and they left little to the imagination.
That might have been why Shaw and I were nowhere near the only female fans at the front of the stage.
I had seen Jet before, of course. He came into the bar where I worked on a pretty regular basis. I knew that the eyes, now squeezed shut as he bellowed a note that was enough to have the girl to my left spontaneously orgasm, were a dark, deep brown that gleamed with easygoing humor. I knew of his penchant for outrageous flirtation. Jet was the charmer of the group and had no qualms about using that, combined with his heartbreaking grin, to get what he wanted.
I felt a warm hand land on my shoulder and turned to look up at Shaw’s boyfriend, Rule. He towered over the rest of the crowd and I could tell by the twist of his mouth that he was ready to go. Shaw didn’t even wait for him to ask, before turning to me with guileless green eyes.
“I’m going with him. Are you ready?”
Shaw and I had a “leave no man behind” policy, but I was far from ready to call it a night. We had to scream over the blaring guitars and the ear-splitting vocals bombarding us from our prime location, so I bent down to holler in her ear.
“I’m gonna hang out for a bit. I think I’ll see if Rule’s friend can give me a ride.”
I saw her speculative look, but Shaw had her own boy drama to handle, so I knew she wasn’t about to try to tell me any differently. She hooked her hand through Rule’s arm and gave me a rueful grin.
“Call me if you need me.”
“You know it.”
I wasn’t the kind of girl who needed a wingman or wingwoman. I was used to flying solo and I had been taking care of myself for so long it was really second nature. I knew Shaw would swoop in to grab me if I couldn’t get a ride home or if calling a cab took too long, and knowing she was there was enough.
I watched the rest of the show in rapt fascination, and I was pretty sure that when Jet threw the microphone down after his final song, he winked at me before slamming back a shot of Jameson. Even with all of the things I knew I should be doing pounding in my head, that wink sealed the deal.
I hadn’t been on the wild side in too long and Jet was the perfect tour guide for a quick refresher course.
He disappeared off the stage with the rest of the guys in the band, and I wandered back over toward the bar where everyone had been posted before the band had started playing. Rule’s roommate, Nash, had apparently been dragged home by the lovebirds. There was no way he was making it out of the bar under his own steam. Rowdy, Jet’s BFF, was busy sucking face with some random girl who had been giving Shaw and me the evil eye all night. I gave him a you could do better look when he came up for air, and then found an empty stool by the bar.
The thing about heavy-metal bars is that there are heavy-metal guys in every corner.
I spent the next hour fending off come-ons and free drink offers from guys who looked like they hadn’t seen a shower or a razor in years. I was starting to get annoyed and, in turn, nasty when a familiar hand with a plethora of heavy silver rings landed on my knee. I turned to look up at laughing dark eyes as Jet ordered me another Patrón, but got water for himself.
“Got ditched, did ya? The way those two were looking at each other, I’m surprised they made it halfway through the set.”
I clicked the tiny shot glass against the rim of his glass, and gave him the smile that I had always used in the past to get whatever I wanted. “I think Nash had a fight with the tequila and the tequila won.”
He laughed and turned to talk to a couple guys who wanted to congratulate him on the show. When he turned back to me, he looked a little embarrassed.
“I always think that’s so weird.”
I lifted a dark eyebrow and leaned a little closer to him, as I caught sight of a redhead in too-tight clothes circling. “Why? You guys are great and obviously people like it.”
He tossed back his head and laughed and I noticed for the first time he had a barbell through the center of his tongue.
“People, but not you?”
I made a face and shrugged. “I’m from Kentucky.” I figured that would explain it all.
“Rule sent me a text saying you needed a lift home. I have to go pull Rowdy off that chick and help the guys load the van, but if you can chill for, like, thirty, I’ll totally give you a ride.”
I didn’t want to seem too eager. I didn’t want to let him know how much I wanted him to give me a ride of an entirely different kind, so I shrugged again.
“Sure. That would be nice.”
He squeezed my knee and I had to suppress the shudder that moved through me from head to toe. There was most definitely something up if just a little touch like that could make me quiver.
I turned back to the bar, ordered myself a glass of water, and tried to close my tab. I was surprised when the bartender told me it was already taken care of and a little annoyed that I didn’t know who to thank. I swiveled around on the stool and watched closely as people fought their way through a bar full of overly enthusiastic guys and overly obvious girls. I wasn’t a saint by any stretch of the imagination, but I really had no respect for any girl who was willing to degrade herself, to offer herself up for a single night of pleasure, just because Jet looked hot in tight pants.
Whatever was happening to me went deeper than that; I just couldn’t name it. And tonight I was drunk enough—and missing some of my old self enough—to ignore it for now.
By the time Jet came back, I was faking interest in a conversation that some guy who looked like he had raided Glenn Danzig’s closet was forcing on me. He was telling me all about the different genres of metal and why the people who listened to each different kind either sucked or ruled. It was all I could do not to shove a stick of gum in his mouth to stop him from breathing heavy, boozy fumes all over me.
Jet gave the guy a fist bump and hooked a thumb over his shoulder.
“Let’s roll, Legs.”
I made a face at the generic nickname because I had heard variations on it my whole life. I was tall, not as tall as his six-two, but I towered over Shaw’s five-three and I did indeed have very long, very nice legs. At the moment they were a little wobbly and a little unsteady, but I pulled it together and followed Jet to the parking lot.
The rest of the band and Rowdy were piling into a huge Econoline van, and shouting all kinds of interesting things out the window at us while they peeled out of the parking lot. Jet just shook his head and used the control on his keys to pop the locks on a sleek black Dodge Challenger that looked mean and fast. I was surprised when he opened the door for me, which made him grin, so I folded into the seat and tried to plan my attack. After all, he was a guy who was used to groupies and band sluts throwing themselves at him on a daily basis, and the last thing I wanted was to be just one more.
He turned down the music blasting from the obviously expensive sound system and wheeled out of the parking lot without saying a word to me. He had found the time to put his shirt back on and it was now covered by an obviously well-loved leather jacket, complete with metal studs and a patch of some band I had never heard of. The combination of cute rocker boy, too much tequila, and the heady scent of leather and sweat was starting to make my head spin. I rolled down the window a little and watched as the lights of downtown bled by.
“You okay?”
I tilted my head in his direction and noticed the real concern in his dark gaze. In the dim light of the dash, the gleaming gold circle that rimmed the outer ridge of his eyes looked just like a divine halo.
“Fine. I shouldn’t have tried to keep up with Nash for the first hour.”
“Yeah, that’s not a good idea. Those boys can put it away.”
I didn’t answer because generally I could hold my own with anyone when it came to matching shot for shot, but that wasn’t something I liked to talk about. I changed the subject by running a finger over the obviously new and pristine interior of the car.
“This is a supernice ride. I had no idea screaming into a microphone paid so well.”
He snorted a laugh and gave me a sideways look. “You need to branch out from cookie-cutter country, Ayd. There are all kinds of great indie country bands and even some amazing Americana bands I bet you would totally dig.”
I just shrugged. “I like what I like. Seriously, is your band famous enough that you can afford a car like this? Rule said you guys were popular in town, which was clear after tonight, but even with that crowd it doesn’t seem like you would make enough to live on just playing music.”
I was prying, but it had suddenly occurred to me I didn’t really know anything about this guy other than he was making my heart race. He was also making my head create all kinds of interesting scenarios that involved both of us and a whole lot less clothing.
He was tapping out a rhythm on the steering wheel with his black-tipped fingers and I couldn’t look away.
“I run a recording studio here in town. I’ve been around a long time so I know a bunch of bands and guys in the scene. I write a lot of music that other people end up recording and Enmity is big enough that I don’t ever have to worry about starving. Lots of people make a living just playing music. It’s just hard and you have to be dedicated to it, but I would rather be broke and do something I love, than be wealthy working a nine-to-five job any day.”
That was something that just didn’t make any sense to me.
I craved security and a future with a foundation rooted in safety. I wanted to know that I was going to be able to support myself; that I would never have to rely on anyone else for life’s basic needs. Happiness had nothing to do with it at all.
I was going to ask more questions but the apartment I shared with Shaw was quickly coming into view, and I hadn’t even tried to let him know that I was interested in more than a lift home.
I turned my entire body in the seat so I was fully facing him, and plastered my best do me smile on my face. He lifted an eyebrow in my direction but didn’t say anything, even when I leaned over the center console and put my hand on his hard thigh. I saw the pulse in his throat jump, which made me grin. It had been a long time since I had been so overtly interested in anyone and it was nice to know that he wasn’t immune to me, either.
“Want to come up and have a drink with me? Shaw is staying with Rule, so I’m sure she’ll be out of commission for at least a couple days.”
His dark eyes grew even darker with something I didn’t recognize, because we really were strangers, but he put his hand over mine and gave it a gentle squeeze.
I wanted to inhale him; I wanted to get inside him and never come back out. There was just something there, something special about him that pulled on all the strings I thought I had neatly trimmed away when I had left my old life behind.
“That sounds like a bad plan, Ayd.” His voice was low and had undercurrents floating through that I couldn’t identify.
I sat up straighter in the seat and with my other hand turned his face to look at me. “Why? I’m single, you’re single, and we’re consenting adults. I think it sounds like a fabulous plan.”
He sighed and took both of my hands and placed them back in my lap. I was watching him carefully now because, while I might have undergone a dramatic life change over the last few years, I was still smart enough to know I was way better looking than most of the bar trash who had been circling him all night. That—and no guy ever turned down no-strings sex.
“We have friends who are dating. You drank half a bottle of tequila tonight, and let’s be real—you’re not the type of girl who takes a guy she barely knows home for the night. You’re smart and ambitious, and you have no fucking idea what that Southern drawl does to me or how fast it would cause us to end up naked and tangled up. You’re just a good girl all around.
“Don’t get me wrong. You’re beautiful, and in the morning when I replay this conversation over and over in my head, I’m going to absolutely want to kick my own ass, but you don’t want to do this. Maybe if I knew for a fact we would never have to see each other again, never have to spend time around each other, I could do it with a clean conscience, but I actually like you, Ayden, so I choose not to mess that up.”
He was so very wrong.
I totally wanted to do this; to do him, but something about him thinking he knew what kind of girl I was shocked my libido like a bucket of cold water. I jerked my head back so hard that it hit the passenger window and the car suddenly felt like a coffin. I scrambled to open the latch and bolted out. I heard Jet call my name, heard him ask if I was all right, but all I needed to do was get away from him. I jabbed the security code into the door and ran into the apartment.
It wasn’t until I had the doors locked and had a hot shower pouring over me that I realized how close I had come to letting everything I had worked for unravel around me. Whatever it was that Jet made me feel tonight, it was far too dangerous to try to act on. Not only had it ended in humiliation and panic, but I had also risked all the things that mattered to me now, and I just couldn’t allow that.
I was going to have to keep Jet Keller locked in the box where I kept pre-Colorado Ayden. Only now, I was going to make sure that the lid was on so tight, there wouldn’t ever be a chance of it coming off. The risk just wasn’t worth it.
Chapter 1
Ayden, One Year Later
I had my computer open and was working on something for my biochem class. My roommate Cora was sitting on the couch in the living room painting her nails a startling neon green before she left for work, when the door to the bedroom at the back of the house opened. I pushed the glasses I was wearing up on my nose and gave Cora the look. She swiveled around on the couch, so that her arms were dangling over the cushions.
We waited and we watched.
This had become our ritual over the last three months, since Jet had come to live with us. At least two to three times a week, we subjected whichever random chick he had brought home with him the night before to a (humiliating for them, hilarious for us) walk of shame.
Cora and I had taken to ranking them on a scale of one to ten depending on how thoroughly worked over they looked the next day. So far, Jet was coming in with solid sevens or eights, but a couple of the girls had left so pissed-off at his lack of interest in a repeat performance, that we had to give them fours and fives. The one who had locked herself in the bathroom and refused to leave until Cora threatened to mace her got a one.
This one today was pretty good.
She was a blonde and was all big boobs and long legs. Yesterday’s makeup didn’t look so hot running down her face now, but she had a nice whisker-burn going on under her chin and she had that dreamy, lovesick look that most of them wore when they came wandering out of that room.
I automatically upped her score because, instead of wearing her bra, she was clutching it in one hand like a lifeline. I was pretty sure her silky top was on inside-out. Her gaze shot from Cora to me and back again, and an embarrassed blush heated her face.
I couldn’t figure out why Jet never told these girls he had female roommates. I assumed it was because he was a sick bastard and liked the fact they had to run this gauntlet when he was done with them, but he never confirmed or denied it when I asked him about it.
“Uh, hey.” The poor thing stammered out an awkward greeting, which had Cora grinning like a lunatic. Cora was mouthy and loud on a good day; give her ammunition or show her a weakness, and she was like a piranha that smelled blood in the water.
My roommate looked like a pint-size fairy princess; well, a princess gone punk rock for the day. Cora’s diminutive size often left the poor things that trekked through the living room unprepared for the attack she was just waiting to launch. This one was all blissed out on a postorgasmic high, and I knew it was only a matter of time before Cora unleashed all of her East Coast sass and brass.
“Did you have a good night?”
It was an innocent enough question, but coming from the feisty blonde with the two different-colored eyes, I knew it was anything but.
“Sure. I’ll just, uh, be going now. Tell Jet I left my number on the dresser.”
Cora waved a hand around in front of her. “Sure, because he is so totally calling you again. Right, Ayd? He won’t want to lose that number.”
I didn’t like it when she tried to draw me into her verbal games, so I just shrugged and lifted my coffee mug up to my face to hide a reluctant grin. It was like watching a car accident happen in front of my eyes.
Cora waved her arms around in a dramatic sweeping gesture and told the bewildered blonde, “I’m sure he called the redhead that left yesterday morning. I’m sure he called the brunette that stayed the entire weekend, and I’m absolutely sure he’s probably going to call you. Right, Ayd?”
She rolled her eyes and flopped back on the couch, as if she hadn’t just demolished this poor girl’s romantic hopes and dreams.
The girl looked at me and then back to Cora. I saw her mouth tighten before she uttered “bitch” and stomped out our front door. I upped her points even more when I saw she had her panties from the night before sticking out of her back pocket.
Without looking up, Cora held her hands up over her head and extended seven fingers in the air. “She didn’t even have any fight in her. I would’ve given her at least an eight if she had told me to fuck off or get bent. Anything.”
I shook my head. “You were kind of a bitch.”
She snickered. “Gotta find my fun somewhere. What do you give her?”
I was about to answer when another figure came out of the room. You’d think that after three months of running into him coming in and out of the bathroom we shared, or catching him running around without a shirt on while he was getting ready to go out, or even watching him dance around half naked onstage I would have built up an immunity to seeing Jet Keller’s bare chest.
But as he made his way down the hall, pulling on a plain black T-shirt, I forgot every single thought as my mind blanked, just like it always did.
After the disastrous incident outside my apartment last winter, we had developed an odd sort of friendship. I knew what boundaries I had to keep Jet within, and he treated me like I was some kind of virginal goddess he wasn’t allowed to mess up. That was working for us, sort of.
When Shaw had ultimately decided to go live with Rule and Nash, Cora and I had worried about who was going to take up her share of the rent. Luckily, the girl Jet had been living with went bat-shit crazy, and dumped all of his stuff on the lawn while he was on his last tour, not mention she found someone else to take his place when she got lonely. He ended up homeless and in need of a place to crash, so here he was. I saw him every day and spent plenty of time just hanging out with him.
But still, the sight of those abs, the ink that covered them and the twin hoops through his nipples turned all my good intentions and strictly marshaled thoughts to all things sexy and naughty, where they clearly didn’t need to be. When I looked at him I had a hard time remembering the rejection and what I should be doing and instead let his wicked grin ruin all my self-control.
I averted my gaze and ordered myself not to inhale when he leaned over me to snag the other half of my untouched bagel. I wasn’t allowed to go around sniffing him, even if he smelled like temptation and rock and roll.
He lifted a dark eyebrow in my direction and motioned toward Cora with the bagel.
“What kind of havoc are you two wreaking in here? I heard the front door slam all the way from the back of the house.” He stretched his long legs, clad in supertight black jeans, out in front of me and I wondered again how he got into them. I had never seen a guy wear such tight pants, but they worked for him. I spent an obscene amount of time wondering how to get them off of him.
“Cora was just wishing your latest conquest a safe trip home.”
He paused before biting into the bagel and focused his eyes at the back of Cora’s head. “What did you really say to her?”
We could see Cora’s shoulders shaking with silent laughter, but she didn’t turn her head around. “Nothing. Well, nothing that wasn’t true.”
He took a big bite out of the breakfast treat and narrowed his eyes. They were so dark it was hard to tell where the iris and the pupil met.
“I think you’re just pissed Miley Cyrus copied your haircut and you’re taking it out on innocent girls across the land.”
Surprised laughter shot out of me as Cora jumped to her feet and hurled the nail polish bottle she had been using at Jet’s head. Luckily, he had good reflexes and caught it in the air before it smacked him in the face or broke all over the wood floors.
“I’ve had this hair forever! It’s not my fault she decided to be rock and roll all of a sudden.” She huffed out of the room and I shared a grin with Jet.
“She’s sensitive about that. Be nice.”
“It’s not nice that you two have a sliding scale for every girl I bring home, either, but you don’t hear me complaining, do you?”
I didn’t have an answer for that so I turned back to my computer screen.
“One of these days there’s going to be a ten and you’re not going to know what to do with yourselves.”
I was surprised he was aware of what we were doing. That didn’t speak too highly of his respect for the girls he brought home with him on a regular basis.
I tucked the ends of my hair, which was now styled in a short, sleek bob, behind one ear and looked at him over the top of my glasses. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it now that I knew he was in on the game.
“Why didn’t you say something, if you knew what we were doing? ”
He lifted a shoulder in a shrug and I watched as his mouth turned down in a frown on one side. Jet had an expressive face. I think it came from trying to project his every feeling, his every passion, to a crowd of people while he was onstage. I knew the half frown well—it meant he was thinking about something he didn’t particularly want to talk about. I always wondered what put it there.
“They get what they come for and then they go home satisfied. If they have to tangle with you two knuckleheads on the way out, I just figure that is part of the price of admission.” He cut his look back up to me and frowned for real. “Where were you last night? Everyone came to Cerberus and hung out for a few hours. Shaw said you were supposed to meet us there, but you never showed.”
I cleared my throat and fiddled with the handle on my coffee mug. “I was on a date with Adam. He didn’t want to go, so I just had him drop me off here and I did some homework I’ve been putting off.”
I saw his eyes widen and the gold rings flashed bright and clear. Jet wasn’t a fan of Adam, and Adam hated that I lived with Jet with every fiber of his being. I tried to keep the two of them apart, a task that was getting harder and harder now that Adam was pushing for us to be more than casual dating partners. We had been seeing each other for about four months, and logically I knew it was time to move one way or the other, but something always stopped me.
“Of course Adam didn’t want to go. When does that dude ever do anything you want to do? Geez, Ayd, how many freaking operas, ballets, and boring-ass art exhibits are you going to let that moron drag you to? Why can’t he just come and meet your friends and chill at the bar for a minute?”
We’d had this conversation more than once, so I just sighed.
“My friends intimidate him. Rule and Nash don’t exactly scream ‘welcoming committee’ and you and Rowdy take way too much pleasure in making fun of anyone and everyone that you don’t like. It would be awkward for all of us, so I would rather avoid it altogether. Adam is a nice guy.”
I told myself that at least ten times a day. Adam was a nice guy and he was far more suited to a secure future than a guy who planned to play heavy metal for a living. Not to mention Adam didn’t make we want to lose control and throw caution to the wind at every turn, not the way Jet did.
“We’re your friends, Ayden, and Shaw is your girl. If this guy plans on sticking around, don’t you think he needs to suck it up and get used to all of us? Or are you planning on just ditching us for the upper crust as soon as you can?”
There was something in his tone that spoke to a deeper conversation than the one we were currently having. But as usual, before I could probe further, he decided to change the subject to something he obviously deemed safer.
“Besides, if he didn’t want Rowdy and me to clown on him, he wouldn’t wear a damn sweater vest everywhere he goes. Who even owns a sweater vest anymore?”
I kicked him lightly under the table. “Be nice. Sweater vests aren’t that bad.”
He made a face and climbed to his feet. I tried not to drool when he stretched his arms above his messy hair and the hem of his T-shirt rode up over the edge of his pants. It would take torture to get me to admit it, but my main goal in life was to see how far down that damn angel tattoo went, and to trace the entire thing with my tongue.
I cleared my throat to try to get my head out of the gutter, and noticed he was watching me closely.
“That’s the whole point; you don’t see anything wrong with dating a dude who thinks a sweater vest is badass, and I don’t see anything wrong with picking up a chick who gets ranked by my shithead roommates the morning after. Two different worlds, Ayd, two totally different worlds.”
He ruffled my hair, getting several of the longer strands stuck in his rings as he walked away. I watched him solemnly until he disappeared in his room, before releasing the breath I had been holding. It took a minute for me to unclench my fingers from the coffee mug.
Jet had no idea what I was really like under all the polish and primer I had slapped on before moving to Colorado with nothing but the clothes on my back. No one really did. I had talked to Shaw about it briefly and vaguely, but even my bestie had no clue about the kind of life I had lived before starting college three years ago.
I was only twenty-two, but felt like I had lived a hundred lifetimes in this short amount of time. The good girl, the girl who Jet saw as so untouchable and so different from him, was all an illusion I fought on a daily basis to maintain. Having him so close and so present put my desire to leave the old Ayden buried in the rolling hills of Kentucky to the test, every minute of every day.
“Hey!” I sputtered indignantly as a dish towel suddenly slapped across my face. Cora plopped down in the chair Jet had just vacated and gave me a knowing look.
“I thought you might want that for the slobber on your chin.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Knock it off.”
“Whatever. Every time, Ayd—it’s like you’re in heat or something. I don’t know how you guys ignore all the snap, crackle, and pop that happens whenever you get within breathing distance of each other, but I’m telling you it’s exhausting to watch.”
I opened my mouth to tell her, in no uncertain terms, that we were not attracted to each other, but she held up a hand and lasered a pointed glare at me before I got one word out.
“And don’t give me that bull about just being friends. I have guy friends. In fact, I have more guy friends than I do girlfriends and I do not look at a single one of them like I want to have hair-pulling, bite mark–leaving, bed-breaking sex with them. When you look at him when he’s not paying attention, Ayd”—she made a big production of fanning herself down with the towel she reclaimed—“I feel like I need a cold shower.”
I didn’t know what to say to that so, I stuck with what I knew.
“We’re friends. We aren’t each other’s type and I told you what happened the one single time I let alcohol try to convince me otherwise.”
She leaned back in the chair and regarded me with her crazy eyes. The dark brown one was all censure and knowing regard, and the turquoise one was all good-humored mirth and friendly compassion. It was hard to pull anything over on Cora, but that didn’t mean I ever stopped trying. In order to build the life I wanted, the life I so desperately craved, I had to convince everyone that it was what I had deserved all along. Who I was before wasn’t allowed to be a factor in who I was now, and no matter how hot Jet was or how much he made me want to wander off the path of good intentions, I just couldn’t allow it.
“Besides, we fundamentally want different things out of life. Once I graduate I’m going right into a master’s program. Jet has been playing at being a rock star since he was a teenager. I can’t understand not having the ambition to want something more than that, to want a secure future. We want different things all the way around.” Not to mention the way he made me want to forget everything I already knew about the dangers of the wild side totally freaked me out.
She shook her head looking like a judgmental version of Tinker Bell. It was hard to fathom so much attitude packed in such a little frame.
“I’m going to be honest with you, babe. From the outside looking in, you and that boy want exactly the same things, only you’re both too scared of something to admit it. And FYI, nobody, and I mean nobody, looks good in a sweater vest, so you should just stop trying to sell that poor Adam guy as boyfriend material.” She climbed to her feet and gripped the back of the chair, and in typical Cora fashion switched gears while I was trying to process the last bit of insight she had dropped on me. “So you never gave me your ranking for the groupie of the day, what do you think?”
It bugged me every time a girl came stumbling out of that room, but I refused to acknowledge it, so I held up nine fingers and played along just like I was supposed to.
“She had a seven thanks to the missing bra and inside-out shirt, but after calling you a bitch and stuffing her underwear in her back pocket, she moved up.”
Cora burst into boisterous laughter and grabbed her sides. She was cackling so loud I was worried all the noise was going to bring Jet back out of his room.
“Crap, I totally missed the panties. You know he’s right; one day he’s going to have a ten, a girl so thoroughly worked over that it won’t even be fun anymore, because we’re going to know she got the best stuff.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from scowling at her. “I can’t wait.”
I didn’t fool Cora for a minute. “Sure you can’t.”
Frustrated with the conversation and the morning in general, I shut the laptop down and got to my feet.
“I’m gonna go run before I have to leave for class.” I announced this to no one in particular, because Cora was messing around on her phone and Jet had not reappeared. I changed into clothes that were warm enough for a February in Denver and put on my well-worn running shoes.
I loved to run. It helped me clear my head, and since I lived in one of the most health-conscious states in the union, I was always just one of a hundred other people out for a little exercise when I took to the pavement. I put in earbuds and listened to what Jet called “that god-awful pop-country,” as loud as it would go. I liked music that I didn’t have to think about, and most country songs spelled it right out for the listener. The girl was mad because the guy cheated, the guy was mad his pickup got trashed, everyone was sad the dog died, and Taylor Swift had about as much luck with men as I did.
I knew Jet preferred stuff that was loud and heavy, but in reality the guy was a music snob, and after knowing him for more than a year, fighting about what was good and what wasn’t ceased to faze me.
The cold air burned against my face as I found a steady rhythm and headed toward Washington Park on my usual route. When I ran I liked to block everything out, to shut the constant buzz of all the things hounding me, and just feel the ground under my feet and the brisk air on my face. But it wasn’t working so great for me today.
I couldn’t ignore the fact that I was pretty much living a lie. There was Ayden Cross, nobody, from Woodward, Kentucky, and Ayden Cross, chemistry major, from Denver, Colorado. They were two parts of the whole and at times I thought one was going to smother the other and there would be nothing left but ash and bad memories.
Woodward wasn’t a bad town, but it was small, really small, and everyone knew everyone. When your family was the family in town that everyone the same age as you gossiped about, that everyone older than you talked about, that everyone coming and going told stories about, life wasn’t exactly easy.
My mom wasn’t a bad lady, just nowhere near equipped to handle being a mother at sixteen, and way less ready to be a mom to a hard-to-handle daughter and to a son who was born looking for trouble. My older brother, Asa, had never met a crime he didn’t want to commit or a law he didn’t want to break. Since neither one of our dads had stuck around, Mom was left alone with us running wild and trying to keep the damage down to a minimum. I learned the hard way that if you heard you were one thing enough times, eventually you had no option but to start believing it.
Even though I knew better, I fell in with the kind of crowd that could destroy a perfectly good future, led there by the hand of a big brother looking out for only himself and his current scam. We were trash; we were never going to amount to anything, and with all the trouble and drama Asa created, it was a wonder any of us was still breathing.
If it hadn’t been for a well-meaning and overly perceptive science teacher in my high school, I would have more than likely ended up just like Mom, knocked up and forever living under the judgmental eye of everyone else in Woodward.
But I applied myself at school, got scholarships, and worked my ass off day in and day out to make sure I never ended up back there. I was never going to give anyone a reason to think I was easy, stupid, and worth nothing ever again. I was going to take care of myself, build a future that was rock solid, and, Lord willing, pull my mother out of that tiny town. I was going to show her there was more to life than a case of Miller High Life, a pack of smokes, and whatever truck driver she had hooked up with for the month. As far as I was concerned, Asa was a lost cause, and the last I had heard was doing time—but I was the first to admit that I drifted in and out of the Woodward gossip mill, so I didn’t really know for sure, and I was way past the point of always wanting to save my brother from himself.
I had made plenty of mistakes and done plenty of things wrong, but I was on the right track now. I figured my reward for living my life the right way, finally, was getting good grades in school, keeping friendships with good people who loved me no matter what, and, never having to worry about waking up with nothing, ever again.
If that meant I had to bury the attraction and choking lust I felt for Jet, then that was just the way it was going to have to be. If he wanted to treat me like a Catholic schoolgirl who was never allowed past the gates, then all the better for making me act properly. There was no reason for me to let him know that not only was he misguided, but that I could probably give any of those girls he brought home for one night a decent run for their money when it came to being the type of girl that knew all about the price of admission.
I rounded the corner of the park, and started to slow down as I got into a heavier flow of people out walking their dogs and playing with their kids.
When Cora had initially asked about letting Jet rent out Shaw’s old room, I had wanted to say no. After the incident in the car last winter, I’d had a really hard time being around him at all without reliving every mortifying detail in slow motion. I thanked God every day I hadn’t actually made a move. I doubted there was any way I would ever be able to face myself after that, but when I considered the horrific experience Shaw had gone through with her ex, the idea of letting a stranger stay with us was too scary, so I reluctantly relented.
I thought brutal, in-my-face exposure might do something to kill the persistent crush I had on him. After all, he was sarcastic and pushy at times. Only the opposite had happened: I liked him. I mean, I still wanted to do really naughty things to him on a regular basis, but I liked him as a person now, too.
He was surprisingly funny and smarter than a guy with that many tattoos and such horrible taste in music should be. He took all of Cora’s attitude with a grain of salt, and never bothered me when I retreated into myself. We usually had breakfast with each other, and at least once a week all of us got together and had a drink at some bar or another. Even though I hated—and I mean hated—the music he played, I went to hear his band at least twice a month.
He was by far my favorite drinking partner. He didn’t have all the raw edges that Rule had, he wasn’t prone to broody moodiness like Nash, and he wasn’t into making a scene like Rowdy. He was just laid-back and liked to have a good time. It wasn’t until someone started to talk to him about his band or tried to treat him like he was a big deal that he got closed off and distant. For a guy who was born to be a rock star, he sure had a lot of issues being semi-famous and admired. It was odd, but it was also endearing and just another reason I enjoyed being around him.
I stumbled a little as a German shepherd pulled free of his owner’s grip and dashed past me. I took a minute to catch my breath and bent over to put my hands on my knees. Now that I wasn’t moving, the air wicked across my sweat-soaked skin, making me shiver. I should have put on a hat and maybe some gloves, but it was too late now, and I had to get back if I didn’t want to be late for class.
I was plowing through my undergrad classes with my sights set firmly on a master’s program, all before I was twenty-five. I had always been good with numbers, and science came naturally to me, so when I had applied to schools I made sure to look for ones that were as far from Woodward as I could get, but also had top departments in my field. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do when I graduated, but I knew I wanted no less than a six-figure income, continuous growth potential, and a generous retirement plan. I knew those were lofty goals for someone my age, and from someone with my lackluster background, but I didn’t set low standards anymore.
I fell into a light jog and pulled my earbuds out as I got closer to the house. I pulled up short when I rounded the corner, because I could have sworn I recognized the guy walking on the other side of the street from somewhere.
Granted, I was still jumpy after Shaw’s attack and looked at most strangers like they were a danger, but there was something about the way this guy carried himself that had me stuck to the sidewalk, trying to figure it out. He walked right past me on the other side of the road without once glancing my way, so I shook off the heebie-jeebies and dashed up the stairs to the front door. I was about to pull it open when Jet came out the other side, causing me to almost topple over backward on the front steps. I let out a squeal and tried to grab the railing, but it was no use. I had too much momentum and went flying back toward the concrete.
Jet grabbed for me, but I was moving too fast. When he caught my hand, all that did was drag him forward, so that we were both suspended in air for a split second. Our eyes locked before we went tumbling to the ground, hard.
He landed half-on, half-off me. I swore softly as my head made contact with the solid slab of sidewalk hard enough to make me see stars. His chest pressed into mine, and between my thin running pants and his painted-on jeans, there wasn’t an inch of us not pressed intimately together. I forgot to breathe, forgot I was injured, and mostly forgot why I knew that he was such a bad idea.
I wanted to rub up against him. I wanted to put my hands in his messy hair. I wanted to kiss and lick the spot on his neck where his pulse was hammering hard and fast, but none of that was going to happen. He levered himself up in a stiff push-up and looked down at me with wide eyes. The gold had swirled in from the outer circle, making him look like some kind of wild animal as he gripped my head in his hand and whispered, “Are you okay? I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you were there.”
His rings were freezing cold on the side of my face and the sidewalk at my back was making me go numb.
“I’m fine. I was distracted. It wasn’t your fault.” My accent was a little stronger when I was upset and I could see that Jet had noticed.
“Are you sure? I can take you to get checked out. We can’t risk having that giant brain of yours rattling around.”
I wanted to be having any other conversation than this one while he was practically lying on top of me. I wrapped my hands around his wrists and tugged at him to get him to let me go. “Seriously, I’m fine. Wanna let me up?”
Something moved across those dark eyes that I hadn’t seen before. It was like he was considering the question and answering “no,” but it passed, and he shoved to his feet, pulling me up with him. He didn’t let me go and where he still held on to my hands, I burned. I needed to get away from him, fast. I had to bite back a groan as he turned me around and started to brush off the back of me with the palm of his hand.
“Are you sure you’re all right? I’m not exactly a lightweight.”
He wasn’t. He was tall and solid, but not muscle-bound or ridiculously pumped up. He was in good shape from running around the stage and from hauling equipment back and forth, but I knew he didn’t have a steady gym ritual he followed—not that it mattered. I shook him off because I had to, in order to catch my breath, and shoved my hair away from my face.
“Yep. Nothing’s broken and we both know I have a pretty hard head. I was lost in thought. I just need to pay closer attention when I run or I’m going to end up falling on my face again.”
He gave me a funny look and shoved his hands in the front pockets of his leather jacket. I always wondered how he could wear it when it was wintertime. I figured the zippers and studs had to be icy cold, but it was such a part of his look that he just wouldn’t be Jet without it.
“Okay, if you’re sure you’re fine. I gotta get going. I have a session with a band from New Mexico this afternoon, and then practice later. One of the bands we played with at Metalfest last year is going on tour this summer, and they need some new stuff.”
I shivered because I was getting cold and because I hated the idea of him going on tour again. It actually made me sick to my stomach. I had heard the stories, listened to the tales the guys told about what happened when a guy in a popular band went on tour, and it wasn’t pretty. I forced a smile and took a couple steps back toward the stairs. “Well, that sounds like a busy day. I have class, and then I close tonight, so I won’t be home until really late.”
He was watching me and I was watching him, and I realized that Cora was right. I was a genius when it came to chemistry, and what was going on between us was bound to explode eventually. I had been keeping it under pressure and on a slow and steady boil and nothing reactive could handle that kind of heat for long.
He scratched his chin with a finger and lifted an eyebrow at me. “Maybe if the guys and I get done early we can swing by for a beer.”
I gulped down a surge of panic and forced a smile that I’m sure he didn’t buy for one second.
“Sounds great.”
I didn’t wait to see what his response was as I darted for the door. This time I made it into the house without incident, but I was running late, so I had to scramble into the shower, throw on some jeans and a long-sleeved top before getting into my Jeep and racing toward the campus.
The University of Denver wasn’t too far from home, but parking tended to be a pain in the neck and I was already stressed out, so when my phone rang I didn’t bother to dig it out of my bag. I was the last person into the classroom and had to suffer through questioning looks and irritated glowers as I interrupted the professor while I made my way to my seat. I tried to pay attention, but my mind was a million miles away, and after sleepwalking through my lab and my second class, I realized I had better get my head out of the clouds or work tonight was going to be a nightmare.
I worked at a popular sports bar in LoDo, or lower downtown Denver, where we had to wear ridiculous outfits that showed more skin than they covered. We were right down by Coors Field, so even with football season over, we were still packed with hockey and basketball fans. I made enough money to easily make rent and whatever my scholarships didn’t cover for school. I didn’t mind shaking my ass a little, as long as it got the bills paid.
I had to be on alert, though, because there was no shortage of drunken, grabby hands and overly affectionate regulars who wanted to touch things that were not allowed. I also had to keep my head in the game when it came to dealing with my catty coworkers. Those girls lived for gossip and any kind of dirt they could find. Shaw and I had a long-standing feud with Loren Decker, the reigning queen bee, and if I showed up for my shift like I was now, she would find an opening and make the night hell for me.
It wasn’t until I was in the changing room at the back of the bar, getting into my silly cheerleader outfit, that I remembered my phone ringing earlier, and I blinked in surprise when I saw I now had five missed calls from a 502 area code. I didn’t know why anyone in Kentucky would be trying to get ahold of me, let alone how they had gotten my number. There were no voice mails or text messages, so I just tucked the phone into my bra, where it lived for my shift, and made a note to try to call the number tomorrow.
I was slicking my black hair down and shoving a sparkly bobby pin in the front, when Loren’s sickly sweet voice came from somewhere over my shoulder. I so wasn’t in a mood to deal with her, so I just gritted my teeth and turned to look at her.
She was the perfect fit for a bar like the Goal Line. She was every guy’s cheerleader fantasy all grown up, complete with fake double Ds. She had about as much sense as a bobblehead doll, and I couldn’t figure out why she tried to go toe-to-toe with me, because she never won. Besides, she was, like, three inches shorter than me, even more than that when I wore the spiked heels I used to up my tips, and I always ended up looking down on her. Both figuratively and literally.
“How’s it going, Ayden?”
“I’m having a crap day, Loren, what do you want?”
She played with the ends of her hair in a way that made me want to strip them out of her head, one perfect blond strand at a time.
“I was wondering if you could do me a teeny-tiny favor?”
I rolled my eyes and slammed the locker shut behind me. “I already work all weekend, so I can’t cover you.”
She blinked her big cornflower blue eyes at me, and I swear in that second it solidified my hatred of her until the end of time. I had to take a deep breath, because I knew I was being irrational and irritable for no reason.
“No, I was wondering if you could talk to Jet and see if he could get me and a couple of my girls in to see Bryan Walker at the Ogden. He has a bunch of connections, doesn’t he?”
Bryan Walker was a pop singer, along the lines of Justin Bieber, but way less famous. There was no way on this green earth I was ever going to ask Jet if he could get this nimrod into that show. I moved past her with a frown.
“Why don’t you ask him? He said he was probably going to come in tonight for a beer.”
She looked at me like I had just landed from another planet. “I can’t talk to him.”
That brought me up short and I turned to look at her in confusion.
“Why the hell not? He’s in here all the time. I know you’ve waited on him before.”
She shook her head like I was an idiot and shared a smile with one of her girlfriends. “Oh, Ayden, you are just so sweet. I just think it’s so cute how you hang out with all those superhot, superyummy boys and yet you don’t know the first thing about wrapping one around your finger. If I ask Jet for a favor it means he knows that I know who he is and what a big deal he is in this town. If I want him to notice me, I have to ignore him and treat him like he’s no one special. Otherwise I’ll be like you, forever stuck in the friend zone, and dating a guy who has a sweater vest in every color of the rainbow.”
I was so stunned, I just stared at her. I was pretty sure all the blood went from my head straight to my face because, for one, I couldn’t believe she was interested in Jet after her interest in Rule had been shut down so mercilessly by Shaw. I also couldn’t believe she was criticizing Adam or my taste in men.
Loren was custom-made to be a trophy wife who would be cheated on after she lost her shine. She had no idea what a real future looked like or what a steady guy like Adam had to offer.
I was about to unleash a torrent of shit at her. I was ready to pull her apart verbally, and maybe even physically, with the mood I was in. But the urge passed when Lou, the bar’s door guy, stuck his head in and told us to haul ass. He said that a busload of after-work guys had just piled in, and paying my bills was way more important than putting Loren in her place. The straighter path didn’t have stops for taking down bimbos on it, either.
I gave her a tight-lipped smile and tossed over my shoulder, “And I just think it’s so cute how you drool all over those superhot, superyummy boys I hang out with, like you have a chance in hell of ever even getting into the friend zone. Those guys can spot a fake a mile away, Loren, and that’s why, even with all your attributes”—I sent a scornful gaze over her very fake boobs—“they don’t give you the time of day.”
I flounced to my section, hoping all the talk of asking Jet for favors was put to bed. The guys could spot a fake; in fact, I had seen them do it on more than one occasion. As far as I was concerned, it was a miracle they all still thought I was such a good girl, still worthy of their friendship and protection, and if it took learning to love sweater vests to keep the act up, then by God, I would do it, and I would do it with a smile.
Chapter 2
Jet
This stupid dance I was doing around Ayden was getting old and tired pretty damn fast. When I first moved into their place, I thought having Cora and her big mouth there would make it easier. When that didn’t happen, I thought having a revolving door in my bedroom might do the trick, but nothing seemed to be working.
She was on my mind all the time—in my head when I was trying to work, under my skin when I was with another girl—and I swear that soft, Southern drawl was designed to turn me inside-out every time she spoke to me. I hated that I didn’t know what to do with it. Girls always came easy to me, but that girl was anything but.
A year ago, I had a shot to do everything to her I dreamed about at night. In fact, I think I had fallen a little bit in love with her the first time I saw her at the Goal Line in her sexy uniform, wearing heels up to the sky. She had a “take no shit” attitude wrapped up in superlong legs and whiskey-colored eyes that did way more than Jameson when it came to going to my head fast and hard. I wanted her, wanted her like an addict wanted a fix, but she was so far out of my league, and played on such a different field than me, it was a wonder we even managed to maintain a loose form of friendship.
Rule had warned me in no uncertain terms that if I upset Ayden, and if that, in turn, upset Shaw, there would a reckoning like Denver hadn’t seen in years.
I could hold my own in most cases and spent a fair amount of time trying not to get my ass kicked in mosh pits across the country, but Rule was someone I knew firsthand not to mess with. He was even scarier now that he was all caveman-protective over Shaw.
So I had done the right thing, the decent thing, and told her no when all I wanted to do was tell her yes. Now I was stuck in this awful place where we were friends, but not, and where I had endless dreams about that voice and those legs while she slept soundly across the hall. It sucked to epic proportions, and I didn’t know what to do about it besides either moving out or quit talking to her altogether—options which were neither practical nor enjoyable. I liked living with the girls. Cora was a riot and Ayden was hardly there as it was, but when we all got together it was fun and easy. I didn’t have to worry about all my shit ending up on the curb with the garbage because I pissed one of them off while I was on tour.
My studio was in an old warehouse off California downtown. The acoustics were great and after the band’s last tour, I had enough money to really trick it out.
I knew everyone, and I mean everyone, in this town who had anything to do with music. Granted, Denver isn’t L.A. or New York, but it is right in the center of the country. It has such a huge and diverse population that it really is a destination for bands, some more famous than others, to come and record.
My band was really popular locally, and after going on tour with Artifice for Metalfest last year, we were getting better known nationally. What paid the bills was the studio and putting together tracks for other people. I didn’t care—as long as I got to make music and got to write songs, I was a happy guy. Music was what made me get up in the morning and what followed me to bed at night. Sure, I sang in a heavy-metal band, but when I was younger it had been all about punk rock and the indie scene. The reality was I just liked good music. I didn’t care what color or creed it came in, even if I gave Ayden endless shit about her addiction to Top 40 Country. The truth was, I liked to get her riled up just to see those amber eyes of hers shoot sparks.
Today I was planning on losing myself in work. The band that was booked was good and we had already put together a solid track layout for their new album. What I hadn’t planned on was pulling into my spot by the door to find my old man waiting for me. I couldn’t help the frown that automatically pulled across my face, and it took a conscious effort to uncurl each and every finger from around the steering wheel in order to get out of the car to confront him.
He had on aviator shades and jeans that were too baggy for a guy his age, but that was my pops, refusing to let go of his youth and all the good times, no matter who it hurt along the way.
I sighed and pushed open the door, watching him warily as he came around the hood of the car. “What are you doing here, Pops? I have work to do. I can’t stand around and shoot the shit.”
Sometimes it was better to just cut him off before he got started, but today apparently that wasn’t going to work.
“You got back from tour three months ago and didn’t think to give your old man a call? I’ve been dying to hear about Metalfest. Did you boys get signed by a big label yet?”
It would have seemed like a typical question for a parent to ask his child, if it was any other parent than mine. Dave Keller had lived his life as a professional roadie and had gone on tour with everyone from Metallica to Neurosis and whatever band he could find in between. And now, all he wanted was for his one-and-only son to hit it big. Not so I could take care of him or buy him a mansion in the Malibu hills, but so he could go back on tour and live the wild days of illicit sex and drugs, as if he were still in his twenties. It drove him crazy that I was happy staying local, that I made plenty of money recording and doing an occasional tour, and that the idea of fame and worldwide recognition scared the living piss out of me.
Not to mention he had bailed on me and Mom over and over again and was less than an ideal candidate for husband or father of the year. I never understood why my mom, my sweet, loving, kindhearted, generous mom, stayed married to such a scumbag. But no matter how hard I pushed or how much I pleaded with her, she refused to leave him, which, in turn, made it really hard for me not to hate his lazy, cheating, lying ass.
“I don’t talk to major labels, Pop. I’ve told you that a million times.”
He scoffed. “Do those other guys in the band know that you’re holding their future hostage? What do they have to say about you making decisions like that?”
This wasn’t a conversation I cared to have with him. I didn’t really care to have any kind of conversation with him, but he wasn’t going to go away unless I made him. The band I was recording was going to be here any minute, and the last thing I wanted was for him to act like a middle-aged groupie.
“The guys know where I stand and they know where the door is if they don’t like it. I’ve played with Boone and Von since we were fourteen years old, so I doubt much I do surprises them. Catcher came from a band that already hit the mainstream and hated it, so the last thing he wants is to be in another one that’s blowing up. Stay out of my business, Pop. It doesn’t concern you, unless you’re asking to borrow money—in which case, have Mom call me. I’ll transfer it to her, not to you.”
He pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head so that I could no longer just watch myself glower in the reflection. I got my dark eyes and my dark hair from him, but that was where the resemblance stopped. He was lived-in. A life of too many drugs and too many hard nights had taken its toll, and all I could think about when I looked at him was to wonder how someone so awful was able to convince someone as wonderful as my mom to marry his sorry ass. He made me furious in a way I couldn’t express with normal words. The only way I ever got it all out was to purge it on stage, in bleeding vocals and ear-shattering melodies.
“You better watch what you’re saying to me, son. I’m still your father and I go home to her, unlike you.”
There were a million things that I wanted to say to that, but I didn’t; I never did. As much as I loved my mom, there was no way I could stay in that house and watch him tear her down time and time again. It upset her so much when the old man and I got into it over his blatant disregard of her and her feelings that I had moved out when I was barely fifteen. It was either that or put my dad in the ground. Luckily, Nash’s uncle Phil was practically running a halfway house for unhappy teenage boys and hadn’t had any issue adding me to the fold.
I knew it bothered her that I didn’t come home often, considering they lived just a few miles down the road. But I couldn’t abide him stepping out on her and constantly hurting her. I knew he did a number on her emotional state, and I wouldn’t put it past him to have taken it further, to take it to a level none of us would be able to ignore anymore, but I was at a loss as to what to do about any of it. My mom was a great lady and she deserved someone who treated her like she was a queen, not a consolation prize.
“What do you want?” My patience was running thin.
We stared at each other in silence for a long minute before he pulled his shades back down and crooked the corners of his mouth up in a grin that made me want to punch him in the face.
“That band you helped get signed—Artifice—they’re pretty huge right now. You wrote most of their album, didn’t you?”
“So?”
“So I’m thinking they owe you pretty big, and it wouldn’t kill you to put in a call to them to see if they want any help on the European leg of their tour that’s coming up.”
I was two seconds away from grabbing him by the collar of his stupid bowling shirt and shoving him against the side of the building, when he held up a hand and smirked at me.
“I know you love your momma, son. What about her? You really want to leave me to my own devices for an unknown amount of time where she’s concerned? Who knows what that will look like this time? Neither one of us is getting any younger.”
The challenge in his voice was clear—as was the threat to my mom. I glared at him and consciously talked myself out of ripping his head off his neck and kicking it across the parking lot like a soccer ball.
“You’re out of your damn mind, old man. I already hate your guts. You really want to go this route with me?”
“She ain’t ever going to leave me, son, and you know it. There ain’t a damn thing you can do to me while you’re worried about her at home with me, and we both know it. Set up something with Artifice. I’m not asking to be their tour manager, or even the sound tech, but I want in on the show. I need a little adventure and a whole lot of good times.”
I was going to skin him alive and then use his bloody carcass as a stage prop. I pushed past him with a growl.
“I’ll see what I can do, but if she calls me and it so much as sounds like you upset her or were even thinking of upsetting her, I swear I will run you over in the street like the dog that you are. If you think blackmail is the way this relationship is going to play out, you don’t know me at all.”
“You’re damn straight I don’t know you. No son of mine should be wasting his God-given talent in this town, when he could be all over the map making millions and dropping panties in every city.”
I looked at him over my shoulder as I unlocked the door. “It is my undying wish that I was no son of yours, but neither of us is that lucky. Go away, Pop, before you make me do something that one of us will be sure to regret.”
I went into the darkened space, turning on lights as I went. It took a real honest effort to lock back down all the aggravation and resentment that always boiled to the surface when I had to deal with the old man.
It bothered me on an inexplicable level that he insisted we were so similar. I had been born with the talent he so desperately wanted. I had the life he longed to live practically banging down my door, and it infuriated him that all I wanted was for my poor mother to recognize that she deserved better and get away from him. I would never claim that I was an angel when I went on tour, and I would never deny that being in a band was a surefire way to get laid by the ready and willing. But I never left someone behind with a promise that I would behave, and I never had anyone in particular waiting for me to come home. I didn’t make promises I couldn’t keep. I learned that firsthand from him.
I set up the recording area and leafed through the list of songs the guys in Black Market Alphas dropped off. It was a stupid ass name, but the kids were talented and had a lot of potential to make it big. They were more poppy than I liked, falling more along the lines of Avenged Sevenfold. They were hard enough that teenage boys would dig them, but with enough harmony and melody that teenage girls would rock out to them as well. Plus they were young—the lead singer was only like eighteen or nineteen, so they had a lifetime to get better or flame out and die, which was probably more likely. I agreed to work with them because the drummer who wrote all the songs had a ton of talent and reminded me a lot of myself when I was younger.
Being in a band was hard work and being in a good band was often more work than the reward was worth. I was lucky that the guys I played with understood that I was happy being a big fish in a small pond here, rather than a speck in the ocean that ate new bands alive elsewhere.
I might be conceited in other ways, but I knew that wasn’t the case when it came to my ability to play good music. I knew I could sing and I could rock any guitar you put in my hands. I had enough fury at my old man and anger and angst built up over a lifetime to fuel me to write songs that were both powerful and relevant.
I also knew that I had enough swagger and attitude to own any stage I walked on, and that if I wanted my audience to feel what I was feeling, I could pull them in and refuse to let them go until I was ready. I was a good front man. What I didn’t have was the patience to play the game, or the desire to let others think that they had a right to what I had created. I didn’t have the necessary tolerance for bullshit and ass kissing that it took to be a major player in the industry.
I was also terrified by the idea of what would happen to my mom if my dad ever found out I signed with a major label. That would just spin the old guy right off his axis, and he would take her right along with him. She just deserved better than that. He would up and leave her in the blink of an eye. He would hitch himself to my coattails, the all the pomp and circumstance that went along with being a big name band on a big name label, and I always wondered if she would ever be able to forgive me if I was the cause of the old man ultimately walking away for what he deemed his just rewards.
I looked up when the outside door opened and the group started filtering in with their instruments. The lead singer was a kid named Ryan, who was a decent kid but full enough of himself that he could easily rub you the wrong way. He had a lot of attitude and the requisite presence to lead a band, but he was immature and way more interested in the money and the girls than in putting out a quality product. I noticed he had his upper arm wrapped in cellophane and medical tape when he reached across the mixing board to pound fists in greeting. I nodded at the obviously new ink and asked, “You go to one of my boys?” When we had been on tour, all the guys in BMA had been enamored of the artwork the Enmity band members sported courtesy of the Marked, the tattoo shop where all my boys worked.
The angel that stretched from one side of my collar bone to the other and went way below my navel was probably my most recognized piece. I also had a Japanese dragon that covered one whole arm that Nash had done when he was just starting out, and my other forearm was covered from elbow to wrist in a complicated mélange of Salvador Dali paintings that Rowdy had recently finished. It looked more like a painting on flesh than a tattoo.
All of the guys had their strengths. Rule was all about heavy lines and gothic pieces that covered huge amounts of skin, and he tended toward the traditional style. Nash loved big color and bold design. It was easy to see his street style and new-school aesthetic in everything he did. Rowdy, though the most irreverent of all of us, really treated his work like art. He believed in creating custom-designed pieces that no one else would have, and honed his talent like a true craftsmen. Tattooing was just another art form to him, and I think he took what he did more seriously than the other guys. In fact, I had enlisted him to design all of our album covers and T-shirt designs for the band.
Cora’s hands and needles had been in places that I didn’t care to think about, but all the staff at the Marked did a great job. I had zero complaints and didn’t hesitate to refer anyone who asked about them.
“Yeah, dude, it was badass. I totally name-dropped, and the guy with the flames tattooed on his head worked me in on the spot.” He rolled his eyes dramatically and looked at me like I should have disclosed pertinent information before suggesting they hit the shop. “You didn’t tell me the place was packed with talent. The blonde that ran the desk, holy shit, man, she was like my dream girl.”
I bit back a laugh because Cora was every rock and roller’s dream girl until she opened her mouth. With her mismatched eyes and undeniably general cuteness, her looks were deceiving. Guys like Ryan were attracted to her crazy hair and the fact that she had a full-sleeve tattooed on her left arm and tiny, solid black gauges in each ear. The fact that she was mouthy, bossy, and treated us all like we were wayward kindergartners never came up until the poor, unsuspecting guy was already head over heels in love.
I shook my head at him and warned, “She’s too old for you and way more trouble than she’s worth. Trust me. What did you get done?”
He peeled the protective covering off and proudly displayed a snarling gargoyle. It was cool, well done, but honestly kind of generic. I could tell Nash had done his best to put some flare into it to make it unique, but it was really just a tattoo that some kid got because he thought a big ol’ piece of ink would make him look cool while onstage and in photos. Because they were paying me more than a grand an hour for my time, I just nodded and told him to get into the studio with the rest of the guys in the band. I could tell he wanted more props, but I was almost out of patience for dealing with people’s shit today, so I just kept my mouth shut before I said something that would get me in trouble.
For the next three hours I tweaked vocals and mixed instruments to get the first five songs done. The rest of the guys in the band were pretty committed to putting together a solid debut album, but Ryan was difficult, and I could tell he was getting irritated that I kept deferring to Jorge, the band’s drummer, because he was the main songwriter.
I needed to understand what was behind a song before I could do it justice, but Ryan clearly wanted all the attention on him and it was making getting anything laid down hard. The kid had decent pipes and a butt load of charisma, but if he didn’t pull his head out of his ass all they were ever going to be was a really good opening act for far better bands.
The recording session ran so long that when the guys in my own band started showing up for our practice, I was still working on getting the bridge for the chorus in song number two right. My bandmates were used to having to kick it while I paid the bills, and when the kids saw that they had an actual audience to impress, they pulled it together, and I managed to get everything hammered out up to track five.
Von was my lead guitar player and songwriting partner, Catcher played bass, and Boone managed the drum kit. We were a pretty tight group; had to be since we spent so much time together. So I didn’t have to say anything to them, just offer up a grunt and a narrow-eyed stare when they jokingly asked how it was going.
The kids came bounding out of the studio to say hey to everyone, and I wanted to smack Ryan when he asked if they could hang around and watch our practice. I was over teenage metal heads and had just wanted to knock out a quick practice so we could go grab a beer and some wings and bug Ayden. I knew I should stay away from her, but I couldn’t seem to do it for too long. Our band had a big show planned for Valentine’s Day the following weekend and I figured it would just be easier to agree to let them stay than to argue about it.
I led everyone to the back room that we used for our practice and the guys and I took our places like we have at least twice a week for the past five years. We were a well-oiled machine; we knew what we were doing and that no band worked when someone’s ego was the driving force. I thought that maybe watching what an actual band looked like might help Ryan get off his pedestal. Boone tapped out a lead-in beat and looked at me over the top of his kit. “We gonna play the set for the show or you need to do some harder stuff?” They knew when I was in a mood, really we were friends first and a band second, they just understood where I was at.
I shoved hands through my dark and usually messy hair and rolled my shoulders around. The microphone felt like an extension of my arm when I pulled it out of the stand. I met curious looks all around and nodded at him.
“Yeah, let’s go black and then do the normal set.”
Before I even finished the sentence, deep rhythms were coming off the drums and low bass tones were shaking the ground under my unlaced combat boots. Von made the air ring with guitar chords that were sharp enough to peel the paint off the walls and I started singing. I let all the anger at my dad stream out. I let the frustration of trying to wrangle young talent explode into vocals that ebbed and flowed with every emotion that was trying to strangle me. By the time we had moved to the second song, the guys in BMA had all taken seats on empty instrument cases and were watching us with wide eyes and slack jaws. When we moved on to the mellower stuff, what we played for the bar crowd, I could see that Jorge was really listening to the power behind the lyrics that meant something. I could also see that Ryan was probably going to try to emulate everything I did to a T at their next performance.
After I had yelled, dripped, and purged every bad thing that happened today out of me, I dropped the mic on the floor and pulled the edge of my T-shirt up to wipe my face. I felt empty, but better.
I turned to the guys and told them I was hooking up with Rowdy for a beer if they wanted to come. Usually, we tried to hang out once a week and just touch base, but Catcher was doing some demo work for another band, Von and his girlfriend had just had a baby, and Boone was struggling with a pretty short bout of sobriety. Lately I had been kicking it more and more with Rowdy and the guys from the shop.
I had known Rule and Nash since high school, but those two were a pretty tight unit, and when Rule’s older brother, Rome, was in town, it was worse. I often ended up on the outskirts of whatever they had cooking up. I was stoked when Rowdy had started coming around because he was quirky, unpredictable, and always a hell of a good time. They were all good friends to have, and I liked to think they felt the same about me, but Rowdy and I just clicked and had an understanding so he typically ended up being my go-to bro.
The rest of the guys in both bands filed out the door but Jorge stayed behind as I chugged a bottle of water and moved to put all our stuff away. “What’s up?”
He rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the tips of his tennis shoes instead of at me. “You guys are so much better than us, so much better than half the bands we were on tour with at Metalfest. Why are you helping us out, and not in the studio making albums of your own? I’m just wondering how that happens?”
“You guys are pretty solid, but if you don’t get Ryan to tone it down, you’re going to end up breaking up before you get anywhere. You got a lot of attention from Metalfest, so you should capitalize on it. You’re paying me to help you, Jorge, but that doesn’t mean I don’t recognize talent when I see it. You write really good songs but anyone can sing them. You don’t need a front man who doesn’t appreciate that.”
He looked up at me and grinned. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“That song you closed with, ‘Whiskey in the Morning,’ it’s about a girl, isn’t it?”
I sighed and clapped him on the back of the neck as I guided him out of the warehouse.
“Aren’t all the best songs about a girl? It doesn’t matter if it’s metal, if it’s country, if it’s blues or rock and roll; all the songs that make us remember and make us want to sing along are about the best kind of girl, the kind you can’t live without but can’t ever get ahold of.”
“You have one of those?”
I barked out a bitter laugh and stopped by the Challenger. “Oh yeah.”
I texted Rowdy to let him know I was on my way, and he shot back that I had better hurry because the place was packed. The girls were all smoking-hot and dressed in sexy little sports-themed uniforms that made Hooters girls look like they were dressed for church. The bar was typically packed so that wasn’t anything new. We went there enough that Lou, the door guy, usually hooked us up with a seat, even if there wasn’t room or if the bar had a long wait.
When I walked in, I noticed the blonde with the giant fake boobs giving me the eye, but I never even blinked in her direction. I knew Ayden hated her and that it was my duty as her friend—god, I hated that word when it came to her—to keep all common enemies at bay, even if said enemy looked like she wanted to give me a bath with her tongue the first chance she got.
Lou gave me a head nod and pointed a meaty finger toward the section of the bar that was off to one side. It was the closest to the patio that was open in the summer, and I had no trouble spotting both Ayden’s dark head and Rowdy’s much blonder and far more prominent one. I don’t know when he decided that a pompadour, long with perfectly groomed chops, was a style he could rock in the real world, but for the last year or so he had been wearing his hair like James Dean and dressing like a cat from the fifties. Rowdy was eccentric and liked flash and attention, so I just rolled with it because it was just part of who he was and not much made me chuckle like he did.
I caught Ayden’s eye and gave her a grin. She looked at me for a second, then looked away without so much as a twitch of her lips. It made me frown as I settled onto the stool across from Rowdy. Even if there was some serious sexual tension between us she was always usually happy to see me.
“What’s her problem tonight?”
I still felt bad about knocking her off the landing, but she had insisted that she was fine, so I didn’t know what I had done to piss her off between then and now. Unless she had felt the instant hard-on that lying on top of her had caused. I couldn’t be held accountable for that uncontrollable response. She was beautiful, and if she had any idea how badly I wanted to be on top of her all the time, it would make her do a lot more than frown at me.
Rowdy pushed a shot of amber liquid the same color as Ayden’s eyes in my direction and used a finger that was tattooed with a picture of a miniature skull and cross bones to point at the bar. “He showed up about twenty minutes ago, and she’s been acting like she has a metal pole crammed up her backside ever since.”
I swiveled my head around and swore under my breath when I saw him through the crowd gathered at the bar. I didn’t know what she saw in the guy. Sure, he was enrolled in the same school as her. Sure, he was interning with the government, doing some kind of groundbreaking research for biochemical fuels or some shit. Sure, he was all-right looking—in that dry-toast, plain-yogurt, white-rice kinda way. Sure, he was, by all accounts, a perfectly nice guy and a gentleman to boot, but everything about him screamed boring!
All of that aside, he wore a fucking sweater vest and didn’t look like he had any idea what to do with all that was Ayden Cross. She was something special, something that grown men in another era would have battled to death to win with shiny pistols or clashing swords. But this guy, this nerdy, sweater vest–wearing idiot wouldn’t even tell me to shove it where the sun didn’t shine, even though I knew he knew that I had dirty, sexy, X-rated dreams about the girl he was dating. Try as I might to tone it down, I’m sure as hell it was all spelled out in my eyes when I looked at her.
“Awesome.”
I tossed back the shot and took the one Rowdy hadn’t touched yet and downed that one too. He gave me a look and leaned back to cross his arms over his broad chest. We were about the same height, an inch or so over six foot, but he looked like he could wrestle a bull to the ground due to his past life as an all-star football player. We never really talked about why he had quit playing ball, but I figured since he had found his niche in the tattoo world it didn’t really matter, and if he wanted to tell me, he knew I would listen.
“He brought her a huge bouquet of flowers and some stupid box of chocolate or some shit shaped like a heart. I think he’s trying to pin her down for Valentine’s Day.”
A cold chill raced down my spine, and I felt my eyes harden involuntarily. “She’s supposed to come to the show at the Fillmore with Rule and Shaw.” It was big deal for the band. It was a big deal for me, and I wanted her to be there. I had just assumed she would be.
Rowdy shrugged a broad shoulder. “They’ve been hanging out for a while now. I bet it’s the night he’s planning on going all out. You know what I mean, fancy dinner, expensive gift, and the night closing with a trip to a high-end hotel room. He looks like the type and he’s been giving her the hard press for the past few months if I understand correctly all that girly jabber Cora annoys us with at the shop.”
I gritted my teeth and repressed the urge to get out of my seat and strangle the guy with his own argyle outerwear. Another tumbler was set down in front of me, along with a plateful of wings. A pitcher of beer landed in front of Rowdy, and I narrowed my eyes to match Ayden’s careful look when I noticed she was scowling back at me.
“Stop it.”
I tried to look innocent, but had to admit that even on a good day, it wasn’t a look I pulled off. “What?”
“Stop making faces at Adam. He just stopped by to say hi. I told him to come over and have a drink with you guys, but then he saw Jet looking like he was plotting someone’s murder, and decided against it.”
I wasn’t going to deny it, so I picked up the shot and let my gaze travel over her outfit. Today was the cheerleader, my personal favorite. Her tiny pleated skirt was orange and blue, Bronco colors, and it was topped off with a supertight, white sweater that left little to the imagination. She was already taller than average and when she put on those do-me heels, she was almost eye to eye with me, which made her legs—which deserved their own ode to greatness—look even better. I was lost somewhere in my own world, where those legs were wrapped around my head or my waist—I wasn’t picky—when she jolted me back to reality.
Ayden smacked me on the side of my head. “Knock it off. I don’t know what’s wrong with you tonight, but get your mind out of the gutter. Are you sure you aren’t the one who got banged up when we fell earlier?”
I rubbed the ear that had the little spike pointing out the top of it, where she had made it sting. I tossed back the shot she brought and pushed the plate of wings in Rowdy’s direction. Maybe I needed to get drunk, so I could blame my sudden need to act a whole lot of wrong on something.
“Are you bailing on the show on Valentine’s?” I heard the intensity in my tone and I hated it. It wasn’t supposed to matter what she did or who she chose to spend her time with, but it did. I wanted her to pick me, even though I knew I wasn’t allowed to pick her. She shifted on her shoes and fiddled with the edge of her skirt.
“I don’t know. Shaw will be all wrapped up in Rule, and Cora usually takes off and does her own thing. You”—she pointed a finger at Rowdy—“always ditch me for some bar skank, and Nash offered to be DD, so he won’t be drinking and will be grumpy and nasty all night.” Those eyes that flashed with every color of gold and bronze landed on me and she bit her lip. “You’ll be onstage, so that leaves me to fend for myself. Adam asked me to dinner and has a whole night planned, so I just don’t know.”
We stared at each other silently for a while, so long that it ultimately became awkward and strained. I wanted to ask her to ditch Adam and come, and I think she wanted me to ask her to ditch Adam and come, because she would do it. But if she wanted a boring, predictable Valentine’s date with a douche bag in a sweater vest, who was I to stop her? I was never going to be a guy who had an advanced degree and a five-year fiscal plan. I was never going to be a guy who valued safety and security above passion and creativity. I sure as fuck was never going to be a guy who wore argyle in public.
“Well, you should have a nice time. Let Adam take you out and give you a nice romantic night. You deserve it.” I almost choked on the words, but I got them out.
Something moved across her pretty face that I couldn’t read. Ayden was really good at that, hiding her emotions behind a flirty smile and a sarcastic comeback. Whatever it was disappeared as she picked up my empty glass and asked if I wanted a refill. I nodded silently and turned back to Rowdy. He was watching me dispassionately and pushed his full pint of beer in my direction.
“We getting shit-faced?”
I tried to exhale around the band that had tightened in my chest, and nodded sharply.
“Yep, sounds about right.”
Chapter 3
Ayden
I called the Kentucky number back every day for the rest of the week and never got an answer. I called my mom and she had no clue who it might be. She insisted that she hadn’t heard from Asa in months and got mad when I asked her if he was in jail. My brother was an easy guy to take up for—charming, unassuming, and effortlessly attractive and suave. He was the kind of guy who could steal the shirt off your back while you were still wearing it and then convince you it was your idea to give it to him all along. He made you want to take care of him at all cost even though he would never, ever return the favor.
I couldn’t fathom why he would suddenly have a pressing need to get ahold of me, but it still gave me a sense of apprehension that I couldn’t shake. On top of that, I swore I had seen the same guy I thought I recognized earlier, walking in the neighborhood near the house the last two times I had headed out for a run. I was tempted to stop and ask him if we knew each other, but I still kept my distance from strangers after the attack on Shaw at our old apartment. Granted, she had been cornered by a lunatic ex-boyfriend bent on making her his by any means necessary, but I figured better safe than sorry.
I would have mentioned it to Jet, as the de facto man of the house, but over the last few days I got the impression he was upset with me and was purposely avoiding me, so I hadn’t had much of a chance to say anything to him. Something had happened when I told him I didn’t know if I was going to the show on Saturday, some subtle shift that changed things between us, and I didn’t know what it was or what to do about it.
In all honesty, I didn’t want to spend Valentine’s Day with Adam. He was such a sweet guy and he was exactly what I was convinced I should be looking for in a long-term partner. But when he had come strolling into the bar with those ridiculous flowers and that box of chocolates, just like a scene out of Pretty Woman, all I wanted to do was find a place to hide.
I knew he wanted Valentine’s Day to be a big night. He had been pressing for our relationship to get more serious the last couple times we went out, but even though I tried, and gave myself pep talk after pep talk, I just couldn’t drum up an inkling of the desire for him that I felt for Jet.
In fact, the last time I had sex with a guy was with a fellow chem major named Kyle. I had used him to try to rid myself of the memory and humiliation of Jet’s rejection the previous winter. The only purpose it had served was to make me feel worse than I had before and to remind me that good-girl sex was entirely boring and unsatisfying. That was why such a huge part of me was so drawn to Jet. Sure, his future plans, or lack thereof, concerned me, but the real reason I needed to stay as far away as possible had to do with more than that. The way he simply made me want to let it all go and just be with him made my blood freeze up and my better judgment scream and holler.
I might hate that girls wandered in and out of his room across the hall on a fairly regular basis, but I was honest enough with myself to admit that not a single one of them looked like they left wanting more or like they were in any way unsatisfied. It made me want to tie him down and have at it myself, but that wasn’t in the cards. So in the meantime I had to decide what I was going to do about Adam.
I knew it wasn’t fair to keep stringing him along if I wasn’t willing to commit to something more serious. I knew it wasn’t fair for me to try to keep fitting these perfect guys into a role I needed them to fill for my perfect vision of the future, only to ultimately deem them not right. Unfortunately, I didn’t know what the alternative was. Deep down, I knew what I really wanted, what I ultimately desired, but we didn’t fit. Jet didn’t fit into my flawless vision, and I had a feeling that trying to make him fill any other role than the one he was already occupying would destroy more than just our friendship. Jet wasn’t the kind of guy that respected boundaries.
I was sitting at a table outside the library at the college mulling all of this over and not paying any attention to what was going on around me, when a heavy anatomy book slammed down in front of me on the table. I jumped a little and glared at my best friend as she lowered herself into the chair across from me.
Shaw Landon was the opposite of me in every way one could imagine. She was short, with almost-white blond hair and leafy green eyes, and came from a background flooded with wealth and privilege. She was also shy, sweet and, as of late, so ridiculously happy and in love, it took a concentrated effort not to gag all over her.
Don’t get me wrong. I was very happy she had finally come clean about her feelings for Rule and that after some serious damage and some serious making up, they had figured out how to make things work between them. I had to admit I was a little jealous that even though they seemed to be so different, it was incidental when it came to just simply being together. I didn’t know how to do that. If I did, I wouldn’t be sexually frustrated and contemplating hurting a very nice guy for no other reason than he just didn’t do it for me or have me daydreaming about skintight pants and what was inside them.
“I called your name like four times. You looked like you were trying to figure out something pretty serious over here.”
We both went to DU and were both in our junior year. Shaw wanted to be a doctor so she was looking at a longer haul than I was, but it was nice that a couple of our upper-level undergrad classes now overlapped. I rarely saw her unless we went out or were at work together, and even then, chances were she left early to go home to Rule or to study. I missed her, and while Cora was fun and I enjoyed spending time with her, talking to her was different from talking to Shaw.
I traced the image on the front of the book with a finger nail and refused to look up at her. “I’m thinking it’s time to cut Adam loose.”
“Hmm . . . This wouldn’t have anything to do with Valentine’s Day would it?”
I made a face and sat back in the chair with a sigh. “Maybe.”
Looking into those green eyes of hers was like looking into a raw piece of emerald. She watched me for a second before sitting back and copying my pose with her arms crossed over her chest.
“What do you want to do tomorrow night?”
I think the more accurate question was who did I want to do tomorrow night and the answer was clearly not Adam. I huffed out a breath that sent my dark hair sliding across my forehead.
“I wanted to go to the show with everyone, but then Adam showed up at the bar with flowers and chocolate and made a big production about making plans. Rowdy was there and saw the whole thing. Jet came in and told me I should go have a romantic night, that I deserved it—so now I don’t have any idea what I want to do, but I know I’m irritated at both of them for different reasons.”
Shaw lifted a pale eyebrow and tapped the edge of her fingers, tipped in a crazy leopard-print polish, on the cover of her book. “So tell me the reasons.”
“It’s stupid.”
“If it has you sulking outside the library when it’s barely forty degrees out, then it isn’t stupid. Something is bothering you and we should talk it out.”
I sighed again and ran aggravated hands through my hair. I normally wore it much shorter, but between school and work, I was unsuccessful in finding time for anything that might be labeled trivial or a waste of time, which included my current state of boy confusion.
“I like Adam. He’s nice and we have a pretty good time together, but it bothers me that he never wants to hang out with my friends. He’s almost too cookie-cutter, you know what I mean?” I waited until she nodded. “He has a great future all planed out, he has an awesome family all from here and I know that he really likes me. He’s cute enough and we have a million and one things in common, but . . .” There shouldn’t be a “but,” yet there it was.
“But what, Ayd?” She wasn’t going to let me sugarcoat it.
“But when he kisses me or tries to touch me, I might as well be filing my nails or watching CNN. There is no spark— Hell, there isn’t even a stiff wind. It’s boring and dull, and I hate it.”
“Well, that’s not good.”
I scoffed at her, “You think? I’m not attracted to the guy I’m supposed to be dating, but if, God forbid, the guy who lives across the hall comes out of his room without a shirt on, instantly I’m ready to spontaneously combust. Watching Jet onstage, being close enough to accidentally touch him and smell him, does more to get me off and turn me on than anything Kyle or Adam has done in the past year, and that’s why I’m irritated and frustrated with him.
“I don’t want to be attracted to Jet, Shaw. I want to be attracted to a guy like Adam, who I can potentially build a future with, and it bugs me to no end that no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to make that happen.”
She gazed at me knowingly for a long minute. Shaw knew all about my disastrous attempt at seduction with Jet and she always told me that something seemed off about it. Sure, he thought I was all virginal white-gloves and untouched purity, but she was convinced there was more at work than Jet just trying to be chivalrous. She was always encouraging me to let a little bit more of the old me out, so he could see that I wasn’t above whatever lofty pedestal he had decided to place me on.
The last time I did that, he hurt me and made me run away, so I wasn’t too keen on letting the old Ayden out again for him to reject all over again. Frankly, I was terrified of the way he made we want to throw all caution to the wind.
“Well, we both know you can’t maintain a relationship of any kind with a guy you aren’t physically attracted to, and as for Jet, maybe you just need to get him out of your system. Maybe once he’s not the one that got away, you won’t want him so bad. That thing that happened last year between the two of you has always lingered. Maybe you just need to take a full dose of whatever he’s packing, and it will go away. Then you can focus on finding a guy more like Adam to work on building a serious relationship with.”
“I tried that already. He said it was a bad idea, remember?” I couldn’t help the bitterness that colored my tone.
Shaw laced her fingers together and leaned across the table, so that I couldn’t look away from her super-green eyes.
“So make him think it’s a great idea. You really think if you set out to seduce him, he’s going to say no? I heard what you told me happened last time, Ayd. He put up a little tiny protest and you ran away as fast as you could because it reminded you too much of something you might have done in another life. We don’t talk about Kentucky much, but I get the distinct impression that the girl from Woodward wouldn’t have let Jet go that night, the way the girl from Denver did.”
I groaned and dropped my head into my hands to cover my face. “The girl from Woodward wouldn’t have ever given him the impression that she was some good little girl, just trying to play with fire. Who I was before wasn’t pretty, Shaw. I tell you that, but I don’t think you really get the enormity of it.”
She waved a dismissive hand and got to her feet, hefting her heavy book as she went. The thing looked like it weighed more than she did.
“None of that matters. It’s this Ayden that I’m worried about. This Ayden deserves to be happy, regardless of what the future holds, and this Ayden is the one who has to decide why she is settling for milk and cookies when what she really wants is edible body paint and furry handcuffs.”
That startled a laugh out of me and I got to my feet to follow her. “What do you know about edible body paints?” She flicked her long hair over her shoulder, and the black underneath shimmered under the pale blond.
“Tattoo artist boyfriend, remember? He likes to draw.”
We shared a knowing look and parted to go our separate ways to class. I hated that she was right. I could drag things out with Adam forever and still end up nowhere. He was too nice for that, and I was too good of a person now to make him suffer and wait around needlessly for things that I just wasn’t willing to give him. I knew that being with someone like Adam helped me keep all the bad traits from my past at bay. Dating a guy like him didn’t allow for the spontaneity or the reckless decision-making that so often ended up making me suffer harsh consequences. Adam was steady and didn’t offer up much in the way of excitement or passion, and my logical side knew that was what I should want. However, the bigger part of me that operated on instinct and emotion knew he just wasn’t ever going to cut it on the more basic, physical fronts.
I spent my entire next class worrying about it and getting nowhere. Unfortunately, Adam was the teacher’s aide for the I-chem class that was directly across the hall from mine so when I exited the classroom he was waiting for me. I had to try not to flinch when he leaned down to press a light kiss to my unyielding mouth. It shouldn’t be this hard. He was nice enough looking, with brown hair and clear blue eyes. Regrettably, he dressed like he was about to burst into a lecture about cell division or the effects of global warming at any minute. There was just nothing there; no spark, no tingle, no nothing.
He offered to take my books from me but I shook my head no.
I was getting ready to tell him that we needed to cancel Valentine’s Day and that I didn’t think it was a good idea to see each other anymore, when he grabbed my hand and placed a kiss on the back of it.
“I know you were on the fence about spending Valentine’s Day together tomorrow, so I went ahead and made us a reservation for dinner at that Brazilian restaurant you like so much. I really want us to spend the evening together, Ayd. This relationship is very special to me. You are very special to me.”
I gulped down a mixture of bile and guilt, and tried to give him a smile that I knew ended up more like a grimace.
“That’s really sweet, Adam, but like I said, I just don’t know about dinner and the night together. I don’t think I’m in the same place with this relationship that you are.”
I could see that my words hurt him and it made me feel awful, but I knew it was the truth. I couldn’t use him to keep myself from acting in a certain way. Maybe I had really changed or I was just pretending, but either way, he didn’t need to be jerked around while I figured it out. He didn’t need to be mentally rejected while I was busy getting Jet’s pants off in my mind every five minutes.
“I’m sorry, I know that’s not what you wanted to hear.”
He squeezed the hand he was holding and gave me a grin that was sad and sweet. “Well, how about this, we go to dinner and you let me try to charm you? After, you can decide what you want to do. We have to eat, and the reservation was tricky to get on such short notice. I think you’ll be missing out on something really great if you don’t give this thing between us a shot.”
I wanted to groan, but just tugged my hand free and used it to twist the straps on my book bag around. I knew the right thing to do was to walk away, but he looked so bummed out. He had given it his all for the last four months and I was having a hard time just pulling the Band-Aid off clean.
“Look, I have plans to go see a friend’s band tomorrow night. I’ll go to dinner with you but you have to understand that all it’s going to be is dinner. I don’t think my mind is going to be changed. You’re a really nice guy, Adam, but there’s just something missing here, and after four months I know when to pull the plug.”
He laughed and I heard a chord of bitterness. “I know what it means when a girl says I’m a nice guy, Ayd. You don’t have to try to spare my feelings. You’re bored with me. I’ve seen the guys you hang out with when you aren’t working or at school. No one in their right mind would ever call any of them nice guys, especially that one you live with, the guy with the band.”
We had reached the parking lot and my car, so I popped the lock and tossed my stuff inside. I shifted on my feet and tried not to look guilty.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with that. I just know that something isn’t working and I’m not going to draw it out for either one of us. Trust me, Adam, there was a time when I would have just kept dating you until I had wrung you dry, and then walked away without an apology or bothering to look back. I know we both deserve better than that now, so if you want to cancel dinner I totally understand.”
I was secretly hopeful that he would do just that. I didn’t want to sit through an awkward dinner with a guy whom I had just told, in no uncertain terms, that I didn’t find him attractive. But Adam was a gentleman and his good manners just wouldn’t allow it.
“No. I already made the reservation and I would still like to take you. I don’t want to be alone on Valentine’s Day, especially not when I thought things were moving in a much more favorable direction with you.”
Man, he was even being nice about being dumped. I sighed and climbed up into the high vehicle. “All right. I really am sorry, Adam.”
He gave his head a rueful shake and slid his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “To be honest, Ayd, sometimes when we were together I felt like one minute you were there with me, and present, and then the next second it was like a stranger was staring back at me. You’re very difficult to get a handle on, but I really thought it was worth the effort to try.”
That made my eye twitch and I needed to get away from him. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I’ll pick you up at eight.” It was on the tip of my tongue to just tell him I would meet him at the restaurant, so I could go to the show right after without him having to drop me off, but I figured I had done enough damage for one day. His comment about me being two different people was still spinning in my head, so I just left.
I was surprised when I got to the house to see that Cora’s little Mini Cooper was parked in the driveway. She normally closed down the tattoo shop where she worked and did the bank deposit for the night. She was usually just getting home when I was leaving for my shift at the bar. I was also irritated and relieved to see that the Challenger was gone. Jet had been scarce lately, which in turn made me curious as to what he was up to and grateful I didn’t have to deal with his unpredictable moods as of late.
When I walked into the living room I was brought up short by the tiny figure curled up on the couch. Cora wasn’t the type to wrap up in a fluffy blanket and watch sad movies on Lifetime, so the fact that both those things were happening right now made me drop my bag on the floor and rush to her side. I was startled to see that both the brown and the blue-green eyes were glassy with tears, and that her normally cheerful smile was hidden under a quivering lip and flushed cheeks. Cora was a couple years older than me, but right then she looked all of five years old.
“What’s wrong?” I didn’t know what to do, so I patted her on her knee under the blanket.
She blew her nose into a Kleenex and swiped at her damp face with the back of her hand. She looked like a sad pixie.
“I just had a really bad day.”
I frowned and settled even more fully onto the couch. “I’ve known you awhile now and you’ve never even called in sick, not even when we all got food poisoning from that bad Thai food. What happened?”
She sighed and flopped over on her back. She tossed an arm over her swollen eyes and gritted out through clenched teeth, “My ex-fiancé is getting remarried at the end of the year. The asshole sent me a wedding announcement in the mail.”
I blinked in surprise because I didn’t even know she had ever been engaged and because I never would have figured her for the type to carry a torch for someone. “I’m sorry. That has to be rough.”
She let out a string of swear words that would have made Rule and the boys proud and shoved up into a sitting position so that she was hugging her knees. “It shouldn’t matter. He was a bastard and cheated on me the entire time we were together. He owned the shop I worked at in Brooklyn. I came back late one day because I forgot something, and walked in on him putting it to one of his clients in the back room. That wasn’t even the worst part. I thought we were family, that the shop was home, but everyone knew and no one ever said a thing. I looked like a fool.”
She ran her hands through her short hair and growled like an angry puppy. “He was the first guy I ever really loved, ya know? I was so sure that I was over it, but then I saw that stupid announcement and I felt like I was reliving it all over again. If Phil hadn’t pulled me out of the city when he did, I don’t know what I would have done. It just sucks that he’s moved on to some other unsuspecting girl, and I go day after day alone.”
I went to the kitchen to grab her a bottle of water and hand her a paper towel to wipe off her face.
“It’s not like you don’t have every opportunity to date and have a boyfriend. I’ve been out with you. You get hit on all the time.”
She rubbed her multitoned eyes and sighed. “I get hit on by the same kind of guy over and over again; tatted up, restless, and only looking for a good time. I work with guys like them, and some of my best friends are guys like that, Ayd. I know how they operate. I’ve had my heart stomped on, so even though I could probably hang out with one of them for a minute, in the long run I would still end up heartbroken and alone.”
“So date someone different.”
She looked at me from under spiky eyelashes and a hint of her old attitude started to surface.
“Says the girl who is dating a guy who looks like he should be smoking a pipe and reading Chaucer.”
Now it was my turn to sigh and flop on the couch. I crossed my arms over my stomach and looked at her out of the corner of my eye.
“I broke it off with him today.”
She lifted a pale eyebrow, the one with the pink stud in it at me. “Really? I thought you were planning a perfectly boring future of going to the cinema and breeding supergeniuses with tedious bouts of vanilla sex.”
“Yeah, well, I would actually have to want to have sex with him in order to breed anything and it just isn’t happening—vanilla or otherwise. I just couldn’t string him along anymore.”
She popped me on the shoulder with her tiny fist and gave me a huge grin. “Good. Now you can stop pretending that you don’t want to get all kinds of naked and horizontal with Jet.”
I snapped my head around and stared at her with my mouth hanging open. “You’re the second person today who has told me I should just go ahead and sleep with him.”
She shrugged and tossed the blanket to the floor. “Shaw and I talk about it all the time. Jet is sexy, like it-hurts-to-look-at-him sexy, so we totally get it. What we don’t get is why you so obviously struggle to keep him at arm’s length. I see you stare at him day in and day out, and when he’s onstage, Ayd, you should see the way you look at him.”
I fidgeted nervously, again unaware that I was being so transparent about what he did to me and the struggle I had with myself to keep my hands off.
“Everyone watches him like that when he’s onstage. He’s amazing and talented.”
She got to her feet and stretched her arms above her head. She patted me on top of my head with the tattooed arm on her way out of the room, calling over her shoulder, “Yeah, that’s true, but you’re the only one he ever looks into the crowd for. You’re the only one he makes sure is watching if he knows you’re there.”
That made my breath catch in my throat and my pulse slip and slide. I wasn’t oblivious to the fact that Jet and I shared a pretty potent amount of attraction, but I was also smart enough to know that after turning me down last winter, he hadn’t had an empty bed or a serious relationship since.
A relationship needed more than fire and flames to make it work. Plus, he didn’t know the real me, and the me he did know, he had deemed too clean to mess up. Having someone else tell me that he might be looking at me, realizing all the forbidden things I wanted to do to him and seeing through the perfect image I tried to project, really made me nervous. I struggled around him now, and if he had an inkling as to what I really wanted, I didn’t know that I would be able to keep my hands to myself and out of his pants any longer .
Grumbling to myself I picked my stuff up off the floor and wandered back to my room. I scowled at his closed door and settled in to do some homework and brood. I didn’t want to go to dinner with Adam, and now with Cora’s startling revelation, I didn’t really want to go to the show afterward, either. Maybe when I packed up and left Kentucky, I should have looked into becoming a nun. Right now, that seemed like it would be a whole lot easier to handle.
With my dark hair and odd-colored eyes I looked good in red and since it was Valentine’s Day, I thought that my dress with its flared skirt and off-the-shoulder boatneck in lipstick red was a perfect choice. My hair was too short to do much with so I curled it around the front of my face, and pinned the long bangs back with a bobby pin that had a big rhinestone heart on it. I had been to enough of Jet’s shows to know that heels weren’t exactly the best choice in footwear, but I didn’t have anything else that would fit with the dress, so I settled on a pair of black patent leather Mary Janes.
When I looked in the mirror I had to acknowledge that I looked way too good to simply be having dinner with my ex-sorta-boyfriend, and that I was dressing for someone else entirely. And that wasn’t smart, but I didn’t care or change my outfit.
Adam arrived right on time in his very sensible Subaru, and drove us downtown. The conversation in the car was stiff and strained, even though he told me I looked lovely and was being perfectly polite. We devolved into talking about school and chemistry. By the time we got seated at the restaurant, it was all I could do not to check my phone every five minutes to see the time. I was antsy and still a little concerned about his comment that he felt like I was two different people. That was something I battled with on a regular basis and had thought I’d figured out how to keep the old me totally locked down tight.
I would be the first to admit that I was probably the worst Valentine’s date in the history of the holiday. When he ordered a bottle of wine to have with dinner, I wanted to groan because that just seemed too datelike, but I owed it to him to at least try to be pleasant. I let him pour me a glass and forced a smile.
“Thanks, Adam.”
“I’m glad you came. I really wish you would reconsider and think about trying to work this out between us. I really do like you, Ayden. You’re smart, funny, and beautiful. Plus, we have so much in common.”
What was wrong with me? This guy was nice, cute, and clearly thought I was awesome. He was like the dream guy most girls wanted, but for some reason, the more he extolled all my virtues, the more turned off I got. I pushed the glass of wine away and picked up a glass of water.
“Adam, I don’t think you really know me. For instance, I hate wine. I usually drink tequila, a lot of it, and then hate myself in the morning. We have our chemistry majors and school in common, but beyond that, not much. I really don’t like the ballet or the opera, and I’m more of a line dancing, rodeo kind of girl. I thought that it would do me some good to try to date a guy like you, because you’re just so thoughtful and nice, but all it did was show me that trying to force something to happen just won’t work.”
He cleared his throat and set his wine down as well. “You could have told me all of that months ago, Ayd. You never even gave me a chance to get to know you. You already decided, before we even began, which version of you that I was going to date, without considering that I might like both of them enough to stick around. Maybe I like to line dance as well.”
He was absolutely right and that just made me feel even worse.
I spent the rest of the dinner sulking, and to his credit Adam still offered to pay for the entire bill. I couldn’t let him do that, so I paid for my half and for the tip, to make up for being such a jerk. He drove me to the Fillmore and I had every intention of jumping out of the car and dashing inside, but for some reason when he caught sight of the crowd waiting out front decked out in a whole lot of denim and spikes, he decided that he had to park and walk me in.
I wanted to tell him that it was unnecessary. I had been to plenty of these shows over the past year, and while my fancy dress might garner a few weird looks, most of these guys could care less about me. They were here for the music. But I had already rained on his parade enough for one day, so I let Adam guide me up to the front doors. I didn’t miss the scowl on his face when I told the girl taking tickets I was on the list.
She double-checked my name and wrapped a bracelet around my wrist that said I was over twenty-one. She looked questioningly at Adam, who just shrugged and paid for a ticket. He stood out like a sore thumb amid all the other miscreants milling around, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was going to be even worse when we got inside. We had to wait in a little bit of a line to get to the front doors, and I tried to tell him I was fine, but he kept insisting on at least getting me to my waiting friends. Since Enmity was the headlining band, I knew that Jet would have arranged for them to have one of the VIP tiers up in the balcony by the bar. It took a little work, and a lot of waiting for Adam to stop gaping at barely clothed girls and guys who looked like they ate glass and metal for breakfast, to get to the rest of the group.
Shaw was pressed up against Rule and looked cute in a black dress with pink polka-dot hearts scattered all across it. Rule’s nod to the holiday was to have dyed the front of his dark hair a shocking hot pink. Only a guy like Rule could rock pink hair and not have to give a second thought to getting his ass kicked.
Nash was in a deep conversation with Cora, who looked much better today. Rowdy was saying something to Jet, trying to get his attention. It was to no avail, because as soon as Jet’s gaze locked on Adam and me making our way over, those dark eyes went pitch-black and the gold on the outside started burning like embers. I had to swallow a lump in my throat, because for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why he was so mad. Before I could say anything, he pushed away from the table and stalked away without saying anything to me or anyone else.
I stiffened automatically when Shaw slipped away from Rule to wrap me in a hug. “Hey, girl, you look great.”
I cleared my throat and waved a hand around the table. “Adam, this is everyone, everyone, this is Adam.”
I didn’t wait to see if anyone talked to him. I focused my gaze on Rowdy and moved toward him with purpose. He was staring past me at Adam, and sucking on a Coors Light tall boy. I put myself right in his line of sight and crossed my arms over my chest.
“What’s Jet’s problem?” I was one second from tapping my toe like a disgruntled kid and I think he could tell, because he just smiled at me and tipped the beer up.
“You should probably ask him.”
Annoyed, I poked him in the center of his solid chest. “I’m asking you. He’s been acting pissed off all week. What’s going on with him?”
He moved the beer and narrowed his eyes at me. Rowdy was your typical blond-haired, blue-eyed, perfectly sculpted God’s gift to women, but there was always something lurking just below the surface of that ocean-colored gaze that let people know there was more to him than just an easy smile and a good time. There were depths beyond all that tattooed skin and perfectly coiffed hair. I didn’t know him as well as some of the others, but in him I felt a kindred spirit I didn’t bother to try to define.
“It’s Valentine’s Day, Ayd, and you showed up looking like a goddamn pinup model, on the arm of a guy that dresses like someone’s dad. Like I said, maybe you should go ask him what’s wrong. I think it’s long past time that the two of you have an honest conversation, before one of you—or both of you—end up doing some kind of irreparable damage to the other.”
I sucked in a hard breath between my teeth and put a hand on my racing heart. The opening band was starting their set, so I knew Jet would have gone backstage to make sure the band was getting ready to go. I looked over my shoulder and noticed that Adam was alternately looking at Rule like he was an alien from another planet, and at Shaw like she was crazy for cuddling up to him like he was a giant teddy bear. He just didn’t get it, and even if I had tried to make a relationship with him work, he never would have gotten it.
“Will they let me backstage to talk to him?”
“Sugar, looking the way you look right now, nobody in their right mind would try to stop you.”
I had to give him a smile for that. “Will you keep an eye on Adam? Make sure Rule doesn’t murder him or that Cora doesn’t convince him to do something stupid, like move to Antarctica.”
He nodded briefly and went back to his beer. “I got you covered, Ayd.”
I spun on my heel and dashed down the steps and across the wide general admission floor to the stairs at the side of the stage. The first band was playing and it was getting more crowded, so I had to wiggle and shimmy a little more than I planned. At the top of the stairs, the security guard tried to stop me from going by, but I told him I was with the band. I said that I was with Jet, and like Rowdy had said, the guy did a quick sweep of my outfit (and lingered on my legs) before letting me by. It took me a minute to find the right room, and when I did it, I found only Von and Catcher sitting in big leather chairs messing around with their instruments. They looked up at me in surprise and I felt my heart trip when I didn’t see Jet anywhere.
“Uh, hey.”
“Hey,” they chorused in unison.
“I’m, uh, looking for Jet. Have you seen him?” They shared a look that I didn’t understand, and Catcher cleared his throat. He inclined his head toward the door at the back of the room.
“He came in and smashed a bottle of Jameson against the wall. He went in there a few minutes ago.”
I looked at the door and back at them. If the door was locked and he didn’t let me in, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I stepped gingerly around the piles of cords and switches littering the floor. I was about to try to pull the door open when Von called out, “We sorta need him to get his shit together ASAP, so try not to get him even more riled up than he already is.”
I nodded absently and knocked lightly on the door. “Jet?”
There was no answer, but the knob turned easily under my hand, so I slipped in and silently prayed he wasn’t doing something that would embarrass us both. He had his back to me and was leaning over the sink staring at himself in the dingy mirror. His gaze snapped up to mine in the dirty glass and there was no misreading the hostility stamped on his handsome face or the wildness in those dark eyes. The gold rims were melting and hot, and he looked like he was on the very edge of losing control. His biceps flexed and tensed like he was going to pull the sink off the wall and hurl it.
“What do you want, Ayden?”
That was a loaded question if there ever was one.
“I just wanted to see what was wrong with you. You’ve been acting like you’re mad at me all week and I don’t understand why.”
I saw his hands tighten and his fingers flex. I also noticed that instead of his usual black nail polish, he had painted the middle fingernail on each hand the same bloodred as my dress. That shouldn’t be hot, but on him it just totally was.
“Why did you bring that guy to my show?” The bathroom felt stifling and small. I could sense the intensity of whatever he was feeling, vibrating across my skin. I had never seen him this raw unless he was on stage performing, and I wasn’t sure how to handle it in such close quarters.
“I didn’t bring him. We went to dinner and I was planning on getting dropped off, but he kind of freaked out when he saw everyone running around outside and insisted on coming in with me. What does that have to do with why you’re acting like such a prick toward me? You can’t be mad I’m hanging out with a guy I’ve been seeing for months, when you had a girl leave your room with her panties in her back pocket less than a week ago.” I paused.
“Come on, Jet, what gives?”
I thought maybe he was going to lay into me. I thought maybe he was going to tell me that I had no right to judge him. I thought maybe he was going to yell that I shouldn’t be bringing someone I knew he didn’t like around, when he was getting ready to play a big, important show.
What I wasn’t prepared for was for him to let go of his death grip on the sink and stalk toward me with fire and something else burning in his dark eyes. Or for rough hands heavy with rings pushing me back up against the bathroom door, and then traveling up higher, through my hair. Jet slammed his mouth down hard enough on mine that it made me whimper, and for a second I was so shocked all I could do was stand there and let him devour me with those hands I’d stared at for months and with a tongue that had the glide of metal in it.
By the time my brain reengaged, he was starting to pull away, but now that the seal had been broken there was no stopping the flood. Desire blazed first and foremost, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. keeping him right where he was. He tasted like whiskey and the sweetest kind of temptation there was. Lust had me pressing as close to him as I could and I felt his knee slide up under the skirt of my dress. The shock from the contrast of cold and hot as the barbell he had through his tongue moved back and forth across my own, made me gasp. That only gave him better access to everything he was trying to invade. On my tiptoes now, all of the best parts of him were pressing hard and insistent against all the wanting parts of me, and I couldn’t ever remember a simple kiss being something as powerful as this.
I didn’t want to let him go.
Chapter 4
Jet
I was living in a state of perpetual fury. I was still furious that my narcissistic and overbearing father thought he could blackmail me, using my mom. I was livid that my mom would let him use her like that. I was incensed that I couldn’t get Ayden out of my head, and I was just flat-out angry that it mattered to me whether she wanted to spend Valentine’s Day with me or with Mr. Perfect. As a result I was acting like an asshole to anyone and everyone that dared cross my path the past few days. The guys in the band were sick of my shit and if Rowdy told me to just take her to bed and get it over with one more time, I was pretty sure I was going to knock all his front teeth out.
All I wanted to do was get through the show, figure out what I was going to do about my folks, and maybe set up a short tour so I could get out of town and put some distance between me and a certain brunette who was buried under my skin.
But then she had to show up in a bloodred dress, looking like she just stepped off the pages of a hot-rod magazine, with that sweater-vest-wearing douche trailing behind her like a lost dog. She was just too much for me to handle at the moment. Those endless legs and bright-red lips had my head going to all kinds of places it shouldn’t. She was there with a date, so I walked away in the middle of whatever Rowdy was trying to tell me, and headed to the band room backstage. The rest of the guys were warming up and getting ready, but the idea of going onstage while I felt so volatile made something inside me snap. I grabbed the closest thing to me—a bottle of whiskey I had been drinking from earlier—and chucked it against the wall.
The guys all stopped what they were doing and watched me with curious and careful eyes. I felt like I was about to fly apart into a million pieces, so I just barked, “Not right now!” and decided to barricade myself in the bathroom until I managed to pull it together.
I was breathing hard and I could see how wild my dark eyes looked in the mirror. I was just about to splash cold water on my face to try to get some level of control back, when I heard my name, spoken in a soft Southern drawl, from the other side of the door. I was going to growl at her to leave me alone, but I didn’t get a chance, because she pulled the door open and met my gaze in the mirror. All I could do was stare at her while everything swirling under the surface suddenly broke through. I heard her ask me what was wrong, and was aware that I demanded to know what she was thinking by bringing that guy here.
But all of it was white noise against the roar of something far louder and far more powerful thrumming in my heated blood.
I wasn’t aware of moving toward her. I wasn’t aware of pushing her up against the door with the entire length of my body. I wasn’t aware of tangling her silky dark hair around my fingers and getting it caught up in my rings. I heard her gasp when my tongue ring hit the warm center of her mouth. I was going to pull away, going to apologize over and over again and tell her it had just been a shitty week, but before I could, she wrapped her arms around my neck and I felt any resistance she had, any control I retained, melt away under a soft little murmur of pleasure.
We were exactly at the right height for me to get my knee between her amazing legs and press even more fully against her, as she collapsed against the door behind her. She tasted like wine and invitation and I was pretty sure both things were going to my head. When she whispered my name, any rational thought that I shouldn’t be touching this girl in this way, especially not in a backstage bathroom, went out the window.
The fingers of one of her hands moved from my neck and crawled down the back of my T-shirt. Even though it felt better than anything I could remember in a long time, to be pressed head to toe against her wasn’t enough, so I let go of her hair and moved my hands under the hem of her poufy skirt. Gripping her toned thigh, I expected more resistance when I wrapped it around my waist and trailed my eager fingers up to the part of her I had no business at all being anywhere near. It was a short trip met with zero resistance and little gasps of surprise.
I saw her amber eyes get wide, but instead of asking me to stop or telling me to go to hell, she whispered my name. I felt the edge of her fingers dig into the base of my spine, right above my ass.
We were eye to eye, foreheads almost touching, and I could see every single reaction she had to my touch shimmering in those liquid depths. When I got my fingers under the edge of her lace panties, I saw something flare there that made my already hard dick get even harder. I knew it sure as hell wasn’t very comfortable. She shivered, and I didn’t know if it was from the press of the metal on my fingers against her bare skin or because I had her pinned and exposed and was about to touch her in ways I had only dreamed of. Either way, her other hand tightened almost painfully in my tousled hair and her bright eyes fell to half-mast. She tugged my head closer, so our mouths were lined up and she kissed me. I got inside all her wet heat, her mouth and more, and swore because she was hot and slippery and felt like molten fire against both my tongue and my questing fingers.
I leaned down so that my forearm was braced on the door above her head, and settled even more fully into her. My tongue ring clicked against her teeth and I pulled away to suck on the pulse that was rapidly fluttering right below her ear. Her hands were tense in my hair and on my skin. I moved my fingers in and out of her, and slicked over the part of her that was throbbing and burning for my touch. Every whimper, every gasp made me move faster, made me touch her in a way that was guaranteed to send her over the edge. I felt her flutter against my fingers and moved back to kiss her hard and fast, just before she went limp and her eyes burst into a fireworks display of desire and satisfaction. Her chest was moving rapidly up and down, and clarity was slowly starting to filter back in, when a fist pounded on the door behind her lax head and made her jump.
“Jet, man, we go on in, like, ten minutes. Can you stop acting like a spaz and get out here so we can do this shit?” Von’s voice was irritated and I couldn’t blame him. I was acting erratic, and we did have a huge crowd out there that had paid good money to see us perform.
I pulled her from against the door and let my hands fall away from her. She leaned back and we watched each other warily, without saying a word. I ran my hands over my face, which was a mistake because I smelled like her, and it was doing nothing to tame the more than uncomfortable situation I had going on in my pants. They were already tight; she’d made them unbearable.
“I have to go.”
She sucked her plush bottom lip between her teeth, and all I wanted to do was find the closest flat surface and demand she put that pretty mouth to better use.
“Jet?” I didn’t have the time or the wherewithal to get into any of the consequences of this little dalliance with her, so I just shook my head and reached around her for the doorknob. .
“Look, we both know that’s what a guy like me has to offer, a quick fuck in a bathroom backstage, and we both know you deserve a night in a king-sized bed with silk sheets. I’m not going to apologize, but I can tell you it won’t happen again. All right?”
I thought she was going to look remorseful or ashamed; I wasn’t prepared for her to be mad. Those whiskey eyes lit with a fire I had never seen in her and before I could react, she slapped me across the face hard enough to make my back teeth rattle and my face flame.
“What the fuck, Ayd!”
She brushed down her dark cap of hair, and turned to pull the door open herself. I hated that I loved how wrinkled and well-loved she looked, and that I was the one who had gotten her all messy and rumpled.
“In case you forgot, I offered you a night in a king-sized bed with silk sheets, asshole. You turned me down. You told me I wasn’t the type. If you took a freaking second to stop trying to tell me what I do and don’t deserve, maybe you could see that the location doesn’t matter, but the person does.”
She had stunned me into silence, but she was good and pissed and clearly not done.
“And just so you know, I broke it off with Adam yesterday because every time he tried to touch me, every time he tried to kiss me I had to pretend it was you to even fake getting through it. But you’re right, Jet, it won’t happen again, because you don’t know half of what you think you know about me. Every time I think you’re figuring it out or at least trying to, you just end up making me feel like an idiot.”
She threw the door open in a swirl of red and righteous indignation. The guys in the band were all staring at me with knowing looks, as she swept out of the room like a regal goddess. I saw Von open his mouth, but I just squinted my eyes and pointed a finger in his direction. “Don’t even start.”
I picked up my electric Les Paul and fit the strap over my shoulder. I shook my head to try to get my brains and my libido to settle back down, and shoved a guitar pick between my teeth.
“I wanna start with something a little different. You guys think you can just follow me in?”
We had played together for years, and there hadn’t ever been a time when I had spontaneously changed up a set that they hadn’t been able to just fall in line or pick up the rhythm and follow my lead. Boone narrowed his eyes at me and picked up his bass.
“It’s going to be one of those shows?”
I blew out a breath and tried not to think about how good Ayden felt, how perfect she had tasted and moved against me. Granted, I had had a thing for her for a hell of a long time, but I hadn’t been prepared for the reality to profoundly beat the crap out of the fantasy. She was a girl who wanted things in life I was never going to be able to give her. It shouldn’t make me go sideways every time we were close, when I knew that nothing was ever going to come of it. While I wasn’t opposed to being any pretty girl’s good time, something told me that when she walked away after having her fun, she would be taking with her more of me than I wanted to give.
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