“If you want to talk about it—”
She got up, abruptly, and hugged herself. “It’s getting late. I’ve gotta go.”
“Sure.” I watched her walk away. “See you later.” She faded up the path to the house, disappearing into the dark of the living room.
Man… Even when I was nice to her, I scared her away.
I got up and wandered back into the poolhouse.
Well, I was trying. I’d tried, on many occasions, to do the right thing. To listen. To support. To look out for her when Cary couldn’t.
I’d tried to do the right thing that night in my car.
I just always seemed to fuck it up.
Maybe because I had such fucking mixed impulses around this girl. Such mixed reactions every time I got near her… I couldn’t even keep track of them all.
Concern. Irritation. Sympathy. Frustration.
Affection.
This terrible, twisted longing.
Lust.
I didn’t even know where the fuck that came from… but there it was. I was drawn to Courteney Clarke, even though I knew I shouldn’t be. I couldn’t deny that anymore.
But I couldn’t act on it, either.
For the one millionth time since that night in my car, I told myself to just fucking leave it alone.
Leave her alone.
She hates you and that’s a good thing.
Chapter Five
Courteney
No. I did not want to talk about it.
Why did he even have to ask me that?
I couldn’t sleep, so as the night wore on, I just lay on my bed in the dark. I’d already watched several episodes of Stranger Things before Xander came home. It didn’t help.
Nothing was soothing right now.
Least of all Xander’s words.
I stared at the ceiling and tried to blank out my brain, and not think about that conversation out by the pool… or my whiplash feelings for Xander Rush.
About how nice he was to me tonight and how that made me feel… all squishy and yearning inside… when I was supposed to be hating him.
But that was all I could think about.
Because I was wired all wrong or something.
My parents, my teachers, they all thought I was going to be a lawyer, like it was my destiny or something.
I didn’t think that.
Xander thought I was a stupid kid who, three weeks ago, needed a ride home from the bar before I got hurt… while I thought—hoped—he’d start noticing me. Noticing that I wasn’t a kid anymore.
Wasn’t happening.
But he was nice to me tonight. And it really messed with my head when Xander was nice to me. When he dropped that cocky ego of his and looked me in the eye. Like we were equals, like he cared, and he talked to me.
How are you doing, sweetheart?
Maybe I should’ve asked him how he was doing. Because I should’ve cared about that. It was the anniversary of Gabe’s death last week. And he’d called me to tell me about Joseph Fetterman’s death as soon as he’d heard.
And I’d said not one word to him about it.
I knew he loved my brother like I did—or he wouldn’t be here, dealing with this. Xander had been the only one of my brother’s friends who stuck around like this, kept coming around so much. Who’d stayed for so long.
We’d all loved Gabe. But Xander had been closer to Gabe, and even to my brother, than I ever was.
I hated to admit that, but I knew it was true. They were all so much older than me, and they’d been in a band together. Toured together.
I was the little sister.
I knew my brother’s friends all cared about me in some way. My brother had good friends. At least, he used to.
Some of them still checked in on me sometimes, messaged to ask how I was doing.
Or how Cary was doing.
And maybe if they were here right now, I’d be asking them how they were doing.
I didn’t ask Xander, though. Even though he was the one who cared about my brother the most…
Who cared about me the most?
You know, in a big-brotherly way.
I couldn’t ask him how he was doing. Because the truth was I didn’t want to know. I just couldn’t let myself go there. Get invested again, care about him like that. And listening to him talk about his feelings or something? His pain?
Bad idea.
Tonight, he’d given me a glimpse of the way I used to see him, and that was bad enough.
I used to think Xander Rush was some sort of prince. Rock ’n’ roll royalty, like he rode in on a white stallion or something. I literally doodled him in the margin of one of my school books once, riding on a unicorn and holding a pair of drumsticks like a sword.
Yeah. Stupid.
In reality, he was probably both a prince and a royal pig. I just had to remember that even when he was being a total prince—which was rare anyway—the pig was still in there, lurking… just waiting to rear his filthy head when the next pair of boobs jiggled by.
But I couldn’t help wondering…
What would happen if I hung out in my bikini in front of him? Alone?
If I made him notice me?
Thanks to Shayla suggesting it, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Thinking about what might happen if I did what she told me to do—put my boobs in his face.
And wondering about it kinda made me want to do it, just to find out.
I knew it would be a bad move. That I wouldn’t get the reaction I wanted.
But…
He’d reacted to me once. That night in his car, when I’d challenged him.
Though that was just a bluff, right?
Neither of us really meant what we did or what we said that night.
Did we?
* * *
It happened less than a week after I’d graduated high school and arrived back in the city.
It was Friday night, and I’d gone out for drinks with Summer Sorensen. She’d invited me to come out with her and some of her girlfriends; I’d met her a year-and-a-half before, over Christmas break, at a music industry party. I went to a lot of parties like that when I was in the city, thanks to Angie or Shayla or Larissa inviting me. And I knew a lot of people in the local music scene, through my friends or through my brother.
But it wasn’t every day a hot DJ invited you to party with her.
I’d given Summer my number—DJ Summer, that’s what everyone called her—when she asked for it. I was hoping she’d call me, because honestly, she was cool. Plus, she was twenty-something, and I’d always gotten along better with people who were older than me. I’d never really understood girls my own age.
Older friends were also handy; friends who could get me into the bar.
But she’d never called. Until just over three weeks ago.
I had to admit, it was pretty cool walking into the bar that night with DJ Summer and her girlfriends.
The bar was the Back Door, it was a rock bar, and I knew my brother’s band played there years ago. Some of the bands he produced played there. I was nervous about running into someone who knew me, but the bouncers didn’t even blink at me. Summer looped her arm through mine, and no one asked me for ID.
She was quick to get me a drink, and I knew what she wanted. I wasn’t dense. She wasn’t exactly the first person—especially the first woman—who’d been nice to me to try to get near my brother. Though I was pretty sure her intentions were purely professional.
It was cool of her, though, that she didn’t go on about Cary all night. She only mentioned him once, when she asked me if I’d come to a party at her house the next week, and if I’d like to bring my brother.
I told her, flat out, that he wouldn’t come, and she dropped it.
She still treated me like royalty. Bought me drinks all night, told me not to worry, that she’d get me home.
I enjoyed the VIP treatment, but I tried not to drink too much. I didn’t mind getting drunk, but I didn’t
want to get wasted. The music industry in Vancouver was pretty small and pretty tight, and I was aware that at any moment I might run into someone who knew my brother. And while I wasn’t exactly gonna ask Cary’s permission to go to a bar, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be thrilled to know I was here—hanging out with the grownups and sipping vodka cranberries.
Summer hung out with me most of the night, introducing me around to her many friends. Girls, mostly, but there were some cute guys, too. She introduced me to Ashley Player, who was pretty gorgeous, but I tried not to make a big deal of it. I wasn’t sure if he knew my brother, and I didn’t actually want this getting back to Cary.
Anyway, it wasn’t that big a deal meeting someone like Ashley. I’d never met him before, but I’d been meeting rock stars since I was like six years old. It didn’t faze me.
At least, most rock stars didn’t faze me.
But then I ran into Xander.
Or he ran into me.
It was late in the night, and maybe I’d let down my guard because I’d gotten away with this for a few hours. I’d been doing shots with Summer’s friends, and suddenly he was just there in the crowd, coming right at me. Looking at me—or more like right through me.
Xander had this dickish way of looking somewhere just past my eyes, like I wasn’t worthy of eye contact. He’d been looking at me like that—fucking blankly—for the last two years.
Then he looked at the guy who was talking to me. One of Summer’s friends; some guy named Blair. She’d introduced me to him along with everyone else in the vicinity of her table, and I didn’t really think anything of him until Xander looked at him the way he did.
Blair was kinda tough looking, like a biker or something, but I was used to guys who looked like that hanging around the musicians I knew. A lot of their security guys looked like Blair did, though he wasn’t working security for Summer. He was dressed in a plain T-shirt and faded jeans, with biker boots, and he had some tats on his arms. But not gorgeous, arty tats like Xander; more like sketchy homemade ones.
He didn’t seem to notice Xander scoping him out. He went right on talking to me. He was asking me about Summer, how well I knew her, something like that.
I didn’t get a chance to answer.
Xander leaned into me and said in my ear, “What the hell are you doing here?”
I pulled back. “Hey, Xander. Nice to see you, too.” It wasn’t, really.
Granted, I definitely used to think he was a prince—back when I was fourteen and didn’t know any better. But things had changed since then.
Back then, I’d had crushes on a lot of my brother’s friends. It was only natural, maybe.
But Xander was… different. He’d seized my heart without even meaning to. He’d owned me for two long years.
And he had no idea.
He wasn’t just hot. He wasn’t just forbidden or dangerous.
It was far worse than that.
Xander made me feel. He made me feel alive, when everyone around me, everyone I cared about, was in mourning. He made me feel like I mattered, at a time when I was cruelly smacked in the face with the fragility of life.
He also made me feel a whole crap-ton of other things.
He was the only human being on the planet who’d looked me in the eye when Gabe died and talked to me about it like I had an opinion on it that mattered. Like my feelings were real. Like I was a real person and not just the kid.
I’d put him on a pedestal right then.
Since then, though… he’d managed to obliterate all my warm, worshipful feelings toward him—and then some.
I glanced at Summer’s friend, and said, “This is Xander. Xander, Blair.”
Then I sipped my drink as Xander gave the dude, who had to be in his thirties, a murderous look.
I knew what Xander’s attitude was all about. I was in the bar underage, and he knew it. And I knew he was doing that thing my brother’s friends sometimes did when they ran into me and I was doing something they thought Cary wouldn’t like… and since he wasn’t around to do anything about it, they felt the need to step in.
He took the drink right out of my hand.
“Hey!”
“Time to go.”
“Uh, no it’s not.”
His gaze swept down my body, over my hoodie and jeans, dismissively. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Why? Are you a cop? I didn’t realize you’d changed vocations.” I started to spin away on my heel, but he grabbed my arm.
Damn. Blair was gone. He wasn’t cute or anything, but maybe if I’d kept talking to him, Xander would take the hint and screw off.
He pulled me against him. Oh, God. His hard body was so… hot. “Do you want to make a scene?” he said in my ear, his hot breath on my neck making me shiver. “Because if you want to get thrown out, I can make that happen.”
Okay. Now I was getting mad.
I looked around for Summer, but I didn’t see her.
“Kiss my ass, Xander.” It wasn’t the best kiss-off in history, but it did the trick. I’d never spoken to him like that before. Not even close.
His momentary surprise allowed me to wrench my arm from his grip and reach right past him, pick up a shot from Summer’s table, and slam it back.
I’d barely set the shot glass down when his hand slipped into mine and gripped me tight. “Walk with me,” he said in my ear. Then he tugged me with him and we started walking.
I went with him, kind of stunned.
I followed him through the crowd, my head swimming from that last shot. His hand was big and warm, strong. He was holding my hand and I didn’t even try to get away.
Xander was holding my hand.
He led me out the back door of the bar and down the grungy alley, across the street, and into a parking garage. I didn’t even know where we were going. I didn’t ask. He was still holding my hand, and I was under some kind of spell. Like I was afraid to make a noise or draw attention to myself, because then he might realize he was still holding my hand and let go.
He didn’t let go.
He pulled keys out of his pocket; I heard them jingle and only then did I fully understand what he was doing with me. There was a black Corvette parked in front of us.
I stopped dead.
He opened the passenger door for me. “Get in.” He was still holding my hand, and he tugged me toward the car.
I glared at him with every ounce of animosity and contempt I could muster. He didn’t blink, and he barely looked at me. Just gave me that blank look again, like he was looking right through me.
I got in, and his hand finally slipped from mine.
He shut the door, and I couldn’t even believe it.
He got me into his car.
And all he had to do was hold my hand.
Shit. I was so pathetic.
“Buckle up,” he said as he slid in. Then he started the car and off we went.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m taking you home.”
I huffed angrily. “Why?”
“You don’t belong in that bar.”
“Says you.”
“Says the law.”
“And I’m sure you’re such a law abiding citizen in every way.”
He said nothing.
“In like seven months I’ll be legal anyway.”
Nothing.
“You’re accomplishing nothing here.”
Not one word.
“Ugh. Were you always this boring?”
“Were you always this mouthy?”
“Always.”
Especially when I was drunk.
I glanced at him. He didn’t crack a smile. He didn’t look mad, either. Just… blank.
Or maybe eighty-percent blank, twenty-percent irritated?
“I wasn’t done,” I informed him.
“Done what?”
“I was hanging out with DJ Summer.”
“Don’t you have friends your own age?”
“Yeah, but they ca
n’t get into the bar.”
I glanced at him again. Nothing.
“Okay, that was a lie. I don’t have friends my own age.”
Still nothing. He hadn’t even looked at me once since we got in the car.
“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re trying to impress Cary or something?”
No response.
“You’re gonna tell him about this?”
“No need.”
“What do you mean, no need? Then why did you need to drag me out of there?”
“I didn’t drag you.”
My face flushed hot. Good thing he wasn’t looking. “No, you creeped me.”
“What?”
“You took my hand and led me out to your car.”
He blinked a few times, but he never took his eyes off the road. His jaw clenched. He took a deep breath, then muttered, “Better me than someone else.”
“Meaning what?”
“If you don’t know what I mean, there’s no way in hell you’re ready to be in that bar.”
Right. Like I was that fucking naive.
“I wasn’t going home with anyone.”
“You let me ‘creep’ you out to my car.”
Oh, no. He didn’t.
I felt the anger rising like a dirty black tide. I was trying to be civil(ish), but when would I fucking learn? Xander Rush was the last thing from civilized.
He was more like a feral sex monkey who humped first and asked questions later. Oh, wait. No, he probably didn’t ask questions at all. That would mean talking to a woman rather than screwing her. Probably a no-go.
I mean, he’d never screwed me, but this was definitely the longest conversation I’d had with him in the last two years. Ever since I’d gotten the big boobs—and he noticed.
Ever since that horrible night when I found out what a gross sex monkey he was.
“Were you always this much of an asshole?”
“Always.”
I went silent. For like five minutes.
So did he.
Then I couldn’t stand it anymore.
“I wasn’t going home with you.”
He said nothing.
“Just because you led me out to your car… I didn’t think you were taking me home.”
“I am taking you home.”
Filthy Beautiful: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players #2) Page 8
