I’d been avoiding Courteney Clarke for years…
Ever since I saw her at that party at Brody’s house when she was sixteen.
I’d seen her through the crowd that night, and I’d beelined over to her before I even thought about what I was doing. I didn’t know it was her. I just saw someone I had to get closer to.
I’d barely glimpsed her, and I felt drawn to her.
She wasn’t even wearing anything revealing. Just tight jeans and a loose T-shirt. She had a beautiful, perfectly pear-shaped, perky ass in those jeans, and from what I could tell, a rack to match. I could see her kinda from the side as I approached, but her head was turned away. She was talking to another girl, the loose waves of her honey-blonde hair spilling down her back.
I wanted to wrap that hair around my fist while I fucked her. My dick was pretty bent on that happening before the night was through. I hadn’t even seen her face yet, but if it was anything half as decent as her body… I figured I could work with it.
I didn’t normally walk right over to a chick, face unseen, at a party like that. Didn’t really need to, honestly. The chicks came to me, in droves, and I was happy to sit back and let them flock.
But something about this girl drew me over. I had to see her face.
I put my hand on the small of her back as I wedged in behind her, letting her know I was there. “Hey, sweetheart,” I said in her ear, as I shifted to step around her. The crowd was tight, and I figured I’d get a good look at her; then I could just keep on moving if I was sadly wrong and her face was a train wreck or something.
She turned her head to throw me an annoyed look as she shifted out of my way, and I stopped right there. I got a glimpse of her face and it was enough. No train wreck there.
But what really caught my notice were her tits.
I took a long, slow perusal down the front of her body. Her shirt dipped a bit in front, showing a hint of cleavage; just enough to tease. She was dressed pretty conservative for the party, and I kinda liked it. More to unwrap.
“Hey… Xander,” she said, in a soft voice.
My gaze lingered on her chest as that voice penetrated the fog of lust.
Then I looked at her face. Those lush, pouty lips… Her cheeks were rosy—blushing?
I met her eyes. A soft, honey-gold color. It was like a jolt to the spine as my whole body recognized her—those eyes, Cary’s eyes—before my brain could catch up.
Then it did.
I dropped my hand from her back. “Hey…” I said. “Courteney. Didn’t recognize you.”
I stared at her, stunned. My dick was throbbing.
Cary’s little sister was standing in front of me, looking like a total fucking babe. A babe who’d sucked me to her right across the party.
How old was she now…?
Not old enough.
I fumbled my way through a brief conversation. Wasn’t even sure what I said. My brain was blown. I wasn’t all that drunk, but nothing was making sense to me. It was like a circuit had been blown and everything shut down to emergency mode.
Time to evacuate.
My dick was still throbbing and I’d never felt so fucking wrong about that.
I said hi to her friend—Johnny O’s little sister—and asked if Cary was there. Courteney said he wasn’t. Which was a good thing, because if he’d seen the look on my face when I walked up to his baby sister… he probably would’ve hacked my dick off with a dull blade.
I tapped her on the shoulder and forced out something big-brother-like about not staying out too late—and blazed the hell out of there.
Like two minutes later, I ran into Carmen on the other side of the patio. I’d dated her for a little while, for maybe a couple of months, years ago. And she was reeeaally happy to see me. She wrapped me up in a hug, and I went with it. She got a little over excited when she discovered my dick was more enthused than it should’ve been about a simple hug, and started kissing me—so I went with that, too.
Adrenaline was buzzing through me in a weird way, and I just let it all play out in making out with her.
When she whispered something filthy in my ear about fucking me in the dark, I let her lead me over into the trees at the back of the yard, and I gave her what she asked for.
The whole thing was fucking bizarre.
As soon as I’d pulled out, I took off from the party. Went home. Showered. Tried to wash the whole thing off.
Took me a few weeks after that mistake to shake Carmen off, though. Apparently, fucking her in the woods at a party gave her the idea we might be an item again.
Um, no.
And the Courteney thing? That feeling?
It wasn’t just that she looked hot in those tight jeans when I didn’t know who she was. I felt drawn to her. It was like this static electricity in the air between us.
I tried to convince myself that it was because I hadn’t seen her in a long time… She’d changed some, so of course I didn’t recognize her right away—not my fault. But instinctively I was drawn to her, because I knew her.
That was all.
Though that didn’t explain the hard-on that had started to rise when I’d stood that close to her, my hand on her back, checking her out… feeling her warm, gentle vibe pulsing through me and smelling the soft smell of her hair.
My dick didn’t exactly go limp when I met her eyes and realized who she was, either.
But I wasn’t a machine, right? Not that easy to just turn off the switch once it’d been turned on. It was just physiology.
Again, not my fault.
She was hot, my body reacted… before my brain could take control.
I didn’t actually want her. I’d proved that to myself when I fucked an ex-girlfriend in the woods minutes after running into her.
Because there was nothing screwed-up about that.
* * *
The next morning, I woke up late and mildly hungover from last night’s broody, one-man gin-and-juice binge by the pool. As soon as I was coherent enough to check my phone, I found a message from Cary.
He’d responded to yesterday’s text.
Cary: Drop into the studio today? After Rose leaves. Noonish.
Jesus Christ… he was inviting me into the Bat Cave.
A fucking rare occasion.
Obviously, I headed over as soon as I was up and ready. By the time I’d showered and thrown back a breakfast shake, it was past noon and his housekeeper would be gone. Rose always came on Tuesdays, cleaned the studio for him.
When I headed over to the house, Courteney wasn’t out by the pool. She’d never come home last night—at least, not that I knew of. I’d passed out by the pool, then woken up cold in the dead of night and crawled off to bed.
No sign of her in the house when I walked in now, either. Though she could’ve been in bed.
Rose was vacuuming in the living room, and I said good morning. Nice old lady. She’d been around for a long time, and seemed to tolerate Cary’s strange rules and his need for privacy with patience and respect. I also appreciated her; meant at least one human being saw him once a week, even if it was just to clean up after him.
I texted Cary to let him know when I was at the studio door—there was no other way to tell him so. He didn’t exactly have a doorbell installed, and it was soundproofed, so knocking wasn’t gonna work.
Cary opened the door in jeans and a T-shirt, looking kinda morning-tired, a refillable takeout coffee mug in his hand. Which meant Courteney had been by today?
I wondered if he’d seen her.
Almost every time I’d ventured into the house in the morning to use the kitchen, or to just snoop around and see if I could catch him outside the studio, I’d seen that mug on the floor by his door, obviously left for him by his sister.
Could’ve used a coffee delivery service myself, but hey, she’d never offered me one.
“Morning,” he said, just like we met up for coffee on a regular basis like this.
“Hey,” I said as I stepped inside. He shut t
he door behind me, and I bit my tongue on the automatic, How’s it going? that would normally follow a greeting to a friend I hadn’t seen in a while.
I never asked Cary how he was doing anymore. And not because the answer would be bad.
Because he wouldn’t really answer me at all.
He’d been avoiding that question for the last four years.
Instead, I stuck to more neutral topics. “Where’s Freddy?” I asked as I followed him up the dark hallway.
“Outside, maybe. He was around this morning.”
Yeah, sad that it gave me comfort that at least his cat got to hang with him if no one else did.
I studied him, casually, as I followed him into the main room of the studio. Just like when I’d visited him in here almost a month ago, when I first got home from tour, he seemed pretty normal. As normal as a guy who never left his house could seem, anyway. It wasn’t like he wore a giant sandwich board that said Yo, I’m fucking crazy.
He wasn’t mumbling to himself or rocking back and forth or anything. He took care of himself, in most ways. He must’ve been remembering to eat, because he wasn’t skin and bones. Cary had always been a slim guy, but he was fit.
Besides the little gym he had in here, he had a small kitchen and a washroom; it was pretty much a self-contained suite, so even if he never stepped foot outside it, he could pretty much live in here indefinitely.
I did this kind of health-and-safety survey of his surroundings every time I came into the studio. Looking for the signs of distress, the warnings that things were about to fall apart again.
That his sister was gonna find him passed out on the floor, unshowered, unfed.
Depressed.
Like the last time things went seriously south.
I hoped I could be here to preempt that. Or worst case, find him and fix him up before she ever had to see him like that again.
Fortunately, I didn’t really see any signs of impending disaster.
Cary didn’t look like he was about to fall apart any second. He still looked like my friend. He looked good, really. But it wasn’t just how he looked that mattered.
It was how it felt walking into his private lair.
There was an energy in this place. Unsettled energy. It wasn’t just the creative vibe of the music he made here. It was the loneliness.
The aloneness.
I heard the little tinkle of a bell and Freddy appeared, trotting into the room to sniff my leg and rub his furry face against me.
“Hey, buddy.” I reached down to scratch his cheek.
He purred loudly, sticking his tail in the air and slamming his body into my leg, rubbing against me gratuitously. Cary’s cat had a habit of leaving trails of white fur on my jeans, but I’d put up with it. Cary seemed to enjoy his company far more than other human beings’.
“Is this cat ever in a bad mood?” I asked as he tinkled along behind us. He was named—by Courteney—after one of her horror film heroes, Freddy Krueger, and it didn’t suit him at all. This cat couldn’t scare a mouse.
“Nope,” Cary said.
I sat down on a couch and watched him clear some music magazines off the other couch. He sat down as Freddy hopped up and immediately flopped down next to him, looking for a rub down. That cat fucking loved him, always followed him around like a puppy.
I glanced around. What was once some kind of huge, sunken family room or something with a big window out into the gardens in the backyard was now walled in curtains and soundproofing materials. Ornamental rugs were laid out across the carpet. There were a few nice couches and chairs and a couple of sound booths for recording vocals, guitar. There was no drum kit, but Cary had never played drums.
The place felt kind of like the lobby of some posh old hotel. Cary had always had good taste. Good style.
Of course, now he had no one to impress.
He wore a faded black T-shirt and gray jeans, pretty much what I always saw him in these days. His longish hair was tied back in a loose knot. He’d always had that naturally sun-streaked look, though his hair was darker than his sister’s, and wavier.
I could remember how the girls used to go all gooey-eyed over him.
They still would, if they ever saw him.
It was so fucking strange that such a young and seemingly healthy person could function in such a bubble. Especially when there were so many people on the outside who would’ve loved to have him around.
I had no idea the last time he’d actually seen a woman who wasn’t his mom, his sister or his housekeeper.
I’d stopped asking about that a long time ago.
Like everything else that was too personal or borderline critical of his current living situation—if you could call this living—those questions just made him retreat into Hermitville.
“How are things?” he asked me, reaching to roll a joint on the table in front of him. Cary had never been much of a pot smoker, so I figured this was one of those things he did specifically to appear normal.
Just two buddies hanging out, smoking a joint in a music studio.
Normal as shit.
“Pretty good. I met with Brody yesterday, discussed my contract with the new band.” I’d already messaged Cary to let him know I’d officially joined the band. “We’re calling ourselves the Players.”
“Yeah? How you feeling about it?” he asked, because sure, he still asked me how I felt about things.
“Good, I guess.” I hadn’t given a whole lot of thought to how I felt about it, actually. I just knew I wanted it, so in the end, despite my doubts and misgivings, I just went ahead and did it. “Looking forward to making some music with them next year. Hopefully record an album and get out on the road. We’re kind of in a holding pattern until Matt comes off the road with Dirty in June, though.”
“That’s cool. Gives you some time to switch gears, right? Maybe take some time off or something.”
“Yeah.” Or something. I really wasn’t sure what the fuck I was gonna do for another ten months of idle time until then. I didn’t really want any time off, but it seemed time was what I was getting.
I couldn’t really see myself crashing here for ten months straight, but I’d definitely be around to check in on Cary. Maybe we could get some kind of flow going, hang out more often…
One could hope, right?
“I’ve got nothing but time on my hands, so… if you ever need another set of ears to listen to what you’re working on, I’m around.”
“Yeah. You still in the poolhouse?”
“For now. Probably keep bouncing back and forth to my place. If that’s cool with you.”
“Yeah, of course. As long as you’re not in Courteney’s way.”
He looked at me then, his honey colored eyes so much like hers, and held out the joint to me.
I took it and smoked.
“No problem,” I said. Although it was a problem.
Courteney Clarke was becoming a giant fucking problem.
“She likes to have her girlfriends over sometimes, that kind of thing,” he added.
“Yeah. I can make myself scarce if they’re having a pajama party.” I handed him back the joint.
He didn’t laugh like Trey would’ve. He didn’t smile or say anything. He took a hit off the joint and just looked at me.
“Have you seen her much?” he asked.
“Not much. You?”
“Saw her the other day,” he said, breaking eye contact. “No… uh, actually it was about two weeks ago, I guess.”
And that was it. He said nothing else about her.
I knew him well enough to know the signs: he didn’t want to talk to me about seeing her or whatever they’d talked about.
“So, how’s the album going?”
“Pretty good.”
“Yeah? Is it almost done?” Not sure why I even bothered to ask, because I knew I wouldn’t get a straight answer on that. I also wasn’t gonna bother calling him on whatever he’d told Courteney—that it was almost done.
Getting her hopes up like that.
“Almost,” he said. Since he didn’t offer anything else, I knew he didn’t want to talk about that, either.
Which meant he probably wasn’t happy with how it was going.
Cary was never really happy with what he was working on until it was done, “done” meaning “perfect.” And only Cary could really decide when it was perfect enough for him.
As much as I would’ve loved to work with him again, have him produce one of my albums, in theory… I wasn’t sure I would love it.
But I did want to hang with him.
So I found something else to talk about as we passed the joint back and forth.
I told him about Trey buying an office tower, which made him laugh a little. Then we got talking about the old days, the old crew from around town. Musicians we used to know, back when we both used to play in so many bar bands, before we broke out of the local scene.
And for a while, it was just like having my old friend back.
Until the subject of Alive came up, and he shut right down.
We’d almost finished a second joint, and the conversation definitely dried up. But he hadn’t asked me to leave the studio yet. I was thinking I should get going so he wouldn’t have to ask.
But first, I decided to take a risk.
Maybe the pot had gone to my head.
“Why don’t you come out tonight?” I asked him. “We could go down to the beach, just the two of us. You know, watch the sunset, have a joint. Talk music like we used to. Get some air.”
Ouch. I could feel his response before he even spoke. His shoulders tightened and he started to shake his head.
“Or, grab a beer out by the pool…” I added quickly.
“I can’t. I have to work.”
“Right,” I said. “Okay.” Even though it wasn’t fucking okay.
“Actually, I have to get back to it.” He got to his feet. “So…” He handed me what was left of the joint.
I took it, and he took off. He disappeared into the control room. Freddy flopped off the couch, and ran after him like he was made of catnip.
Then the door closed.
It was pretty dark in there, just one small lamp on in the corner. I could see him through the big window as I got to my feet. Sitting hunched over the control board, his face lit up in the glow it gave off. He’d put headphones on.
Filthy Beautiful: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players #2) Page 23
