“No, they’re your kindness. You’re thoughtful. You’re genuine and caring and generous.”
“I mean, I try to consider other people’s feelings.” She turned to me. “It’s the right thing to do, right?”
“Says who?”
She shrugged. “I guess it’s just the way I was raised.”
“Yeah? Everyone in your family’s like that?”
I knew they weren’t. I’d met her family. I’d never met a more self-absorbed group of females in my life, and I’d met plenty of models, actresses, trust fund babies. It was a wonder, actually, that Danica Vola wasn’t a raging spoiled bitch.
“Well…” she said, shrugging, “we’re all different people. You might’ve, uh, gathered that.”
“What’s in the other bag?”
“Oh. That’s takeout. From the Starving Wolf.”
In other words, my favorite restaurant. “See what I mean?”
“I just thought you might be hungry…”
“Yeah,” I said. “You thought.”
“You, um, seemed to really like their buttermilk fried chicken when we were there for dinner,” she said as she started pulling takeout containers out of the bag. “I got the lunch sandwich version.”
“You brought me buttermilk fried chicken sandwiches. Like, six of them,” I noted, as she piled the containers on the island. “From my favorite restaurant.”
“Yeah. It’s not a big—”
“Deal,” I finished for her. And like fuck it wasn’t.
I stared at her for a long moment, just taking her in. Standing there in my kitchen in her sundress with her pretty earrings—which she probably made herself—and her long, butterscotch hair with the slight waves cascading over her shoulders.
She seemed to get uncomfortable with my staring and picked up a few containers. “I, uh, got the yam fries and the salad on the side. You want me to heat some up now? Or should we save it for later?”
“Later,” I said gruffly.
She nodded and tucked it all away in my fridge. Then she squinted at the two photos on the fridge door. “Aunt Ginny?” she said, pointing at the photo of my aunt and uncle.
“Yup,” I said. “And that’s their kid, Aidan.”
“He’s cute,” she said, studying the photo of my cousin. It was an old photo, from back when he was eight. He was thirteen now. “He has your nose.”
“Maybe.”
She smiled at me. “So,” she said, smoothing her dress. “Should we talk about your decorating needs?”
“My whole life,” I told her, ignoring her attempt to change the subject, “my aunt and my best friend are the only people who’ve ever thought of me like that, done for me like that… like you just did. Without me asking.”
“What? The food?” she said. “It’s just food, Ashley. I can’t be the first woman to do something nice for you.”
“Sure, women do things for me. Things I ask them to do. Things they think will get them what they want.”
“Oh.”
“Have I asked you for anything since we met?”
“You mean, besides six pennies?” A smile flickered over her pretty lips. “Hmm. Sex?”
“Besides that.”
“You asked me to decorate your home.” She looked around. “What is it you want to change here? I have to say… I don’t usually say this to clients. Kind of counterproductive, I know. But this place is pretty perfect as is.” She looked at me. “I mean, unless you’re unhappy with it.”
Time to confess.
“I don’t want to change anything,” I told her. “I realize I kinda let you think that’s why I brought you out here…”
“Kinda.” She studied me, sizing me and my intentions up. “I had to move another client meeting to clear my day.”
“Sorry about that. I’ll pay you for your time.”
“No, you won’t. Not unless I’m working here.”
I let it drop. She meant it.
Didn’t mean I couldn’t reach out to Aunt Madeleine and slip her some cash. Something told me she’d happily take it on Danica’s behalf if her niece refused.
“Look,” I said. “I did bring you here for a reason. I don’t want to beat around the bush with people anymore, or fuck up by holding back on how I feel. Or lame out instead of being upfront with someone I like.”
“Okay…”
“So I’ve been thinking. I need to come clean with you about a few things… Including what happened at that resort in Alaska.”
“Oh,” she said.
“It’s pretty obvious you’re not sure what to make of the whole thing. You know… that I met your sister first and messed around with her a bit. Plus, you don’t seem to know what to make of the rest of my life, either. My past relationships. Some of the stuff I’ve told you about. You’ve been polite about it, but I know you’re curious. And you have a right to be.”
“Okay.” She looked unsure about this, at best.
Uncomfortable, at worst.
But fuck it. This was happening.
Even though I was pretty fucking scared of losing her over it, I knew I had to tell her this shit. It was inevitable, which meant the sooner the better.
I shoved the bag of groceries I’d brought into the fridge. Then I took her by the hand.
“Come with me,” I said, and drew her out the back door.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ash
I led Danica through the gate into Dylan’s yard, and up the steps to his back deck. I used my key to open the back door off the kitchen and disabled the alarm. Danica followed me inside, where I tossed my keys on the big island in the middle of the kitchen and opened the fridge.
“You want another cider?” I asked her. “Or there’s wine or beer or pretty much anything you could want.”
“I’ll have a cider, please,” she said softly, looking around.
“There’s peach. Or there’s Strongbow, too.”
“A Strongbow would be great.”
I cracked one open and handed it over to her, and grabbed myself a beer.
“Cheers,” she said, before taking a sip. “Um, do you always loot Dylan’s booze when he’s away on tour?”
“It’s my booze, too,” I said. “I use his fridge a lot. I spend more time here than at my place anyway. I use the gym downstairs. My Camaro is in his garage, and I work on it a lot. Or I hang on the deck. His is about ten times the size of mine, as you noticed. Plus, he’s got the view.”
I snagged her hand and led her back out onto the deck, where I took her over to a couple of lounge chairs set up in the shade, beside the giant hot-tub-slash-lap-pool that was sunk into the deck. I sat down while she went over to the railing and checked out the view.
The deck was in a V-shape, the farthest point jutting out over the rocky cliff below like the prow of a ship. Big open stretch of water beyond and bluish-green mountains along the distant coast.
It was pretty fucking epic as far as views went… especially with Danica standing there in her peach dress.
When she turned to me, I patted the chair next to me. She came and sat down.
Then I looked in her pretty eyes and told her, “No jokes. No flirting. No bullshit. This is the truth.”
“Okay…”
“People call me Player for a reason. It started out as a play on words, in one of my first bands. You know, guitar player, but also, I liked juggling a few people in my social calendar, so to speak. Or maybe a few dozen.”
Danica smiled softly. “I kind of figured that by now, Ashley.”
“But that was back then,” I told her. “And, honestly, most of the time over the years since then. But I have had girlfriends, more serious relationships. Committed relationships, even. I mean, I’ve had a few. I could tell you whatever I think you want to hear, whatever you need to hear, to get you in bed. I’m good at that. But I like you more than that, Danica. And that’s not just something I’m saying to get you in bed.”
She sipped her drink and consid
ered. “I guess I’ll have to take your word for it, then.”
Yeah. I was really hoping she would. “I wanted to be honest with you from the start. That’s why I told you all that shit about my past relationships. But I was also looking to see how you took it. If it scared you away.”
“Did you want to scare me away?”
“Maybe. I didn’t see it that way at first, but yeah. Maybe I did. Bottom line, I just had to know if you were gonna bolt right out of the gate. I didn’t want to put anything more into it, into you… you know, think about you any more, if you were gonna jet. That’s the truth.”
“I know you’ve been hurt, Ashley,” she said. “I understand.”
Of course she did. Because she was so fucking nice.
“Yeah, but there are some things you don’t know. Things I need to explain to you. Because you need to know. You deserve that much, and I need to know if you still want to be here at the end of what I have to tell you.”
“Okay. I’m listening.”
“For starters,” I said, “here’s the thing you need to understand about Summer and me. You know we’re starting a band together. We’re pretty tight. But we’re just friends. Good friends, but it wasn’t always that way. It took us a while to become friends after we broke up. That was about four years ago. We were together almost two years. She was the most serious girlfriend I’ve ever had and letting go of that was really fucking hard. Our relationship was pretty incredible for a while, and then it totally wasn’t. We seemed really compatible, but we drifted apart too fast when we weren’t together. She was on the road, I was on the road. The long distance thing sucked. When we did actually break up, it was fast and ugly, but it took a while to sort through.”
“I get it,” Danica said. “I mean, I’ve been through breakups. I know they’re not fun.”
“No, they’re not. But that never really stopped me from trying to make them fun. I, uh, have this stupid tradition of having a party after I break up with someone, to help get over it.”
Her lips quirked. “A party?”
“A party. You know, celebrate my new freedom. I guess it’s my way of shifting gears or distracting myself or whatever it is I need to do to move on. I call it the breakup party. I was having one of those the night I met you, when you were buying roses.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that…”
“I know. I, uh, also had a pretty epic one after breaking up with Summer four years ago. She was here in Vancouver, so I went down to L.A. to get some space. Partied with some friends, ended up back at Zane’s house. You know, Zane Traynor, Dirty’s lead singer?”
“Sure…”
“So… he threw me an epic bash that went all night and the next morning, and then he put my ass on a private jet and sent me up to Alaska.”
“I see,” Danica said. No doubt, the pieces were starting to come together in her head.
“There were four of us on the plane,” I said. “Me and a couple of the guys from my band, the Penny Pushers. Janner and Pepper. And… Johnny O’Reilly was with us, too.” I looked for it, but Danica didn’t show any sign of recognition at the name. “He’s in a band called Breakneck.”
“Oh… I think I’ve heard of them.”
“Probably. They’re pretty big these days. Anyway, the four of us get into Anchorage, and I meet some guys on our way out of the airport… These circus freaks. I mean, I’m not calling them freaks, but that’s what they called themselves. They were members of some traveling freak show. These crazy Persian guys, super friendly, super fun. Turns out we’re at the same hotel, so we end up partying with these guys and their wives—”
“Wait. What kind of circus freaks are we talking about?” Danica asked. “I always wondered. Like… bearded ladies and stuff?”
“No. More like sword swallowers and fire eaters and stuff.”
“Oh. Okay I get it now, I think.”
“So, we’re drinking in the hotel bar and generally making a scene… and then this bachelorette party shows up.”
“The one my sister was at,” she concluded.
“That’s the one. And guess who they decide to party with?”
“The rock stars and the circus freaks?”
“You got it.”
“You must realize this sounds like the set-up for a dirty joke,” Danica said. “Did you ever hear the one about the rock stars, the circus freaks, and the bachelorette party…?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “It does. I swear to you, though, it’s the truth.”
“Okay. So go on. But if a hot nun walks in, I’m going home.”
I grinned. “I would too, if I were you.” Then my smile faded. “I didn’t even meet your sister that night, actually. A few of us guys took off, decided to go night boarding even though the run was closed. We hiked partway up the slope in the dark with our rented snowboards, and me and Pepper ended up stripping down and boarding naked.”
“Oh… shit.”
“Yeah. Not a great idea, very fucking cold. Then later that night, when I’m back at the hotel warming up… I end up having a bit of a three-way with the dude who runs the freak show… and his wife.”
I studied Danica’s face… but she didn’t exactly freak out or get all judgy or anything. She just held my gaze, sipped her drink, and said, “Um. Okay… What’s ‘a bit of a three-way’?”
“Uh, it’s where I start making out with her while he watches, and then I go throw up and pass out and don’t seal the deal.”
Danica bit her lip—obviously trying not to laugh. At me.
Which was better than being repulsed, anyway.
I cleared my throat. “So… the next morning I wake up hungover, basically still drunk, I guess. I head up the lift for the first run of the day and as I’m getting off the chair, the edge of my board catches some ice and I go down, twisting my knee.”
“Ouch.”
“Seriously, it hurt like a bitch. If I hadn’t been so hungover, it probably never would’ve happened. The medics had to come and give me a ride down the mountain. They wrapped my knee, but I couldn’t board anymore. So now I’m back at the hotel, which is basically a ghost town because everyone’s on the slopes. And what is there to do but keep drinking, right?”
“Right…”
“Johnny O was the first one back off the hill—”
“Johnny…” she said. “Your rock star friend?”
“Yeah. I mean, we weren’t really friends. We’d met a few times, partied a bit. But he joins me in the bar. We have a shot together… then a few more shots. Then happy hour happens and everybody comes back from the hill and the party keeps rolling on. And I’m sure it wouldn’t shock you to hear that things got pretty out of hand after that.”
“And that’s when you hooked up with my sister,” Danica supplied. “It’s okay, Ashley. I mean, I already know that part.” I could tell, obviously, that she didn’t really want all the details.
But that really wasn’t where I was going with this.
Not yet, anyway.
“Yeah. But that wasn’t exactly what happened,” I said. “I actually tried to hook up with Johnny first.”
“Oh,” she said.
Then she went silent.
“You still want to hear the rest of this?” I asked her.
“I do.”
“It doesn’t weird you out?”
“Why would it weird me out?”
“I don’t know. Some people get weirded out.”
She blinked her soft blue eyes at me. “Tell me,” she said.
“Okay. You know I like guys. And girls. I’ve been with plenty of both. More girls than guys, but I’m not shy about sex.” I wasn’t. I wasn’t shy about talking about it, either. Though I often held back a lot of details about my sex life—with other people, even people I dated.
But something about Danica just made me trust that I could tell her… well, pretty much fucking anything.
Until this moment, I’d never told anyone about what happened between me and Joh
nny O’Reilly that night.
And if I was totally wrong and I shouldn’t trust her? Better I find that out now, anyway… before I get any more carried away with the idea that maybe she really was my dream girl or something.
“Thing is,” I told her, “my radar for guys who want to fuck me is usually pretty bang on. That night, though, it was way the fuck off. Combination of being drunk off my ass and heartbroken, I guess.” I tried to read her face, get a gauge on where she was at with all this. She was listening intently to everything I said, her pretty eyebrows drawn together, like she was trying to envision it all. Like she was trying to feel everything I felt that night, actually. But she didn’t look upset. “You’re really not put off by this?”
She shook her head. “Go on. Please.”
“I wouldn’t blame you if you were put off,” I told her. “I’ve had girls put off by it before.” I rubbed my hand over my face. Getting nervous, maybe, that we’d gotten this far, and every step further we took, I just risked more. I just liked her more. “Summer was one of them,” I explained. “Two guys being together isn’t a problem for her. But there was something about me that didn’t work for her.”
Danica said nothing, just listened.
“I was touring with Dirty when we were together,” I went on, “and she thought my feelings for Dylan were, uh… conflicted, I guess.”
“Dylan?” she said, considering that. “Your best friend, Dylan?”
“Yeah. My best friend. And Summer was right. About my feelings for him. They’d crossed the line from friendship into something else. Summer told me she was afraid I was gonna fall in love with him and leave her. By the end, she just couldn’t believe that wasn’t gonna happen.”
Danica stared at me. “Did you fall in love with him?”
I took a breath and let it out. “Yeah, I did. I mean not back then, exactly. But somewhere along the way.”
Her eyes changed. There was something there. But again, she didn’t look upset. It wasn’t hurt. It was more like… curiosity, maybe.
And compassion.
Hot Mess: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players #1) Page 36
