“No. I don’t.” That was the last thing I wanted. It was just… I kept expecting it to happen. Like at any minute, she’d be gone and never look back. I was on edge waiting for it.
“You said you didn’t have a receptionist. I figured I could be your receptionist today.” She shrugged. “So I’ll be up front. If that’s okay?”
I smiled. She had a way of surprising me, even over the smallest things. “Sure.”
And just like that, she breezed past me, smelling sweet as hell.
Well, shit. I’d never be able to concentrate on Mike knowing she was only yards away, looking way too damn beautiful to be working in my shop.
“Hey, Mike,” I said to the man triple my size. “I need you to move to my station. Sorry, but I’ve got to keep my eyes on the front.”
~ CHAPTER 16 ~
DANI
I hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. After I showered and dressed in his apartment, I went downstairs to check in with John before I left for the day. I needed to find a store that sold or rented instruments. If I planned to stay even another day then I would need a drum set to practice on. If I couldn’t find a suitable solution, I would have to leave.
My music came first. Always. Period.
But I’d heard my name. I’d heard Rhett and Sydney discussing me with John. It stopped me still. I stood on the other side of a partition listening.
That girl is trouble.
I have a bad feeling about her.
Just be careful.
Rhett’s words didn’t surprise me. I’d heard it all before. But it was John’s reaction that caught me off guard. “Both of you—keep your fucking feelings to yourself. We aren’t discussing her. End of discussion.”
I could feel the heat in his voice. He was defending me. I liked it…a lot. It brought me right back to the kiss we’d shared this morning. The way he’d taken it slow. The way he’d held my face. The way he’d prioritized our first kiss over the sex we were in the middle of.
It gave me chills then and it gave me chills now—little bumps covering my arms. I snuck away before John had a chance to catch me listening. I hung out in the stairwell for a minute before I returned.
I ran into John in the hallway.
I swear, somehow, seeing him post-kiss was like looking at him with new eyes. Had he always been this tall? This fucking handsome? His eyes so blue? His lip ring so damn sexy? Being in proximity to him had my body tingling for round two and my lips longing for another sweet kiss.
“You said you didn’t have a receptionist. I figured I could be your receptionist today. So I’ll be up front. If that’s okay?” I said to him. This had not been my plan for the day, not for a second, but I offered myself to him just the same.
He smiled. “Sure.”
One word and my heart swelled.
“Okay. I’ll be up front if you need me.” Feeling suddenly nervous, I walked past him. At the front of his shop there was a tall desk with a swivel stool. On the desk... a phone, some pencils in a jar, an appointment book, and a cash register.
Very simple.
I could do this. I’d never had a real job in my life, but this seemed easy enough. I just didn’t want to go anywhere today. I wanted to stay near this man—in any capacity I could find. It was ridiculous of me to feel this way, but here I was.
I sat down and made myself comfortable. A second later John came from the back with a large shirtless man following him. The man had been getting his ink done in one of the back rooms. There was a station close to the front desk, and John moved him to this other chair instead.
“So I can keep my eyes on you,” he commented.
I tapped one of the pencils from the jar against the appointment book. “You don’t think I can handle this job?”
“No, I know you can. I just want to keep my eyes on you.”
“Oh.”
He put on a fresh pair of gloves, started up his ink gun, and began working on the man’s skin. Then the phone rang. I’d barely had a second to enjoy watching John work.
“Kill Devil Ink, this is Dani speaking, how can I help you?” I said in the most professional, peppy voice I could muster as I answered his phone.
I glanced at John.
He had a cute smile on his lips as he worked, obviously listening to me.
“Dani? Hell, finally I found you.”
My heart skipped a beat.
I’d actually turned my cell phone off about twenty-four hours ago. Why? Because I had a million missed calls from our manager Michelle. When we came to Kill Devil Hills, we’d ended our tour about a month shy with several more cities left in our schedule. We released a statement saying we all needed personal time and that all our remaining shows were postponed until further notice. I kind of liked living off the grid, in a whole different state, where most of the people I came in contact with didn’t recognize me.
“Luke?” I asked. All my cousins sounded similar on the phone.
“Yes, it’s Luke. What the hell are you doing, Dani? I stopped by your house today and you weren’t back. You never caught the later flight?”
“No.”
Luke and I were the same age. I was closest with him. I valued his opinion more than anyone’s. “I know you were going back to say goodbye to that guy. But why are you still with him?” he pressed.
“Because I’m staying.”
I said it, and I felt so confident in it. My eyes were on John. If he was listening, he’d know it now, too.
“For what, like a few more days?”
“No. Longer.”
Luke sighed. “What about Thanksgiving next week?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“I wasn’t going to mention this before because I didn’t want to worry you if you weren’t going to see him ever again. But the night we were all at his house—I couldn’t sleep. So, you know me, I like old homes. I left my room and decided to explore a little.”
Oh Jesus, where was this going?
“I found a picture of him and his sister when they were younger,” Luke went on. “He was blond and tan and in a polo shirt. His sister looked very different too. Mousy. Nerdy. Nothing like the pretty girl we met at the bonfire earlier that same night.”
“People change. They grow up.” And apparently dye their hair black?
“So I googled him.”
Oh shit. “And?”
“I found nothing past eight years back. Like he turned up in Kill Devil Hills out of nowhere. I think he’s hiding something. Nobody changes their appearance that drastically if they’re innocent. You need to be careful. Don’t stay the night with him. Don’t let yourself be alone with him.”
“Jesus, Luke, you’re paranoid.”
“No, I’m not. Remember that stalker fan in Boise. The one who watched you in the hotel lobby. My gut intuition saved your life once. So, don’t ignore this. Address it. And then get the fuck home. If you don’t text me every two hours from here on out, I’ll be on the next flight.”
“Fine. Addressing it. Bye, Luke.”
I hung up before he freaked me out any further.
John glanced up from his work. “What was that? Is everything okay?”
“It was my cousin Luke.”
“Which one is he?”
“Our lead guitarist.” I remembered John didn’t know anything about my band. Or at least, he hadn’t made the connection yet that we were Sunset Revival. “My oldest cousin,” I added. “The quiet one.”
“You look shaken? You okay?”
“Just family drama.” I ran my hands through my hair. The strands were slightly damp from my shower. I wanted to ask John flat-out who he was. But maybe the reason he looked so different was because he was in the witness protection program. Maybe John wasn’t even his real name. Maybe that was why he hated that I was famous. I couldn’t ask him all that in front of the tattooed stranger.
“I need to get a drum set,” I said instead, formulating a plan to get away. “I need to practice. I have to keep my ar
m strength up or I start playing too soft. The challenges of being a girl in this world.” Now I was rambling like a fool. I’d only been trying to give myself an excuse to leave, not tell him my life story. “I’ve got to play like four hours a day to maintain my muscle. I don’t even know where I would put a drum set once I got one.”
“You can put it at my Corolla house,” John offered. “Why don’t I finish with Mike here and then I’ll help you figure that out. Stop worrying. There’s a guitar store a few blocks away. And if that doesn’t work, Rhett’s in a lame cover band. We could track down the drummer from his group and borrow his drum set.”
John was so level-headed. So calm. So accommodating. “Okay,” I said and stayed put in my seat. I wanted to go with him back to the Corolla house now that he mentioned it. I wanted to find the picture Luke spoke of and see for myself what John used to look like. His dark hair seemed so natural on him. I couldn’t even picture him as a blond.
~ CHAPTER 17 ~
JOHN
“So,” Dani said to me outside the guitar store a few blocks from my shop. “This place looks like it will have what I need. But... this might go a couple ways. First, I’ll be recognized, and I’ll be taken seriously. No big deal. Or, second, the more likely outcome, I’ll get shit on.”
What?
“So thanks for coming with me.”
I was very confused. Dani had been in a strange mood ever since her cousin called. I hadn’t been able to hear her side of the conversation over the buzzing of my tattoo gun. I had no idea what the call had been about. But it had rattled her. I would figure that out as soon as we figured this out.
I’d taken off early. I’d come with her to sort through this drum set thing because I was willing to do anything to keep her in my world a little while longer. If she needed her instrument, we’d get it for her. But what did she mean by shit on?
I held open the glass door, a bell ringing, and we entered the store. “Can you explain? Now.” I whispered as she brushed past me.
“I’m a girl in a man’s world. Watch what I mean?” She moved toward the only person working in the store. I felt my anxiety level rise. I wasn’t good with other people.
“Hi,” she said in the same fake voice she had used to answer the phone earlier. The middle-aged man behind the checkout counter stared at us. His eyes drifted briefly to Dani’s chest and the words across her pink shirt.
“Yes,” he said impatiently.
“I need to buy a drum set. Can you show me what you have? I prefer DW and birch. But I’d settle for maple.”
“I just got in a Roland electric set yesterday. That might be better suited for you. Want to take a look at it?”
Dani chuckled. She rested her hand lightly on my arm. “See.”
I was beginning to understand what she meant. “Yeah, I don’t think she wants to see the electric,” I told the guy.
“She probably doesn’t know what she wants.” The guy frowned. “I get this a lot. High school girls, coming in, wanting to start a ‘band’.” He made air quotes with his fingers. Fingers I now wanted to break off. “They think the drums seem like the easiest instrument to pick up. They do a little internet research and they think they’re an expert. Think they know more than me. I see it every day.”
Dani jetted her hand out toward the guy, her palm facing up. “Give me some fucking sticks.”
“You mean like drumsticks?”
“What the hell else would I be talking about?”
The guy scrunched his face but complied. He dropped down below the counter and popped back up with a pair in his hands. “These are twenty bucks.”
She snatched them out of his hand and then took off deeper into this man’s store, on a mission now. Holy shit, she was going to play. I wanted to go ape-shit on the guy for being an asshole toward her, but I wanted to see her play more.
I hurried after her.
She was fierce when she wanted to be. “Look at this,” she said to me, coming upon a set of drums in the back. She ran her fingers over the rim of a drum in the set. “DM Collector’s Series in birch wood. Beautiful. Shame I won’t be buying it.”
She grabbed a tripod chair from another set, plopped it down in behind the one she liked, and sat down. Starting the sticks on the cymbals, she began. Slow, easing into, and then fast. Her sticks flew over the drums in front of her, with such precision and ease. Obviously, she was a product of a lifetime of practice mixed with natural talent. My heart pounded with the beating she gave those drums. She was so goddamn amazing.
I had no idea. She’d told me, and still I hadn’t known. Holy shit, I ran both hands through my hair, completely floored and turned on all at once.
She played for another minute, giving it hell, before she abruptly stopped. And like a true rockstar, she stood from the chair and casually tossed those twenty-dollar sticks up in the air. Then she walked away from the set as the sticks clattered to the ground.
It was quiet now when it had been so loud a moment ago. I stood still, shocked, my chest rising and falling as I watched her leaving. Then I got with the program and hurried to follow her out of the store. As she passed the clerk, she gave him two middle fingers, saying nothing at all, before she pushed through the double doors and into the sunshine.
Her confidence was nothing short of amazing. But in the windy, cold November air, she glanced back at me.
She suddenly had tears in her eyes.
“Hey,” I said, moving closer to her. I ran my hands over her bare arms. She didn’t have a coat and she had to be freezing. She shrugged away from me, not letting me touch her. Now I wanted to go back inside and choke the life out of that guy.
“Do I look like I’m in high school?”
“No. Fuck no. He was just being a dick saying that.”
“But I get shit for the way I look all the time. Because I’m small. Or maybe too girly. I thought when our first record went platinum, that would be the end of the bullshit. But it obviously still happens. Anyway, I want to leave.”
My heart dropped to the pavement. “Me?”
“No.” That elicited a small smile on her lips. “No. Well, I don’t know.”
“What just happened in there...” I pointed back at the store I would be reviewing with a one star on Yelp later. “...was fucking amazing. The way you stood up to that guy. The way you played. I’m impressed, and believe me, nothing impresses me. I might even be a little turned on. Don’t go. There’s no reason for it, not when we’re still figuring this thing between us out.”
She ran her palms under her eyes, wiping away any evidence of tears. If I had to guess, I was probably one of the only people in this world who’d ever seen her cry. “There’s a thing between us?” she asked with a hint of a smile, like she already knew it too.
“Yeah.” I couldn’t help the smile that pulled at my own lips. “Want to go to my house in Corolla for a couple days? Lock ourselves away? It’s what I do when I’m fed up with the world and sick of people. I bet Amazon sells drum sets. They probably even have two-day shipping.”
That earned me a laugh; the sound so sweet in this empty parking lot. “Okay. My cousin Luke is worried about me. I’m safe with you, right?”
Had I ever given her a reason to doubt that? Had someone else? The rush of protectiveness that flooded me almost brought me to my fucking knees. “You’re safe with me. Always.”
“Then let’s get the fuck out of here.”
~ CHAPTER 18 ~
DANI
Being back at John’s mansion felt strange. He carried my suitcase as we entered through the garage. He had no less than eight antique cars sitting untouched. I wished I knew more about cars to know if they were valuable or not. But even if I did, it would have been impossible to tell what I was looking at since they were all covered in a thick layer of dust. “My grandfather’s collection,” he commented, adding nothing else. He’d mentioned the house was his grandfather’s on the night we met. Maybe he’d inherited it. Or maybe he just l
ived here. Or maybe he changed his appearance, his name, and was hiding here. I hadn’t forgotten the old picture Luke said he found.
John unlocked and opened the door. I followed him inside.
I looked at everything with new eyes. I looked for clues as to who John might really be as we walked deeper inside. He liked art, I gathered that much—lots of different, modern pieces that I doubted came with the house.
“Did you draw this?” I stopped in front of a picture of a cat. It was so fucking amazing, all the detail and time that went into creating this strange little cat.
“That one is mine.”
“An old pet?”
He set my suitcase down and stepped closer, staring at his art with me. “When I first moved into the house, there was an old cat that lived inside. I checked the entire house and couldn’t figure out how he was getting in and out. And the house had been vacant for years, so where did he even come from? He hung around for a few years and then one day disappeared. But, and here’s the weird part, sometimes I still see that fucking cat run down a hall.”
The little hairs on my arms stood on end.
“Are you trying to tell me there’s a ghost cat in your house?”
He smiled. “I’m fucking with you. The cat was a tattoo for a client. I liked it so I expanded on my original drawing.”
“You asshole.” I shoved at his chest.
He caught my wrists, pulling me in close. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I promise the house isn’t haunted,” he said softly, the smile on his lips fading. Our bodies were dangerously close. I thought for a moment he’d kiss me again. I wanted him to, even if I was little mad at him over that awful joke. But instead his lips touched my neck.
“Promise you won’t do that again.”
“I won’t.” His mouth was hot on my skin, sending shivers all through me, but I wasn’t letting him off that easy.
Never Kiss a Rockstar (Never Trust Book 2) Page 6
