From what Hattie had told him, Billy wasn’t exactly a hands-on boss.
In fact, from what Hattie said, he was pretty sure that coffee shop was going to go to hell in a handbasket without Gina running the show.
And yes. Hattie had filled him in on quite a bit. She was on his side, she’d informed him the day before when he’d dropped by.
On his side in the town’s raging argument over who Gina should be with, he gathered.
Apparently word hadn’t yet spread about Billy’s cheating, so poor Gina was the bad guy who’d ditched that nice coffee shop owner for a no-good player who’d toss her over just as soon as he got bored.
“So, where to?” he asked. He’d rented a car of his own and held the passenger door open for her.
“Um, maybe Betty Lou’s?”
“The diner?”
She nodded. “They have the best pastrami on rye outside New York.”
He arched a brow and she giggled.
“Okay, fine. I’ve never been to New York. But I hear Betty Lou’s sandwiches hold their own.”
He felt a smile tugging at his lips. A real one. The girl spoke with no agenda and no pretension, which was...refreshing.
Also concerning.
It made him worried about her. Who was protecting her from users like Billy and those other guys?
Her brother and Trent clearly looked after her safety, but they weren’t winning any awards for keeping the jerks at bay.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked after she buckled.
He shrugged. “Just wondering what kind of brother Colton is.”
See? That was the truth.
He’d been doing a killer job of keeping his promise if he did say so himself.
She squinted. “What kind of brother? Well, when we were younger he was always getting into trouble. He was good to me, but gave my mom a lot of gray hairs.”
He chuckled as he started the car. “And when you got older?”
She lifted a shoulder. “He got all protective once the boys started to notice me.”
Fat lot of good that had done her. She’d still ended up with the worst kind of guys.
He shifted his hands on the wheel as she pointed the direction to Betty Lou’s.
When they got to the diner, he honored Gina’s wishes and let her go in alone—probably better not to call attention to their new couple status at this particular moment anyhow. Gina was having a bad enough day.
She ordered for both of them and came out toting a paper bag that already had grease stains on the side.
Oh yeah. He’d definitely need to hit the gym hard when he got back to his real life.
She slid into the passenger seat with a grin that felt like a blow to the gut. She held up the bag in triumph. “Prepare to be wowed.”
“I’ll try to contain my excitement,” he deadpanned.
She laughed before giving him directions to a park nearby with picnic tables along with the bare bones playground equipment.
The weather was brisk enough that they had no audience. They were alone just like they were at her house, but the change honestly seemed to do her good. She was more relaxed as she ate, and her conversation topics ranged all over the board, but she didn’t talk about her job hunt or Billy.
“We should get back so you can work some more,” she said when she’d finished her sandwich and crumpled up the wrapper.
“Yes, mom,” he teased.
She smiled. “I just don’t want to be the reason you get in trouble with your record people for not having new material.”
He nodded, the light, relaxed, some might say happy vibe he’d been feeling during lunch fading in a flash.
“You okay?” she asked.
“You tell me,” he said. “You heard the garbage I was playing before. Do you think I’ll have a career to go back to at the end of all this?”
She frowned and he looked away.
Crap. He hated sounding like a sullen, brooding brat, and that was exactly how he’d sounded.
“It wasn’t that bad,” she said tentatively.
He shot her a glare. “You cannot tell a lie, remember?”
She winced. “It wasn’t good, either.”
He gave a sharp bark of a laugh at that honesty. Then he scrubbed a hand over his hair. He’d gone without the cap today and now he was feeling weirdly exposed.
“That song you sang to me at the concert was really pretty,” she said. “I can see why people are so excited about it.”
“Thanks.” He looked away again. Ah heck. Really pretty? He’d had better compliments from that reviewer who regularly tore him apart. But somehow her saying ‘really pretty’ with such sincerity had his chest swelling with pride. “Now I just need to write a whole lot more just like it and I might just have a future in the music industry.”
She nibbled on her lower lip as they headed to the car.
“It’s just been a while since I’ve written that kind of song, that’s all,” he said, even though she hadn’t asked for an explanation.
“How long?”
“Twenty years.”
She stopped walking. “Seriously?”
He nodded, a rueful smile on his lips. “Seriously. I’d written that just after high school. Back before...this.”
She nodded like she knew exactly what this meant. “And now you’re worried you can’t do it again.”
He shrugged. “Everything was different back then,” he said. “I was different.”
“How so?”
He laughed. Was she serious? “I was young and ambitious. I had big dreams and thought anything was possible…”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“It wasn’t bad, it’s just not me anymore,” he said with another shrug. How to explain to this sweet, innocent, sheltered girl that life had beaten him down. The higher he’d risen, the more fame and wealth and power he’d earned, the more jaded and disillusioned he’d become.
“I don’t remember what it was like,” he said. He stopped and swallowed hard. They were at the car now, but neither of them made a move to get in. “When I wrote that song, I mean. I don’t remember how I felt. Except…” He paused, wincing at the flood of memories. “Except that I’d been in love, I guess.”
“You guess?” Her brows shot up and amusement softened her tone.
He gave a huff of amusement. “I was young and stupid. I’d thought it was love. I don’t think so anymore.”
Because if it had been, he would have stayed for her. Right? He rubbed a hand over his eyes. It had been a long time since he’d let himself question his choices back then.
What was the point in looking backwards, right? Especially when he knew that no matter what he might tell himself, he’d make that same choice all over again.
“You wrote that song for her?” Gina asked, her voice quiet.
He nodded. He didn’t want to think about Jessie.
“What happened?” she asked.
He tried to smile, but he was pretty sure it was more of a smirk. There was definitely no amusement in it. “I didn’t love her as much as she loved me.”
He could still see the pain in Jessie’s eyes when he’d walked away.
“I chose music over her. I chose myself and my dreams over her…” He glanced in Gina’s direction and looked away from the sympathy he saw there. “It’s fine. No regrets. She married another guy the very next year and I’ve never looked back.”
That wasn’t a lie.
But it wasn’t the whole truth either.
“Come on, let’s get back,” he said. Gina hesitated but then got into the car. Aston followed a second later.
They were both silent on the drive back home.
He wasn’t sure where Gina’s thoughts had gone, but he was firmly stuck in the past.
He didn’t regret walking away from Jessie. In the end it had probably been the kindest thing he could have done for his high school sweetheart. He hadn’t loved her the way she’d dese
rved, and he’d always sort of known it. She’d dreamt of weddings and a family, and he’d always known that wasn’t the life for him. Not with her. Not with anyone.
So no, he didn’t regret leaving, even if he hated that he’d broken her heart.
It wasn’t regret, he told himself as he pulled into Gina’s driveway, waving at the deputies standing guard in a parked car out front.
But that song, trying to remember how he’d felt back then...it was making him feel something. Not regret, but something close.
Maybe just a case of the what ifs.
What if he’d chosen differently? Who would he be if he hadn’t taken off and left his family and friends behind?
“You okay?” Gina asked as she opened the passenger side door.
He wasn’t supposed to lie, so he didn’t. “Are you?” he shot back.
“I’m better than I was before,” she said, her tone making it clear she still wasn’t in a great place.
But then, neither was he.
That song, that time in his life, the decisions he’d made back then…
He couldn’t seem to shake it. Maybe this was the start of a midlife crisis because Aston couldn’t stop pondering the choices he’d made back then. It was ridiculous to harp on it, really. He’d chosen himself, his dreams, his music…
He’d walked away from love.
Some decisions were a fork in the road.
And he’d made his choice.
Eleven
Two days later, Gina stood in the middle of the den and made an epic announcement.
“I am going out,” she said.
Admittedly, she’d said it way louder than necessary.
Aston looked up from his guitar, which he’d been plucking away at on the couch all morning while she’d dutifully gone through her discouraging daily act of scrolling through job listings.
She’d applied to a few remote jobs, refreshed the local listings, and had sent out some emails to friends to see if they knew of any leads. She’d done all that she could do for today, and now it was time to face the next inevitable task that she’d been putting off. “I am going out. And I am going into the grocery store,” she said.
Aston’s brows hitched up. A smile tugged at his lips.
Man, he had great lips. Great jaw. Perfect eyes, especially when they crinkled at the corners with amusement like that.
A girl could happily occupy the better part of her day just watching this guy sit on her couch and play guitar.
She knew this because that’s how she’d been passing way too much time lately. Way too much.
Which was exactly why she was going out now. She’d never been a couch potato before, and she didn’t plan on turning into one now.
“You ready for this?” Aston teased.
“I think so,” she answered seriously. She could see the laughter in his eyes, but she ignored the playful mockery.
He thought she was crazy for being so afraid of the outside world. But he’d had twenty years to get used to people staring and whispering. She hadn’t even had a week.
“Want me to come with you?” he asked.
She reeled back in horror. “No. Of course not.”
He chuckled, his grin so irresistible she found herself smiling back.
When his smile was genuine like it was right now, it felt like the sun was coming out from behind the clouds to shine directly on her and the birds were chirping overhead...
In short, it was a really powerful smile.
But not powerful enough to convince her he should tag along.
He arched his brows, his eyes pleading. “I need to get out too, you know. Didn’t you read the manual?”
She pressed her lips together to hold back a laugh. “What manual?”
He fell back with an exasperated huff. “The manual,” he repeated. “The one on the care and feeding of your rockstar roommate?”
She swallowed a giggle before playing along. “I don’t think I got my copy.”
He shook his head. “Heads will roll for this oversight.”
She smiled.
He smiled back.
Her heart did a backflip off a high dive that would have earned ten stars from Olympic judges.
“So you don’t want me to go with you,” he said, for all the world sounding put out by her rejection.
“You get out of the house every day,” she reminded him. Where he went, she didn’t know. But it wasn’t like there were a lot of options during the off-season.
“Fine. I won’t come with you.” He adopted a pathetic expression that made her burst out laughing.
“You’re incorrigible; has anyone ever told you that?”
“Only my mother,” he shot back. “Every day of my childhood.”
Her brows hitched. He’d never spoken of his parents before. She knew from being a hardcore fan that he’d lost them both—his father as a child and his mother not long after he started to rise to fame. She also knew he had no siblings.
That had to be lonely. Wasn’t it? Questions teased the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed them down.
Boundaries, Gina, she reminded herself.
Just like she’d been reminding herself every hour of every day since he’d moved in.
Boundaries were harder to keep up than she’d ever thought they’d be.
Maybe that was just a natural side effect of living with someone. They shared every meal together, made each other laugh on the regular, spent each night watching movies on her couch or reading, interrupting each other to chit chat about silly little things, like…
Well, like some old married couple.
At least, that was what she imagined what it must be like to be married. That comfort. The familiarity. The cozy, homey feeling of having someone around who was interested in the tiniest facets of your day, and vice versa.
She backed away, out of the living room.
Was she seriously thinking about marriage right now?
Oh yeah, she needed some distance in a big way.
If she couldn’t put up metaphorical boundaries, she could at least give them both some very literal space.
“I’m gonna, um…” She backed into the doorframe and his brows hitched up again.
He was laughing at her; she could see it.
He’d been doing that a lot lately. Not in a mean way. More like in an indulgent way, like he thought she was cute or something. To be honest, he normally did it at times like these when she found herself keenly aware of the fact that he was hot, and he was here, and they were alone.
So alone.
She nearly fanned herself as her mind called up The Kiss. It was so far from any other kiss she’d received from her ex-boyfriends that she’d given it its own special moniker.
She stepped away from the doorframe, unable to turn around when he was staring at her like this. Like she was endlessly fascinating. Like he’d be content to sit and watch her act like a lunatic all day.
“Okay, so bye then,” she said. As awkwardly as was humanly possible, apparently.
“Gina,” his voice rumbled.
His voice.
Sweet sugar, that voice. So low and gravelly, and when he was watching like that—like he was a predator and she was his prey.
Oh biscuits. She was in trouble.
“Gina, we have a problem,” he said.
She blinked rapidly, her heart sputtering in her chest. Like I don’t know that?
“We do?” she whispered.
She pressed her lips together and tried to remember every selfish, self-absorbed, cocky rockstar move he’d ever made.
Namely, getting her into this predicament in the first place.
It didn’t help; her heart was still racing. “What problem?”
He rose from the couch and stalked toward her. “I was planning on leaving the house too. I’m getting cabin fever. I’ll go crazy if I stay inside much longer.”
“Oh.” She blinked. “Well, we’ll just go to different places, that’s all.”
He was fighting a smile again. “You know you can’t avoid this forever.”
She huffed. “We agreed to do a photo op for the library fundraiser. Aside from that, the fact that you’re living in my house is going to have to suffice.”
And it was sufficing. She’d followed Vanessa and Addison’s advice and had been steering clear of social media for the most part, but she wasn’t living in a vacuum and she’d seen enough to know that his fans were still convinced that he’d moved in and was playing house with—gag—America’s girl next door.
That was what they were calling her. A fact which Aston found cute.
Cute.
Bleck.
That was how he saw her. Adorable. Wholesome. Goody Two Shoes. These were the words he’d been using to describe her.
Her shoulders sank as he walked right past her without making a move.
She gave a huff of rueful amusement at her own idiocy. Of course he wouldn’t make a move. Any sexual tension between them was obviously in her head. And it was all based on her stupid crush, which was based on a stupid facade that wasn’t even true.
It was a crush that she’d thought had been extinguished after their first awful encounter, but—surprise! It had come back like an irritating rash. Annoying, persistent, and somehow stronger than ever. Because now he wasn’t just some rockstar, he was Aston.
Her...friend? Yeah, possibly. Her roommate, definitely. And a man who had a surprising amount of depth and layers that he hid really, really well behind that cocky swagger.
So well that sometimes she wondered if he was even aware that he was more than just a rockstar.
She huffed again, this time for good measure, then she strode past him in the kitchen to head for the door. “Fine, we can walk to Main Street together, but then we’ll go our separate ways, okay?”
“Sounds like a plan,” he said mildly.
Too mildly.
Way, way too mildly.
So mildly that when she said goodbye to him at the steps of the library, she should have known that would not be the last she’d see of him.
But she hurried up the steps to the brick building, ignoring the stares of the passersby. She was pretty sure they weren’t staring at her, anyway. It was a cluster of teenage girls and they were craning their necks to watch a seemingly oblivious Aston stride away from them.
Fake Dating My Rockstar Roommate: A Sweet Standalone Romance (Fake Dates Book 3) Page 10
