I set my backpack down on the kitchen island in the middle of the open-concept house, and took a better look around.
Foremost, I examined the photos stuck to the front of the fridge with beer cap magnets. A very down-to-earth-looking middle-aged couple in matching blue parkas smiled back at me from one photo, white-capped mountains filling the landscape behind them. There was also a school photo of a little boy, maybe seven or eight years old. And a drawing of a dragon that appeared to have been made by the boy.
My hosts.
Not some biker or asshole rock star.
I relaxed a little. Or actually, a lot.
I wandered around. The place was as nice inside as it was out, with exposed wood everywhere and luxury finishes. It was smallish by a wealthy person’s standards, only one level, with two bedrooms in back, but you definitely had to be wealthy to own a place like this that you didn’t even live in most of the time.
As I tried to get comfy, I found it weirdly hard. Everything was so clean and modern and perfect. Screens on the windows. No bugs. Crystal-clear, scalding-hot tap water.
But there was also a giant soaker tub in the bathroom off the master bedroom, and when I saw it, my spirits lifted. One thing I could definitely get comfortable with was a luxury tub soak. I hadn’t had one of those in months, and fantasies of soaking away the travel grime from under my toenails instantly wooed me.
I drew the water as hot as I could stand it, shed my clothes, pinned up my hair, and for the next half-hour I indulged gratefully in the soak of the year. Very gratefully. I even texted my sister from the bath, although she hadn’t replied to my other text yet.
Me: I forgot to tell you I love you. XO
I even forgave her, officially, for firing me, though I didn’t text that part.
As the bath gradually relaxed me, I lazily brainstormed what I might do for the family on the fridge; the nice people who were letting me stay here for free. The Johnsons. That’s what I’d dubbed them in my head. The Johnsons seemed to like their plants; maybe I could check the planters on the driveway for weeds? There wasn’t exactly much to clean. The place was spotless. Maybe I could whip up a batch of veggie chili or some muffins and leave it for them in the freezer?
I texted Liv again, to ask if she knew how soon the Johnsons would be back.
Then I texted a few friends in town, putting out the feeler for any jobs that might come up. Unfortunately, I really didn’t know many people who could get me work in Vancouver anymore. Even though I was from here, originally, and I still had some friends here, I’d really built my photography career on my travels; my work contacts were all over the world.
And it wasn’t as if high-paying clients were easy to come by, no matter where I was.
Damn. The more time passed, I was really regretting my fuck up at today’s shoot. It didn’t exactly bode well for Liv hiring me in the future. If she wasn’t my sister, she’d probably never hire me again. I bitched about it, and I did kind of hate the work, but the fact was I needed her to hire me when I came to town.
Shit.
I’d really have to kiss butt on this to get her to forgive me.
Or, maybe I’d impressed Dylan Cope so much—in the three minutes he’d known me, before I was fired—that he’d hire me? Maybe he needed a personal photographer to follow him around and take photos of him looking gorgeous?
Dare to dream.
That thought got me pretty impatient to look through the images I’d shot today. Because ultimately, I’d mostly photographed Dylan. Of course, I’d figured I had the rest of the afternoon to photograph everything else. Oops. I knew I’d gotten carried away, experimenting with my shutter speed as the whole scene dazzled me—capturing ultra-crisp images with his hair and drops of sweat frozen in the air, and artfully blurred ones, his flailing arms and the gleaming cymbals colorful smears of motion. But I’d definitely gotten some gorgeous shots.
I was pretty damn sure I’d gotten some epic ones.
I knew I should go through them and send the best selects to Liv as soon as possible. They’d want them for social media and stuff. And I didn’t need to give them any reason to decide I wasn’t worth the paycheck after all.
I decided to get out of the bath and get to work before I turned into a prune, and started letting the water out. It was getting cold anyway. Over the sound of the water gurgling down the drain and the water splooshing off my body as I stood up, I thought I heard a noise. Like a door closing or something.
I froze. Naked.
The water gurgled down the drain, but there was no other sound from the house. The bathroom door was ajar, and I waited for a moment.
What I was gonna do if someone suddenly appeared, I didn’t know. All I could really do was stand here, dripping.
Then I shook it off and stepped out of the bath. No one was here but me. I was just creeping myself out.
I toweled off, digging through my backpack with one hand to find some fresh panties and a T-shirt to throw on. Maybe there was fire wood? I could make a fire in the fireplace in the living room and look through the photos on my laptop there, figure out something for dinner…
I dropped the towel, panties in hand, and I didn’t even hear him—but I full-on screamed when I saw him: a man in black suddenly filling the doorway.
“Holy FUCK,” he growled. He stopped short—and some innate spidey-sense told me I’d scared the shit out of him. The hairs standing up all over my body quickly declassified him from rapist-murderer to hapless homeowner.
Holy fuck was right.
It was Ashley Player.
I’d already swiped the damp towel from the floor and was scrambling to cover myself with it.
“Oh. It’s you,” he said, sounding weirdly disappointed.
Fucking seriously?
Did he just see me naked?
Too shocked for my brain to function property, I fired back, “Oh, it’s you,” with as much distaste as possible.
“Uh, yeah,” he said as his gaze scraped over me. “This is my house.”
“Where the hell are the Johnsons?”
“Huh?”
“Those nice people on the fridge!”
“That’s my aunt Ginny and my uncle Joe. And my cousin.” He was looking at me like I was a crazy person, but he was also staring at all my embarrassing nakedness like he didn’t give one fuck that it was rude. My bare arms, my legs; everywhere there was skin, he was looking.
Like he didn’t already see enough?
“They don’t live here?”
“If they did, that would make it okay for you to break in and take a bubble bath?”
“I didn’t break in,” I said between clenched teeth. “I used the spare key.” My face was heating up, and I knew I was turning red. There weren’t any fucking bubbles in the bath, but it hardly warranted pointing out. “Liv sent me.”
“Liv sent you?”
“Yes! There must’ve been some misunderstanding. She thought you—the homeowner—wasn’t here right now.”
“Well, I’m here right now.”
“I see that.” I was clutching the towel to myself, still feeling grossly naked even though all my private goods were covered. It was the way he just stood there, staring at me, like he could still see everything. “Um, if you can give me a minute, I’ll just get my stuff and clear out.”
“There’s no ferry ’til tomorrow,” he said gruffly, crossing his arms over his chest.
“What?!”
“Two ferries every day. Eight and six. You must’ve come on the six o’clock. Next ferry is at eight in the morning.”
Holy fuck again.
I was gonna fucking murder Liv.
“Um, okay.” No big deal. I could sleep anywhere, right? I’d slept outside, in way worse weather than this. “Well… do you mind if I just take the porch? If you have an extra blanket that would be great, but I can make do on the little wicker couch thing out there—”
“Just stay,” he grunted, looking annoyed. “Use
the guest room.” He swiped a couple of things off the edge of the sink—razor, maybe, and some other guy-grooming stuff. “I’ll sleep next door.” He spared me another glance. Or rather, scowl. “Come over if you need food. I don’t stock the kitchen.” Then he stalked out. Seconds later, I heard a door slam.
Shit.
I peeked out into the bedroom; I didn’t see him and I couldn’t hear him in the house. Then I got dressed, quick, and took a look around.
He was definitely gone.
How the hell did he get here? He definitely wasn’t on that ferry I was on. A private boat, then. One he clearly wasn’t gonna offer to drive me back to the city on.
At least he wasn’t kicking me out on my ass, so that was something. It was dark out now, and the temperature would be dropping fast.
I opened the fridge—sneering at the nice couple in the photo, who’d duped me—and discovered he wasn’t lying. The fridge was entirely empty. Other than a bottle of ketchup, a bottle of mustard, an almost-empty jar of dill pickles, and a bunch of random beers that filled up the produce drawers.
What the hell? Liv had told me, quote, Don’t worry about food. Which meant I hadn’t brought any with me.
Maybe humiliating me and starving me was payback for my shitty performance at today’s shoot?
I helped myself to a pickle and shut the fridge. I figured Ashley Player owed me at least as much for staring at me like that. The vivid memory made me full-on shiver.
Gross.
It also made me wonder if he liked what he saw when he saw me naked… which was all kinds of fucked up.
Because who the fuck cared if he liked—or didn’t like—what he saw?
As I looked around the house now, evidence of him was everywhere. This was such a bachelor pad. Why hadn’t I seen it? There were no little-boy toys in the second bedroom. The bathroom was stocked with dude magazines. Big, sparse leather furniture and plaid linens were abound. There wasn’t a feminine item to be found.
I drew the line at opening his bedroom drawers, but I did open his closet. Nothing but dude clothes, and very little of it. A couple of black T-shirts and a hoodie hung up, and some jeans folded on the floor. Maybe Liv was right; he never really used this place.
At least he’d let me stay the night instead of evicting my ass. He wasn’t exactly nice about it, though. More like I was a major imposition. Which I supposed I was. Unintentionally.
I tidied up his bathroom and cleaned out the tub, so there was no trace of my trespass left. I put my backpack in the second bedroom, stewing as I called my sister and she didn’t answer her damn phone. Then I dug a half-eaten granola bar out of my bag, the only food I had with me. I ate it, and just felt more hungry.
I checked the time; it was almost seven-thirty. I hadn’t eaten since noon.
I tried Liv’s number again. She didn’t answer. Very possibly she was working late. Or ignoring me?
This time, when the call went to voicemail, I said, “Is this because of that time I told Kelly Bannerman that you were straight, and she started dating that blonde girl, and you got all sad for like the whole summer? Because I was eleven years old when I did that. If this is payback, well played. When I catch the ferry back tomorrow, we will have words. Oh yes, we will have words.”
As I hung up, my stomach rumbled and Ashley Player’s words replayed in my head. I’ll sleep next door. Come over if you need food.
Yeah. Fat fucking chance.
I had no idea what was “next door” other than Ashley Player himself, but that was plenty of a deterrent. I hardly felt like spending an evening with him and his asshole friends.
Better to starve.
On second thought, I took one of his beers out to the front porch and enjoyed it in the twilight as I sorted through the images from the Underlayer shoot on my laptop. I was hardly gonna ask Ashley if he had a Wi-Fi password I could use, so I snooped around the house until I found his modem and lifted the password from the sticker on the bottom, so I could get online.
As I uploaded the images to the cloud, I helped myself to another beer. I stared at a couple of the photos I’d taken of Dylan in his dressing room—by far the best ones. Other than converting a few of them to black-and-white and tweaking the contrast a bit, they needed zero retouching. I sent the very best of them along with the other ones to Liv.
I doubted Underlayer would be interested in those photos, since they didn’t show off their ridiculous rock star set and lighting, but I wanted Liv to see what I was doing in Dylan’s dressing room. To see that it wasn’t all for nothing. That I had the talent, if not the other skills necessary for today’s job.
Then I had another beer.
I flipped through some of Ashley Player’s shitty guy magazines, checking out the photography. More photos of hot girls, cars and music equipment than I could ever want to peruse.
Then I went to bed, mildly drunk and hangry.
Chapter Five
Amber
I woke up the next day to noise from next door.
And I was still hangry.
I rolled over and sat up, peering out the window. I couldn’t see any house over the giant fence, just trees. But I could hear the super-loud, cheesy music. It was that old Trooper song that I only ever heard on classic rock radio stations in Canada. “The Boys In the Bright White Sportscar.” I actually didn’t mind hearing it. I’d never admit it to anyone—especially my sister—but it felt kinda nice waking up in my own country. I did it so rarely, after all.
I could also hear a few men shouting, laughing, and the sound of a ball bouncing against the ground and banging against the wooden fence. It sounded like they were shooting hoops.
I rubbed my eyes. Was that Ashley over there? Didn’t he have anything better to do than clown around on a Friday morning? Come to think of it, since when did rock stars get out of bed before noon anyway?
I checked my phone. Okay, maybe not before noon. It was already close to one in the afternoon.
Which was when I realized my alarm hadn’t gone off, and my jet-lag had totally screwed me.
I quickly checked the settings. Yup, I’d definitely set my phone alarm last night—for six p.m., rather than a.m..
Fuck me.
I’d missed the fucking morning ferry.
There were almost five hours to kill until the next one.
I groaned at my idiocy, tossed the stupid plaid blanket and black sheet off, and got dressed. I picked out the most flowery thing in my bag, remembering Ashley’s apparent distaste for the rosebuds on my blouse yesterday. It was a maxi dress, ankle-length and somewhat figure-hugging, with a pretty pattern of pink and red peonies, and spaghetti straps. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, finger-combed my wavy hair, and filled up my water bottle.
I made the bed and erased every trace of myself from the house, like I’d never even been here. Then I slipped on my sandals and my cardigan sweater, picked up my camera and my backpack, and headed out.
I spent the next three hours exploring the small island, very slowly, on foot, taking photos along the way. I found several trails snaking through the trees and followed them all. I glimpsed several houses tucked back in the trees off the winding road that looped around the island, and a couple of cars drove past me, but I didn’t see another person.
The tiny shack of a general store by the marina was closed.
By the time I made it all the way around the loop, my empty stomach was totally pissed at me.
There was no noise coming from next door, but as I approached the fancy iron gate on the only driveway in the vicinity of Ashley’s, just around the bend in the road, there was a car parked inside. A silver BMW with a license plate that read HONEY.
There was also a giant black-and-chrome Harley, parked off to the side, with an anatomically-impossible pinup girl painted on it.
My stomach rumbled.
I sighed.
Grudgingly, I tried the gate. It opened with a little push and I drifted inside. The driveway coiled around
the yard and slightly uphill toward the house—and this one was a palace. It had the same darkish stain to the wood, the frames around the windows and doors painted green, but it was probably four times the size of Ashley’s house next door.
I knocked on the door, and groaned inwardly when Ashley answered. I really tried to smile, but it didn’t happen.
He looked me over, his blue eyes scanning my dress, then my face; he definitely looked at my chest before looking me in the eye, but he probably did that to every female. Actually, he looked damned disappointed to see me. Again.
I opened my mouth to speak, but he got there first.
“Starving, huh?” he said, correctly assuming that the threat of starvation was the only reason I’d shown up here. “Thought you were on the morning ferry.”
“Missed it,” I said, feeling like a royal idiot. How many times did I have to fuck up in front of this guy? “I tried the store by the docks, but it was closed.”
“Shuts down in September for the season,” he informed me.
“Right.” Liv really might’ve mentioned that. She might’ve mentioned a lot of things.
However, she hadn’t yet called me back, even though I’d sent her a series of increasingly irritated and bewildered texts.
Without another word, Ashley turned and walked back into the house. He left the door open, which I took to be his warm and fuzzy way of inviting me in.
I stepped inside and set my backpack down, but I kept my camera with me. The familiar weight of it in my hand and the strap wrapped around my wrist grounded me, gave me comfort; had gotten me through many an awkward social situation. Hopefully it would come through for me on this one.
“Kitchen’s in the back,” I heard Ashley mutter from somewhere up ahead of me. “Help yourself.” When I looked up, he’d already vanished.
As I moved deeper into the house, the entryway with its sweeping staircase opened up into an expansive living room with a massive stone fireplace and a couple of leather couches. A sparkly blonde woman was perched on one of them.
Honey, no doubt.
She was chatting animatedly at Ashley, who was standing by the other couch, sipping on a bottle of beer and half-listening. Even though he wasn’t looking at me, I could feel his rigid awareness of my presence from across the room. Kind of like he had a thorn in his ass he was trying to ignore.
Dirty Like Dylan: A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty, Book 4) Page 5
