“You think her boyfriend will be okay with me staying with her?” he asked, the smirk in his voice directed at me.
I attempted to send Kayla a silent message to go along with my original lie. But since she hadn’t been around for it, that was hopeless.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” she said. “Hailey is as single as you can get.”
Thanks, traitor.
I glared at her, but that was as useful as my mental message. “I don’t need a babysitter,” I grumbled. “And maybe I don’t want a roommate. Maybe I’m happy to live on my own.”
“Well, I’d feel happier if you didn’t live on your own,” Kayla said. “At least for now.”
Nolan crossed his arms and waited for my next volley.
I bit back the urge to tell him that if he was so desperate to stay in Northbridge, he could stay at his parents’ place. I might not be happy with the direction of the conversation, but I would never say anything so callous to Nolan. “He can stay with Brandon.”
Nolan shifted, and the sexy smirk was back. “Can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“His roommate won’t allow it. Has something against rock stars.”
I snorted. Nolan was never the type of person to refer to himself as a rock star, no matter how famous he became. A musician, yes. A singer, yes. A songwriter, absolutely. But never anything as ostentatious as a rock star. His down-to-earth attitude was another reason I loved him. That had never changed, even while he pretended to be someone he wasn’t.
“Then it’s settled,” Kayla said, making herself at home on the only seat in the room. “You can crash in my old room while you’re in town.”
Chapter 9
Nolan
Northbridge had been my home from the day I was born until the day I turned my back on it. Over the years, I’d let my memories of the college town, with its beaches, the lake, and the surrounding deciduous forest, fade away.
The only memories that hadn’t faded with time were of Hailey. And yes, she was just as beautiful and just as goddamn stubborn as I remembered.
The apartment door opened and Kayla gestured for me to enter. I still hadn’t convinced Hailey to let me stay, but I had talked Kayla into letting me help move her stuff to her boyfriend’s apartment. We hadn’t been close before, but right now I needed her to be my ally when it came to Hailey.
“So what’s the deal about Hailey’s ex-boyfriend?” I hoped I sounded like an interested friend, instead of a jealous guy who still had a thing for his best friend.
I walked into the living room and stopped short. The place resembled any other apartment for someone who’d graduated from college two years ago. The forest-green couch had once belonged to Hailey’s parents. The TV hadn’t been theirs; neither had the dark wood coffee table and the matching entertainment center. And the small dinner table, with only two chairs, hadn’t belonged to her parents either. They all looked new. Not expensive, like her parents would’ve bought, but new.
But that wasn’t why I’d stopped short. That came from seeing the old foosball table in a prime location behind the couch. Her parents’ old foosball table.
It was as if I’d never left.
My fingers and muscles twitched at the memory of playing against Hailey. My skin itched at the recollection of sharing about our day, our dreams, our fears while we played the game. Foosball had been our version of therapy.
“I can’t believe she still plays it.” I twisted the white knob. The blue players kicked the air, searching for the ball.
“Technically, she doesn’t.” Kayla walked to the other side of the game, as if getting ready to play against me. That’d be a first. The Kayla I remembered hated the game.
“What do you mean?”
“Once you left, she didn’t have anyone to play against anymore.”
“So why is it here?”
Kayla’s eyebrows raised in her familiar you’ve-gotta-be-kidding-me expression. It had been directed at me more times than I cared to remember. “Why do you think it’s here?”
I shrugged. Hell if I knew.
“Because it reminds Hailey of you.” She ran her fingertip along the side wall of the game, along the smooth dark wood. “You guys were best friends for like forever. She was hurting when you left and never spoke to her again.”
“I had my reasons, but I never meant to hurt her.”
“I know, but you did.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Just don’t do it again, okay?”
As much as I didn’t want to hurt Hailey again, it wasn’t something I could easily avoid. I could only reduce the risk of it happening. “You never answered my question about her ex-boyfriend. What was the deal between them?” That didn’t make me sound like a jealous ass, right?
Kayla cocked her head to the side. “What’s it to you?”
I sighed. She wasn’t making this easy for me. But then, what was new? “Hailey’s still my friend and I still care about her. I get the idea the asshole hurt her.” I had no idea if it was true or not, but figured Kayla would be more likely to answer my question if I turned him into the evil one.
She studied me for a moment before releasing a heavy breath. “She dated the jerk for two years and he ended up cheating on her. With several girls, apparently. Needless to say, they weren’t too impressed he was jerking them around.” She chuckled. “Rumor has it one keyed his car.”
“Did she love him?”
“Well, she wasn’t picking out their china pattern yet, but she did care about him.” Kayla pressed her teeth into her lower lip, once again studying me like I was a piece of artwork to be analyzed. “Hailey’s not the same girl you left behind. Between you leaving and what he did, she’s changed.”
“Changed how?”
“Hailey used to be the kind of girl who believed in long-term relationships. She’s not that girl anymore. She won’t let guys get close to her. I mean, she’ll let them get close, if you know what I mean. But all they are to her is mindless sex with no commitment.”
So, pretty much how things were with me.
“How often was she…?” The words clung at the back of my throat. I didn’t want to know the truth but asked anyway. “How often does she have one-night stands?”
“At least once a week…when we go dancing.”
“And they’re all strangers?”
Kayla nodded, as thrilled with this as I was. This didn’t sound like the Hailey I remembered. But the Hailey I remembered was the one from five years ago. We’d both changed since then. Though, from the sound of it, we’d both changed in the same way.
“Does she go out with any of them after?”
“You mean date them? No. She’s not interested in them after that. Or as she puts it, ‘Once I’ve screwed them, what’s the point of going out with them? I already know they’re only interested in sex. I can get that from someone else without the drama.’ ” She nailed Hailey’s voice.
The twinge of jealousy that had appeared at the thought of her ex kneed me in the nuts. Hard. In all the years I’d been living in Northbridge and had been in love with Hailey, I had fantasized about being her first—and about being the only guy she ever slept with. I’d woken up many a morning sporting a hard-on to rival all others because I’d been dreaming about making love to her. Even after I moved away and had been screwing a shitload of other women, some delusional, caveman part of me wanted to believe that Hailey would always remain a virgin. For me.
An alarming thought formed. “Were there any guys who wanted more from her after they fucked her? Maybe someone who tried to press his luck again?”
Deep creases formed between Kayla’s eyebrows. “You think one of those guys hurt her?”
“It’s possible.” A possibility I wanted to slam my fist into the wall over. If I had stayed in Northbridge, none of this would’ve happened. Hailey would’ve been safe.
In my case, the one-night stands made sense. It was impossible to have a girlfriend when you were on the road al
l the time. But I wasn’t a monk. I was a full-blooded male who happened to love sex.
Except in the beginning, I had used sex to chase away the loneliness. I pretended I was fucking Hailey…until I could no longer pretend. Those girls never felt like Hailey. Those girls never smelled like Hailey. Those girls never sounded like Hailey. Eventually I stopped pretending, and the loneliness continued to grow, never fully chased away whenever I fucked some random girl.
But it was different with Hailey. She wasn’t on the road. She didn’t need to fill the loneliness.
“Did anyone make her feel uncomfortable?” I asked. “Maybe he tried to have sex with her again? Or maybe he kept trying to talk to her and she brushed him off?”
The creases in Kayla’s forehead deepened. “There was one guy. She told him a few times to leave her alone. He finally did when Dylan, my boyfriend, showed up and told him to take a hike.”
“Did he ever bother her again?”
“No, but he watched her a lot whenever we were at the same club as him. We eventually went elsewhere because he was getting beyond creepy.”
“Did you see him again after that?”
She shook her head.
“When was this?” Hailey hadn’t mentioned this to me, but what did I expect? She had just woken from a coma. She was confused at what had happened to her and at a loss about why I was back in town.
“About two months ago,” Kayla said.
“Did you tell the cops?”
“Yes, but since I couldn’t really describe him and I didn’t know his name, they couldn’t do much about it.”
“Would you recognize him if you saw him?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure. He wasn’t the kind of guy who stood out in a crowd. And he definitely wasn’t Hailey’s usual type.”
“What’s her usual type?”
Kayla cringed, but instead of answering me, she picked up a brown moving box.
I put my hand on the box, halting her progress to the door. “What’s her usual type?”
The air in her lungs came out as a huff, and she placed the box on the floor. “It’s more like two types. She tends to go for either the jock or the moody musician. Even better if the moody musician is tattooed.”
Her gaze dropped to the tribal tiger tattoo on my arm, partly obscured by my T-shirt sleeve. My heart stilled momentarily, reading too much into her words. It didn’t mean those guys had been a replacement for me. It just meant she had a thing for musicians. The jock type made more sense, though, since she was an athlete herself.
Kayla and I spent the next two hours moving her stuff into her boyfriend’s apartment. We didn’t mention Hailey for the rest of the time. But that didn’t stop my thoughts from dwelling on her and on the possibility the guy from the nightclub was the attacker.
Chapter 10
Nolan
Hailey was forced to stay in the hospital for three more days, so when I picked her up in the morning, she was ready to do cartwheels down the hallway. Or she might have been if her body wasn’t still sore from the attack. The bruises on her face had faded and were now a combination of purple and green. I couldn’t imagine the bruises on her body were much different.
Her parents would’ve driven her back to her apartment, but I convinced them to let me do it. There was a good reason for that…and Hailey was about to discover what it was. I knew she wouldn’t like it. No need to have her explode at the news in front of her parents. Or maybe, in retrospect, it might’ve been a better idea to let her find out about it in front of them. Better for me, anyway.
I removed her duffel bag from the trunk. Clouds obscured the sun, but it didn’t look like it would snow. At least not in the next few hours.
“Where are you staying?” she asked as we walked to her building. This was the first time she’d mentioned it since I announced I couldn’t stay with Brandon. I’d moved out of his apartment three days ago, the same day I helped Kayla move. Hailey hadn’t agreed to my crashing in Kayla’s old room, so her best friend and I had decided I shouldn’t mention where I was staying until Hailey had been released from the hospital.
“Kayla told me about the guy at the nightclub who was harassing you,” I said, stalling the inevitable. “Do you remember his name?”
A red car crawled toward us, the driver searching for an open spot. It stopped in the middle of the road, even though nothing was available nearby.
“The cops asked me the same question. I never asked him his name. I didn’t care what it was.” Hailey muttered the last part and looked away.
I paused. Her messy ponytail was sexy as hell. I brushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear, my callused fingertips grazing her soft skin. “Hey, I’m not judging you.”
Dropping her gaze, she nodded. I couldn’t tell if she believed me or not.
“But I am wondering if he was involved in the attack.” From the corner of my eye, I noticed the car move forward again. It continued past us, the driver a girl in her early twenties. “It might have nothing to do with him,” I continued. “He might not have known you were in Westgate. But there’s also a chance he followed you there.”
In which case he’d been stalking her. But even if that was true, it didn’t explain why she’d been in that part of town.
“It’s possible.” Hailey’s eyes found mine. “Like I told the cops, I haven’t seen him for about two months. Ever since Kayla and I stopped going to Trysting.”
“Would you recognize him if you saw him?”
Again she nodded, and we resumed walking.
“Good. Then as soon as you’re up to it, I think we should go dancing and see if we can find him. If he was the one who attacked you, it’s possible that just seeing him might help you remember. It’s worth a try.”
She turned her head and narrowed her eyes at me. “And what if I do recognize him, Nolan? What are you gonna do?”
Ouch. Guess I deserved that. Well, semi-deserved it. “Don’t believe everything you read.”
She frowned. “What does that mean?”
“Just that.”
“So you’re telling me you weren’t involved in that bar fight in San Antonio?” Her words were like stubbing your bare toe on an amp, the intense pain lingering after the initial shock had passed. It shouldn’t have bothered me that she even questioned what had happened, but it did.
“Not in the way the media reported it.”
She huffed. “Either you were or you weren’t. There’s no in-between, Nolan.”
But sometimes, there was. “The paparazzi ambushed us. One of the lowlifes had found dirt on Mason that could have destroyed him. At least it could have if the asshole had twisted it to benefit the story.
“Mason swung at him. I tried to stop it from turning into something nastier. The other paparazzi took objection to that and jumped on a story that wasn’t true.” I shrugged. “At least it distracted them from going after Mason.”
Hailey nodded but didn’t say anything more on the topic. She also didn’t ask what the dirt on Mason was, which came as no surprise. Hailey was like that. She respected people’s privacy. It was one of the things I loved about her, along with her own need to keep her life private. I never had to worry about her selling me out for a few minutes of fame when it came to my secrets.
The same couldn’t be said for the other girls I’d been with. Which was one of the reasons I always kept my T-shirt on whenever I had sex with them. I never wanted them to see my scar. It would’ve only led to prying and speculation.
“If you do spot the guy at Trysting,” I said, returning to the original topic, “we’ll contact the cops and let them deal with it. But they can’t determine his connection to the attack if they don’t know who he is. And you might not be his only victim.”
A young couple exited the building as we entered. Both gave me a double take. I’d been fooling myself by thinking no one would notice I was staying here. If I was lucky, they wouldn’t broadcast my location on social media.
We rode the
elevator to Hailey’s floor. Even though I had a key to her apartment, thanks to Kayla, I let Hailey unlock the door.
Once inside, she took her bag from me and headed to her room. My bedroom door was closed, hiding my guitar and what little I had with me. While Hailey had been in the hospital, I’d hit the nearby mall to pick up some clothes. Nothing fancy. Just long-sleeved T-shirts, jeans, and boxer briefs. I’d also bought workout clothing. Even when I was busy writing songs or on tour, I always worked out. As sad as it was, looks were everything in this industry when it came to the female fans. It was part of the fantasy. Theirs, not mine. But working out helped me deal with my demons, so I didn’t care either way.
“You never did mention where you’re staying,” Hailey said as I hung up my coat.
I gave her a look, the one that said, Guess.
“Sorry, not happening.” She folded her arms across her chest. She was always willing to help people, even strangers, but as soon as she got an idea in her head, there was no swaying her—most of the time. Only, I knew her kryptonite.
“Tell you what.” I glanced pointedly at the foosball table. “One game. If I win, I get to stay. If you win, I’ll find somewhere else to stay.”
The old Hailey would have jumped at that, since she usually beat me. This time a hint of uncertainty clouded her eyes. If what Kayla had said was true, Hailey hadn’t played foosball in a while. She was as rusty as I was. Maybe even more so.
And that was what I was counting on.
The competitive streak I loved so much in her came to my rescue. “Okay. You’re on.”
Chapter 11
Hailey
Before we had left the hospital, a nurse checked up on me. Well, more like checked up on Nolan, who hadn’t arrived yet to pick me up. She wanted to know more about Tyler and Alyssa’s relationship.
I had no idea if she’d been asking because she was a member of the Tylyssa fan club (and yes, I thought the name was stupid too) or because she hoped the rumors about the couple were false, which would give her an excellent chance of hooking up with him while he was in town.
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