I realized I still hadn’t said a word to her and needed to respond. “It’s good to see you, too.”
April was in a pair of black dress pants and a purple silk top. Small pearls dotted her earlobes, and a matching necklace draped around her neck. Her makeup was classy and understated. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I found myself wondering what would happen if I released those buttons and . . .
Damn, I was growing hard. “You on your lunch break?” I had to say something to stop my train of thought. A vision of her creamy skin, bare in front of me, came to my mind.
April nodded. “Yes. You guys were off today?”
“Bex has been busting our asses lately, so we have the day off. We’re heading out on tour soon, so it’s time to wrap up our stuff. Bex is spending time with the kids.”
Her eyes widened, and I realized it was because I’d spoken several sentences at once to her. “I have a question for you.”
Questions unnerved me, but she liked to ask them. Unease settled in my stomach, and I wanted to look away from her, but I didn’t. I nodded once, not trusting myself to say anything.
“I can ask Bex if you want me to, but I was wondering if when you guys came up here for the concert if you’d have time to come to one of the group homes and hang out with the kids? We would run a story here for our paper to help with awareness of the children who are up for adoption. So yeah, we would totally use you.” April laughed, flipping her hair behind her shoulder. I smelled her floral perfume again.
The last thing in the world I wanted to do was go into a group home ever again. I’d had enough of seeing those. However, I wasn’t the boss of this band, and I knew Bex would absolutely want to do it. “I’d say ask Natalie to see what our schedule is like. Bex will want to do it if we have time between our stop here and wherever we go after that.”
“Would you want to do it?”
Ah, so she wanted me to talk about myself. I shrugged. “I do whatever the band does.”
She shook her head, a smile playing on her intoxicating lips. “Does it bother you to be around kids . . . like you?”
Kids like me? “You mean be around kids whose parents abandoned them and left them in a system that couldn’t care less what happens to them?”
An appearance of pain crossed April’s face. I didn’t mean to hurt her, but it was the damn truth. The system was broken. “I care,” she whispered. “I care so much about all these kids that I go home and cry almost every night. I want to take all of them. Even the ones they say are ‘unadoptable.’”
“That was me,” I said so low I didn’t know if she heard me. No one wants you. No one will ever want you. I don’t even want you. I never did. I knew the second you were born you were just like him.
But when her hand came across the table and rested on mine, I knew my words hadn’t gone unnoticed. My initial reaction was to jerk back and stop her from touching me, but it was surprisingly nice for her skin to be touching mine. The voice subsided, and I found myself lifting my eyes to hers.
“I don’t know your entire story, but I want to know you, Beau. I don’t care if you never tell me what God awful things happened to you in your life. I don’t need to know unless you want me to.”
I shook my head. She didn’t want to know me. She thought she did because she felt something when she was around me, but it wouldn’t last. I would take her down with me. She’d figure out the fucked-up shit in my head, and she’d run for the hills. If my own mother didn’t stay, what in the hell would stop her from leaving?
“I know that’s hard for you to understand,” she continued. “I get it. I’ve thought a lot about you in the weeks since we first met. I know you feel unworthy because of your past. I see it all the time. What happened to you to get you in foster care does not define who you are, Beau.”
Anger flooded my veins. How the fuck would she know anything about what had happened to me? “Oh, you mean the fact my mother left me and never came back? The one person who is supposed to love you more than anyone else in the world? Don’t fucking pretend you know me just because you work with foster kids. I’m not a fucking project.” I slid out of the booth, and that’s when I heard it.
“Oh, my God!” Voices shrieked from behind me. I turned just in time to see Johnny walking across the restaurant. Three girls had recognized him and were about to cause a scene.
“Fuck,” I said, walking away from April. I strode toward Johnny. We had to get out of here. I wasn’t dealing with any of that.
“It’s Johnny Gibbons!” Just as I approached him, the other two gasped.
“It’s Beau Anderson!”
“Where’s Bex and Tanner? Oh, my God, Jaded Regret is here!”
Johnny smiled and shook their hands. They pulled us both in for a selfie as I saw April standing on the outskirts of the growing crowd. She wasn’t smiling. In fact, she seemed hurt.
Of course. I’d opened my fucking mouth and hurt her. Well, this was exactly why I chose not to talk most of the time.
“Well, that was fucking crazy,” Johnny said, peeling the car out of the parking lot. He watched in the rearview mirror, hoping to lose anyone who might try to follow us.
We’d gotten stuck inside the restaurant, signing autographs and taking pictures, until the manager had come out and made everyone move. That’s when we’d taken the chance we’d been given and escaped.
I hadn’t seen April since I’d caught her standing on the edge of the crowd, watching the two of us getting accosted by fans. It was still crazy to me that people wanted things I signed or to take a picture with me. I needed to apologize to her, but I wasn’t able to find her in the crowd, and we’d had to take the chance to leave when we could. Then again, maybe it was for the best that I’d upset her. Maybe she wouldn’t want to get to know me anymore, and it would solve the problem I had with feeling something around her.
“You know what Bex is going to say,” I said. A chuckle bubbled up in my chest but I stopped it. I was glad Johnny was going home to her and not me. Now he got the brunt of her bitchiness.
Johnny groaned. “She’s going to tell me she was fucking right and I should’ve taken Heath. Damn, I hate when that woman is right.” We exchanged a knowing look, and he laughed. I’d never seen anyone love a woman the way Johnny loved Bex, so I knew as much as we were bitching about it, he would put up with anything from her because he loved her more than life itself.
I didn’t understand that feeling.
“She sure is going to tell you that,” I agreed. “Can I come home with you and watch?”
“Shut up. She may be right and she may rub it in my face that she was, but I know a quick way to shut her up.”
I held up my hands. “I don’t need to know.” God, we all knew plenty about their sex life.
Johnny laughed again. I wished laughter would come that easily for me. “Soooo . . . April.” It was a statement, not a question. One I planned to ignore.
I gazed out the window, watching the scenery fly by as Johnny careened the sports car onto the highway to head home. I pulled out my phone as it chimed, seeing a text from Natalie.
What the hell happened? I see you two all over Twitter. You’re TRENDING! Hashtag JadedRegretHotties. You two can’t go anywhere!
“Oh, shit,” I said.
“What?” Johnny’s eyes slid to me briefly before turning back to the road.
“Natalie just texted me that we’re trending on Twitter.”
Johnny rolled his eyes. “Figures.” Just as he finished speaking, a call came through the Bluetooth. “Hey Bex.”
“You guys have fun at the restaurant?” Laughter laced her voice.
“You could say that,” Johnny said. “I think I got fondled.”
Bex snorted. “I’m sure you liked it.”
“I only like being fondled by you.”
“Hey! Brother in the car!” I yelled, sticking my fingers in my ears.
I could hear their laughter even with my eardrums block
ed.
“So I guess taking Heath would’ve been a good idea, huh?”
Johnny glanced at me and grinned. “Ah, baby, but we were fine. We totally handled it like the men we are. Right, Beau?”
“Right.” I was somewhat on Bex’s side for this one.
“We ran into April at the restaurant before we got recognized.”
“Really!” Bex said. “How is she?”
“Ask Beau,” Johnny said, a smirk on his face. I wanted to smack him. “I went to the restroom and that’s when all hell broke loose.”
Laughter echoed throughout the car. “You were violated in the bathroom?”
“No, after I came out,” Johnny said. “Don’t worry, no one saw my giant manhood, love.”
I groaned. “Again. Please. Brother. In. The. Car.”
“Beau,” Bex said. “How was April?”
Why did I have the feeling these two were up to something? “She’s fine. We didn’t talk much before Mr. Sex on Legs over here caused a ruckus.”
Bex sputtered. “Sex on legs? Did you just say that, Beau?”
I cringed, wrinkling my nose at Johnny as he laughed. “That’s what those girls were saying. Trust me, the nickname did not come from me.”
“Beau is jealous,” Johnny said. “He wants to be called Mr. Sex on Legs.”
“I absolutely do not.”
“Well you have your share of fans,” Johnny said. “I think that April is the president of your fan club.”
“I gotta go, Johnny. Jaden is crying. Be safe, you two.”
The line disconnected and Johnny and I fell back into silence. After a few minutes, his eyes slid over to me. “Beau, you know April is into you, right?”
“She doesn’t know me.”
He sighed. “Are you ever going to let anyone in?”
I shrugged. “It’s not worth it.”
“I used to think that, too,” Johnny said. “I don’t need to get into details on how Bex and I began.” He didn’t. We all knew—and heard—their no-strings-sex for three days when we’d played at the Outrigger near home. What we hadn’t expected was what happened after that. “You know I never thought I’d be that person, the one who settled down and got married. But I’m telling you, Beau, once you have the right person, it’s everything. Abso-fucking-lutely everything.” I thought back to their wedding. I’d officiated it, and it’d be the closest I ever came to committing myself to someone. No one deserved to be saddled with my issues.
“It’s not for me,” I argued. “You and Bex, you helped each other out of your pasts. No one can do that for me because my past is my present and my future. There’s no getting around who I am and what I always will be.”
Johnny’s brow furrowed. He glanced over at me for a second before adjusting his vision back to the road. “Beau, you aren’t a disease. No one is perfect. Not a single damn person. Everyone deserves someone to look at them like they are their whole world. The reason I’m telling you this is because I didn’t think I deserved it, either. I was wrong. You’re wrong, too.”
You’re cancer, spreading like wildfire. “Johnny, April is a beautiful woman. Most guys would cut off a nut to be with her. And that’s exactly why I need to stay the hell away from her. I can’t be the person she deserves. I’m not the person anyone deserves.”
“Do you see the way her eyes follow you everywhere you go?”
“I can see she thinks I’m a fucking charity case. She pities me, Johnny. She thinks of me like she does one of her foster kids.”
“I don’t know what made you think that. I see her staring at you the way a woman looks at a man she wants to get to know. I see her watching you, even when you aren’t paying attention. And I know the difference between a woman just wanting in your pants and one who is genuinely interested in you as a person. You know what I used to be like before Bex.”
“She’s gorgeous and is from an affluent family. She’s got an important job. She’s successful. I’m . . .”
“One of the best drummers in all of rock music? Successful? What does she have that you don’t?”
“She’s so . . . pure. I’m . . . not. I’m not the kind of guy you take home to your parents. I’m the type of guy you hide from your parents because they would never approve.” I flipped the visor down and regarding my reflection, trying to understand what she might see in me.
“Because you have tattoos and piercings?”
Because of who and what they represent. “Because of who I am, Johnny. Inside, outside, the whole package. I’m not good enough for someone like her.”
“I’m not sure she would agree.”
“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” I said, flipping the visor closed and leaning back against the seat. Visions of April’s beautiful face watching me across the restaurant filled my memory. “I don’t want her.”
April
“LET’S SET UP the visit to the group home the day after the Orlando concert,” Natalie said. “Does that work?”
I clicked the email icon on my computer and brought up the contact information for Trent, the director of the group home’s, contact info. “I’ll verify it with them, but it should be okay. We’ll do promo pics and have them play a few things with the kids.”
“Sounds great. Just as a warning, Bex hates the thought of Jaded Regret getting promo for things like this, so let’s not focus on the band as much as we concentrate on the band wanting others to realize how many kids are in need of homes in our state and our country.”
My heart soared. “Got it. Thanks again, girl.”
“Heard you saw Beau and Johnny the other day.” Natalie laughed. “Talk about good promo. Good Lord, they were trending on Twitter for days after that. People posted videos and pictures all over.”
I thought back to my hand on Beau’s and the look in his eyes when I’d said something about kids like him. I’d been so stupid to say that. I hadn’t meant it the way it had come out, but of course, I had to stick my damn foot in my mouth. We hadn’t even gotten to say one more word to each other after that. All I’d been trying to do was get him to open up to me. I was so stupid to think he’d trust me enough to tell me something so personal.
The way he stared at me as if he could see straight inside me was unnerving. He was the most serious person I’d ever met. The most I ever saw from him was a small smirk, almost like he refused to let himself be happy enough to smile. The only time I’d seen him somewhat happy was around Bex’s kids. When our eyes locked, it was an experience like I’d never had in my life.
And he wanted nothing to do with me.
“April?” I realized Natalie had been talking, and I was daydreaming.
“Yeah, I saw them. It was quite a scene after they were found out. I had to go back to work, so I didn’t get to see all of it.”
“You like Beau,” Natalie said, shocking me into silence. We’d become friends. Dare I say, good friends, in the weeks since we’d met. We talked almost every day, and most of the time it was no longer about the band. But I’d been terrified to speak to her about her brother for fear I’d jinx any chance I might have at getting through to him.
“He’s a great guy.”
Natalie laughed. “I think he is, yes, but you haven’t seen that side of him. You’ve tried, but he’s not opening up. How close am I?”
I blew out a breath. “Hit the nail on the damn head.”
“Why didn’t you talk to me about it before now? I could tell the night we met you that you were into him.”
“I didn’t want you to think I was just talking to you to get information on your brother.”
“I’m a good judge of character. I knew you weren’t a groupie just trying to get him into bed. Even if you were, you’d be barking up the wrong tree.”
“He doesn’t sleep around.”
Natalie coughed. “As much as I don’t want to think about my baby brother and doing that at all, no. He’s only had one girlfriend his whole life, if you want to call her that. I still don’t know wh
at happened there, but he isn’t into being with anyone. Not for lack of them trying, of course.”
“He doesn’t like me anyway,” I said, fidgeting with my necklace as we spoke. My stomach felt like I’d swallowed a couple rocks with my lunchtime salad.
“April, let me tell you something about my brother. You know he’s serious. There are reasons for that, reasons I can’t get into because it isn’t my story to tell. However, I watched my brother around you both times we saw you. His eyes never left you, no matter where you went. I’ve never seen him do that to anyone. Anyone.”
My throat was so dry, I couldn’t swallow. I picked up my water and guzzled it, my mind racing. “I think I hurt his feelings when I saw him the other day.”
Natalie sighed. “He’s sensitive. It’s hard because of what you do for a living, I think. It’s a part of his life he never wants to think about and when you are around, it reminds him. I believe this group home visit will be difficult for him.”
She seemed to know what I’d said to him, and it worried me. If he’d told her, it probably meant I had, in fact, upset him. I needed to know. “Did he tell you what I said?”
“No. Beau rarely tells me anything. That’s just him. Here’s some advice for you. When you see him next week, don’t pussy foot around him. If you want to get to know him, you’re going to have to push him some. I can’t make you any promises about what will happen, but I’d say you’ll have to push him outside his norm if you want a chance at all.”
“Thank you, Natalie. There’s just something about him I can’t get out of my head.”
“I only hope someone as great as you could be the person to get through to my brother, April. It would make my life for him to have a reason to smile. He deserves that and then some.”
“April.” Bella stuck her head into my open doorway. “We got a call that we’re getting a transfer in and they want to bring him to Kids Life Group Home, but they say they are at capacity.”
Snared (Jaded Regret #1) Page 8
