Caleb shoved a hand in his hair, dragging it through a few times before it came to a rest at the back of his neck. Defiance mingled with defeat in his dark eyes until he blinked it away, sighing and rubbing at his side like he always did when something was bothering him. I knew that the words, Always Remember, were tattooed on the skin he was touching over his black Henley.
I had the same words tattooed in the same place. We’d gotten them done together to mark the five-year anniversary of our parents’ death, and Caleb had a habit of touching his when he was searching for strength. I didn’t think that anyone outside of the band knew that, though.
“It’s not about the song,” he finally said, dropping his hand back to his side. “I know we sounded great, and I agree that the track is done. I just need to get out of here.”
“What’s it about, then? Are you still hung up on the arrest?”
Caleb paused, then nodded. “Kind of.”
“That was a week ago. Alicia has taken care of the press, and the charges were dropped. No harm, no foul. It’s time to let it go, dude.”
“How am I supposed to do that? We got arrested for assault. That’s not exactly something to be proud of.” Caleb’s eyes darted to the framed picture of Axl Rose on the wall beside him before he squeezed them shut.
“The only reason assault even became a thing was because you took a swing at the bouncer,” I pointed out, still not understanding why he seemed mad at me, when for once, it hadn’t been me who had gotten us into the situation.
“I know, okay. I got steamed up. I admit it. And I take full responsibility for that. I was just so angry that that chick came onto me, when she had a boyfriend, that I wasn’t thinking straight. I didn’t want to fight the guy. I didn’t even see him or know that he was her boyfriend when he swung at me. I only realized what was going on when he asked me what the fuck I thought I was doing with his girl, but by then, he was already hitting me, so I hit him back. I knew I was the one in the wrong for being on my way to fuck his girl in the first place, but I had no idea, you know?”
He put his palm to his side again and huffed out a sigh that mirrored the pain in his eyes. It was suddenly clear as daylight what he was hung up on, and what had been going on with him since we got arrested. Fuck, I was an idiot for not seeing it sooner.
Putting my hands on his shoulders, I spoke to him as his brother, and not his bandmate or the egomaniac rock star that I portrayed, just me. The ass who should’ve pieced together where, or to who, his mind had gone. It was a miracle that he’d managed to nail the solo while in this frame of mind.
“I know. I know that you didn’t want, or mean, to fight him, and I get that the chick being down to fuck you when she was in a relationship triggered you. That girl wasn’t Liz though, man. You need to chill out, calm the fuck down, and let it go.”
“You keep telling me that you understand shit, but you don’t. How do you suggest I do that, Jared? How does the great Jared-fucking-Larsen propose that I chill out and get over it?” He stared daggers at me for having brought up the woman who’d betrayed him, ripped out his once-romantic heart, and made him believe that relationships were for idiotic fucks. I deserved it, but it didn’t make what I said any less true.
“I’m not sorry for bringing her up. You know she was at the root of what happened, and you know that I’ll always have your back. If punching out half of LA is what it takes, I’ll be swinging right beside you, but there has to be a better way. I don’t know. Maybe you should consider taking a long break by yourself when we’re done recording. There should be enough time before we start the tour.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Caleb said, tension still rolling off him in waves. Then he sighed and stared off past my head, as if he were talking to himself in an empty room. “There might be time, but there’ll also be all the promotional shit that we’ve got to do. So probably no time to get away.”
“There are also four other people in the band with you. If you want to go, go. We’ll deal with it as it comes. Being a rock star is supposed to be fun. I don’t like you being unhappy, and if seeing you happy again means stepping up and doing more interviews or whatever, then I’ll do it.”
“Thanks man. I’ll think about it.” His eyes, so much like my own, met mine, and there was a tiny amount of life there. Tiny, but I would take it. “You’re right that it might be a good idea. Thanks for having my back that night. I don’t think I got around to saying that.”
“Always.”
With a nod of his head and, at least partially, seeming lighter, he turned and walked away from me. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I hoped that he would take my advice.
I also hoped that it would work. Contrary to what Alicia believed, I knew what responsibility was, and I still felt it for Caleb. I just wanted him to be happy and to actually enjoy the life that we’d made for ourselves. Was that really too much to ask?
I headed the other way down the hallway, surprised when I turned the corner to find Alicia lurking there. Shit, I wondered how long she’d been standing there.
That was a private conversation that I knew Caleb wouldn’t appreciate someone else hearing. I also didn’t like the thought that she might have heard me when I was just being me. Time to rectify that, just in case.
Pulling my lips into a knowing smirk, I folded my arms across my chest and gave her a look that said, you’re busted. My tone was purposefully mocking when I told her, “Well, well, well. Eavesdropping, are we? That’s beneath you.”
Indignation sparked in her shimmering blue eyes, but she might as well have had the word “Guilty” stamped on her forehead as she blurted out, “Why didn’t you tell me what the fight was about when you called?”
I shrugged, playing the part of the disinterested star all too fucking well. “It didn’t matter then. It doesn’t matter now. We got arrested for assault. You needed to know that so you could get out ahead of the press. It wouldn’t have made any difference for you to know the reason behind the assault. The press doesn’t care about shit like that. They only care about the fact that we were arrested.”
Alicia was quiet for a second, regarding me like I was some kind of anomaly, or a riddle that she was trying to solve. “That might be true, but I will always care about the story behind the story. Besides, you should have told me, if for no other reason than I probably wouldn’t have insulted you quite as much had I known the truth.”
“No, you would have. You enjoy yelling at me too much to have passed up the opportunity.” I grinned as I pointed out the obvious, then stressed the important part of what she’d overheard. “I was just backing up my brother, but you should know that whether or not he was justified in having thrown that punch, I would have protected him anyway. And you didn’t insult me that much.”
I stared her right in the eye as I said it, needing her to understand that she would have to be prepared for me getting into more completely unnecessary fights and not giving a single fuck if it made headlines, as long as it was to have my brother’s back. I cocked my head, fully expecting another lecture.
What I got, however wasn’t that. Not at all. Instead, the woman managed to do what not many could. She surprised the living daylights out of me.
“Yes, I did,” she muttered, her voice just barely above a whisper. “But even so, can I still take you up on that offer for dinner?”
If my poker face was anything but perfected, my jaw would have hit the floor, and my eyebrows would have shot up so far they would have disappeared into my hair.
Where the fuck did that come from? She looked as confused as I was feeling, but she didn’t take it back. Instead, she planted her hands on her hips and kept her eyes on mine. My lips curled into a slow smile, because as much as I had no idea what had caused this change in attitude, I wasn’t going to turn her down.
“I like a woman with the balls to ask me out, so sure. Pick me up at seven on Friday, and don’t forget the flowers.” I batted my eyelashes and pressed a hand to my heart.
Alicia rolled her eyes so hard that I was worried they were going to be permanently stuck to the ceiling, then she glared at me, the tiny daggers those eyes were hurling at me lodging themselves firmly in my eyeballs. “I’m so going to regret this.”
Shaking her head, she spun around and started walking down the hallway while I called out after her. “Call me!”
She didn’t look back, but she threw a hand into the air with her thumb up, telling me that she’d heard me. I didn’t know whether she realized that I was actually being serious when I told her to call me.
But as I watched her walk her tight ass away from me, covered today by a short, navy-blue dress with white dots on it, I decided that if she didn’t call me, I would call her. She’d given me an in, and as I imagined how good she would look naked as she disappeared down the hall, I knew that I was going to take advantage of it.
CHAPTER 16
ALICIA
Kelly nearly choked on the chocolate chip cookie she was munching on when I told her that I’d agreed to go out with Jared. Her big green eyes, our father’s apparently, filled with surprise as she swallowed the treat and washed it down with her glass of water.
“Wait, how are you only mentioning this to me now?” she asked, crossing her legs underneath her.
“I don’t know. I’m thinking about just calling the whole thing off. We talked about it a couple of days ago, but we only made plans this afternoon.” And I’d been thinking about it ever since.
Kelly and I were in my apartment, settled in for a night of watching sappy romantic comedies, but even spread out on my couch with my plate of baked goodness on my lap and our first movie lined up, I couldn’t shake my concern about my date with Jared from my mind.
“Why would you call it off?” she asked. “He’s only one of the hottest guys on the planet, and I mean, he’s got to be loaded.” She grabbed another cookie from her plate and pointed it at me. “You’d be crazy not to take him up on a date.”
“You know I don’t care about the fact that he’s loaded. And if you knew him, you would know that turning him down wouldn’t be crazy. In fact, it would probably be best for my sanity if I did.” I took a sip of my water and reached for a cookie, hoping that it would settle my nerves.
“If I knew him, I’d still think turning him down was crazy,” she countered. “I mean, have you looked at the guy?”
“Unfortunately, I have. He’s beyond handsome, yes. And there’s just something about him that makes me feel like there’s electricity sparking over my skin when I’m near him. I’m the first to admit that I’m attracted to him, but he’s just so freaking pompous. His attitude drives me crazy sometimes.”
“So? Going on a date with him doesn’t have to mean anything. Just see it as a night out with a hot guy. What do you have to lose?”
“I already told you, my sanity.”
“Sanity is overrated. I’d give mine up in a second for a chance with a guy who looked like that.” She giggled, lifting a finger, leveling it, and making circles in the air beside her temple. “Being coo-coo over a guy like that would be so worth it.”
“You know that there’s more to him than just the way he looks, right?”
Kelly seemed taken aback by my tone. A frown settled onto her features as she unfolded her legs from underneath her and spread them out on the couch instead.
“Okay, so there is more to him than his looks, and you don’t care about his money, but you also don’t seem to like the guy very much. So, if it’s not his looks, his money, or his personality, then I’m confused. Why did you even agree to go out with him?”
I pulled the elastic band out of my hair to loosen my ponytail, only to gather the strands back and redo it to give my hands something to do. I didn’t understand why I was feeling so conflicted over Jared, either. But I had to be honest with myself, and by extension, with Kelly.
“Because it’s not that I don’t like him. I do. I just don’t like the way he acts sometimes. Okay, most of the time. But get this, the other day, he and his brother got into a fight. When he initially called to tell me about it, he refused to offer any excuses, but eventually, I found out that he’d gotten into the fight to defend Caleb. His willingness to defend his brother and his refusal to make excuses for it impressed me.”
The line between Kelly’s eyebrows deepened. “Yeah, I heard about the fight. Didn’t know that it was about Caleb, though. Forgetting that fun fact for a minute, although I’m dying to know the actual story, am I getting it right that you’re telling me that you both like him and don’t like him at the same time? Cause that’s confusing as balls.”
I nodded enthusiastically. “Tell me about it. That’s the problem. Sometimes, it’s like there’s this real, decent person right beneath the surface. And you’ve heard his songs. There’s a raw honesty there. Someone who feels so deeply and who genuinely understands what people go through, but then you meet him, and he’s all arrogant player and generally just a bit of a dick.”
“He wouldn’t be the first, or the only, person who doesn’t share all of himself with the whole world, you know? He probably figures that he gives the world so much of himself in his songs that he has to keep whatever he has left to himself.”
She had a point. “I guess. Maybe. When did you get smart?”
Kelly smiled and downed the rest of her water. “I research and write about these people for a living, remember? I know that you don’t think they’re special, but even you can’t deny that their minds work differently than ours. They have to. I’m sure ours would have worked the same way if we were under constant public scrutiny. From what I gather, it changes a person, and while there is the age-old argument that they chose to live their lives in the public eye, that doesn’t mean that they should be stripped of their privacy altogether.”
I agreed with her, of course. A part of my job was to ensure that certain things about them remained private. What I didn’t know was whether Jared being a jackass was his way of protecting himself, or if that was just who he was. I could deal with it as a persona or a defense mechanism. I could even understand it. But if that was all it was, the guy was a pro at never letting a shred of his humanity shine through. And that was the problem. I wasn’t entirely convinced that there was still a likable human being behind that shell.
“I can understand that, but what if it has changed him so much from whoever it was that he used to be, that all that’s left is the public persona? I’ve been behind closed doors with him on a number of occasions. Alone or with the band and their manager only, and he’s like that all the time.”
Kelly gave me a long look and shook her head like I still didn’t get it. “And on all of these occasions that you were lucky enough to be alone with him, did you tell him all of your deepest darkest secrets? Did you let him in completely?”
“No,” I said. “But I wasn’t rude to him, either, and I don’t try to justify my bad actions by referring to myself as the Emperor of anything.”
Kelly stifled a giggle. “He really does that? I thought that was an act that he put on for interviews.”
“And there, you’ve uncovered what’s at the heart of my problem. It’s not an act for the cameras. That’s how he talks and acts all the time. Well, almost all the time, anyway.”
My sister nodded like she’d had some kind of revelation, staring off into the middle distance before meeting my eyes again. “If that’s true, then I see what you mean. But let’s face it, you also think that there might be more to him, so why not give him a chance? It’s one date, presumably a local one. If he’s really horrible and it sucks, you come back home. He’s probably not going to whisk you off somewhere that would make that impossible. At the worst, it’s a few hours with a jerk, but at least, he’s a jerk who can afford a delicious meal and a semi-decent bottle of wine.”
She wasn’t wrong. With a deep sigh and a firm nod, I decided to keep my date with him in a few days. If push came to shove, I could always climb out the bathroom window or
just walk out the restaurant and come home.
“Speaking of wine, I think I have a bottle in the fridge. Let’s go grab a glass and move this party to my room. Since you were key in convincing me to do this, you’re helping me choose an outfit for the mistake I’m probably about to make.”
Kelly laughed and stood up from the couch at the same time as I did, following me into the kitchen and grabbing two glasses while I rummaged around for the wine. It was a bottle of dry rose that I loved, and I poured us each a healthy glass that we took to my bedroom for what was sure to be a Great Outfit Debate.
Settling on my purple comforter, Kelly sipped her wine while I started pulling out my options and laying them on the bed. Watching what I was doing, Kelly quickly objected. “Oh no. No, no, no. We’re not choosing like that. You’re putting it all on, and we’ll narrow it down from there. Some of these, I’ve never seen on you, and others, I don’t even remember what you look like in. The man might be arrogant, but he’s still a star, and we’re going to make sure that you look like you belong on his arm, even if you only end up staying on it for an hour or less.”
I raised both my eyebrows and held up a simple white dress in front of me. “Are you really going to make me change into each one of these? Can’t I just told them like this?”
Kelly shook her head, eyes wide, but insistent. “No way. How am I supposed to see if that dress, for example, makes your ass look fat or your boobs look flat, if you’re not wearing it. We’ve got the rest of the night and the next few if we can’t settle this tonight. You’re not getting out of this. The movies can wait. This is way more important.”
“I don’t remember you being like this the last time you helped me decide what to wear for a date,” I told her. “In fact, you weren’t even here. I sent you a picture of what I was thinking about wearing, and you texted back a thumbs-up emoji.”
My One and Only: A Bad Boy Secret Baby Second Chance Romance Page 66
