There were only a few things that Johnny had decided were important when Shawn had come to live with him thirteen years ago.
One of them was eating on real plates.
When Johnny had been a bachelor and didn’t have to share his space with anyone, he’d had no issue with using paper plates (if anything at all). But becoming a guardian had changed his view on some things.
Kids needed stability.
And paper plates were the antithesis of stability—especially the kind Johnny used to buy in bulk. They had basically been glorified napkins.
So he’d bought a set of used Fiestaware at Goodwill. They were orange. And they’d lasted more than a decade. Four dinner plates, four lunch plates, four bowls. Though two of those never left the cupboard. They washed their dishes every night and just took them from the dishwasher as they needed them, returning them at night and running the machine at bedtime.
“I was right, by the way,” Shawn said, setting the plates on the small folding table they used as their place to eat.
Johnny had never bothered with tablecloths or anything and the table had been covered in some type of lacquer to make it shiny and hard. The table he’d found in a garage when he’d been helping a friend move. It was going to go to the dump until Johnny decided it could be useful. For a year it had been a desk for his recording tech.
And then Shawn came and Johnny decided they’d be eating dinner as a family every night at a table—not in front of the TV—so they would have to look at each other.
Conversation had been difficult in the beginning. For Johnny. His thoughts had been distracted and he’d had to deliberately focus on conversing with the youngster.
But given enough time and shared meals, they found an easy rhythm. Johnny had always known it was Shawn’s sweet disposition that helped them reach that place sooner.
Of all the hands he could have been dealt in his life, ending up with Shawn was the greatest blessing of his life.
“What were you right about?” Johnny asked, wondering which bet he’d lost this time.
“It’s her. It’s totally her. She looks different but not much. I mean, she’s the kind of chick that stands out in a crowd anyway, but—”
“Woman,” Johnny corrected. “We don’t say chicks.”
Shawn muttered under his breath, adding silverware to the table. “Fine. Whatever. Woman, then. But it was her.” He crossed his arms over his chest and faced Johnny. “Which means you owe me fifty dollars.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Johnny waved a hand in the air as he tried to catch up to what Shawn was saying. “Who are we talking about? And I owe you what now?”
Shawn’s mouth flattened along with his expression. “Ha ha,” he said, not sounding amused in the least. “Don’t try to get out of this one. You know how long it took me to learn that damn song.”
Johnny studied Shawn’s serious expression and debated how to address the current update to their reoccurring argument.
“Did you speak to her?” he asked carefully.
“Yes,” Shawn answered smugly. “I played her song and she came right over to me.” He dug in his pocket and produced a five-dollar bill. “Gave me this.”
Johnny’s gaze flicked to the bill and back to the determined glint in Shawn’s eyes. “That’s hardly conclusive evidence. Did she say it was her song?”
A crack in Shawn’s conviction showed for a moment as he swallowed and dropped his eyes to the floor. “Not exactly.”
“Hmm,” Johnny said and returned his attention to the last pancake on the skillet.
“But it was her. That’s a face you can’t fake.”
Except for the fact that most of her face was actually fake.
But Johnny didn’t point that out.
This time.
“Ashton James does not ride the Pink Line on a regular basis,” he said instead.
“Yes, she does.” Shawn opened the refrigerator and his voice muffled slightly as he ducked his head inside. “Every day at 5:35 she gets off at Washington and Wabash and heads east.
“Slow down, stalker, I don’t have bail money this week. I emptied the savings. Or maybe you forgot.”
Shawn sighed in exasperation. “I didn’t forget. But I don’t think it’s coincidence that the same day everything becomes final at the studio, I have a conversation with the Ashton James. I feel like it’s…what’s the word? Kismet!”
Johnny set the plate of stacked pancakes on the table and pulled out his customary seat.
“A conversation? What did she say?”
Shawn shrugged and sat down, reaching for the pancake pile immediately.
The appetite on this kid.
It was a miracle Johnny had managed to save enough money at all.
“She said it was a forgettable song on a forgettable album and told me to get some better material.”
Johnny paused, holding the syrup aloft as he blinked at Shawn.
Shawn shoved a half of a pancake into his mouth and smiled boldly at Johnny, as if he could read his thoughts, before snatching the syrup out of his hand.
While Johnny wasn’t convinced Shawn had discovered Ashton James’ whereabouts, something about those words rang true.
Though Shawn knew the story of the time Johnny had known the famous songstress and he could be lying just to make a point.
Johnny narrowed his eyes at the beaming younger man.
No.
They’d been doing this long enough for Johnny to pick out the telltale signs of deceit.
Still, he wasn’t exactly ready to hop on board Shawn’s crazy train.
Besides, even if it were Ashton James, all nonsensicalness aside, did Johnny really want Shawn to be influenced by her?
He literally couldn’t have a bigger nope.
“Come with me on Monday. You’ll see for yourself.”
Johnny rolled his eyes. “Not tomorrow?”
“No.” Shawn suddenly sounded defeated. He rolled his eyes. “Tomorrow is the first day of my mandatory concession stand service, remember?”
Johnny groaned.
Every year the school somehow managed to not only get an obscene amount of money from him for tuition, but also get them to work for free on their weekend for a quarter.
It was compulsory labor is what it was, and he was fairly certain that they were violating at least a dozen child labor laws, but he didn’t have it in him to fight this one.
He’d learned a long time ago how to pick his battles.
Freedom from making popcorn on the weekends wasn’t one.
“Right. So we have…that to look forward to.”
Shawn grinned, knowing how uncomfortable it made Johnny.
“Maybe you’ll finally find a girlfriend,” he teased.
“I have no interest in those women,” Johnny grumbled. “Besides, Sarahi would start an actual riot if I dated someone she didn’t approve of. Remember when she saw me out to dinner with Grace Limoges?”
Shawn barked a laugh at the memory.
Johnny shook his head and whistled under his breath. “I still can’t go back to La Familia.”
“Speaking of, let’s get La Morena on Sunday. Is Nikki gonna be there?”
Johnny heard the slight inflection in Shawn’s voice when he’d said Nikki’s name.
“She has the weekend off.”
“Cool.” Shawn nodded and folded another entire pancake into his mouth.
“But Sunday is a good plan. Bring your stuff and we’ll record as much as we can.”
The rest of the meal, Shawn chattered on and on about what he wanted to record first and what kind of techniques he wanted to play with. Owning the studio and making their own music had been a shared dream between the two of them for a very long time.
But they’d both refused to celebrate or dream out loud until the final paperwork had been done. Mostly due to them both having experienced heartbreak at the last second.
Sometimes dreams fell through.
After the dis
hes were done and they’d watched a movie, Shawn went to bed.
Johnny waited until the light under the bedroom door went out, then he waited another thirty minutes.
Making his way to his bedroom, he softly closed the door behind him.
Taking out the laptop, he went straight to Google and searched for Ashton James.
It was a hopeless quest.
Like so many times before, there was no information on her current whereabouts. Not that she was a missing person, but she had seemingly dropped off the grid.
Her last public outing had been an awards show two years ago where she’d shown up drunk and thrown a drama with her titties out.
That was it.
Everything that came after that was speculation and rumor.
Some said she’d gone to rehab, some claimed she’d died and was being replaced by a look-alike, others said she never existed at all and we were all pawns in a cosmic practical joke.
That was enough of that. No more Tumblr.
Johnny closed the laptop and set it aside.
He didn’t care.
He shouldn’t care.
All he’d been was a session musician on her first album. He’d done his job and gotten paid. He shouldn’t have any lingering thoughts about her at all.
Except that he had.
He lingered.
Every moment with her was burned into his mind.
Knowing her was an experience he’d never gotten over for all the wrong reasons.
He knew one thing, if Ashton James was living and thriving in Chicago, he would do anything in his power to keep her away from Shawn.
Chapter Two
My Prerogative
HANNAH
“Is that what you’re wearing to the game?”
Hannah glanced down at her attire—black skinny jeans and a black and gray flannel.
“What’s wrong with this?”
Piper blinked and pressed her lips together pensively. Finally, she sighed and picked up her bag, throwing it over her shoulder. “Nothing, it’s fine.”
Sure, if by “fine” she meant “definitely not fine.”
“We have time, Piper, I can change,” Hannah decided to push. Gently. A gentle push. A nudge, if you will.
Piper swallowed and her eyes darted around the room. “It’s not a big deal, it’s just…”
Hannah waited.
“The other moms and stuff wear school colors to the games.”
Ohhhh. Right. Shit.
“But it’s not a big deal, let’s just go.” Piper opened the apartment door and hurried through.
Hannah grabbed her keys off the hook by the door and followed her.
Piper was right. All the moms and dads wore school colors to the games. How had Hannah never considered this fact?
Truthfully, Hannah’s priority had been not to attract attention. But maybe being the one in the bleachers without school colors on attracted more attention than she had originally thought.
Instead of taking the train, they took Hannah’s car to school events. Maybe it was weird to have a car and still ride the train to work every day, but Hannah didn’t like to drive places by herself. For personal reasons. Piper never asked. But if she did, Hannah would tell her the truth.
They pulled into the school parking lot and parked. Piper took off for the doors as Hannah did her keys-phone-wallet pat down.
When she entered through the gym doors, the sound rushed over her in a physical way. Squeaking sneakers on the hardwood, a cacophony of voices and movement as friends and family got settled in their seats. It took a second for Hannah’s ears to adjust.
Piper shoved her coat into Hannah’s arms and took off to warm up with her team. Hannah did her best to fold the coat and tuck it under an arm.
She chewed on her bottom lip as she turned to face her least favorite part of the weekend—deciding where to sit.
Last weekend they had been early, and she’d opted for the top corner of the bleachers.
Not so fortunate today.
She felt rather than saw the eyes of the other families as she weighed her options. There was an open spot right behind Piper’s team bench. That seemed a little overbearing, though. Normally the loudest parents sat there. The backseat coaching parents.
And a small opening right exactly in the middle. She’d have to ask people to move.
Asking others for anything was still tricky for her. Apparently, she struggled with correct “tone.”
Maybe now would be a good time to check out the concession stand.
The school snack stand, or concession, was in an open window in the wall opposite of the bleachers. When not in use, the window was closed with a metal shade. Currently the shade was open and there were three lines up to the front.
They sold slices of pizza, hot pretzels, nachos, chips, and assorted bottled beverages. They also sold school shirts and merchandise like pompoms and felt pennants.
Hannah got in the line that looked closest to the merchandise. Her eyes scanned the blue and yellow school colors and she tried not to curl her lip.
School spirit was something she had never contracted. Thankfully she’d been born immune.
But Piper meant more to her than her distaste for school emblems and foam fingers.
What was that? A badger?
That couldn’t be right.
Could it?
The line to her left moved forward while hers remained in a standstill. Though it wasn’t really a line, just one woman in front of her.
Hannah tried to not make it obvious as she craned her neck to look around the woman and see what the holdup was.
Ohhh.
It had to be because of the man working that side of the counter.
And he was definitely working it.
Now she understood the reason for the delay. If she had undivided attention from a man who looked like that, she’d be less likely to move along too.
A whisper of melancholy floated through her.
She used to be the pretty one who stopped traffic.
Until she took that pretty thing she had going on and decided to amplify it with anything she could get her hands on.
And it had worked.
It had worked so well, in fact, that she not only stopped traffic but her heart once or twice.
The world will always long for beautiful things.
There will always be a demand for beauty.
Maybe Hannah would be beautiful again one day.
She scanned the man’s face, noting his dark eyes, complexion, and hair. The strained smile on his face as he walked the fine line between polite and wanting to scream.
He was dressed in jeans and a burgundy Henley—the top two buttons undone and revealing a strong collarbone with the barest hint of chest hair peeking out. He nodded at whatever the woman in front of him said and crossed his arms over his chest, feigning amusement.
The long sleeves of his shirt had been pushed up to his elbows, and his solid forearms were sprinkled with dark hair as well. Even though his body language communicated his desire for the conversation to be over, it did little to dissuade the woman from talking to him. Probably because it stretched his shirt against his shoulders and biceps, revealing his athletic build.
Hannah felt a little sorry for him.
He was just doing his job, not trying to attract the kind of attention he was getting.
In fact…
She leaned around to look again and confirmed the woman hadn’t even purchased anything. She was just chatting him up.
Her movement must have caught his eye because he moved to the left just slightly, lining himself up with Hannah more so than the woman in front of her.
“Are you about done, Krystal?”
Hannah glanced over her shoulder at the same time as the woman in front of her did. She hadn’t even noticed the line that had begun to form behind her. She caught the eye of the woman who had spoken and automatically smiled at the woman’s open grin.
“He only works the window one quarter out of the year and it brings out all the thirsty bitches.” Her speech was slightly accented, but Hannah couldn’t place it.
“I can hear you, Sarahi,” Krystal said.
Sarahi rolled her eyes and tilted her head to the side. “Good. Now finish up your business so we aren’t late to watching our babies play.”
Hannah rolled her lips inward as she fought back a laugh. Sarahi noticed and giggled. Which only made it more difficult for Hannah to keep her composure.
Who was this woman?
“Next, please.”
Hannah stepped forward, turning her back on Sarahi, still smiling. Her eyes immediately went to the hoodie she’d been eyeing in line.
“How much for the tee with the rabid badger on it?” she asked, reaching into her back pocket for her wallet.
“Johnny, look alive,” Sarahi prompted from behind her, snapping her fingers.
Hannah glanced at the man, Johnny, at the counter.
He blinked, seemingly startled, and looked at the pegboard. “Uh, it’s twenty dollars.” He coughed around a laugh. “And, uh, it’s not a badger. It’s a supposed to be a wolverine—the school mascot.” His palms had been pressed to the counter and he shoved away from it now to move to the clothing choices.
“Right,” Hannah replied. “Rabid badger, wolverine, still don’t want to meet either one in my kitchen when it’s PMSing.”
Johnny grinned in a lopsided way, his dark eyes dancing.
Oh, this was what Sarahi had been talking about.
Handsome man was handsome.
His angular jaw was dusted with black whiskers. Straight nose, a little on the large side and wider at the tip. His lips were the perfect cupid’s bow and the bottom one stuck out just slightly in a permanent pout.
His eyebrows were black and thick and straight (weirdly similar to Alex Greene’s, she noted). The hair on his head was also black but not straight. It was thick and wavy on top but short around the sides.
A thick wave threatened to flop across his forehead, and for a moment, Hannah was certain she had seen him before.
The train? Work? Her building?
No.
Key Change: A Slow Burn Rockstar Romance (Common Threads Book 3) Page 3
