All Stars Fall

by Rachel Van Dyken

  “I do not know how to do that as her friend,” I admitted. “Not after tasting her—”

  “Then—” he interrupted pointedly “—you better figure it out, and soon, because she’s going to be back in about five minutes.”

  “Shit.”

  “Good luck!” He jumped to his feet and walked to the door. “For what it’s worth, I never stood a chance.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I frowned in his direction.

  “She likes you, man.” He sobered. “Hell if I know why she prefers a single dad with three messy kids over this.” He gestured along the length of his body with a laugh. “But she does, so the least you can do is figure your shit out and fast.”

  The door slammed behind him.

  I stared into the silence.

  Hating it even more.

  I wanted loud.

  I wanted my kids.

  I wanted Penny in my kitchen.

  I wanted what I was terrified to have.

  And I was petrified that if I touched her more, I’d ruin what shaky ground we were already on.

  I had kids to think about.

  Drew didn’t.

  I quickly ran upstairs and tried to freshen up a bit. I looked like hell, but I only had enough energy to put on a fresh shirt, brush my teeth, and make it back downstairs.

  And just as Drew had promised, minutes later the kids came bounding into the house in a mixture of coats flying, shoes getting pulled off, shoving, and then yelling about dibs on the video games.

  Penny rounded the corner with a tired smile on her face.

  “Massage,” I blurted.

  She stilled. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” She threw her hands in the air. The kids ran past her up the stairs. Each of them had a bag. She must have taken them to a store too. “My feet ache, you kiss me then tell me nothing can happen, basically push me toward your bandmate, then let me stay with you, almost kiss me again, tell me no, insult my work, and now you want me to massage you?”

  “You done yet?” I grinned.

  She glared.

  “I meant massage for you. You need a massage, and since I’m feeling a little bit better, I figured I could at least, you know…” I gulped.

  She gaped and then nodded slowly, her cheeks pinking. “Yeah, um, let me just get the kids down for a nap and…” She begrudgingly muttered sorry under her breath and walked past me, then tripped on the first stair.

  “You all right?”

  “Yup!” She ran up the rest of them and minutes later returned with a bottle of lotion and handed it to me.

  “Ah, getting fancy on me?” I teased.

  “Are you really feeling better?” she countered.

  I sat up and shrugged. Honestly, no. My head was pounding and I still felt delirious, but I couldn’t decipher if it was because I was going to touch her again or if I was still sick.

  “Sit down.” I decided not to answer her.

  “Where?” She put her hands on her hips.

  “Right here.” I pointed to the space on the floor right in front of my legs and then opened them a bit. Maybe this was a bad idea, the touching.

  She quickly moved to the floor and sat between my legs. My knees were next to her head and all I kept thinking was that it would be so easy to tug her up against me, to kiss the back of her neck and grip her ass with both hands.

  Focus.

  Her hair was already in a ponytail, which for some reason made me sad. I wanted to touch it, to move it out of the way, to feel its weight in my hand.

  I cleared my throat and started massaging her shoulders.

  She hung her head forward. “That feels amazing.”

  Yeah, it did.

  I was supposed to be doing something for her and already it was doing something for me, to me.

  I stopped and grabbed some lotion then spread it across her neck, careful not to get it on her shirt. I massaged deep and ran my hands down her bare shoulders. A flimsy strap stood in the way of full skin-on-skin contact.

  I hated that strap more than I hated Drew, and that was saying a lot.

  She moaned and then her head fell back against my lap. I kept rubbing her neck then moved upwards, until I got to her face, my knuckles grazing her jaw.

  Her eyelashes fluttered open. “What are we doing?”

  “You’re sitting. I’m massaging.”

  “Right.” She looked like she didn’t believe me.

  The yearning was too much. Maybe the sickness made me weak. Maybe I’d just been weak all along.

  “I’m sorry.” I licked my lips. “For what I said.”

  “I’m sorry for yelling at you.” She stared up at me, her head resting in my lap, my hands touching her.

  Tense silence descended.

  And so did my head.

  Lower, lower, until I captured her lips in a punishing kiss. She wrapped her arms back around my head as I deepened the kiss.

  She broke away from me, turned, and crawled into my lap.

  This. This was what I wanted.

  What I needed.

  I groaned against her mouth. “I’m better at this when I’m not sick and running a fever.”

  “I…” She kissed down my neck. “Believe…” She nipped my lower lip. “You.”

  “God, you taste good.”

  “You said—”

  “Forget what I said,” I whispered against her mouth. “Just don’t make me stop kissing you. I don’t think I could handle it.”

  “Well, you are sick….”

  “Yes, feel sorry for me, kiss it better.” I grinned as I angled my head to get more of her taste.

  “I’ll try” was her response.

  And try she fucking did.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Penelope

  I was crossing so many lines.

  Lines that felt good.

  His skin beneath my hands felt rough, like he hadn’t shaved in two days, and the friction against my mouth was painful and passionate. With each movement, I was trying to get closer and closer to him.

  “You’re sick,” I whispered against his mouth as the clock in the living room ticked slowly like we needed a reminder that there were kids upstairs, that we both had very different lives as he’d so painfully reminded me earlier that day.

  Attraction was one thing.

  Acting on it was another.

  But believing it could go past those two things? That just seemed like the road to a broken heart.

  “Hey.” He braced my head with both of his hands. “I have a headache, and yeah, I feel like shit, but it’s not like I have a head cold or anything.”

  “Because those are worse?”

  “Always.” He grinned. “Penny…” He swept me up in another kiss that had me forgetting I was straddling him on his couch with his kids upstairs.

  “Daaaaaaaad!” Eric wailed. “Malcom hit me!”

  “Hit him back,” he grumbled against my lips before pulling away and yelling up the stairs. “Kinda busy right now!”

  “Daaaaaaaaad!” Footsteps thumped overhead, heading toward the stairs.

  Slowly, I pried myself away from Trevor’s warm body, from the muscles that held me close and the lips that kept me there. On wobbly legs, I moved around the couch and walked into the kitchen while Eric made a beeline for his dad and threw his hands in the air in frustration.

  Trevor got on his level. “You guys need to stop fighting.”

  Malcom ran down the stairs yelling, “He said Mom isn’t ever coming back! Tell him, Dad, tell him it’s not true!”

  Bella stood at the top of the stairway, tears in her eyes.

  I wanted to fix it. God, how did I fix it?

  I hated that Trevor was right. They were his number one priority. It would be selfish of me to ask for more, to ask for him to make space for one more when they were barely surviving.

  “Bella, sweet.” I beamed up at her. “Do you want to help me make some cookies?”

  Eric’s head whipped in m
y direction. “What kind?”

  “Depends.” I crossed my arms. “Are you going to be nice to your brother?”

  He seemed to think about it while Malcom wiped the tears on his cheeks.

  “Tell you what. I’ll let all three of you help while your dad rests.” I gave Trevor a pointed look. “And while they’re baking, we can pick out a board game.”

  “Yay!” Bella cheered.

  Both boys shrugged, but I could see the excitement glimmer in their eyes. They were good kids, they were just hurting, and hurting people hurt people, didn’t they?

  “Eric,” Trevor intervened. “Apologize to Malcom, please.”

  Eric turned to his brother and sighed like the world was against him, his shoulders slumped forward. “Sorry I said Mom wasn’t coming back.”

  “It’s okay.” Malcom sniffled. “Don’t you want her to, Eric?”

  “No.” Eric said in an indifferent voice. “She used to make us be quiet and sit in front of the TV while she invited her friends over. She never played with us like Dad or Penny.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath.

  “She’s not good enough for us,” Eric added in a confident voice as he made his way into the kitchen and stared me down. “We need directions.”

  And that was it.

  I sent Trevor back to the couch and played with the kids. By the time we were done with the cookies, cleanup, and the board game, it was dinnertime. Trevor had fallen asleep at some point.

  I ordered pizza.

  He slept through it all, so hard in fact, that I walked by several times to make sure he was still breathing. The guy was exhausted, and I wondered if it had more to do with him being a single dad trying to do it all than the fact that he was feeling sick.

  The guy probably hadn’t truly slept in years.

  I pulled a blanket up over his body and gave a jolt when Bella appeared in front of me. “Are you going to marry my daddy?”

  “Uhhhh.” I kept my voice low and smiled down at her. “Honey, your daddy’s wonderful, but we aren’t getting married.”

  “Oh.” Her brows furrowed. “But you like him, right?”

  “Of course,” I said slowly. “But your daddy and I are just friends.”

  “Ohhhhh.” She nodded. “Does that mean I can kiss friends at school like you did Daddy today?”

  I gaped. “No, no, no, no, you see your daddy was…not feeling well and kisses make people feel better but only when you’re…sixteen.”

  Trevor grunted in his sleep.

  “Or thirty-five. Yes, that was my…first kiss, and even then, I’m clearly not old enough to be doing that. I’m sorry.” I lied through my teeth. I was only 27 and had my first kiss at fifteen.

  Yup, I was apologizing to an almost four-year-old.

  Great.

  Perfect.

  “I guess that makes more sense.” She beamed up at me. “You’re not leaving us, are you?”

  “No, why would you think that?”

  “People leave.” She looked down at her feet.

  “I’m not most people.” I pulled her in for a hug. “Now go brush your teeth and get your PJs on, and I’ll be up in a bit to tuck you in.”

  “Can we sing Twinkles?”

  “At least four times!” I winked. “Maybe five, if the guys join in with instruments that don’t resemble farts.”

  “Boys are gross.”

  “That’s why we don’t kiss them,” I added, scrunching up my nose.

  She wrapped her arms around my neck and whispered, “But Daddy isn’t gross. Maybe I’ll marry him one day?”

  “Maybe.” I kissed her forehead. “I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

  She scampered off and raced up the stairs.

  “You’re so good with her.” Trevor’s voice was thick with sleep as his eyes opened and stared right through me to the center of my existence. I was sucked into his universe, into his vortex, and there was no escaping, was there? “Thanks for making her wait until thirty-five. Guess I should be more careful.”

  “We need to be more than careful. We can’t…” I sighed. “That can’t happen again.”

  “It can.” He moved to his feet so fast I stumbled backwards. “It will.”

  “So sure of yourself?” I teased, my body already pulsing in anticipation.

  “Absolutely.” He didn’t look away from me. Instead, he stood, leaned close, and pulled me into his embrace, then left me as he slowly walked up the stairs. “I’ll put the kids to bed. Why don’t you go take a bath and relax?”

  “I don’t have a tub in my bathroom.” I frowned at his retreating form.

  He looked over his shoulder and gave me the sexiest smile ever. “I know. But I do.”

  “Trevor—”

  “You know where it’s at.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Don’t think,” he interrupted again once he made it to the top of the stairwell. “And if you’re being really adventurous, you can use the princess bubble bath. Bella swears by it.”

  How could I say no to his smile?

  To the princess bubble bath?

  To the heated looks he gave me?

  “Okay,” I said, whispering my answer like a coward.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Trevor

  Bella made me sing Twinkle Twinkle at least a dozen times before she finally fell asleep, still holding her mom’s black T-shirt like it was her teddy bear. Irrational anger coursed through me.

  Because how dare she.

  How. Dare. She.

  It played on repeat over and over again in my head until I was sick with it, and when I walked by Malcom’s room and noticed that he was already crawling out of bed, I crooked my finger toward him. “Let’s go, buddy, you’re sleeping in Eric’s room tonight.”

  He froze and then, “Really?”

  “Yup. We’re going to try to keep the smell minimal, and the only way to do that with you two boys is to keep you in the same small, controlled environment.”

  Malcom sniffed under his arms. “I smell like Batman Blueberry Wash, Dad.”

  “Now.” I grinned. “Just wait until tomorrow morning when it smells like a rat straight up sacrificed its entire family on the altar of your underwear.”

  He let out a giggle. “Rat farts.”

  “I asked for that one, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, Dad, you’re funny.” He sprinted past me and into his brother’s room. “Eric! I get to sleep on the bottom bunk!”

  I leaned against the doorframe and stared at Eric’s thunderous expression and then almost laughed when he tossed a pillow toward Malcom’s face and said in an authoritative voice, “You better not fart.”

  Ah, boys.

  “Bed.” I tried my most commanding voice and pointed at both of them. As if a parent’s pointer finger was the one thing they couldn’t look away from, they both gave me wide eyes and nods, with unison “Yes, Dad’s.”

  Finally.

  I closed their door and slowly walked toward the master suite. One of the reasons I’d blindly chosen the beach house was because the master suite had a beautiful view of the ocean, was close to the studio, and had a fireplace in the bathroom with heated tile floors. It wasn’t as nice as my place in Malibu, but it felt more like home than that mansion ever had.

  I opened the door to the master and shut it quietly behind me as the sound of the bath water running filled the air almost like an electrical charge.

  The fireplace was running.

  The curtains were pulled back, and HGTV was on in the background, though the flat screen TV hanging over the fireplace was at least turned down to almost silent.

  I would have hated for anything to drown out the water.

  Or the fact that she was either in it or about to get in it.

  The smell of Bella’s bubble bath assaulted me as I made my way into the large marble bathroom with its custom crown molding and large bay windows and was stunned stupid.

  Penny was lounging in the bathtub, her
toes up on the edges. Her nails were pink, and I fixated on them like a man who’d never seen feet before.

  But they were so feminine, so…normal.

  Penny had the ability to make me feel both normal and like I could do anything in the world.

  It was addicting, the way she smiled at me, the way she silently encouraged me even when she didn’t realize she was doing it. Damn, the woman communicated with her eyes just as well as she did with her words.

  I wanted her story.

  I needed it.

  “Champagne?” I asked with a tilt of my head.

  “Please.” She sucked on her bottom lip and then tugged it up with her teeth while I moved to the opposite end of the bathroom where the wet bar was located. I pulled a chilled bottle and two glasses and brought everything to the edge of the marble tub.

  She was still staring at me.

  And I was trying like hell not to burn a hole through all the bubbles that hid what I knew would be my favorite parts of her.

  “So…” I grabbed a nearby towel and covered the cork, then quickly popped it off the champagne. “Are you feeling relaxed?”

  “Relaxed and guilty.” She sighed as I handed her the champagne. “Aren’t you the sick one?”

  “I’m feeling—” A bubble floated by her right breast, exposing more skin. “—fantastic suddenly.”

  “Maybe you just needed the sleep?” She lifted the flute to her lips.

  “Or maybe I just needed you,” I said honestly.

  We locked eyes.

  “You have to mean it,” she said in a quiet but stern voice. “I’m not…” She sighed. “I’m not like other women. I’m not from LA, I don’t do one night stands, and I truly don’t think my heart could take it if you said yes only to whisper no the very next day.”

  “I wouldn’t do that to you.” I wanted to tell her that it was almost offensive she would think so, but I knew what my past looked like when I was a teen, I knew what people thought of celebrities with too much fame and money. “You don’t have to be afraid that I’m going to see you naked, kiss my way down your skin, then suddenly decide I don’t want more.”