Filthy Beautiful: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players #2)

by Diamond, Jaine

  But what the fuck did that have to do with anything, anyway?

  * * *

  That night, I went to a party. A grownup party, with grown-ass adults.

  I hadn’t heard from Courteney all day, and I was hardly gonna chase her down if she wanted to storm out on me like a toddler.

  The party was at my manager’s house. Just a classy little cocktail party.

  And I helped myself to more than a few.

  Brody and his new wife, Jessa, had just gotten back from their honeymoon. He was gonna be heading out on the road with Dirty for a bit, so this was sort of a see you all later party.

  Brody had his baby boy on his hip pretty much all night, carrying him around like he was gonna be losing a lung when he had to leave him behind.

  He was only gonna be gone like a couple of weeks, but I could see how that would be hard. The kid was cute.

  Plus, his wife was a brunette bombshell.

  Actually, the whole house was filled with hot chicks.

  Among them was Jessa’s sister-in-law, Katie—Jesse’s wife—who was pregnant and home from the tour. I made a point of talking to her, asking how she was. She had a few more months until she was due, just before Christmas, but she said her doctor didn’t want her flying anymore.

  So I also made a point of taking a selfie with her and sending it to her husband, who was on the road. With a message to the effect of, Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her while you’re gone…

  Sure Jesse would appreciate that.

  Yeah, so I was an asshole.

  Stick to what you know, right?

  Elle was there with her baby girl, but Seth, the kid’s dad, had just gone back out on the road with Dirty, too. So I also made sure to send him a photo of Elle—with my arm around her.

  I just couldn’t help it. Yes, I liked stirring up shit.

  So what?

  It was fucking fun.

  Yeah, I liked to dish it out, but I could take it, too. I mean, if anyone ribbed me about Courteney… Well, Trey ribbed me about Courteney.

  And I didn’t take that so fucking well.

  Huh.

  I looked around at all these people… sipping cocktails and chatting like grownups… And I wondered, all fucking kidding aside, what the hell I was doing. They were all having kids… and I was fucking a kid?

  She’s not a kid. She’s an adult.

  I knew that. Courteney Clarke was old enough to make her own decisions. Her own mistakes.

  Old enough to fuck me.

  Old enough to dump my ass, too.

  Old enough to shut me out and never speak to me again, start fucking someone else, if she wanted to.

  I sucked back a couple more gin martinis, dwelling on that thought. Barely listening to the conversations going on all around me.

  Maybe I just wanted to keep pretending she was a kid so it gave me an excuse to try to stay away from her?

  Because I wasn’t gonna stay away from her, was I?

  Nope.

  I couldn’t stand to let someone else have her. No matter what a fucking brat she acted like.

  I was really fucking irritated about it. Like what was that tantrum all about at the hotel? She stormed out on me because I didn’t care about her?

  Who the fuck was she to accuse me of that? After all the years I’d known her? After everything I’d done to look out for her, and for her brother?

  She thought I didn’t care?

  And what did she want me to do, seriously? Get down on one knee and propose? Profess my undying love?

  After one hot night in the sack?

  Yeah, so, the sex was incredible.

  Yeah, I wanted to have sex with her again.

  And yeah, I cared about her.

  So what?

  How did that automatically mean we were a fucking item or something? Going fucking steady?

  Did she want a ring now? My balls in a jar on her nightstand?

  And on what fucking planet did deflowering a girl mean we had to loop her brother into the situation?

  Hey, bro. Wanted to let you know I fucked your little sister last night. Aaand this morning. By the way, she was a virgin, but don’t worry, I was gentle. Mostly. Turns out she’s a real fucking animal in the sack though, so I’m thinking I might hit that again.

  Fucking bullshit.

  Teaching her to fuck was one thing. I’d be happy to give her a private lesson, anytime. I was hardly gonna teach her how to have an adult relationship.

  Not like I was exactly an expert anyway…

  Ha.

  I grabbed myself another drink. I was already pretty drunk, and I didn’t really see a point in sobering up.

  Ash and his girl, Danica, had rolled in, and I swung over to greet them. Danica’s best friend, Taylor, was with them. I’d met her before, and she’d definitely had her eye on me. And she wasn’t shy about it.

  You know, grown women often weren’t.

  So I flirted with her, because why not?

  That’s what adults do, right?

  When I wandered over to a couch and sat down, Taylor eventually ended up sitting down next to me. She was wearing a short, tight black dress, just like the first night I met her. She smiled at me, then went on talking to Danica, who’d sat down on her other side.

  I looked Taylor over. She seemed to be nicely intoxicated. Not drunk, but happily buzzed.

  The first instant I’d met her, almost two months ago now… at the Back Door, the night of Danica’s birthday… she’d bought me a drink.

  Now, I considered whether I should pass her another one of those wine spritzer things she was drinking. Her glass was getting low. There was a whole tray of them on the table right next to my end of the couch.

  Would getting her drunk make this night better?

  Or worse?

  That night at the bar, I’d thought about going home with her, for sure. Despite Ash’s warning to treat her right.

  But I didn’t go home with her.

  Instead, I ran into Courteney and ended up driving her home instead.

  That was the night we had that fucked-up fight in my car. The one that messed up everything between us. We really hadn’t been the same since that night.

  Maybe I should’ve just gone home with Taylor…

  That night, we were celebrating Danica’s twenty-eighth birthday, and Taylor was her BFF, so she was probably around the same age. You know, a fully grown woman.

  She was shorter than Courteney, but more curvy in general. The kind of girl you could easily picture bouncing up and down on your dick. Nice rack. Not as nice as Courteney’s, but hey, Courteney was eighteen and a fucking goddess.

  Taylor was blonde, too. Dirty blonde…

  If it was dark enough and I maybe squinted… and she didn’t talk to me… I could probably pretend she was Courteney.

  Shit, that was fucked-up.

  If all I wanted to think about while I fucked someone was Courteney… then I should just fuck Courteney, right?

  Not to mention this chick was Danica’s bestie, and Ash would be fucking pissed if I used her like that. Best not to go there.

  But maybe Ash wouldn’t have to know?

  We were all adults here, right?

  I nudged Taylor’s arm and handed her another drink.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Xander

  It was official. Courteney wasn’t speaking to me.

  Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday.

  Three days of radio silence from her… while I went about the mind-numbing routine of life as a rock star in a band-in-the-making. With not much to do but sit around and fucking wait.

  How the fuck was I making it through nine-and-a-half more months of this?

  I’d messaged her to ask if she was okay. Seemed like the right thing to do. I’d taken her virginity and then she’d stormed out on me, pissed off and hurt.

  She still hadn’t replied.

  And I couldn’t stand it. But what the fuck could I do?

  I co
uldn’t make her talk to me, and anyway, getting in her face about it would only end in another fight. Or another fuck.

  I wasn’t sure which would be worse.

  All I knew for sure was I was gonna go fucking crazy keeping all this shit to myself. So, I finally spilled the fucking beans—along with the skeletons and all the dirty laundry—right in Jordan’s lap.

  While we were shoe shopping.

  She blinked at the white-and-gray Golden Goose Superstars on my feet, the ones I was trying on, then looked at me, deadpan, and said, “You already have those ones.”

  I looked at my feet. “So?”

  “So, you already have them. Why are you trying them on?”

  “I have last year’s,” I said. “They’re different this year.”

  I pulled off the shoes and handed them to the salesperson when he wandered over to check on us. “What colors do you have these in?”

  He checked his tablet. “In your size, in stock…. we have the camo, the snakeskin, blue suede, red suede, silver sparkle—”

  “I’ll take the camo, the red suede, and the silver sparkle.” I grinned at Jordan.

  She rolled her eyes.

  The dude went to fetch the shoes and ring them up for me.

  “You have a problem,” Jo said, but before I could hand over my credit card, she added a bunch of socks to the pile. “Take some socks. You always forget the socks.”

  Almost three grand later, we headed out of the store with my new shoes.

  “Why am I here?” Jo eyed me. “Helping you pick out shoes you already own…?”

  “You’re not. And why the fuck are we talking about shoes? Did you hear anything I just said in there? About Courteney Clarke?”

  “I heard what you said.”

  “And?”

  “And what? Nowhere in that tirade of twisted verbal vomit was there a question.”

  Oh. I thought I’d asked her for advice or something. Wasn’t that implied?

  “Chick-talk me,” I said. “What would you say to me if I was a chick telling you all that shit?”

  “First of all,” she said. “I don’t do chick talk. And second of all, if a thirty-year-old chick told me she fucked her best girlfriend’s eighteen-year-old brother behind her back, I’d probably tell her she needs therapy.”

  “Why?”

  “Because how is screwing an eighteen-year-old a conquest? That’s just taking candy from a baby, Xan.”

  “I didn’t say it was a conquest.” She opened the trunk of her car and I tossed in my bags. “Do I need therapy?” I shut the trunk and slid in next to her.

  “Yes. I’ve been telling you that for years.”

  I waited, but she didn’t offer anything more.

  Christ, was she planning to make me beg?

  While we pulled out of the parkade into downtown traffic, I asked her, “Can you just help me here? I need help.”

  “Be specific. You’ve never asked me for help with this particular problem before. What is it you want?”

  “I wanna know what I should do. I’m trying to do the right thing here. Turns out that’s not as easy as it sounds.”

  “You want someone to tell you you’re not a bad guy.”

  “That too.”

  “You’re not a bad guy, Xander.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You want my advice, I’d say get out before you hurt her. She’s too young.”

  “That’s what I keep telling myself.”

  “And what does she say?”

  I said nothing for a moment. I heard the answer in my head, and it bothered me how much I liked the sound of it. “She says she likes me.”

  She glanced at me. “Of course she does.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “She’s eighteen and she gave you her virginity. What more evidence do you need to know she likes you?”

  Shit. When she put it like that…

  “I think she really does.”

  “And you want to keep fucking her.”

  “That would be nice.”

  Jordan snorted and shook her head. Her dark hair bobbed back and forth, like she was wagging a finger at me. “Your relationship with Cary isn’t really worth fucking over, is it?”

  “No.”

  “Would he be okay with you sleeping with her?”

  “No.”

  “Then you have your answer. You know what you need to do.”

  I said nothing.

  “You want me to give you permission to fuck her? That’s it, right? You think because I’m a woman, if I say it’s okay, you’ll feel better about it?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I mean, if she wants to… she’s a big girl. But you should be mature enough to see into the future in a way she can’t.” She emphasized should in a way I didn’t love—implying that I obviously wasn’t. “There’s probably nothing wrong with sleeping with her if you both want to. But… what happens in a week or a month from now when you don’t want to anymore and she still does?”

  I didn’t answer that.

  “Or what happens if Cary finds out?”

  I sighed.

  “Or what happens if you want to keep screwing her and she changes her mind?” She glanced at me sidelong. “Hey, now. There’s a thought. What if she’s the first girl to break Xander Rush’s heart—?”

  “Okay. You’ve made your point.”

  She laughed. “Are you scared?”

  I glared at her. “Scared of what?”

  She studied me for a minute, glancing over at me every time she could as she drove. Silence fell.

  “Oh, shit. You like her.”

  “Yeah. No shit, Sherlock.”

  “Xander. OMG. This is adorable.”

  “Stop.”

  “The is the cutest thing I’ve ever—”

  “Finish that sentence and you’re fired.”

  She cackled again, but Jo was a smart girl. She shut her mouth.

  When she dropped me off at my place, I said nothing.

  “Don’t forget about the auction!!” she shouted at me as I got my bags out of the trunk. “I’ll pick you up!”

  I waved at her over my shoulder as I headed up to the door of my building.

  The auction.

  How could I forget? I’d been mildly dreading it ever since she’d told me Trey roped her into signing me up for it.

  The fucking bachelor auction.

  It was at some swanky fundraising event Trey’s record company sponsored every year, and apparently, I was gonna be up for auction. Or at least, a dinner date with me was.

  It was next weekend, I was in town, and it wasn’t like I was busy with anything else—like playing in my band—so I couldn’t really say no. It was for some foundation that helped sick kids. Plus, Trey would hunt me down and find a way to charmingly guilt me into feeling like the biggest sack of shit on the planet if I made some excuse not to do it.

  I’d been trying to come up with one, but now it was five days away.

  Looked like I was doing it.

  I groaned to myself, and the second I stepped into my dark apartment, I dropped my load of shopping bags on the floor—and it fucking hit me. Here I was, facing down the barrel of another fucking night. And I had zero going on in my life right now that I actually wanted to do.

  Since when had nights sucked so fucking hard?

  I used to live for nighttime.

  Parties. Drinking. Girls in short skirts.

  Music and good times.

  Where had the fucking good times gone?

  I mean… they were still happening all around me. I could go out. Meet up with friends for drinks. Find some girl in a short skirt…

  I could hook up.

  But I wasn’t gonna hook up.

  I didn’t hook up with Taylor the other night like maybe I should’ve. Totally pussied out and took a cab home alone at like eleven o’clock instead.

  I hadn’t even come close to touching anyone else since Courteney told me s
he was a virgin and kissed me on her bed.

  I took my new shoes into the walk-in closet off my bedroom and set them on the built-in shelves. Holy Christ, I had a lot of shoes.

  Jo was right.

  I had a problem or something.

  I grabbed a beer and flopped on the couch. Messaged Trey to find out where the party was at tonight. Trey always knew where the party was at.

  I really didn’t want other women swarming on me—as they would if I went to a bar and met up with Trey—but what was the alternative?

  Sit here and drink by myself?

  Bad idea.

  All I could think about, every time I was alone, was Courteney and how to make this right.

  Or how to get away with all the wrong I wanted to do.

  How to have her, somehow, without knocking Cary’s world off-kilter.

  There was just no way I could figure out how to be fucking her on any sort of regular basis and Cary being okay with it.

  Why would he be okay with it?

  He wouldn’t be okay with it.

  He told me to stay the fuck away from her. Because he knew me. He’d seen me with women—a lot of them.

  He’d seen me on tour, fucking around… like a typical twenty-something single male who happened to become a rock star practically overnight. A rock star who’d once been a total fucking geek and couldn’t get laid to save his life.

  A rock star who liked being single and fucking around.

  He didn’t want me anywhere near his little cupcake, and I got that. I didn’t have a baby sister, but I didn’t have to have one to understand his point of view on this.

  A regular dude might be protective of his little sister under the circumstances, and pissed if he found out I’d fucked her.

  But Cary?

  Who the fuck knew.

  This could blow his world right open. That carefully constructed world he’d built for himself… The one where he lived behind soundproofed doors, alone, and no one could touch him. Where everything was perfectly in his control.

  It could fuck with his head.

  It could send him right back to crazy town.

  Like what if he totally stopped speaking to me? Shut me out like he shut everyone else out?

  What if he fell apart again? Stopped talking to anyone and stopped eating, stopped showering… stopped giving a fuck about himself.