Harrison dropped his chin to his chest and his shoulders shook. “Damn, Vixen,” he laughed. “How did you even have time to get these made?”
“I know a guy.” And I also paid a pretty penny to have that added to them. “Are they okay?”
“More than okay.” He kept the sheet music in his lap and opened the other box. “Another box?”
He looked up at me and I shrugged.
He opened the next box and inside sat another box.
After five more boxes, each one smaller than the last, he finally got to the box that had the present in it. He pulled out a pair of black socks that had guitars all over them.
Everyone roared with laughter and Harrison shook his head.
He pulled me into a bear hug and he pressed a kiss to the side of my head.
“Everyone needs socks,” I explained. “Yours might as well have guitars on them.”
“Gloves, a desk, sheet music, and socks,” Malik listed. He shook his head and bumped fists with Harrison. “You found the perfect girl, bro. Hot as hell and low maintenance.”
“Language,” Harrison’s dad droned.
Everyone moved their attention onto the next person, but I didn’t take my eyes off of Harrison. “Thank you,” I said softly.
He leaned close and pressed a kiss to the side of my head. “Anything for you, Vixen.” He piled our presents at our feet then pulled me close. “As soon as we are done with this, we get pie, eat and go home,” he said quietly.
“Best plan I’ve heard in a long time.”
He thread his fingers through mine and relaxed into the couch.
Today was a pretty good day, and I knew it was only going to get better.
*
Harrison
“Where the hell did you learn to do that thing with your tongue?”
I cracked open one eye and looked at Ruby. “What thing?”
“The swirl thing,” she sighed blissfully. She laid her head on my chest and settled her hand there too.
“I don’t know. Just seemed like the right thing to do.” And from the way she was smiling at me I could tell I had been right.
“Add it to the list of gifts you gave me.”
I chuckled and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I think we both spoiled each other.”
“Mmhmm,” she agree. “Butt bows and lap desks. Best Christmas ever,” she sleepily mumbled.
Ruby fell asleep on my chest and I listened to her steady breathing. This had been the best Christmas ever, and she had been the reason why.
Her phone buzzed on the night table, and I glimpsed Jonas’s name flash on the screen. I didn’t know the last time she had talked to him but I figured he might have been calling to wish her a Merry Christmas.
I let the call go to voicemail, but he called back not even five seconds later. I managed to sneak out from under her without waking her up and grabbed the phone. “‘Lo,” I whispered.
“Harrison?”
I stepped out of the bedroom and wandered down to the kitchen. “What’s up, Jonas?”
“Did I call you and not Ruby?” he asked, confused.
“You called Ruby’s phone, but she’s sleeping.”
“Oh. Why did you answer her phone?”
I ran my fingers through my hair and tried to figure out what to say. “Uh, I heard it ring.” That was technically true. I just happened to be lying in bed with her when it rang.
“There something you need to tell me, Harrison?” he said slowly.
I cleared my throat. “No, not really. Just Ruby and I have been hanging out.”
“Hanging out how?”
Naked hanging out? “TV, dinner. You know.”
“Are you dating my sister, Harrison?”
“Dating?” Why in the hell did I answer the phone? I should have just let the damn thing ring for however many times he called. But no, I had to answer the damn thing.
“Bro, tell me what the hell is going on,” he demanded.
Did it really matter that Ruby and I were, well, I wasn’t sure what we were, but we were both adults? “Nothing is going on, Jonas. Just Ruby and I have been seeing each other.”
The phone went silent.
“You still there?”
“You’re dating my sister?”
“Well, it’s not exactly dating.” Those were the exact wrong words to say.
“Then what in the hell are you two doing?”
“Look, we’re both adults and we like to hang out with each other.”
“You mean how you like to hang out with a different girl every night when you are on tour?” I could tell he was pissed.
“No, not like that.” It was exactly like that except I wasn’t hanging out with a different girl every night. It was just Ruby.
“Stay away from my sister, Harrison. She’s not like those groupies you fall into bed with.”
“I know she’s not,” I growled. Ruby was the exact opposite of anyone I had ever been with. For the past five years I had messed around with the same type of girl because they knew the score. One night and that was it. With Ruby I didn’t even know how many nights we had but I knew I wanted a hell of a lot more of them.
“Then stay away from her. Yeah, you’re in town now, but what happens when you go back on the road. You never know when you’re gonna be home. You really think that’s what Ruby deserves?”
I knew that wasn’t what she deserved. That was why I had struggled in the first place with her. But now that I had a taste of her, I knew I was going to figure out a way to make things work between the two of us. “I appreciate your concern for Ruby, but last I checked she’s an adult who can make her own decisions.”
“Whatever you to have going on, you need to end it.”
“Jonas,” I started.
He cut me off. “End it, Harrison. You may think you’re doing the right thing by her, but you and I both know that you aren’t the type of guy who settles.”
“Why in the hell would you think Ruby is settling?”
“You know what I mean. You’re not a guy who sticks around, and that is what Ruby needs.”
“Last I checked you don’t really stick around either, Jonas. I don’t know where you get off thinking you can tell me to stay away from your sister.”
“Look,” he thundered. “I’m not going to fucking talk about this anymore with you. If you take a second to actually think with something besides your dick, you’re gonna see that you can’t give Ruby what she wants.” He ended the call and I fought the urge to chuck the phone across the living room.
I paced back and forth trying to wrap my head around what he had said.
He was right about Ruby not being like other girls I had dated.
She was a fuck of a lot better than any of them had ever been.
That didn’t mean I couldn’t give her the things she wanted. So what if I was on the road a lot? It wasn’t like she didn’t know that. I could call her and make sure she was okay when I was in between gigs.
I stopped pacing and stared at the Christmas tree.
But she deserved more than that.
She needed someone that was with her every day. Not a telephone call in between gigs and studio sessions.
She deserved more and I was being a selfish asshole taking up her time right now but knew that come the first of the year I would be back on the road.
I had told Jonas we were both adults, and that was true.
It also meant that I should know when to leave her alone.
Ruby did deserve more and I didn’t know if I could be the man to give it to her for longer than three weeks.
*
Chapter Eighteen
Ruby
Silence…
“Leftovers for dinner?”
Harrison grabbed his guitar from by the door. “Uh, I think it might be a late night. Having yesterday off put us behind.”
“So that means you’re not going to eat?”
He put his hand on the door handle. “J
ust means I’ll grab something at the studio.”
My smile dropped. “Oh, I guess that makes sense.” I held my coffee cup with both hands and looked into the dark liquid. “Maybe I could bring something to you?” I had seen Harrison play before, but I hadn't seen what he did at the studio.
“Not tonight, Ruby. Have a good day and don’t wait up for me.” He slipped out the door without a backward glance. The door quietly clicked shut and I felt the fresh sting of tears.
Something had happened.
Something had changed.
I replayed yesterday and couldn’t figure out a single thing that would have upset Harrison to push him away.
Yet here I was standing in the kitchen with Mookie laying by the Christmas tree while I cried. Mookie lifted his head and gave a little whine.
“I know, Mookie. I don’t know what happened.” I didn’t want to be the pathetic girl who cried over a guy, but I really thought that things were good between Harrison and I.
Hell, I had spent a good part of the day yesterday with his family and the other part of the day naked in bed with him. The only thing I could think of was something had happened in the middle of the night, but what in the world would that have been?
I pulled my phone out and texted him without even thinking.
I’ll miss you.
I waited all day for a reply but I never got one.
I had put my heart out there and all I got back was silence.
Harrison Peck was done with me, and that blew.
*
Harrison
“What the hell are you still doing here?”
I looked up from the mixing board. “Working.”
Malik sat down in the chair next to me. “Trouble in paradise?”
“Don’t know what you mean.” I turned up the playback of the song I had been working on, hoping Malik would get the clue that I didn’t want to talk.
“You really fuck things up with Ruby that quick?” he asked.
“There wasn’t anything to fuck up, Malik.”
He leaned forward. “Bro, you bought each other the lamest Christmas presents ever and you both looked at each other like you each got a new Lambo.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
He tsked and shook his head. “It was exactly like that, but something happened last night.”
“Nothing happened last night.”
“Come on,” he encouraged. “You can tell me. I promise I won’t make fun of you unless it involves more lame presents.
I shook my head. “I don’t wanna talk about it, man.”
“Well, whatever the hell it is you can talk to me whenever you want.”
That was the problem. I didn’t wanna talk about it. I wanted it to be New Year’s Eve, we play our gig, and then we get back on the road.
Then I could forget about Ruby and things would go back to the way they were.
That was all I deserved.
*
Chapter Nineteen
Ruby
I did you a favor.
He didn’t some home.
At all.
I had stayed awake until three a.m., and he never walked through the door.
Even Mookie seemed sad when he never heard Harrison’s keys in the door.
I had only texted him the one time yesterday and I couldn’t bring myself to text him again. I had told him I missed him and he couldn’t even reply to that.
My phone rang and I dove to answer it. Maybe it was Harrison.
My heart sank when I saw it was Jonas. “Hello?” I mumbled.
“About time you answer your own phone.”
I leaned against the kitchen counter. “What are you talking about?”
“I called a day ago and Harrison answered.”
He had? I didn’t even know that Jonas had called. “Oh, he didn’t tell me you had called.”
“Big surprise there,” he muttered. “It was Christmas night there. I wanted to tell you Merry Christmas, but he had said that you were asleep.”
Harrison and I had stayed awake until about eleven o’clock that night but I knew that I had fallen asleep before he had. Everything clicked, and I knew instantly what had happened between Harrison and me. “You talked to him, Jonas.”
“Yeah, I just told you I did, Ruby.”
I shook my head. Of course. “You told him to stay away from me, didn’t you?”
“He’s not the right guy for you, Ruby.”
“And how in the hell would you know that?” I squawked.
“Because someone who is always gone isn’t right for anyone. You think it’s all great right now with him, Ruby, but what happens when he starts traveling and you have to stay behind.”
“Stay behind?” I asked. “You act like I’m some poor, pitiful woman who needs a man waiting on her hand and foot. You don’t know anything about me, Jonas, yet you think you can chase away a guy who makes me happy?”
“You don’t even know what happy is, Ruby.”
My jaw dropped and I couldn’t believe what he had just said. “I don’t know what happy is?” I repeated.
“You don’t. You spend your days with your head stuck in your computer and your nights watching TV and still hiding from reality.”
I had never been more mad at my brother. He was telling me who I was and how I spent my time, when he really didn’t know a damn thing about me. He was making decisions for me and I was pissed as hell. “Tell me what you said to him,” I demanded.
“I just told him the same thing I had told you.”
I shook my head. “I can’t believe you right now. It’s a damn good thing you are in Hong Kong right now because I would kick your ass so bad right now you wouldn’t be able to sit for a month,” I seethed.
“I did you a favor,” he reasoned.
“You did me a favor? You ran off the guy who was actually interested in me. How exactly is that a favor?”
He yawned loudly into the phone. “Look, Ruby. I just called to warn you off of Harrison, but it seems like what I said to him sunk in.”
Yeah, it sunk in all right.
It sunk in so good that Harrison had ran for the hills without even explaining things to me.
“Well, thanks for that, Jonas. I guess I’ll just get back to the way things were before.” I ended the call and tossed the phone on the counter with a loud clatter.
Jonas had been the one to mess things up with Harrison and I had no clue how to fix them.
He had ran from me without even so much as a bye, and that hurt more than anything.
I thought we were getting closer, but if he could leave me behind that easily, maybe Jonas was right.
Maybe Harrison and I were just a one time thing, and our time was up.
*
Chapter Twenty
Harrison
The heartache…
“Have you been sleeping here?”
I rolled off the couch and stretched my arms over my head. “Uh, yeah. It got late last night and I figured I would just sleep here.”
Maud kicked an empty takeout container with the toe of her boot. “And when was the last time you had a shower?” She waved her hand in front of her face and cringed.
I lifted my arm and got a whiff of my five day abstinence from showers and seeing Ruby. “It’s been a couple of days.”
She leveled her glare on me. “We really gonna act like you didn’t fuck things up with Ruby?”
“What’s it to you?”
She sat down in front of the sound board and flipped a few switches. “You hear that?” she asked.
Nothing played and I rolled my eyes. “You didn’t hit the right button,” I pointed out.
She shook her head. “I did, but the problem is you haven’t written one single word since the day after Christmas. We had these three weeks to hammer out this album, and all you’ve done the past five days is mope around and smell.”
“I don’t smell,” I insisted.
“What did you do to Ruby? She
kick you out?”
I stared into the sound booth. “No.”
“Then why the hell are you sleeping here and not in her bed.”
“I’m not what she needs, Maud. In a few days we’re headed back out on tour. It was better if I just break things off with her right now. Long distance never works.”
“Says who?” she asked. “I’ll say it doesn’t always work, but it does for some.”
“And you think I’m a part of that sum it works for.
She shrugged. “Well, you didn’t even give it a chance. You gave up on her before you even had a chance to try.”
“Saved us both the heartache.”
“Really?” she laughed. “From where I’m sitting you’re dealing with a shit ton of heartache.”
I grabbed my notebook off the coffee table. “Then maybe I should use that heartache to get this fucking album done.”
“Not really what I meant, but if that’s how you want to take it.”
I sat down in the chair next to Maud.
“So, are we going to have a side a of the album that’s all love and shit and then side b is going to be all pissed off heartache?”
I glanced over at her. “I’m not that bad, Maud.”
“Yeah, you are,” she insisted.
I sighed. “Come one, Maud. You don’t agree with me that me being gone all of the time isn’t going to work for us?”
She shrugged. “Why can’t you both be gone all of the time?”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“She works from home, right?”
I nodded my head. “She’s a freelance website designer.”
“So all she needs is a place to sit and Wi-Fi, right?”
“I guess.” I didn’t know exactly what Ruby needed but that was a good start.
“Then bring her along with us, dumbass. You don’t need to leave her alone. She can still work and be with you.”
“I don’t know if she would go for that.”
“You ask her if she would?” she drawled.
“Well, no, but what kind of life would that be with her?”
Kissing the Bad Boy Page 9