Hearts and Arrows Box Set

by Staci Hart

  “Sorry,” she smiled back. She wasn’t sorry.

  Lex took off her bag and sat down next to him. “What are you working on?” She peeked over into his book. “Lyrics? May I?” Her stomach flipped. She couldn’t believe she asked him for something so personal. She prepared herself for a big, fat No.

  “Yeah, sure.” He placed the notebook in her open palm. His hands went numb as he realized that he hadn’t even hesitated.

  Of course girls had asked to see Dean’s work before, and he’d never shared, but he handed his book over to Lex without a thought.

  She flipped through the pages, pausing on one as she ran her index finger down the seam, and he marveled that she could make something so mundane look so sexy.

  “Dean, this is extraordinary.” She looked up at him earnestly, her eyes big and bright, and he felt her pull again as their faces came together like magnets.

  Dean stopped, shaking himself, breaking the connection. He looked down as he took his book from her hands. “I, uh, I think we have the same notebook.” He held it up.

  “I noticed that, too.” Lex’s hands shook as she turned to rummage in her bag for her notebook. Oh, shit. She’d almost kissed him again. Alarms rang in her ears with her heartbeat, telling her to run. The problem was, she wanted to run toward them instead of away like she was supposed to.

  She held her notebook up, which was exactly the same as his, and they smiled at each other.

  “I showed you mine, so technically it’s your turn,” he said.

  She extended her notebook, and he took it, setting his down between them in the same motion. Lex watched as he opened it, her eyes trailing from his brow, down the ridge of his nose, across his lips. Her heart fluttered as her gaze moved to his bicep that rippled under the tight sleeve of his t-shirt. She noticed his tattoo, not for the first time, a half sleeve that extended to his elbow. She’d never seen it up close, and leaned forward to get a good look.

  A pinup mermaid floated in the moving ocean, the sea and fish wrapped around her as she sang, and her red hair swirled in a current around her. Lex almost reached out to push his shirt sleeve up so that she could see the rest, but remembered herself and clasped her hands in her lap.

  Dean leaned back into the couch, lingering over one of her poems written around a sketch of a girl lying on a chaise in a profile. Her arm and hair hung down, and a tear spilled down her cheek. The poem looked like her breath leaving her body.

  Up and down

  Heaving breast

  Emotion pulls

  Like lily white thighs

  Lying still sometimes

  Motionless, beautiful.

  Running hard sometimes

  Tired, burning.

  Dancing sometimes

  Release of joy.

  Always there

  Like the beating of my heart

  Strong, rhythmic

  Pushes me onward

  Her words written on the page were alive in his heart, and he knew them. Somehow, he knew.

  The metal warehouse door clanged shut, and Dean jumped, dropping her book onto the couch as Roe and Travis walked in. Lex noticed his cheeks were flushed as he headed to where his guitar waited. He slung it on and turned his focus to his tuning gears. Lex couldn’t take her eyes off of him, not paying attention as she picked up her notebook and stuffed it back in her bag. She leaned back into the couch and shuffled a little to get comfortable, settling in to get her fix.

  Hours later, after practice was over, Lex stepped into the darkness of her apartment, clicked on the light, and dropped her keys into the bowl by the door with a jangle. Travis followed her into the living room and stretched, leaning back as he yawned.

  “I’m beat. You staying up?”

  Lex was already on the couch, digging around in her bag for her notebook. “For a bit.”

  He scooped up her keys and rolled her tiny Magic 8 Ball keychain between his palms as he closed his eyes and asked, “Am I getting laid tonight?” He opened his hands. “My sources say, No. Well, shit.”

  “Sounds like fate’s just not on your side,” she said, amused. “Sleep tight.”

  “All right. Night.” Travis kissed her forehead before he turned for the bedroom.

  Her fingers closed around her notebook, and she pulled it out of her bag. Her brow gathered in confusion as she flipped it over. It looked wrong, though she couldn’t put her finger on exactly why. She opened it.

  Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit.

  She had Dean’s notebook. Which meant …

  Lex grabbed her bag and felt around frantically before dumping the contents on the couch. She stared at the pile with her mouth open and her face blank.

  He had hers.

  She pinched the bridge of her nose and squinched her eyes closed. Okay, pull yourself together. Maybe he won’t read it. But what if he does?

  Dean was smart enough to figure out which poems in her notebook were about him, she was certain. Not to mention that she’d sketched him. Like, a lot.

  Fuck. She touched her lips.

  She looked back at Dean’s notebook as it lay on the couch. She picked it up like it was made of glass and turned it over in her hands. He had invited her to read it, but that was with him sitting there watching. Could she justify reading without his permission? Was he reading hers?

  Lex chewed her lip as she flipped through the pages mindlessly, pausing one in particular that was crammed with lyrics. Once she started reading, she couldn’t tear herself away, and she sat back into the couch with wide eyes where she stayed until the small hours of the morning.

  ———— Olympus ————

  Apollo sat on the couch, stunned, though he was sure he looked relaxed, like he didn’t care, his face an apathetic mask. Inside, he was dumbfounded as he watched Dita fist pump and jump out of her chair. She trotted over to him and bent into his face with pink cheeks and twinkling eyes.

  “YES! Yes! BOOM, muthafucka.” Dita bounced around the room crowing with her blond hair swaying behind her. She stopped only to do the cabbage patch around the living room, likely the only being in the universe who looked sexy doing it. “That’s right, I did it, I did it.”

  She started pacing as she yammered. “Oh man, that was so awesome. Did you see that? I mean, I kick so much ass at this game that I don’t know why you dum dums keep challenging me.”

  She looked at Apollo, but kept talking, and he sat there repeating in his head, I’m going to win. Let her go, I’m going win. It wasn’t like she actually expected an answer, which was good because he couldn’t give one without blowing up on her.

  “Seriously, you realize I got the girl who took over Lex’s shift to the bookstore early? I even had the train operator blowing through stops, holding doors for like three seconds before he took off because he had a hot date to get to. And then when Lex got there, and oh man, did you see when they almost kissed? And right when Lex was about to look at what book she grabbed, BOOM. His sex appeal caught her like a bug in a spiderweb. I own sex appeal.”

  Fuck my life, Apollo thought. She set the whole thing up. Again.

  She paused to face him, legs apart, hand on her hip, and took in his outward calm. Her eyes narrowed. “How are you not freaking out right now?” She shook herself. “No, you know what?” Dita waggled her finger at him. “You’re not going to ruin this for me. Suck it, son!” She crotch chopped WWE style, slamming her arms across her waist in an ‘x’ formation. She spun around and marched to the elevator, her hair swinging in time with her hips.

  Once she was out of sight, his face fell, and he leaned forward, his head in his hands, his mind rolling over one single thought.

  I suck at this.

  Day 10

  DEAN WALKED DOWN THE SIDEWALK in the bright winter sun with two cups of coffee in hand. He had no fucking clue what he was doing as he approached the bookstore where Lex worked, and his nerves twisted in his stomach as he hoped he wasn’t about to make an ass out of himself.

  As she
walked out of the warehouse the night before with Travis, Dean looked at the notebook sitting on the couch and knew she had his. He trotted over to it, picked it up, and took a step toward the door, but paused, turning it over in his hands.

  I could probably catch her, he thought, but it was then that he realized with certainty that he wanted her to read it and decided to take the opportunity to give her the chance to.

  Dean shoved her book in his bag, grappling on his way home with whether or not to call her or take the notebook by her apartment, or if he should just let the whole thing ride. It felt like contraband, even though he’d decided not to read it, wanting to respect her privacy, which was funny enough. He hoped that she wouldn’t respect his. He didn’t sleep all night, almost feeling it in the other room as he worried over her reaction if she’d read his, worrying over his own if she hadn’t.

  Dean realized as he lay staring at his ceiling that it was more than just infatuation. He wanted to know her, needed to know her, but he had no idea how to go about it. Not only did they have the serious obstacle of her having a boyfriend and the thin state of contentment that the band was in, but he lacked experience in getting to know people, especially getting to know women.

  So instead of sleeping, he worked on a plan.

  Dean knew he would see her at practice, but he needed to talk to her before they were in a room with Roe and Travis. He didn’t want to have what was certain to be an awkward conversation with her in front of everyone, including her boyfriend. The only solution was to talk to her before practice, which meant going to the bookstore. So he devised a plan that included coffee, admissions, and hopefully a resolution, one way or another.

  He turned and pushed the bookstore door open with his back, stepping into the warmth of the little shop with his heart jackhammering his ribs.

  Lex looked up when the bell on the door chimed and almost fell off her stool when she saw Dean in the doorway.

  She scrambled to close his notebook and throw some papers on top of it. Her stress levels had been off the charts, worrying over the time when she had to return it to him, hoping they would get a moment alone. She couldn’t have imagined giving it to him in front of everyone, in front of Travis. Not after she’d read what was in it.

  One problem solved and a new one walks in, she thought as he walked toward her. His jet black hair was in perfect disarray, and dark Ray Bans sat comfortably on his elegant nose. He wore a gray hoodie under his black leather jacket, his boots were half untied, and he looked absolutely, shockingly handsome. And dangerous. With coffee.

  He cocked a bashful half-smile at her as he set the coffee down and leaned over the counter, taking off his sunglasses. “So … read any good books lately?”

  Oh, my god. I’m going to die.

  She blushed so hard that she was sure her face was steaming. Okay, Okay. Keep your cool, Alexis. “I could ask you the same thing.”

  Lex’s heart skipped a beat as Dean reached into his bag and pulled out her notebook. He pushed it across the counter to her, then opened his palm expectantly for his own. She reached under the inventory sheet that she had thrown on top of his notebook and handed it to him.

  Their eyes met, and she knew. He hadn’t read it. Some foreign look colored his face. Innocence? She looked down at her hands that rested on her returned notebook, feeling like a voyeur.

  “I read yours,” she blurted out, her eyes on her fingers.

  “I was hoping you would.”

  She looked back up at him, surprised and confused. Maybe he really did want her to read it. Or maybe it was all just an elaborate plan to get into her pants.

  The bell on the door rang again as an elderly woman shuffled in with a street cart. Lex hadn’t noticed that two teenage girls had walked up behind Dean and were whispering to each other. Dean slid over so they could approach the counter with his hands resting around his cup and his cool, green eyes on Lex.

  Overly aware of his eyes on her, she rang up the girls on the antique cash register that dominated a large portion of the counter. She had to count their change twice, nearly dropping it on the counter as she handed it to them. The girls almost ran into the door as they turned their heads to get a last look at Dean.

  He glanced up at her, then back down at his hands. “No one has ever read them. I’ve never wanted anyone to, before you.” Dean said as he spun the cardboard ring around his cup.

  She was stunned. “You’re not mad?”

  “No, I’m definitely not mad. And I have a confession to make.” He ran his hand through his hair, pushing it back as it almost instantly began to fall forward again. “I realized you had it just after you’d left.”

  “So you let me keep it on purpose, hoping I would read it?”

  “I wanted you to know what the pages held.”

  Her breath caught. “I do. Every page, every word.”

  It was silent for a moment before she spoke again. “Why didn’t you read mine?”

  “Because I had a feeling that you wouldn’t have appreciated me reading your private thoughts.”

  She bit her lip. Normally, that would have been true. She couldn’t stand when anyone would try to peek in her sketchbooks and notebooks where her heart lived, but she wanted to know what Dean thought of her work, and for him to know part of her as she knew him. In fact, Lex didn’t sleep, not only nervous about Dean’s reaction to her reading his notebook, but also considering how he would react to having read hers.

  Dean’s eyes were on her lip as she nibbled it until someone cleared their throat behind him. The little old lady’s face was stern behind her cat eye glasses, and a peacock feather stuck out of her gray bun. He turned back to Lex, feeling a crooked smile on his face.

  Lex’s hair curled loose around her face, and she tucked a strand behind her ear as she pinched her lips together to stifle a smile. Her fair skin looked like porcelain in her black sweater, and her pink cheeks were flushed hard. Dean momentarily forgot that they were in public and realized that he wanted to be alone with Lex very, very badly.

  He turned, full of nervous energy. “Excuse me,” he said to the woman and turned to walk through the store, trying to calm down, thumbing the books on the shelves while Lex rang her up. In an inlet between book cases sat a very large man with a very tiny dog on some oversized pillows, reading a romance novel titled Wined and Dined with what looked like an illustration of Fabio on the front. His shirt was too small, and his shiny, bald head caught the sunlight from the window as he looked up at Dean with a twinkle in his eye and smiled. Dean smiled in return before he wandered back to Lex, who looked like a doll behind the enormous counter.

  He swallowed hard, drawing on his reserve confidence to say what he was about to say. “Lex … ”

  She held her breath, frozen as she watched him. Dean looked both confident and unsure, the combination heartbreakingly sexy. She wound her fingers together tight. Here it comes.

  “The band is off on Saturday. Spend the day with me.”

  The temptation was almost too much. “Dean, I—”

  “I know what you’re going to say. I’m sure you know about me, especially now that you’ve had a chance to study my notebook.” She felt like an asshole at that, but he smiled, though it fell almost immediately as he continued. “I don’t do this. I mean, I’m not even sure how to do this. But I want to try. Will you just give me one day?”

  Deer in headlights—she was paralyzed as her mind went a zillion miles in a split second. Did she want to? Yes. Very much so. But could she?

  She’d have to lie to Travis. Her stomach twisted. What would he say if he found out? How could she do that to him? But what if they just went as friends? No promises, no kissing, nothing more than talking, getting to know each other. That wouldn’t be wrong, would it?

  But what if she did find that she cared about him? It seemed like a sure thing that she would. She didn’t want to get hurt, and Dean was dangerous. Although she could tell he’d been through a lot from what she read in h
is notebook. Could she trust him? Could they trust each other when they hadn’t trusted anyone before?

  Could she let the chance walk out the door?

  “Okay. One day.”

  His face softened. “Saturday. Nine in the morning. Meet you at the coffee shop?” He held up his coffee cup.

  “Nine on Saturday. I’ll be there. And wait—take this.” She handed him her notebook. “You showed me yours, so technically … ”

  “Thanks. I’ll see you,” he said, smiling as he took the book and sauntered out the door, taking one last look over his shoulder while he put on his sunglasses to face the day, lighter than he’d ever been.

  “I couldn’t say no, Kara.”

  Lex rubbed her lips with the pads of her fingers as she sat on the coffee table, long legs bent, her toes in her ankle boots turned to each other. She’d come to Kara’s straight after work, completely frazzled as Kara sat on her couch, pleasantly flabbergasted.

  “So. A date. He brought you coffee and asked you on a date. Which you agreed to.”

  Lex laid a hand on her forehead. “Yeah, it’s looking that way.”

  “And you’re not telling Travis?”

  “No, I need to see what happens first. I mean, I’d basically have to break up with him, figure out where to go, move out, and then there would be the repercussions with the band. Like, what if the date is a flop? And then everyone would be flipping out over nothing.” She shook her head. “It would hurt everybody to blow the lid off it until we were sure.”

  “Okay, say it’s a flop. What happens then?”

  “I have to leave Travis. That’s all there is to it. I can just tell him that it wasn’t working out and we can part ways, and no one would be the wiser. No band drama. Just a clean break.”

  “I’m a little concerned that you’re not going to make it out of this with a clean conscience.”

  “Obviously this is wrong on so many levels, but I’m determined to play it cool. No kissing, no hanky panky. We can just see if whatever we think is there between us is actually there, and if it is, then we’ll figure it out.”