by Riley Bancroft, Evelyn Berry, Cara Carnes, Jax Garren, Irene Preston, Rebecca Royce, Chandra Ryan
“You know Austin is the Live Music Capital of the World. The second you arrive the airport has bands playing about half the time.”
“I do have fun at the music clubs.” She shook her head. “Only, Jesus, the traffic? In New York City I don’t do the driving. Here? I can sit for hours.”
“Ah…”
There were a whole bunch of things he wanted to say. DBR’s party seemed neither the time nor the place. She was right. He had a bad habit of stating truths as he saw them, whether the person needed to hear them or not. Learning came easily to him and he’d spent his life having to explain what he easily understood to everyone else. Had he come across as….rude?
In the meantime, Lana’s old boss pushed through the crowd to reach her. “Maybe he’s coming to apologize.”
She snorted. “He doesn’t know how.”
“Maybe he’s had a few moments to consider his behavior.”
The face she pulled on him would have made him laugh if he hadn’t wanted to distract her from the upcoming conversation she had to have with Dexter. How could she convey so much with simply a twist of her lips?
“Lana.” DBR said her name as if uttering a curse.
Huh. It had been a very long time since Jake had wanted to slug a person for very little cause. The few fights he’d gotten into during high school had all but rid him of the need. Yet, Dexter shoving his way toward Lana, snarling, left him with the desire to break his nose. He clenched his fist. Would the bodyguards try to stop him? They seemed pretty preoccupied with the women at the party rather than watching their boss’s back.
More for show than anything else.
“Dexter.”
He made note of Lana’s continued use of DBR’s first name. It was fine to think of DBR as Dexter. However, in all his dealings with him at the club, he’d never heard anyone actually call the other man by his real first name before. She had to know by doing so she poked a bear. Lana liked a good fight
DBR snorted. “You don’t get to quit.”
With her eyes huge, she hissed her response. “Oh, yes, I do.”
For his own sake, Jake wished DBR’s words could be true. He’d love it if Lana couldn’t quit, so she had to stay and could get to know him better. However, Austin was in America; if the woman wanted to quit, and as long as she lived up to the rules of her contract, she could walk away from any job she wanted.
“I’m sure the lady can do as she pleases.” He knew he shouldn’t interfere. Lana seemed more than capable of handling her own business. So why he couldn’t keep his mouth shut was going to have to remain a mystery.
“You owe me two weeks’ notice.” DBR shook his head. “You can’t simply quit.”
“You don’t want me here for two weeks, Dexter.” She pointed her finger at him. “Besides, you’re in breach. Do you want to talk about the money you owe me? My bonus I never received?”
“All right.” Jake stepped forward and put his arm around Lana. “I’m sure there’s a better place than here to discuss your grievances with each other.”
“Listen, you might be some kind of tech guru who owns everything.” Dexter laughed. “But I am rock and roll.” DBR shouted the last bit of his response loud enough for the whole party to hear.
His words earned a cheer from the crowd. Apparently DBR’s partygoers liked the idea of Dexter actually being rock and roll more than Jake did. Personally, he thought the hordes of musicians who made their way through his club every weekend were more rock and roll than anything DBR could come up with.
“Dexter…” Lana tried to interrupt, only DBR didn’t let her.
“If you try to quit, if you leave me, I’ll ruin you. Do you hear me? Ruin you. You’ll never find another job in the music industry. No one in New York will touch you with a ten-foot pole. A fast phone call and it’s all over for you.”
“Hey.” The breaking-DBR’s-nose bit seemed more and more likely. “You’re talking blackmail and I am now a witness.”
“What can I say? I have a lot of friends.” He shrugged his shoulders. “None of them are going to hire a person after I tell them how she quit in the middle of my party after not doing her job.”
Lana’s body visibly vibrated and sarcasm shot out of her mouth. “What do you want from me? You can’t possibly want me to work here with you anymore. I’ve done such a terrible job handling your needs. I mean, look how you had to do without your pants today.”
“Two weeks. You hire your replacement and wrap things up in the next two weeks and I’ll give you an okay recommendation.”
“Fine.” She huffed her response and beneath her fingers, Jake could hear her grinding her teeth. Lana was far from fine. “I’ll need two weeks to give up my apartment here and move on with things.”
“Great.” DBR smiled the grin of a man who had won a battle, which of course he had.
“So, Jake, think I could play Rooster later in the week? As a surprise guest? I think it’d be so sweet.”
“I think we’re all booked for now, Dexter.” He had to take Lana’s lead and use DBR’s first name. The man defined douchebag.
The rock star flinched.
Lana snorted.
—
“There’s a Kirby Lane downtown, right?” Lana dug into her pancakes with a vigor he admired. He took a sip of his coffee. They’d found a café and settled in to eat, despite it being after two a.m.
“This restaurant is an Austin chain located all over town. Started downtown and expanded.”
She shook her head. “It’s delicious. I could never manage a table. Lines out the door.”
“You simply needed to spread your wings a bit. Same food. No lines.” His mouth watered. He wanted her again and his cock hardened to make sure he didn’t forget it. “Have you really never been up this way before?”
“I thought it was only moms with minivans living in Northwest Austin.” She looked up from her food and her brown eyes met his. “Is Northwest Austin where you hang out? Hold on a second,” she pointed to his hand, “no wedding ring. Are you married and hiding it?”
“No, I’m not. Not divorced. No kids. Not gay. Totally single.” He held up his hands as if she’d pointed a gun, which she kind of had with the way her eyes shot daggers at him.
“Then what are you doing in a family-oriented part of town? Don’t you own music clubs?”
“The clubs are some of the things I do. Actually, I have other people running them. They’re more akin to investments of the heart.”
She sipped her juice. “So you do what for a living?”
“I’m running a company based on a product I invented. I expect to sell it in the next few months to a larger conglomerate and then we’ll see where I go from there.”
Lana fell quiet for a few seconds and he wondered if he’d bored her to silence. Usually, if he kept it to a single-line response, people didn’t nod off. Maybe he’d lost her when he’d gone for two.
“You invented a product?” She shook her head. “What kind of thing did you invent?”
“Last time it was a particular kind of diode array whose properties will be helpful in a multiple range of products, mostly having to do with UV detectors. There are all kinds of commercial…”
He stopped talking. She hadn’t zoned off, yet he knew he’d lost her.
“Let me understand.” Lana drummed her fingers on the table. “You’re an inventor of products I am not going to be able to fathom but I bet are kind of important in your field. You own music clubs for fun. You,” she lowered her voice, “fuck like a woman’s dream come true. What the hell are you doing single?”
“Maybe I was waiting for a gorgeous brunette to tell me off on the street.”
“Nope.” She shook her head. “Can’t be me. I’m going back to New York.”
They’d see about her plans. He tended to get his way when he wanted something. Lana was on his list. The universe hadn’t given her to him only to take her away. “Do you enjoy boats?”
3
&nb
sp; It was a beautiful day on Lake Travis. The wind blew in her hair and it wasn’t too hot outside. Lana held on to her hat, not wanting it to blow away. He grinned at her from across the boat.
Of course, she might be able to enjoy the day more if she didn’t have to spend her whole time on the water dealing with DBR on her cellphone.
“I have no idea if she’s old enough to have spent the night with you.” She leaned back on the railing. “I think considering how many times this has happened to you, it might make sense for you to check the girl’s driver’s license before you let her in your room. Perhaps there are websites you could look at to teach you how to tell a fake from a real one.”
Jake scooted over and eyed her phone. She tried to smile. “Dexter, I’m going to have to go. Today is my day off. Bright and early Monday morning, I’ll have an ad out to replace myself.”
She clicked off the phone and her date, who turned out to own not one, but two different boats, grinned at her. “All okay?”
He was still dressed as if he were some straight-out-of-his-mom’s-garage geeky poser boy. Today, the t-shirt was Yoda holding an old-fashioned Coca-Cola can. He had on khaki shorts to go with the sandals on his feet. The outfit showed off more of his long, sculpted legs. A study in contradictions, he had a way of disarming her when she least expected it.
He’d held her up as if she weighed nothing. She squirmed at the memory. He must make time for the gym between developing radical new products, running a successful company, and owning clubs. Hell, he’d even made time for her.
“Lana?”
“What? Oh.” She took a sip of the drink she’d set down next to her. The water was calm, which was good because when it got rough she sometimes threw up. Her yakking wasn’t really the image she wanted to give him. “Yes, he’s fine. He makes large mistakes. Sometimes he needs to talk about them.”
“Underage girls are certainly a large mistake.” Jake sipped his water. He’d given her a mimosa although she’d yet to see him drink himself. Not at the party and not since. Did he not?
He continued, “Did he ever hit on you?”
“Yes. He hits on everything with boobs. Sometimes, depending on the level of drunkenness, his flirting’s not necessarily exclusive to women.”
He patted her leg. “I can’t imagine hitting on an employee. How did you handle it?”
“There may have been some kind of threatening to dismember involved. He doesn’t, as you saw, react appropriately to things.”
He held up two fingers. “Those many weeks.”
“Do you suppose I could start counting today as day thirteen?”
“Probably not. I think today would constitute the beginning of said countdown.”
She stood, keeping her legs under her. Lana may have exaggerated earlier in the morning when she’d told him she liked boats. While she wouldn’t exactly say she hated them, nor did she think she would ever willingly choose to go back out on the sea if given a choice of activities.
“Where are you going?”
She scooted even tighter in. “Closer to you.”
“There’s an idea I can appreciate.” He put his arm around her.
“Is the lake always so low?” There were parts of it resembling more of a mud pit than a lake.
“Lake Travis has been slowly and surely disappearing over several years. We’ve been in a drought for a long time. Plus, there is some politicking involved, which is a long story and a complicated subject. Some of the water here gets sent elsewhere.” He pointed to a coastline. “Some of the local businesses have had to close if they depended on boat traffic.”
“What a shame.” She stretched her arms over her head. “So tell me, are you an alcoholic or do you not drink for religious reasons?”
“What?” He raised his eyebrows. Another reason she was certain she’d never fit in Austin. When she had something to say, she said it. The whole monitoring-herself-to-be-polite really didn’t work for her.
“Too personal? Sorry, sometimes I don’t have a shut-off valve.”
He squeezed her shoulder. “No, I’m surprised, is all. Neither, actually. Are those the only two reasons people don’t drink?”
“I’m sure there are a lot of them. Those were the two I came up with right off the bat. Health reasons? Don’t enjoy the taste?”
“Maybe I should keep you guessing.” He sipped his water. “Except you won’t stumble on it and I don’t want to freak you out as you become more and more out there with ideas.”
Her mind whirled. “Is it bad? Did you once strike high schoolers dead in the middle of the night on a drinking binge with your car? You were never caught and you never drank again?”
“Okay, enough. Soon you’ll have me as a mass murderer.” He shook his head. “Look, it’s going to sound weird and you asked me yesterday why I’m single. There are probably numerous reasons. A big factor is the same reason I don’t drink.”
“I’m all ears.” This was it. The moment had arrived when all of his flaws came out. She always knew how to pick men—badly. Particularly one-nights stands, which continued on well past the point of their expiration dates.
“I can see things.”
She waited for him to continue. Did he think his response explained anything?
“What kinds of things?” Ghosts? Monsters?
He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “The way I can invent things, I can’t really explain it. I can look at something and see what has to happen. It’s something I’ve always been able to do. And sometimes it applies to people. I can see them and simply…know. Alcohol screws it up. So, I avoid it.”
“Huh.” She supposed she could sort of understand what he meant. Those moments of pure understanding never happened to her. Yet, she’d known lots of people for whom they did. For all his douchery, DBR had those moments when he wrote. Artists and writers spoke of them all the time. Who was to say Jake’s brain worked any differently? His creative brilliance simply moved in a scientific direction.
“Ready for me to take you back?”
She took another sip of her mimosa. “Had enough?”
“No.” He turned to look at her. “I assumed you would.”
“Why?” She reached up and stroked the side of his face. His whiskers had grown in since the night before. It made him look more rugged in his freshly pressed Yoda t-shirt.
“Because I told you I see things.”
“Honey,” she smiled, “I’m from NYC. Your speech was hardly the weirdest thing I’ve ever been told on a date.”
When he leaned over to kiss her, she closed her eyes to shield herself from the passion reflected in his. She was leaving; they didn’t have time for anything too heavy. What had she said to earn such heat from him? His lips were hard and firm and before too long, he bit down on hers. A bolt of pleasure raced through her. She moaned against him.
He pulled back to caress her hair off her forehead. “Come below to the cabin with me.”
“You don’t have to ask me twice.” She touched his mouth. “You make me so turned on. I’ve really never spent so little time with a person and wanted to be naked with him all the time.”
“I think the universe gives us people or events we need whether or not we know we require them.”
She ran her finger down the slope of his nose. “Meeting you is terrible timing. I’m leaving soon.”
“We’ll see.”
What did he mean? She would love to have asked him, only then he nibbled on her neck and she lost all sense of anything except his lips on her skin.
—
The rocking of the boat roused her. She shouldn’t be surprised she drifted off to sleep. They’d been awake for hours. Not to mention all the sex…
She rolled over. He had his arm around her and when she moved, he moaned something in his sleep. She waited a beat but he didn’t stir. Could they spend the whole day drifting in the boat? Did he have somewhere else to go?
Lana studied his features in sleep. He was beautiful awake an
d almost angelic in dreamland. And for some reason he wanted to spend time with her although she’d told him there would be no future.
If they were on dry land, she’d probably try to sneak out. Intimacy was hard for her, especially when she was so unsure about the parameters of their…relationship. Was that what it was? New friendship that included sex? Fuck buddies?
She moved off the bed, looking for her clothes.
“No.” He spoke with his eyes closed. “I’m not ready for real life yet.”
“What’s on your agenda for the rest of the day?” Lana got her clothes on as fast as she could. They hadn’t really reached the point yet where she wanted him to see her naked outside of sex.
There were boundaries to be maintained.
“I’m going to feed you. And show you some more parts of Austin I don’t think you’ve seen. Boo.” He objected when she put on her shirt. “I liked the other view better.”
“Watch it. You’re going to make me blush.” Her phone vibrated and she looked down at it. “Damn it, it’s Dexter.”
“Does he never stop bothering you on your days off or are the constant calls because you’re leaving?”
She stared up at him. “Let me explain: He moved me here six weeks ago. Without asking me or discussing anything, he simply told me we were going. He’s not the kind of guy who cares about other people’s needs.”
“And yet you came. You could have stayed in New York. Quit your job then.”
He was right, of course, and she’d beat herself up about it hundreds of times. “I could have. Only, I liked working for him. Despite all of his issues, and general assholeness, I loved working for a musician.”
“You cared about the music.” He nodded as if he understood.
She sat back down on the bed next to him. “Not DBR’s per se. I liked the energy of the venues; the times spent in the recording studio, watching something come from what was essentially nothing.”
He ran his finger up her back. Through her clothes she shivered. “Are you a musician?”