The Dating Games Series Volume One

by T. K. Leigh

  “I can see how that would be a problem with whoever sets the rules. Just like women are supposed to fawn over shirtless, well-built men as they dance on a stage, men are supposed to salivate over a woman on a pole.”

  “Not just any woman,” he clarifies. “The idea of you pole dancing is, well… It’s like every fantasy I’ve ever had.” The flirtatious quality to his voice is gone, replaced with a truthfulness I didn’t quite anticipate.

  “Asher, I—”

  “Here we are,” he interrupts, his voice brightening. I study him for a moment, but his expression is even once again. Like he’s flipped a switch, and any craving he exhibited mere seconds ago is nothing but a distant memory.

  I look away, my brows drawing together when he pulls up to a gated driveway. He stops outside a box, inputting a four-digit code. The large, metal gates slowly open, granting us access.

  “Who lives here?” I ask. “Do you have some wealthy benefactor, like Paul Varjak did in Breakfast at Tiffany’s?”

  He chuckles as he navigates up a winding driveway. The instant the sprawling mansion comes into view, my jaw drops. I have no idea what’s going on, but my curiosity piques more and more with each beat of my heart.

  “No wealthy benefactor. Well, not like that anyway. There’s no rich older woman I’m sleeping with in order to bankroll my life while I write.”

  “Then—”

  “Have you heard of Fallen Grace?”

  I snort. “Who hasn’t? You can’t turn on the radio without hearing their music. Not to mention I work in pediatric oncology. I have several patients who are teenage girls. A few of them have even hung up posters of the band in their room.”

  Asher pulls the car into a detached garage off to the side of the main house and engages the parking brake, killing the ignition. I stare in awe at the row of sports cars. Tesla. Mercedes. BMW. Even a Maserati.

  “They’re patients long enough to decorate their rooms?” Asher’s voice pulls me back from the myriad of questions swirling in my mind.

  “Some of them will never walk out of that hospital again. Unless the family makes the decision to do home hospice care in their final days.”

  “But they’re kids.” He shakes his head, heartache etched in the lines of his face over this sad truth I confront daily.

  “Cancer doesn’t discriminate. Young. Old. Rich. Poor. It doesn’t matter.”

  He stares deeper into my eyes. Then he reaches toward me, cupping my cheek, his long fingers burrowing into my thick hair. “You are an incredible woman, Izzy. I’ve never met anyone as compassionate and selfless as you. You deserve better than…” He trails off, stopping himself from finishing his sentence. He doesn’t need to. I know what he was about to say. “Well, you deserve better.”

  “Thank you.”

  He keeps his hand on my cheek a heartbeat longer. For a second, I think he’s about to kiss me, the way his gaze strays to my mouth and he licks his own lips in preparation. Kissing him would be wrong, would violate the unspoken rule against falling for a woman your friend — your brother — already dated. But it doesn’t bother me like it should.

  He closes his eyes and I tilt my head toward him, my breathing increasing in anticipation. Then his shoulders fall and he drops his hold on me, his expression pinched, as if reminding himself of who we are. Who we’ll always be to one another.

  “Come on.” With shaky hands, he opens the door and steps out of the car, rushing around to help me. A stiff silence fills the air as he leads me out of the garage and down a path lined with succulents in a stone bed.

  I glance up at the vast, two-story house that would rival some of the ones I grew up near in Greenwich, still having no answers about who lives in it and what we’re doing here, other than it having to do with one of the most popular boy bands around today.

  “Is this Fallen Grace’s party house?” Chloe had mentioned several celebrities owned houses on the outskirts of the city for that exact purpose. Since she works as a celebrity news columnist, she would know.

  “They bought it for that purpose a few years ago, but lately it has served as more of a recording studio.”

  I halt in my tracks, mouth agape, eyes wide. I didn’t expect him to agree with my statement. “This is Fallen Grace’s party house-slash-recording studio?”

  He shrugs, as if he’d just told me he had to do laundry or some other mundane task. “Sure is.”

  I blink, gawking at him. Then the house. Then back at him. “Are they here? Am I going to meet Fallen Grace? Some of my teenage patients would lose their minds, especially if I’m able to get their autographs.”

  “They’re home in London for a break before we hit it hard in a few weeks.”

  “We?”

  His grin widens as he extends his hand toward me. “Come on. I’ll explain everything.”

  I stare at his hand with skepticism before lifting my eyes to his. He arches a brow, tilting his head slightly. I wonder if this is how Alice felt when she noticed the White Rabbit scurrying past her. If she was torn between remaining in her normal life and experiencing something she’d never forget, even if it was fleeting. But that didn’t stop her from following the White Rabbit. I don’t let it stop me, either.

  Blowing out a breath, I place my hand in his, following him deeper and deeper down my own rabbit hole.

  But there’s no place I’d rather be.

  Chapter Five

  “You live here now?” I ask as I run my fingers along the cool ivory of a baby grand piano, floating my eyes to where Asher leans against the soundproof wall in a state-of-the-art recording studio. No more walls and ceiling covered with egg crate foam to prevent outside noise from filtering into the basement of his parents’ house. This is all professionally constructed and designed. A musician’s dream.

  “It’s more a temporary home out of convenience. The guys need to get a new album out, as well as prepare for an extended engagement at one of the casinos. I need to be somewhere I have access to whatever I require. Granted, when they first approached me to help with the new album, the plan was to record in LA.”

  I sit on the piano bench, lightly pressing the keys, the soft sound filling the room. It’s been years since I’ve played, but it’s like riding a bike. You may have a few slips and falls at first, but once muscle memory kicks in, you’re cruising right along.

  “And how did they approach you?”

  “Pure dumb luck.” He pushes off the wall and closes in on me in three long strides, sitting next to me. “Or maybe the big man upstairs decided to give me a break.” He places his hands on the piano keys, playing a simple baseline to compliment the B-flat blues progression I’m fooling around with. “To be honest, I was ready to give up. I was months behind on rent and facing eviction.”

  “Was gigging your only source of income?” I play with a little more confidence, my transitions coming with greater ease.

  “I taught private guitar and piano lessons in the afternoons, so that helped,” he answers, looking at me instead of the keys. He could probably play it blindfolded.

  Mmm… Asher in a blindfold.

  I extinguish the thought, silently berating my libido for going there.

  “I had enough money in savings to keep me afloat for a little while. But after a year, that savings had dwindled to practically nothing. I’d reached the point where I didn’t see any other option but to go back home, tell my parents they were right and it was a crazy idea, then hope they’d let me move in with them while I got my master’s degree so I could teach again.”

  “That sucks,” I respond, hitting the wrong note, causing a dissonance. I cringe, but Asher smiles, shrugging it off. I’m sure he’s heard much worse musicians than myself. Hell, he used to teach beginner strings. If there’s any class requiring earplugs and sedatives, it’s that one.

  “So one day, my phone in my hand, about to call Mom to ask if she’d help me settle up my affairs in LA so I could leave this chapter of my life behind, it rang with a number
I didn’t recognize. I almost didn’t answer. Figured it was another bill collector.”

  “But you did.”

  “I did.” He sighs, his posture relaxing, his lips kicking up into a small smile. It’s obvious how grateful he is for this opportunity, that he has no intention of taking it for granted. “And that was the phone call that changed my life. Changed everything. I was seconds away from quitting, Iz. Seconds,” he emphasizes, his voice brimming with passion and intensity, the music he’s playing matching it.

  I steal a glance at the way his fingers move across the delicate ivory with ease. I could watch him play for hours and never tire of it. It’s so hypnotizing. So captivating. So mesmerizing.

  “I truly believe some bigger force intervened, saying ‘not yet’. At first, I thought it was a prank.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Think about it. If you were a struggling musician, months behind on your rent and living off Ramen noodles, something you never even had to do in college, how would you respond to getting a phone call from someone purporting to be the manager of one of the highest grossing musical acts of the past decade, offering you a job writing and producing their new album?”

  I smile. “I’d think it was a joke, too.”

  “David, their manager, knew it would probably come as a surprise. He convinced me to meet him the following morning and judge for myself. When I walked into the luxurious office in Century City, I knew it wasn’t a prank. Gold and platinum records hung on the wall. Posh furniture filled the space. Hell, I’m pretty sure even the receptionist’s shoes cost more than my rent. Christian Lou-something.”

  “Louboutins,” I interject. “They’re Christian Louboutins. They have this signature red sole that all women foam at the mouth over.”

  He cocks a brow. “Including you?”

  I pinch my lips together as I focus on the white and black keys in front of me, the melody coming easier now, even if I am sticking close to the chord progressions. Unlike Asher, who’s riffing off the tune as if it’s second nature to improvise a song on the spot.

  “A girl can dream, can’t she?” While I’m not one to spend a fortune on clothes or shoes, considering I spend most of my life wearing scrubs, I can still look. Can still pine. Can still fantasize.

  A pair of Christian Louboutins is the female equivalent of a wet dream coming true.

  “She certainly can.”

  “So, what happened next?”

  “I was brought into this incredible corner office that was bigger than my entire apartment, the five members of Fallen Grace sitting on the two couches. If I hadn’t gotten that phone call the previous night, I probably wouldn’t have recognized them, but I did some research. I’d heard of Fallen Grace, but I’m not exactly a pre-pubescent girl, so I didn’t know what they looked like.”

  “I could probably tell you which one has dimples, which one has the goatee, and which one has the ‘adorable’ birthmark right above his lip,” I retort sarcastically. “They’re just so dreamy.” I bat my lashes, mimicking the way some of my patients fawn over their teen idols.

  He chuckles. “Well, I couldn’t. I’d never even listened to their music until I got that phone call. After doing so, I wasn’t sure why they called me. Or how they even found me. My stuff isn’t the pop music they typically perform.”

  “Right. So…”

  “When I asked about it, their manager told me they were tired of the normal ‘dog and pony show’, as they called it. Wanted to go for a different, more mature sound now that they were in their mid-twenties. If they didn’t want to die the same death every other boy band seemed to, they needed to do something to make themselves attractive to a broader audience.”

  “Take the ‘boy’ out of boy band,” I offer.

  “Exactly. They’d brought in some of the top songwriters to help with the transition, but no one ‘got it’. They were all professionals who’d made a living writing melodies and lyrics that were popular. The band already knew what was popular. They didn’t want that anymore. So they started hanging out in area bars in various cities, checking out the local music scene. Incognito, of course.”

  “And they just so happened to be at a bar in LA where you were performing?” I tilt my head at him, then quickly return my attention to the piano when I hit another wrong note. After looking at Asher’s fingers to figure out where we were in the progression, I recenter my hands on an F-major-seven chord, regaining my confidence.

  “They were. Well, one of them was anyway. Grabbed a postcard I was giving out containing free download codes of the songs I’d written. Played it for the rest of the guys, then their manager. And the rest, as they say, is history.”

  “So you’re actually writing the songs for Fallen Grace’s new album?” It seems so far-fetched, like something he’d tell a girl in a bar to get her to sleep with him.

  “I am.”

  My fingers fall from the piano as it sinks in. Why didn’t he mention anything earlier? Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe he’s under a non-disclosure agreement. That would make sense, considering the band probably hasn’t gone public with this new direction yet.

  “The way you made it sound, you were only here for the weekend.”

  “I never said anything like that.” He shrugs. “You assumed.”

  “But you still didn’t correct my assumption when it was obvious what I was thinking, especially when I asked how long it takes to get here from LA. Why?”

  The music fades away as he stops playing, facing me. “I guess I wanted to make sure you were the same Isabella I remember. That you’d want to spend time with me for me. Not because of all this.” He waves a hand around. Guitars of every brand hanging along the wall. A drum kit sitting in the corner that any serious drummer would drool over. Even a wet bar with top-shelf liquor so you don’t have to venture into the house for a drink.

  Resting my hand on his arm, I lock eyes with him, refusing to look at anything else. “I’ve always enjoyed spending time with you for you, Asher. Everything else has always just been…noise.”

  A tiny exhale of air escapes his lips as they part, a slow smile building. He scoops my hand off his arm, holding it in his, running his thumb along my skin. This time, he doesn’t have an overly amorous waitress as an excuse for touching me. He doesn’t have any excuse, other than he wants to, needs to. I try to tell myself it’s a platonic gesture between two old friends, but the tenderness with which he brushes my knuckles, the darkening of his eyes, tell me that’s not the case. Tell me we could very well be playing with fire.

  An outside force pulls me toward him, a tether keeping our bodies bound to each other. As I lean closer, Asher shifts his eyes to my lips. His shoulders rise and fall in a quicker pattern, his grip on my hand tightening to the point of being nearly painful. A tumultuous tug-of-war plagues his expression. Desire, then guilt. Infatuation, then indifference. Hunger, then repulsion.

  His conscience winning out, he jumps up from the bench, stalking toward the door. “It’s almost sunrise.” His voice trembles with the aftereffects of his internal battle.

  I can’t even pretend to be surprised by his abrupt retreat. That seems to be the game we’re playing. One step forward. A giant leap backward. A promise to move ahead. Then a swift change of course. Or maybe change of heart.

  “It’s beautiful off the back patio. You should really see it. It’ll be like old times.”

  I sigh, briefly closing my eyes before standing. “Like old times,” I repeat, meeting him in the doorway.

  He offers me an apologetic smile, which I return with a nod of understanding. Then he leads me out of the recording studio and down the long corridor lined with framed prints of some of the biggest names in the industry. When we emerge into the living area, he continues toward a set of French doors, opening one and allowing me to step outside before him.

  “This way.” He rests his hand on my lower back, steering me through a luxurious patio, complete with a fire pit, past what appears to be a regula
tion pool, and up to the edge of the property. A glow has already begun to sneak out behind the mountains in the distance.

  I’d always thought Las Vegas to be flat. For the most part, it is, but this house sits on a parcel of land that’s elevated enough so I can see the Strip with no obstruction.

  “Not my favorite city in the world, but it’s home to one hell of a sunrise.”

  “Even better than at the lake house?”

  A smile radiates through his features. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far.” He rests his forearms on the steel fence surrounding the property, peering into the distance, deep in thought. I do the same, basking in what I know will be our last few minutes together. We’ve settled into our old routine. A few drinks. A bite to eat, although it used to be in the form of roasting marshmallows and hotdogs. Playing music. Watching the sunrise. Then going our separate ways.

  “I hope it’s not too bold of me to say…” He leans toward me, “but the reason I loved those sunrises was because of who I often had the pleasure of watching them with.” The heat of his breath on my neck sends an involuntary tremble racing through me.

  “Are you cold?” he asks, oblivious to the fact that my reaction was because of him. Because of his words. His honesty. His everything. “Let me grab a sweatshirt for you.” He starts toward the house, but I wrap my hand around his bicep, stopping him.

  “Don’t.” I quickly release my hold on him, increasing the space between us before I’ll no longer be able to control myself. “I wouldn’t want you to miss the sunrise.”

  I resume my position, subconsciously rubbing my arms to fight against the chill as I watch the glow make its gradual ascent over the peaks. It’s unlike any sunrise I’ve seen. One side of the mountain is in light. The other still shrouded in relative darkness. Like an eclipse.

  As I marvel at how beautiful this planet truly is, a presence approaches from behind. Asher wraps me in his embrace, pulling me into his strong body.

  “Glad to see some things never change,” he comments, running his calloused hands up and down my arms.