by Tracey Ward
“How about a food truck? There are some amazing ones down here in the theater district.”
“You want to eat at a food truck?”
“What’s the matter?” she asks with a mocking grin. “Don’t you eat street meat in L.A.?”
“I’m sure someone there does.”
“But not you.”
“It’s literally never come up.”
“Maybe today’s the day you break your streak.”
I grimace. “Yeah, maybe not. What if I meet you halfway?”
“Halfway between street meat and a four-course dinner at The Plaza?”
“Somewhere in there, yeah.”
“I have literally no idea where that would be.”
I flip my phone in my hand, grinning crookedly. “I do.”
I call a car. We could walk, but me walking on the streets isn’t always a good idea. I get followed everywhere by the paparazzi and they’re very aware I’m in New York right now. They were waiting outside my hotel this morning. They followed me to get my coffee. To the studio. They’re probably outside waiting for me right now, a fact that should worry me. Greer is beautiful and half-dressed. No way they don’t blast a picture of us jumping into a car together all over the internet by the time we get our seatbelts buckled. Grant will be pissed. Sarah will have my balls. They’ll remind me that I’m supposed to keep my nose clean, keep away from women entirely.
But take one look at this girl and tell me how the fuck I’m supposed to do that.
We walk down the empty stairwell together as we wait for the call from the car telling us they’re here. Greer’s duffle looks huge on her small shoulder, so I take it from her without a word, hoisting it onto my own. She looks up at me in surprise but smiles gratefully without a word. I love the way her lips curl around her happiness. It’s pure, unabashed beauty. It’s innocence come to life and I’d give just about anything to taste it.
“Are you nervous about the concert?”
I chuckle at the question. “No. I’ve done a million of them.”
“I just thought—” She shakes her head, her hair tumbling over her shoulders. “Never mind.”
“You thought this one would be different.”
Greer looks at me briefly as we turn on a landing, heading for the last set of stairs. “I figured since you replaced your whole band and dancers and everything, and with what happened before…” She shrugs, letting the sentence dangle.
“You mean when the world saw my dick?”
“Yeah,” she laughs. “That.”
“It doesn’t bother me.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, I don’t really give a shit,” I tell her flippantly. I slip her bag off my shoulder, dropping it down on the last step. I park my ass on the step two above it. “It’s everyone else who’s losing their minds. My label, my agent, my publicist. My fans. I’m only doing all this because they say I need to, but I don’t really care. I don’t think it’s going to change anything.”
She stands in front of me, studying me. I wonder what she finds. I’m not trying to hide anything. I’m being real with her; I really don’t care about the show or any of the bad publicity. I wish everyone would calm down and leave me alone about it, but that’s not going to happen. This concert is like Internal. It’s a way to pacify everyone else. It’s a single hose fighting against a wild fire. Maybe it’ll buy us time to bring in reinforcements. Maybe not. Either way, I have no hope it’s going to totally douse the burning inferno of my life.
“Who reworked your songs?” she asks curiously.
“I did. Why?”
“They’re good. I mean, they were good before, but the new sound is great.”
“You like it?” I ask, genuinely surprised.
“I love it. You did an amazing job crossing them over.”
I chew on that, not sure how it tastes. “I’m still working on the rest of the set.”
“I can’t wait to hear it. It’s like the songs are brand new, you know? I’ve heard them a hundred times, but when they’re refreshed like this, it’s totally different. With how many songs you have out there, you could build your own musical around your work. Like they did for The Beatles.”
I chuckle. “I doubt anyone would come to that show. I’m not exactly The Beatles.”
“No, but you’re definitely something. There’s a story in all those chords. You just have to find it and tell it.” She gives me an easy smile. “And remember me when you cast it.”
I grin, spinning the bill of my hat around to the back. “You’d deserve a production credit, at least.”
“I’d take that. I wouldn’t have to watch what I eat if I were a producer.”
“I hope you’re not watching your diet today,” I warn her. “Not with where we’re going.”
“You’re not going to tell me where, are you?”
“You’ll find out when we get there.”
“Mysterious,” she sings sweetly.
I chuckle, feeling like it’s infectious. It’s that Madsen Effect again. It’s the reason I can’t look away from her. The reason why I’m scanning her from head to toe even though I know what she looks like. I just like looking. I like seeing her. Drinking her in like a rare vintage that makes me relaxed just swirling it in my glass. Just knowing it’s there.
When my eyes get to her legs, I frown. I reach out to touch her, running my fingertips down her shin where a big purple bruise has formed.
I hear her take in a quick breath when my skin touches hers.
“What happened there?” I ask. I don’t take my fingers away. They move slowly up and down her leg.
“I tripped up a flight of stairs,” she answers quietly.
“It looks like it hurt.”
“I was drunk. It wasn’t that bad.”
“You should have iced it right away. It wouldn’t have swelled up like this.”
“I couldn’t.”
I look up at her. She’s staring down at me, her eyes burning. Her lips parted and excited.
I know the feeling.
“Why not?”
“Because my roommate was in the apartment with a friend.”
“You mean he was having sex?”
She swallows. “Yeah. That’s exactly what I mean.”
I reach around the back of her calf, wrapping my hand around her leg so I can run my thumb lightly over the bruise. I’m careful not to touch it too roughly. Just a whisper across her skin that makes us both breathe a little deeper. “How did you know?”
“I could hear them,” she answers, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Really?”
“New Jersey could hear them.”
I smile. “What were they saying?”
Her mouth opens wider, her cheeks flushing pretty and pink. She shakes her head. “I don’t remember.”
“You’re lying.”
“I was drunk,” she reminds me.
“You’re still lying.”
“I shouldn’t be talking about this with you.”
“No. You shouldn’t.” I tug on the back of her leg, pulling her closer. She’s at the bottom of the steps, her legs nearly between mine. Her breasts level with my eyes. My mouth. “But wouldn’t it be fun if you did?”
She’s breathing quickly. I can feel it from her mouth, see it in her chest as it rises and falls in front of me. Her hands are on my shoulders, steadying herself, but when she runs them up the sides of my neck, that’s for pleasure. She’s holding my head in her hands and I’m fighting the urge to stand up and kiss her.
“What did she say?” I whisper.
She licks her lips, releasing a thick breath through her nose. “‘Fuck me. Fuck me’.”
I blink hard, holding my shit together the best I can. I run my hands up the back of her legs, up high until I’m cupping her ass in my palms and my dick is dancing to life in my shorts. “What did he say?”
“He said he was gonna come,” she breathes.
My hands clench on
her ass, gripping her hard. “Say it.”
“Say what?”
“What he said. I wanna hear you say it.”
Her eyes flutter, nearly closing. Her hands grip my neck harder. I see her struggle. She’s fighting something. I want to end it for her. I want to hoist her onto my lap, feel her heat against my stomach, and taste her tongue with mine. But it’s her move. She has to decide. A sweet thing like her, it’s so much better when they come to you. When they want you more than whatever is holding them back. A boyfriend, a job, a promise to themselves. I want to be bigger than all of that. I want to be something they can’t say no to.
I want to be something.
“‘I’m gonna come’,” she whispers.
I slide my hand back down her ass. My fingers press between her thighs, pushing inside. Pushing up into the warmth that’s waiting for me. Taunting me.
Greer whimpers faintly, the sound clear like a bell.
It hurts down into my heart.
“Did he come, Greer?” I move my fingers deeper, pressing harder against her, desperate to find a way inside her. To make her hurt like I hurt. “Did he come inside her?”
She nods slowly, her eyes glazing over. Her fingers digging urgently into my neck. Her resolve fading fast.
My phone pings in my pocket.
The car is here.
Greer blinks, stumbling back out of my reach. She’s stunned but recovering quickly. She takes a deep, steadying breath before drawing a smile on her flushed face. It’s fake. It’s a stage prop. It’s a lie I can spot from a mile away because it’s the same one I tell every day. I don’t like it on her face. It doesn’t reach her eyes the way her other smiles do. It doesn’t reach me either.
“I—um.” She takes another breath, running her hands through her hair. “I should go. Yeah, I really should go.”
“Don’t,” I grunt, grabbing her bag as I stand up. “The car is waiting to take us to dinner.”
“I don’t think we sh—”
“It’s just dinner,” I promise, knowing it’s not true.
I just tried to finger fuck her in the stairwell. And if the car hadn’t gotten here when it did, she would have let me. We’re pushing past boundaries fast and hard. It’s reckless. It’s a problem. It’s also hot as fuck and I have no intention of stopping. But right now, I’m going to buy her dinner. I’m going to give her space to try to convince us both that we can manage this thing between us because otherwise she’ll run. And I don’t want that.
“You don’t have to worry.” I open the door, unleashing the crowd of paparazzi waiting outside for us. “We won’t be alone.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Greer
“’Jace Ryker Is At It Again!’” Cam reads. He scrolls down the screen on his cell phone. “Do you want to see the picture?”
I pull a pillow off the couch and press it tightly over my face. “No.”
“What was that?”
“I said no!” I shout, my voice muffled by the fabric.
“You look good.”
“No!”
“Suit yourself.
I drop the pillow to my lap. “This is embarrassing. Why is it embarrassing? All of New York thinks I’m dating one of the hottest guys on the planet and I’m freaking out. It makes no sense.”
“No one thinks you’re dating. They think he’s just fucking you for fun while he’s here.”
“And that’s better how?”
Cam shrugs. “It makes more sense to be embarrassed that you’re a discard waiting to happen.”
“Ugh.”
“Is he?”
“Embarrassed? I doubt it. He doesn’t care about anything.”
“No, I don’t mean is he embarrassed. I mean is he fucking you for fun?”
I glare at Cam. “No.”
“But he wants to.”
“I don’t know.”
He looks at me dubiously. “I think you do. I think everyone in that rehearsal room knows.”
“Ugh,” I groan again. I sink deeper into the couch. “This is humiliating.”
“I thought you’d be excited. He’s the first guy you ever flicked your bean to and he wants to do it for you now. You’ve come full circle. It’s poetic.”
“There’s nothing poetic about bean flicking.”
“If you think that’s true, you’re not doing it right,” Cam mutters, squinting at his phone. “You guys went to the Shake Shack?”
“I refused to go to some five-star nightmare and he wouldn’t eat from a street cart, so we compromised.”
“Shake Shack is not in the middle of those two extremes.”
“Sorry, Cam. We didn’t draw a graph and triangulate the exact place we should go. He’d never been there before. He wanted to try it.”
“Did he like it?”
“He said he did.”
“You sound like you don’t believe him.”
I pick at the edge of the pillow absently. “Why would he lie about it?”
“That was going to be my next question.”
“He—sometimes it—” I pause, trying to figure it out in my head. “It feels like he doesn’t know what he likes.”
“We know he likes your ass,” Cam teases.
I throw the pillow at him. “Shut. Up.”
He laughs as he settles the pillow in his lap. “What do you mean he doesn’t know what he likes?”
“It’s just a feeling I get. Like he’s not really into anything. He just does it because he’s supposed to.”
“Is this about that song again?” Cam asks tiredly. “Because seriously, Greer, it’s one song.”
“It’s not just Internal.”
“What else is it?”
“He ordered a chocolate and vanilla mixed shake.”
Cam laughs. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“That’s not a real shake! That’s a non-flavor. That’s two flavors mixed together for no other reason than you can’t decide between them.”
“What’s wrong with that? People order chocolate and peanut butter all the time.”
“No. That’s not the same. Chocolate and peanut butter, together those basically are a single flavor. Chocolate and vanilla, that’s two opposites. That’s not a thing.”
“Okay. So he has weird taste in ice cream. Big deal.”
“It’s not weird taste. It’s like it’s no taste at all.”
He looks at me patiently. “Do you feel, even a little bit, like you’re reading too much into this?”
“You asked. I’m answering.”
“And your answers are kind of paranoid.” Cam looks at the clock with a grimace. “I gotta get going. I’ve got a dinner thing.”
“With who?”
“Jace Ryker. He’s taking me to McDonald’s. Probably gonna order a parfait with chocolate sauce on top and I’ll call him out on his disinterest in life.”
“That’s not what I said and fuck you so much!”
Cam throws the pillow back at me. It hits me square in the face, blacking out the world. “I’ll see you later, psycho.”
“Ugh,” I growl for the third time today. I’m turning feral.
I hear Cam slipping his shoes on by the door. He rattles the locks, disengaging them all until the door creaks open. I wait in the dark of my pillow fort for the sound of the door closing behind him, but it doesn’t happen.
I toss the pillow aside. Cam is standing up from a crouch in the hallway. He’s holding a small brown box in his hands, a thoughtful crease on his brow.
“What’s that?” I ask curiously.
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t say who it’s from but it’s addressed to you.”
I sit up quickly, feeling instantly nervous. I have no idea why. There’s a certain level of constant apprehension that lives with you when you’re on the streets, and it’s a tough tenant to evict. I feel fear for no reason. I get rumblings of dread in my stomach, and the only explanation I have is that I don’t like surprises. Th
ey never bring good news.
Cam hands me the package before heading out the door. Wherever he’s going, it’s more interesting than what’s inside this mystery box. As I pull the tape back off the cardboard, I wonder if it’s Samantha. Is that who he’s sneaking off to see so randomly? Is he dating her now or just fucking her? Do they go to her apartment or only here? Have they done it on this couch?
I stand up, taking my package to my room where I know it’s safe. Or at least I think I’m safe, until the box starts ringing. I instantly think it’s a bomb because, yes, I am paranoid. I toss it away from me. It skitters across the hardwood floor in the hall where it bangs to a stop against the bathroom door. But it doesn’t stop ringing. It also doesn’t blow up, but that means nothing. I still look at it like it’s a snake that’s crawled up out of the toilet and is invading my apartment.
I wait for it to stop ringing before I pick it up again. In reality, I don’t think it’s a bomb. It’s weird, though, and like surprises, I don’t really like weird. I like vanilla. I like predictable and constant. I like security and questions with answers, not boxes that ring for no reason with no return address.
I take it into the bathroom and park my ass on the white ceramic surround of the tub. The box sits small and silent in my lap. I dance my fingers across the top of it, feeling for a loose edge to the tape sealing it, curling my toes anxiously into the rug underneath me. When I find one, I take a breath before ripping it open quickly. Painlessly. Like a Band Aide.
Inside is bubble wrap. Lots of it. I fight the temptation to pop a few circles, instead digging down deeper until I find the phone I knew would be inside. It’s big and blocky. And pink. I frown at it as I turn it over in my palm. It’s brand new. The protective tape is still on its front and back, but it’s unboxed.
And ringing again.
I flip it back over to face the screen. The caller ID flashes impatiently at me, the caller’s name already programmed in.
Jace.
“Holy shit,” I whisper.
I don’t answer it. I let it ring until voicemail picks it up and the screen goes dark. The room falls silent, but the echo of the chime is still singing in my ears. It’s a siren call. It’s beautiful and enticing, but it will destroy me. I know it in every fiber of my being.