Staged

by Olivia Cunning

  She flushed. “I guess by that definition, I have a Steve fetish.”

  “I won’t argue that logic.”

  She splashed water at him, and he wrapped a hand around her ankle to tug her closer.

  “What do you want to do tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Besides sex?”

  “We don’t have to have sex at all,” he said.

  She begged to differ. “Isn’t that the entire reason you brought me here?”

  “No. It’s some of the reason,” he said, “I can’t deny that. But I want to be near you and get to know you better.”

  “You’ve already sealed the deal, babe. You don’t have to say things like that to get into my pants.”

  “But it’s true. Sex with you is the best I’ve ever had.”

  She snorted. Sure . . .

  “But I could have sealed the deal without going to these lengths.”

  She wished she could say he was full of himself, but she’d never been good at lying. “So why did you go to all this trouble?”

  “Easy. To make you fall in love with me.”

  Her breath caught. “Why would you want that?”

  “Because I’m ready to be in love.”

  “But I’m not,” she said without conviction.

  “Then I have more work to do.” He smiled and lifted a wet hand to her cheek.

  When he kissed her, she decided he didn’t have much work to do at all, but for Baroquen’s sake, she had to fight her developing feelings.

  Twenty

  Steve missed her already. The entire plane trip back to Los Angeles, Zach blathered on about how much fun he’d had jamming with Azura and Sage that weekend, and how Raven had dressed him up goth and taken him to some club, where Iona had let her guard down and turned out to be pretty cool to hang with. Steve was glad Zach was his typical talkative self and didn’t require much reciprocal conversation, because he doubted he could string a complete sentence together.

  “Sorry your weekend didn’t turn out better,” Zach said as they collected their luggage from beneath the plane.

  “It was perfect,” he said, the ache of longing in his chest spreading. God, he’d forgotten how much he hated that awful feeling of separation.

  Zach scowled. “Really? She didn’t even kiss you goodbye.”

  “We’ve decided to keep our relationship entirely secret until after the tour ends.” And he would try to do exactly that for her sake, but he was already miserable. How could he possibly endure three months, pretending he wasn’t completely in love with the woman?

  “That doesn’t sound like you,” Zach said.

  Steve shrugged. He didn’t want to talk about it, but he could tell by the understanding look on Zach’s face that he did. “I have to go,” Steve said. “Max called a meeting.”

  “I thought that was tomorrow.”

  It was. They had to wait for Logan to make it back from Dick Island.

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Yeah, but you’re in a funk because you can’t see your new girlfriend. I get it. And I don’t want to go home because I’m pretty sure Enrique is going to break up with me.”

  “What? Why?” Steve latched on to his friend’s romantic problem because he didn’t want to dwell on his own any longer.

  “He was pissed that I spent the weekend in Boston instead of with him.”

  “That was my fault, not yours.”

  “I am capable of booking a commercial flight.”

  “So why didn’t you?”

  “I guess I’m tired of the secrecy. Of feeling like I’m not worth much to him if he won’t even claim me as his.”

  Steve slapped him on the back. He was in a similar situation, but for a different reason. “If he kicks you out, you can always stay with me.”

  “Give up the luxurious mansion to stay in that tiny shack you call a house?”

  “Hey!” Steve happened to love his Venice Beach shack. And so did Zach. Zach always said he’d rent the place if Steve ever wanted to move someplace bigger.

  “People will talk about us.”

  Steve snorted. “Like they don’t already do that.”

  “So do you want to go hang out at the Brig?”

  “At two o’clock in the afternoon?” It had been four days since he’d last had any alcohol. He licked his lips, suddenly parched. “Yep.”

  An hour later he was deep into his third whiskey sour, surrounded by familiar faces, noisy conversation, and loud music, when he got the sudden urge to call Roux. He wasn’t supposed to call her. It had been one of their rules, but fully sober Steve had agreed to that bargain. Buzzed Steve thought their deal was probably the stupidest thing ever.

  She answered after several rings. “What’s wrong?” She sounded breathless.

  “You’re not here.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Some bar near my house. How soon can you get here?”

  “I’m rehearsing. I’ll be rehearsing all week. I asked you not to call me unless it was an emergency.”

  “This is an emergency. I miss you.”

  Zach sniggered. Four or five of their bar buddies, who’d joined them at their regular table, burst into fits of laughter. Perhaps Steve should have taken the call outside.

  “I miss you too, but I have to work. Please don’t call me unless it’s a real emergency.”

  “But I can text you, though, right?”

  “I need this time to prepare for the show, Steve. You promised you’d give me space.”

  He had. But he hadn’t realized how hard being without her would be and how quickly he’d need to see her again. “I’ll try to control my impulses.” Which was never going to happen when he’d been drinking.

  “It was good to hear your voice,” she said.

  He smiled.

  “But I don’t want to hear it again for a week.”

  He frowned. There had to be some way he could get her to break her stupid rules.

  “I’m hanging up. I still more than like you.”

  A fluttery feeling filled his chest. “I more than like you too.”

  When he hung up, he noticed that his typically noisy companions were completely silent and gawking at him.

  “Steve has a woman?” Mike’s eyes were wide as he glanced at Zach and back at Steve. “I thought you two . . .”

  Zach rolled his eyes. “Have you been reading the tabloids, dude?”

  “I thought it was odd, because Steve is usually surrounded by more pussy than he can handle.”

  “I can handle it,” Steve claimed, downing the remains of adult beverage number three.

  “But maybe that’s just a cover for the truth,” Mike added.

  “You hang out with us all the time,” Zach said. “Do you honestly think we’re more than friends?”

  “I knew that story was complete bullshit,” Matt said. “And the one about you and that pretty boy actor, what’s his name?” He looked to Mike to fill in the blank.

  “Enrique something or other.”

  Zach dropped his drink. “Fuck.”

  While several guys grabbed tiny napkins to stop Zach’s drink from reaching their laps, Steve grabbed Zach’s arm to keep him in his chair.

  “Which tabloid did you read that in?” Steve asked Mike. “Was it the American Inquirer?” Because it was one thing for Bianca to fuck with him and an entirely different thing for her to fuck with his best friend.

  “It’s online,” Mike said. “Viral even.”

  “Fuck!” Zach said, shrugging off Steve’s hold and jumping to his feet. “He’s going to kill me.”

  “Why? You didn’t do anything.” Steve rose and grasped Zach’s shoulders. “Take a breath.”

  “I promised no one would ever find out.”

  “You mean it’s true?” Mike shouted.

  The bar, which wasn’t overly crowded at that hour, went completely silent, and all eyes turned toward them.

  “Mind your own business,” Steve snarled. He directed Zach out of t
he dimly lit bar and into the bright Southern California sunshine.

  “He must not know,” Zach said. “He’d have called me if he knew. Do you think it would be better if he heard it from me first?”

  Zach’s phone rang. He closed his eyes, and Steve felt his dread in the pit of his own stomach.

  “If he really cares about you, he’ll claim you as his and stand up for you.”

  Zach pulled his phone out of a pocket and checked the screen. He released a relieved breath. “It’s only Toby.” The lead singer of Zach’s band.

  “S’up?” Zach answered and started to walk toward the beach a few blocks away. Steve followed. “Yeah, I just heard about it.” He stopped walking and pressed his fingertips to his forehead. “No, I don’t think he’ll star in our next music video.” Zach rolled his eyes at Steve. “I’m not going to ask him. He didn’t want anyone to know about us in the first place.” Zach breathed out a frustrated sigh. “Yeah, whatever. We would have never gotten to tour with Ex End this summer if it weren’t for me, so you can shove your guilt trip straight up your ass.” Zach hung up on Toby and gestured to Steve. “Vocalists.”

  Steve grinned, knowing exactly what Zach was dealing with. Max was also the sort who’d do anything for fame.

  “Do you have a plan?” Steve asked.

  “Hide out at your place and pretend I’m dead.”

  Steve slapped him on the back. “Good plan.” Of course, he would have said that about any plan Zach devised. While Steve understood Zach’s issues with Twisted Element’s overzealous vocalist, he had a harder time knowing what it would be like to be in love with a dude who refused to come out of the closet. Or what it was like to be in love with any dude, for that matter. He and Zach didn’t go into details about their love lives.

  They started to walk in the direction of Steve’s house. It was only a few blocks away from the bar, which was good, because neither of them had any business driving.

  “I can’t believe you called Roux in front of the guys,” Zach said, snorting on a laugh. “I more than like you,” he mocked, darting away when Steve took a swing at him.

  Steve knew Zach was trying to divert his thoughts from his own problems, so he didn’t take his teasing too hard. “Would you rather me tell her I love her?”

  “Don’t you?”

  Steve allowed his fist to drop to his side. “Yeah, I think I do.”

  “Hopeless romantic.” Zach fluttered his lashes at him.

  “No one would ever believe that about me,” Steve said. “Everyone knows I’m an asshole with a different woman in my bed every night.”

  “I know better.” Zach scrunched his brows together. “Though you do bang a lot of chicks.”

  “I did, but now I have someone I care about. I won’t bang any chicks but her.”

  Zach chuckled. “We’ll see how long that lasts when you’re in Europe.”

  Steve had dealt with quite a few sexually aggressive European women on past tours. He typically loved the type; he didn’t even have to try to seduce them. Was that why he got so tangled up in Roux, because she was the opposite of what he was accustomed to?

  “And without me to keep you in line . . .” Zach shook his head piteously.

  “Since your romance is on the rocks, you might as well come to Europe as my personal assistant.”

  “Your personal assistant? No way in hell.”

  “Beer caddie?”

  Zach grinned. “Do you tip well?”

  “Nope. But you should call Enrique. Maybe he’s figured out he can’t live without you.”

  “I’m thinking probably not.” Zach blew out a heavy breath. “Love sucks.”

  Not when it was shared with Roux. But did she love him? Or just more than like him?

  “If you’re not going to call Enrique, maybe I should call Roux.”

  “Didn’t you just talk to her?”

  “Yeah, but she didn’t have time to talk to me then.” He wouldn’t allow himself to entertain the notion that she didn’t want to talk to him. “Maybe she does now.”

  Zach laughed and shoved him in the back. “Dude, you aren’t a hopeless romantic. You’re just fucking hopeless.”

  Steve waved at his neighbor as he passed the small walled garden the man was tending. Jim had a way with climbing roses. The entire front of his little house was covered in blooms of various colors, sizes, and scents. Steve was certain Roux would love the place. His own plain house next door? He wasn’t as sure about. His house was small and modest with cedar shingle siding painted a soft sage green. A pair of large palm trees rustled on either side of the brick walkway. The rock garden that made up the entire tiny front yard had a few low maintenance spiky succulents grouped in clusters, but he simply didn’t have the time or attention span to have a more elaborate yard. He’d bought the house—which had been a falling-down shack then—over fifteen years ago, before Venice Beach had become outrageously expensive, before Exodus End had exploded in popularity, before he’d married Bianca. As a wedding gift, he’d bought her the big, fancy house of her dreams in Malibu, but he’d rented out the Venice Beach place because he couldn’t bear to part with it. In the divorce she’d gotten the Malibu mansion and he’d gotten the hovel. He couldn’t have been more pleased with that outcome.

  After his months of solitude back on the farm, this was the home that had welcomed him back to his life in California. He’d since invested some money into fixing it up. It was no longer a falling-down shack, but it was still modest, and the designer he’d hired had been from Venice Beach. She’d understood the landscape, the culture, the quirky artistic nature of the neighborhood, and the décor reflected all that. Steve’s little house was an artist’s—a musician’s—dream. But it had only one small bedroom. Zach would have to take the couch.

  The house was stuffy from being closed up for months, so he opened the windows, which faced the ocean breeze, in the small but functional kitchen. He inhaled the crisp air that flowed inside. He’d missed the smell of the ocean. He might have been raised in the middle of the country, but this was home to him.

  “Where are you going to put all your kids when you marry Roux?” Zach asked, ducking his chin to hide a grin.

  “Bunk beds to the rafters.” He pointed toward the roof, which, after the remodeling that had removed the low ceilings, was all exposed beams. The beams had been painted black against a pitch-sloped white background to add “architectural interest” to what had been a claustrophobic box before the drywall had been removed. The silver crescent-shaped blades of the high ceiling fans became a blur as he turned them on with a remote control.

  Zach had gone still. When Steve looked at him, he was scowling.

  “You’re really serious about this woman, aren’t you?” Zach asked.

  “Was there ever any doubt?”

  “Things are going to change again,” he said. “Like they did when you were with Bianca.”

  Steve had been so busy trying to make his marriage work that he’d neglected his friendship with Zach for those years. Zach hadn’t replaced his best friend with another, he’d just become incredibly lonely. He was the kind of guy who didn’t let many people get close to him, and those he did, he loved fiercely. Forever. Steve wondered if Zach had allowed Enrique to get that close to him. If he had, Steve predicted devastation in his near future, and he’d be taking Zach to Europe with him for sure.

  “Roux is nothing like Bianca. Her true beauty is on the inside.”

  Zach lifted his gaze to the rafters.

  “Don’t get me wrong. She’s absolutely gorgeous on the outside, but I’ve been with plenty of beautiful women, and she outshines them all.”

  Zach pressed his lips together and snorted. “If I wasn’t so damned happy for you, I’d knock some sense into you. You’ve known her for only a few weeks.”

  “Hey, when it’s right, it’s right.”

  “I’m going to call Enrique now.”

  “And break up with him?”

  “I’m
going to try to convince him that he can’t live without me.”

  “Did he even call you once while you were in Boston?”

  Zach shook his head. “And I didn’t miss him much. I was too busy listening to the incessant nagging of women. You left me there with a dozen of them for two days.”

  Women adored Zach by default. Steve figured he’d have a good time with them. Zach hadn’t really complained about his time with Mama Ramona’s girls until now, but maybe he had been nice for Steve’s benefit.

  “So they drove you nuts?”

  Zach grinned. “Naw. They made me feel like a new man. I hadn’t realized how down I was about being kicked off the tour. But Ramona has this way of healing emotional wounds. You need to sit down with her and have a talk someday. I thought maybe she was a head shrink or something, but do you know what she used to be?”

  Steve sorted through things Roux had mentioned about her foster mother. “Music teacher,” he blurted.

  “A music professor, actually.”

  “Professor?” Well, that sounded important.

  “All the girls she’s raised play an instrument. It’s remarkable how she’s healed them all and made them whole. Each has a tragic past, but good luck trying to get any of them to talk about specifics.”

  Steve’s heart panged at the thought of the real-life nightmare that had destroyed Roux’s biological family. She’d talked to him about her past right away. Had she known he was a sucker for that kind of thing? Or had she been hoping to scare him away?

  “I think that’s what makes Roux and her sisters so strong. So beautiful on the inside.”

  Zach slapped him on the arm. “I wish I’d had more time with your girl,” he said. “If she’s anything like her sisters, you’ve scored a top prize.”

  “You’re assuming she’ll want to continue being with me after she sees how I act on tour.” Well, usually acted. But he had the feeling he’d be too busy chasing after a certain woman to pursue his typical diversions.

  “Are you nuts? Of course she’ll still want to be with you. I saw the way she looked at you when she didn’t kiss you goodbye.” He winked at Steve.

  This was the main reason Zach had always been his best friend. Steve didn’t have to play the macho bullshit card with him, but he played it constantly with every other guy he hung around with. Everyone but Zach would be completely flabbergasted if confronted by Steve’s deeper, gentler side. He guarded his tender heart like a Rottweiler; Bianca’s betrayal could be blamed for that. But Steve figured he’d finally be able to get past that and give the guy he used to be a chance to come back into the light after so many years of being shoved into a dark corner and left to die. Roux’s love could be blamed for that.