Hung Out: A Needles and Pins Rock Romance

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Hung Out: A Needles and Pins Rock Romance Page 36

by Creed, Lyrica


  I’m not. She put on her brightest smile. “Thanks.” Her gaze slid down from his face in her own appraisal, but she froze before reaching his waist when a pang pierced her heart. Lifting her eyes back to his, she wrung her hands unseen. “You look good too.” She didn’t say happy. Because that would be as much a lie as the word had been to describe her.

  Although in prime physical form, his lean physique now filled out and cut, he bore shadows beneath his bedroom eyes and stress lines at the corners of his sexy lips.

  “Where do we go from here?” He moved a few paces in the other direction and then turned back. “You said you needed to think about things. And we never talked about it after that.”

  Swallowing the aching clump in her throat, she parted her lips, but speech didn’t come, and he continued.

  “You avoided my calls. Didn’t return messages.”

  “It wasn’t like that!”

  “It was exactly like that. Until that day, in the barn, you replied to every text. Answered every time on the first ring. Afterward, I was lucky if you got back to me every other time. And you know what? You never reached out to me first, ever again.”

  “You killed us. Not me.” When his face went ashen, she realized what she’d said. There was his answer. They were going nowhere from here.

  “I can say it a thousand times, and you’ll still never know how sorry I am. How fucking much I regret being an idiot.” His words were almost a whisper.

  Thinking about the senselessness of all that had happened was infuriating. They had withstood with superhero strength the aftermath of a viral sex video, and yet, her stupid selfie video had been their kryptonite.

  “I know you’re sorry. But apologies don’t change the truth. It happened. You thought that shit of me. That I would be alone with Colt and God knows what else with him. That’s insulting but understandable given the shitty stuff we’ve both seen and lived through. But you broke it off. Without asking me to explain. Without wanting me to tell you the truth. And that right there… I can’t get past that. I can’t get over that.” Her breath hitched dangerously. If she wasn’t careful, she’d be in tears in two seconds. “…that to you I was so easy to throw away…”

  “You weren’t! Nothing about that—this—is easy!”

  “You know what, Gage? If that had happened the other way around… If I’d seen a video of you and that girl at your rehab, and my mind got all twisted up, I would have asked you—begged you to tell me something other than what I was thinking. And then no matter how outlandish and no matter whether or not it was the truth, I would’ve believed you. That’s how much I loved you. And I thought you loved me back that much.”

  Looking as if he might cry too, he moved in, reaching out.

  In her haste to back up, she tripped. Nothing new. Emotions and motion were not compatible in her body.

  He dropped to his knees beside her, tenderness and regret brimming in the brown of his eyes. When his fingers curled gently around her wrist, she snatched it back. “Go. Just go. Please!”

  He was slow to rise, but when he did, he pulled her up with him and inclined his chin in a nod of acceptance. Drifting toward the door, he forked his fingers through his hair. His lips parted, his words barely audible. “That’s why I didn’t ask. Exactly what you said. I knew I would believe anything. And that scared the fuck outta me.” He looked as if he wanted to say more. But without a word, he twisted open the door, and disappeared into the hallway when he pulled it closed behind him.

  Chapter 17

  Randomly grabbing a guitar, he dropped onto the studio couch. But he didn’t play. The silence of the house pulsated inside his skull.

  This was how it was supposed to be. He’d always known. Deep in the back of his brain. That he’d lose her. And even if he didn’t, he should. He wanted better for her than him. She had lived a life of mental adversity too. She deserved to fly through life from this point on with no checked baggage—i.e. his baggage.

  But it hurt. Fuck, how it hurt.

  Rascal climbed into the couch and propped his head across the hem of his jeans.

  Without thinking, he strummed the Taylor, and eventually he hummed along with the chords of each mournful key.

  A process of elimination. Mentally, he went through the possibilities. A chemical fix was out. Alcohol? No. Drinking while he was like this would only lead to a drunken binge, which would lead to God knew what else. So what? What would blur the sharp edges of pain?

  A-minor, he switched, plucking out an even more somber tune, continuing to modulate the humming hurt from his throat to harmonize.

  He shouldn’t have come home. Should have gone straight from Scar’s to… To where? Where did he have to go? He had been a loner so long that he had no one.

  Along with chemicals, women had once filled this chasm in his soul, but he had no desire for companionship of the opposite sex—unless it was Scar.

  The person besides Scar he was closest with? Colt, who had evolved into a brother from another mother. Except the new lineup of Fire Flight had changed everything between them. Colt was Fire Flight’s new frontman, just as he had threatened. Although he’d tried not to, he felt betrayed. In their few texts and calls, Colt had never mentioned the new guitarist. However, when he had searched this new addition to Fire Flight on the internet, the pictures he found that included Colt showed the two looking pretty chummy.

  The night he’d perused these pics, he’d wanted to call Scarlette. But she’d already distanced herself at the time and he’d resisted the impulse. Just like now, as weird as it was, he wanted to lean on Scar for support of their own breakup! How fucked up was that?

  Rascal began licking at his jeans. Intently, as if he’d spilled steak drippings on his knee. The action was so weird, his fingers tapered off. Only when the guitar went silent did he hear himself and immediately hushed his keening cries.

  Bringing a hand up, he was startled to find his face wet. In a panic, he wiped at his eyes and cheeks. Crying? He was fuckin’ crying. And wailing aloud! Un-fucking acceptable.

  Leaping up, he traded the acoustic for an electric and powered up a laptop. Work was the only thing that would get him through the night. No matter that for the first time since he was a teenager he had no band. He’d block that part out of his head and create.

  Once the night was over, he would figure something out to get him through the day.

  Chapter 18

  “Scarlette! Hey, beautiful, how are you today?” The greetings rang out around her, and she slowed her pace to smile, taking in a few familiar faces behind camera snouts. “Who’s with you today? Can you comment on the video?”

  The last question snapped her last nerve, but she held her smiling countenance until she was safe behind the tinted windows of her ride. As she powered the engine to life, the passenger door closed and Derrick turned astounded eyes to her.

  “Damn. That’s crazy. Is it like that everywhere you go?”

  “Just the usual paparazzi hangouts.” And my hangouts once they figure them out. And my house if they’re bored. Keeping her inner replies silent, she curved a smile. “And LAX is one of those hangouts.”

  “I could have taken a cab.”

  “It would have been a fortune. Besides, I couldn’t wait to see you.” When he remained contemplative, she asked, “What?”

  “It’s just weird. Seeing you like this. I still can’t believe you never told any of us. Who you are.”

  “You know who I am. That, making nice for the cameras is who they want me to be.”

  “So where are you taking me first?”

  “You know those lobster tacos we were addicted to back home?” The moment she said home, it felt weird on her tongue. Her mother still lived in Belize. But it was no longer home. Even now that she and Gage were apart, L.A. felt like home. “Wait until you taste the fish tacos here.”

  “I like your priorities,” he mumbled between bites a half hour later. “You’re totally right about these tacos!” />
  Wadding up the empty paper wrap now that her last taco was digesting, she fisted it as she thought of the last time she and Gage had been to this food truck. There had been no contact with him for almost two months, and it had been the longest two months of her life.

  When Derrick had hinted about spending fall break in L.A., she had considered the idea for a week before finally agreeing. Now she studied him with a slant of her eyes behind shades while keeping her face to the ocean. Could she go through with this? She hadn’t been with anyone sexually since that day with Gage in a barn.

  Derrick chattered about acquaintances they had in Belize. He had her laughing with some of the funnier stories. They walked the beach, and it seemed natural when he grabbed her hand. It felt good. But she casually pulled away and tried not to be obvious when looking uneasily around for phones pointed at her or paparazzi snouts.

  They were sitting in the sand and the sun was beginning a steady sink into the ocean when her phone buzzed. Pulling it from her pocket, she read the text, and then stretched as she got to her feet.

  “Ready?”

  “Whenever.” He shrugged his agreement.

  “I’ve got a paper due when break is over. A guy I know is bringing me by some notes. He had the class last semester.”

  “What made you decide not to go to Bastyr?”

  Now she was the one to shrug. It had been near impossible to seek admission at the last minute, although she’d been told she could talk directly to the dean and speed things up. With things already going bad between her and Gage, she’d considered going back to Belize. In the end, she had stayed here, in the first place she’d ever felt at home.

  In the grand scheme of things, she had decided she wanted to apply her allopathic studies to chemical detoxification in a private rehab setting. Looking through the materials from Shady Oasis had made up her mind.

  Chemical detoxification had an eighty percent relapse rate. But, facilities like the one Gage was in, which used allopathic means to rid the impurities stored in fatty tissues, such as the method I’d already used on Gage, had only a thirty percent relapse rate.

  “I’m not sure.” Looking up she saw he hadn’t taken her shrug for an answer. “A lot of things, I guess.”

  “A relationship?”

  They had come to her car and she jolted to a stop, looking over the top of it as he rounded to the passenger side. “You mean…? No. Logan’s a friend. Only. Believe me.” She unlocked the door and they both settled in.

  “You sound almost hostile about that.”

  Checking her mirror, she pulled into traffic and then took a second to look over his teasing grin. “He’s Gage’s’ P.A.”

  “Oh.” Derrick clamped his lips closed and his brows drew together. “Enough said.”

  She couldn’t help but giggle, and he ran the tips of his fingers over the evening shadow on his jaw. “What happened with him, Scarla? Were you two…?”

  He knew about the sex clip. Even before she had mentioned it to him, word had gotten around in their circles. In the course of several conversations, a lot of what had happened since she’d arrived in L.A. had come out. But she’d always just grazed the subject of Gage.

  “Yeah.” Turning on her blinker, she eased into the exit nearest her home. “We were. I thought I loved him. But he’s a damn rock star. And he lives the life.” Was that fair to say now that he was out of rehab and onto a better tack? Maybe not. Only time would tell. But it was what was easiest to believe. Different worlds didn’t smack so much of rejection.

  They grew quiet while he D.J.’d from her playlist. She made the left from the boulevard into her subdivision, and another left onto her road. Here she groaned as she took her foot from the brake and let the car coast.

  He looked up from the songs in queue, silently questioning the outburst. She pointed to the white Accord she was very aware of these days. While she explained, he frowned.

  “Why does he seem familiar? Who is that?”

  “He’s nobody. A paps who won’t leave me alone for some reason.” She flipped her visor down when the paps guy straightened his squatty frame from his slouch against his car and pointed a camera at the windshield.

  From the digging Mike’s investigator had done, she’d learned the man’s name. Wayne Ketchum. According to the PI, he was a new addition to paparazzi faces, and he was more focused on her than other celebrities.

  “Don’t look at him.” Reaching over, she flipped the passenger visor down, and remembering the moon roof, she pressed the button, gliding it closed. She knew the late evening sun shining through the top of the car illuminated them even through the dark tint.

  “He just looks like… very familiar.”

  The gate slid closed behind the bumper, and she eased into her place in the garage. She breathed easier when the heavy door rolled down, cutting them off from the public world.

  “Are these people dangerous?”

  “Paparazzi?” They continued to sit in the car while she texted the downstairs neighbor who had been formally introduced as security detail shortly after she’d figured it out. “No. Just a nuisance. The ones like him are. But my bodyguard will get rid of him.” She felt her mouth twitch into a grin when his eyes widened.

  “You have a bodyguard? That’s who you were texting just now?”

  Nodding, she enjoyed the shock factor now when her anger had ebbed.

  “Damn, Scarla. This shit is crazy.”

  “I know. But the perks are good.” She popped open her door, and he followed suit. “Not slaving at a bar between classes for scratch. Not sweating my tuition, rent, and bills month to month…”

  “I have to say,” Derrick ran a hand over the hood of the Camry as he rounded it. “I’m disappointed in you. Any car your heart desires, and you passed on a Beamer or a Maserati, or…” He let the possibilities trail.

  “A Tesla.” She supplied, having already thought it out. “I’ll get a fun car soon. It’s just until this Tyler Conterra stuff dies down some, it’s easier to have something that doesn’t stand out.”

  “I can see that,” he agreed. Reaching her side, he let his hand rest on the small of her back as they walked. Through a back walkway and garden as the evening shadows fell. Into the back entryway, and up the stairs. Unlocking the apartment, she flipped on the light. The moment the door closed behind them, his arm encircled her waist and he hunched enough to lean his forehead to hers.

  “I missed you, Scarla.”

  “I missed you too.” And she had. He was easy. And easy didn’t hurt.

  She met his kiss, and when it went from a tender reacquainting of tongues to a wild and sweet mating, she pressed closer. The buzzing in the pocket of her jeans took a few seconds to infiltrate the heady moment. “Damn,” she whispered against his lips. “I should get that. He was on his way over.”

  “I’ll fix us a drink. What do you want?”

  “There’s a wine fridge on the counter next to the fridge.” She swiped open the text screen as he eased away and suddenly felt a prickle of dread when she comprehended the message.

  Logan

  Outside the gate now.

  7:44 PM

  Which meant… Yep. The blinds were still open because it had been daylight when she’d left. With the inside light on, the embrace she’d just shared with Derrick had been clear to anyone right outside in the dusk.

  She buzzed him inside the property and strode over to snap the blinds closed. A quick assessment of the road as she did so assured her the paps had disappeared and only Logan had been out there.

  Logan stayed for a glass of wine. His astute gaze continually strayed between Scarlette and Derrick. It didn’t surprise her when he subtly tried to learn all he could about Derrick as the three of them talked. She had a feeling the information would go straight to Gage. She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter. Both She and Gage obviously had to move on. But as of yet, she hadn’t been slapped in the face with any of his women in any way. It bothered her that
she hadn’t been more careful when knowing Logan was on his way over.

  “Thank you for the notes.” She walked him to the door, and then stepped into the hallway. “Listen. About Derrick. I’m hoping you won’t say anything.”

  His gray eyes honed in on her face. “You mean to Gage.”

  “Of course Gage.”

  To give him credit, he looked conflicted and hooked his thumbs into his belt loops. Down the balustrade and back up, his attention wandered before meeting her face again. “I can’t promise that. He asks about you all the time.”

  “He does? You mean he’s got you spying on me!”

  “No, no, no. Damn no. He asks stuff like if I’ve seen the white car around your house. And if you’re having any problems at school now that Mike’s not going to your classes with you.”

  “Oh.” She couldn’t decide if his answer made her feel better or worse. “I just don’t want to hurt him. He’s not hurting me.” If he was dating, he was subtle enough not to have the news splashed all over the rags.

  “He’ll be happy that you’re happy. I promise you that, Scarlette.”

  “Is he happy?”

  “Yeah. He is. He’s keeping busy with some new hobbies.”

  “New hobbies?” His tone hadn’t given any reason for this sense of dread. But she felt it. Bleeding through her like black ink. “Like what?”

  “He went bungee jumping a few weeks ago. Then I guess that wasn’t sick enough. Skydiving was next. He’s done that a few times now.”

  “What about his music?” In all the time she and Logan spent together on and off campus, she had refrained from bringing up Gage. Now with the subject open, she couldn’t seem to stop.

  “He’s been in the studio a lot with phenomenal stuff. I think Jax wants to sign him onto Jewelstone when all the legal mumbo jumbo with Fire Flight expires. But that’s between you and me. It’s not even close to being official. They’ve just been in contact a lot.”

 

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