LOL #2 Romantic Comedy Anthology - Volume 2 - Even More All-New Romance Stories by Bestselling Authors (LOL Romantic Comedy Anthology #2)

by Anthology

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “When I left in the morning I realized I’d also dated her daughter.” He shuddered. “That was weird. I mean, she didn’t even look that old. Must have been a teen mom or something.”

  I shook my head. “Tom.”

  “Don’t even start. I know.”

  If I even needed a reminder how lucky I was to have found Diane and be loved by her, this conversation was it. Mother and daughter? That crossed a line somewhere into manwhore. Tom was a good guy.

  “Hey, I could always set you up with one of Diane’s friends if you—”

  “No way! Not the married friend hook-up. My sisters have pulled that shit on me for years. Single or suddenly divorced and looking to play, but then complain when I won’t settle down. Been there and done that.”

  I lifted my hands up palms facing him. “Okay, okay.”

  We continued our game. Tom swept the table on his next turn while I nursed our pitcher of beer. Any time someone walked by or entered the tavern’s double doors, my head swung around to see if it was Diane. I glanced at the clock, realizing Diane would only be finishing with her client now. I resisted the temptation to jog over to the studio to meet her at the door.

  A few minutes later, the doors swung open and a familiar scent of raspberries wafted toward me. She pulled off her grey knitted hat and shook out her long hair. Even in her workout clothes, my woman was a vision.

  “Hi, Donnely.” She greeted Tom with a hug, and then waved to Olaf at the bar. “Hi, honey.” She stood on her tip toes and I leaned down to kiss her. There was something sweet on her lips. I licked my bottom lip to taste it.

  “Why do you taste so amazing?” I kissed her again before she could answer. I couldn’t figure out the flavor, but I was willing to keep kissing her to find out.

  “Ahem, you two can take that home if you keep at it. This is a family place,” Olaf scolded us from behind the bar.

  Diane stepped away from me to look around the room. Peter sat at the end of the bar with Lester, and both looked up at the mention of family before returning to their discussion of baseball.

  I scratched my beard and chuckled. “Okay, O, we get it.”

  Diane set down a white box on the thin bar that ran behind the stools near the pool table before taking off her coat.

  “What’s in the box?” I walked over to have a look.

  “Nothing.” She swatted my hand away and moved the box under her coat.

  “Diane? What’s in the box?”

  She blushed and poured herself a glass of beer. “It’s something a client brought me.”

  “Okay, that was vague.”

  “Can I look?” Donnely asked. He reached for the box, but Diane spun around and lunged in front of him to protect it. “Wow. It must be dirty with the way you’re blushing. Sex toys? Kinky stuff to keep things interesting?” He wiggled his eyebrows and gave her his best attempt at a seductive grin.

  “Shut it, D.” I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “So what is it? And why are your clients bringing you kinky shit?”

  “Stop it. It’s not kinky. At all. You two have the dirtiest minds.” With an exasperated sigh, she opened the box.

  Tom and I peered inside like two kids allowed to peek at their Christmas presents.

  “It’s cupcakes.” He sounded disappointed. “And not even chocolate.”

  Inside the box sat four cupcakes and a small container of raspberry sauce. That’s what I’d tasted on Diane’s lips—vanilla frosting. My body reacted like one of Pavlov’s dogs. Heat raced through my veins and blood headed south.

  Great.

  Any time I had dessert now, I’d be at risk of sporting.

  Diane leaned into me, bringing me back into the moment. “You need some help with that wood in your pants?” She teased.

  “You’re an evil minx.”

  “I told you not to open the box, but you didn’t listen. Had to open it, didn’t you?”

  “Let’s go,” I growled into her ear.

  “But I just got here and I haven’t even played a game, or finished my beer—”

  I cut her off by grabbing her hand and the cake box, tugging her toward the door.

  “Sorry to play and run, Donnely, but we need to go.”

  “But my coat—” Diane wiggled out of my grip and retrieved her stuff while I waited by the door.

  Donnely stood by the pool table and grinned. He mouthed “whipped” at me. I flipped him the bird.

  I heard him say “Lucky bastard” as I pulled Diane out into the night. I couldn’t get her home soon enough.

  “How are we going to have cake at the wedding if this is how you react now every time you see frosting?” She giggled as she jogged to keep up with me back to the truck.

  I swung her around so her back rested against the truck door and kissed her, tasting vanilla and pure Diane. “I’ve decided we should have pie.”

  Author’s Note - Daisy Prescott

  Thank you for reading this Modern Love Story short. I hope you enjoyed this future glimpse into the lives of John Day, Diane and Donnely from Ready to Fall. Chronologically, Take the Cake and Run occurs after Ready to Fall (Modern Love Story #2).

  If you’re already a Modern Love Story lover, thanks for all of your support for these characters and this series. You’ll be happy to know I’m currently working on Tom’s book (Modern Love Story #4). Look for it in early 2015! Find all my books here:

  Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/DaisyPrescott/e/B00CSR1XPY/linkCode=ur2&tag=lolromance-20

  My blog - http://daisyprescott.com/books/writing/

  To keep up with my latest news, upcoming releases, current obsessions, great Rom-Com recs, and sales, sign up for my mailing list: my mailing list at http://eepurl.com/xhXb5 You’ll receive a free gift when you subscribe!

  About Daisy: USA Today Bestselling author Daisy Prescott has published three Modern Love Stories novels, Geoducks Are for Lovers, Ready to Fall, and Missionary Position, along with Pirotica under the pen name Suzette Marquis. She lives in a real life Stars Hollow in the Boston suburbs with her husband, their rescue dog Hubbell, and an imaginary house goat. When not writing, she can be found traveling, gardening, baking, and writing about herself in the third person.

  Also by Daisy Prescott:

  Modern Love Stories:

  Geoducks Are for Lovers

  Ready to Fall

  Missionary Position

  Tom Cat’s book (title TBA) (Releasing early 2015)

  Modern Love Story Shorts:

  Take Two (Available in LOL Volume 1)

  Take the Cake (Available in LOL Volume 1)

  Under the pen name Suzette Marquis:

  The Mysteries of the Pink Pearl #1:

  The Pink Pearl

  Daisy Prescott

  www.daisyprescott.com

  Alwaysland

  Blair Babylon

  DESCRIPTION: Xan Valentine, the frontman for the emerging rock band Killer Valentine, is exhausted from his oppressive touring schedule and trying to maintain a relationship with his girlfriend, Natasha Howard, a virtuoso classical cellist. When a few concerts are canceled, Xan finds himself with two days of freedom and an engagement ring. Can he convince Natasha that she belongs on the road with him?

  GENRE: New Adult Contemporary Erotic Romance. LENGTH: 8000 words or about 32 pages.

  HEAT LEVEL: Sensual! Contains some sexual scenes.

  This is a stand-alone story and a prequel to Rock Stars in Disguise: Xan. The characters are connected to Blair Babylon’s bestselling Rock Stars in Disguise series, but you don’t need to have read any of the others to enjoy this story.

  Turn the page to begin reading ALWAYSLAND by Blair Babylon, or click here to return to this anthology’s Table of Contents.

  Alwaysland

  Blair Babylon

  Two years ago…

  Chapter One

  Xan Valentine, as he had styled himself for the past five years, stared
at the square, black jewelry box lying on the bathroom counter in the shoddy hotel room. The chrome lighting fixture above showered light on everything, but the black velvet absorbed it all and gave nothing back.

  He flicked it open. The round emerald, caught in the platinum prongs, sucked the light into itself and glowed with a green fire that felt cold in his chest. Americans preferred diamonds for engagement rings, Xan knew, but the colorless stones seemed so lackluster. The women in his family had always worn sapphires or rubies. While Xan certainly wasn’t one to stand on tradition and even the emerald diverged from the more usual stones a bit, he wasn’t ready to kowtow to American bourgeois attitudes in this most personal gesture.

  Besides, it wasn’t like there were no diamonds on the ring at all. Three carats of excellent diamonds surrounded the center emerald like a starburst. Xan had been working with the jeweler for months, emailing sketches back and forth, before he had arranged for the round, very dark green, crystal-like emerald to be delivered to the man in Paris. The ten-carat stone was very deep, nearly spherical but with the usual faceted top, so the setting had required extraordinary craftsmanship.

  And it was extraordinary. Even Xan, who had little interest in these matters, could see that it was a beautiful piece. Small diamonds encrusted the platinum prongs, designed to look like vines crawling up the sides, that held the center stone. Larger diamonds radiated like flower petals around it. Xan’s younger sister Christine Marie had swooned at when he had emailed pictures to her, but she was nineteen so this was de rigueur. She swooned at internet pictures of kittens, too.

  The diamonds caught the light from the cheap chrome fixture above the sink and threw dazzling sparkles over the warped wallpaper and sour-smelling carpeting like a laser light show.

  Xan was amused at himself. Laser show. Everything reminded him of the stage and concerts. His band, Killer Valentine, was nominally functional now, and they were playing modest clubs, which explained why Xan was staying in a cheap hotel. One had to maintain the charade.

  However, for an engagement ring for the woman he loved, Xan was willing to compromise his facade and his ethics. He would have to tell her everything, eventually.

  Indeed, marrying Natasha was going to cause all sorts of conflicts. She was American, of English descent, and a Protestant.

  Oh, the scandal.

  Xan smiled. No one cared these days except, perhaps, his mother, who probably wouldn’t rouse herself to interfere. His father had died a few years before, unusually young at sixty-five, and so would not have an opinion.

  He caught a glance at himself in the hotel room’s unframed mirror and frowned. He had been growing out his hair for a year now, as befitted a rock musician, and it hung just past his shoulders. The shaggy mess was naturally medium brown with a mild wave, just medium brown, and neither curled nor straight, and altogether less than distinctive. His deep brown eyes seemed too dark for his hair, like he was trying to lighten his hair but had not fully committed.

  He would have to engage a stylist at some point. Currently, however, touring and keeping up his relationship with Natasha consumed all his time.

  Xan picked up his cell phone. “Call Natasha.”

  The phone dialed.

  She answered, and just hearing her say, “Hello? Xan?” in that lilting soprano made his blood rush.

  “Natasha,” he said, savoring her smooth-edged name in his mouth. He didn’t bother to reduce his upper-class British accent when he spoke, though he sang with a California-American inflection. “A few clubs have cancelled this week. I have two glorious days off. We can have a night together. Shall we meet?”

  “When?”

  Her rather extreme enthusiasm was uncommon. “Starting tomorrow.”

  He considered how he had said that: Staht-ing too-more-row. Perhaps his British accent was a tad heavy, even for mere conversation. Maybe too posh. Would a more working-class accent be better received?

  Everything about him was a choice, a decision. How would his accent play with the masses if Killer Valentine broke out?

  When Killer Valentine broke out, he corrected himself. It was only a matter of hard work and connections.

  “Starting tomorrow?” Natasha asked. “Seriously? So you’re free Wednesday night?”

  Her desperation was disconcerting, but he couldn’t deny that it was gratifying. “Why, yes. I could be available tomorrow night.”

  “Oh, my God, Xan. You’ve saved my life.”

  “Pleased to be of service. How, exactly, have I committed this act of chivalry?” He knew that she liked it when he was courtly.

  “Kieran has the flu. That idiot didn’t get his flu shot, even though we’re in halls with thousands of people for orchestra performances and in rooms with hundreds or so most other days of the week. Someone coughed, and now he’s deathly ill. I’m not exaggerating. He should be in the damn hospital.”

  He held the ring aloft, feeling the green in his chest. “Quite. Who’s Kieran, again?”

  “Our first violinist for the L.A. Philharmonic, but we have a string quartet recital on Wednesday for a charity thing. Some hospital. Kids with cancer. You still play, right?”

  Xan glanced at his guitar case, which was unusually thick and well-constructed for just a guitar. Luckily, he had replaced his violin strings just a few days ago, and they were nearly played in. They would be in excellent shape for Wednesday. “Of course.”

  “Get your Euro-butt on a plane and get out here. I need you.”

  He smiled. “As you wish, Natasha.”

  “I know what you’re doing there. We watched The Princess Bride together. Cut it out.”

  “The recital is in Los Angeles?”

  “Yeah. I’ll get you a hotel.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll make arrangements.”

  They would end up there afterward, in any case. He wanted that night to be special, too.

  Using one long finger, deeply calloused on the tip from years of pressing on steel guitar strings and two decades of playing the metal and gut strings of a violin, Xan snapped the ring box shut.

  Chapter Two

  Xan rummaged around in the tour bus, a glorified RV with the back bedroom stripped out and built in with curtained bunk beds, searching for his formal garment bag from the longer-term storage under the couches of the banquette.

  From the front of the bus, the band manager Jonas called, “Tryp? Is that you?”

  “No.” Xan stood. “You can’t find Tryp?”

  “Again,” Jonas said. His light brown hair was cut close to his head, far too conservative for a rock band manager. Xan felt an irascible need to roughen him up a little. Perhaps they should convince him to get another tattoo.

  Xan said, “He’ll come back. He’s got three days. Are Rade and Grayson gone, too?”

  “They’re in their rooms, sleeping it off.”

  “They left him out there?”

  “Looks like.” Jonas sighed. “I swear I’m going to put tracking apps on their phones.”

  Xan raised the lid of the other side of the breakfast booth and poked around under the extra drum heads and an enormous box of drum sticks that Tryp must have stowed in there. “He’ll show up. He’s a nineteen-year-old kid with far too much money, a gold album, and access to all the drugs, liquor, and women he could dream of. He’ll be fine.”

  “I hate it when you do that, Xan.” Jonas drummed his fingers on the rail with a staggering stutter that succinctly explained why he was in management and not a musician.

  Xan shrugged. “We’ll just have to find another drummer who’s an ambidextrous freak and has the internal metronome of an atomic clock.”

  “You’re still doing it.”

  He grinned. “I know.”

  The closet? Xan hadn’t tried the closet. He abandoned the banquette to check.

  “What’re you looking for?” Jonas asked.

  “My white tie tuxedo.”

  Jonas’s pale green eyes pinched. “What do you need
that for?”

  “I have a recital for my fallback career.”

  “You guys need these couple of days to rehearse. I have a hall all set up.”

  Xan tapped the ring box in his jeans front pocket. “The Terrible Threesome are going to spend the whole time wasted, anyway. I’m going to spend some quality time with Natasha.”

  Jonas rolled his eyes. “You visited her in April. She never meets the tour to visit you.”

  “Her career is very demanding, but I intend to change all that. I plan to never have to take time away to meet her again.” Xan found a garment bag that had fallen to the floor of the closet, monogrammed AV. He dragged open the zipper and found, indeed, his white tie and tails tuxedo. The smell of stale fabric wafted from the bag, the violet-yellow scent dragging down the back of his neck like sandpaper. He could find a one-hour dry cleaner in Los Angeles.

  “Are you breaking up with her?” Jonas asked.

  “Not at all.”

  “This band is too green to be taking women on the bus, Xan. We don’t have the space for stuff like that. And this isn’t even a proper tour bus.”

  “She’s a musician. She’ll be an asset, not a hindrance.”

  Chapter Three

  On the plane, while he flew high above the crumpled Rocky Mountains that made him homesick for good skiing, Xan pulled out his notebook and wrote.

  The notebook had far too many blank pages in it. The band had recorded Killer Valentine’s first album, self-titled, about six months ago, and they had been touring in support of it ever since. Xan had written all the lyrics for the dozen tracks on that first endeavor, but he had written most of them in his four years at Juilliard.

  Last week, Jonas had dropped the bomb that they needed eighteen songs to pick a dozen from for their next album, and they needed them in six months.

  Xan’s notebook was far too empty. He had one song, perhaps, and some random ideas for hooks. Nothing felt remotely like a hit.

  Six months.

  No use letting all that paper go to waste.

  He wrote: Natasha, we survived Juilliard together and in each other’s arms—

  He drew lines through that drivel.