Resurrection_a ROCK SOLID romance

by Karina Bliss

  “Wait here.” Zipping up his jacket to look vaguely respectable, he raked a hand through his hair. Channeling Zander, who nailed rock royalty indifference, he approached the desk. “Hi, nice morning.”

  The maitre d’s welcoming expression faded a little as her gaze dropped from his eyes to his stubble. Her aquiline nose wrinkled as she caught the faint whiff of the pool hall—stale smoke, cheap beer. “Do you have a reservation?”

  “I’m supposed to meet Dimity Graham here.”

  She straightened, ran a pink-painted nail down her list. “I don’t see a booking for Dimity. Are you sure you’ve got the right time…” her dark-eyed gaze raked his appearance again, “and the right place?”

  “Positive,” he said firmly. He conjured the hormone-hitting smirk he’d mastered during the reality show, the one that won him female votes. “My manager said she’d meet me here.”

  He saw the moment she recognized him. Whether they were rock ‘n’ roll fans or not, most Americans knew who he was, even if it had been two years since television had beamed him into their living rooms.

  “There’s obviously been some mistake, Mr. McFadden. Let’s go and find a table for you.”

  “Thank you.” He gestured for Lily to join him.

  Dismay flickered across the maitre d’s face when she registered Lily’s equally disheveled appearance but she was professional enough to smother it, ushering them through the restaurant and to an upstairs terrace overlooking the beach. Ivy twisted around the wrought iron balustrade, rectangular planters filled with red geraniums separated the diners, and green sun umbrellas waited for deployment.

  “This is lovely, thank you for finding us a table,” Lily said. Her warm smile—unlike his—was all about making a genuine connection. One of her gifts, he thought, watching the maitre d’s professional smile soften.

  “You’re very welcome.”

  While she cleared the fourth place-setting, Lily picked up the table’s centerpiece, a vase of lavender and lilac-purple roses. She breathed in their fragrance and the strain around her eyes lightened. “These roses smell gorgeous,” she said to their host. “What are they?”

  “I don’t know, but I can ask.”

  “Fragrant Plum.” Moss picked up the menu. “It’s a hybrid tea rose, grown for its sweet scent and perfect shape.”

  The two women stared at him.

  “I harvested flowers in a previous life,” he said, scanning the choices. “We, ah…won’t wait for Dimity.”

  “I can take your order.”

  He chose bacon and eggs, and hash browns, watching Lily as she wavered between the Spanish omelet and creamed mushrooms. At The Comfort Zone, her hair color had been mousy, but in the sun it was a gleaming light brown, shot through with strands of dark gold. Without the collagen fillers, her thinner upper lip made the lower look fuller. He glanced away to the beach, distancing himself.

  Below, a woman ran past with a jogging stroller, ponytail bobbing. Power walkers, cyclists, all the earnest early-morning exercisers were out in force. When he’d slept on the boardwalks, their pounding had been a sign to wake up, move on.

  “So this is what morning people do,” he commented when he and Lily were alone.

  She laughed, loosening her hair and digging for a comb in her bag. “You talk as though we’re another species.” She dragged the comb through her hair and the dark gold shone like silk.

  “You are.”

  She replaced the comb in her bag. “Where did you pick roses?”

  “Watsonville, not far south of San Francisco.”

  “What else have you done to make a living?”

  When I was fifteen, I stripped naked so some old pervert could masturbate to the sight of my scrawny body. That earned me fifty bucks.

  Something must have showed in his expression because she immediately added, “I heard you boast once that you can work any agricultural machine.”

  “Boast?” He lifted an eyebrow. “It’s a fact.”

  She lifted an eyebrow in return. “What kind of harvesters?”

  Of course, she was a Kansas girl. “Binder, combine, header, reaper, thresher, windrower. Anything that would get me out of picking by hand.” He’d done enough of that as a minor. Moving state to state following the harvests. Farmers needed seasonal workers more than they needed to verify identities, and many paid in cash.

  Their meals arrived, and he changed the subject. “When did you decide you wanted to work with kids?”

  “Oh, forever.” She teased a slice of red pepper from her omelet with a fork and nibbled on it. “Right from small, I minded my younger sisters while Mom worked. Granny was supposed to be in charge but she didn’t have the energy past noon, lucky for us.” She must have seen his look of confusion. “She was old school with discipline; fortunately we could outrun her.”

  He didn’t laugh. “Where were the men?”

  “Gambling, drinking, leaving.” She finished the pepper and dug into the omelet, winding the melted cheese around her fork. “There’s a saying in our family, the Hagen women can’t pick horses or men. I believe I’m the fourth generation keeping up that proud tradition. We lived with Granny until she died, when I was around twelve. Fortunately, she’d put her house in a trust so Mom couldn’t sell it and blow the money. So we always had a roof over our heads between saviors.”

  “Saviors?”

  “Every man who moved in with my mother was the best thing that ever happened to us,” she said lightly. “Until he became the worst thing.”

  “Your childhood sounds hellish, so why are you telling it like it’s comical?”

  “Says the rolling stone who gathers no moss.” She swiped a piece of bacon from his plate. “Traveling around the States with your dad. He dies, you evade Child Protective Services until you turn eighteen. A Huckleberry Finn style adventure, except on the road instead of the river.” Behind her glasses, her eyes revealed her understanding of everything he was leaving out.

  “I didn’t spin it that way, the reality show people did,” he said, suddenly uncomfortable. “Zander did. Besides, why make people uncomfortable with the truth? That I was cold, hungry, frightened, and worse. Or that the streets still felt safer than the first place CPS dumped me.”

  He stopped slicing bacon, momentarily disorientated. How had he ended up spilling this stuff?

  But Lily only nodded. “I joke about my childhood for the same reason. I’d rather people laugh at it, than pity me. And it helps me feel as if I got over it. That I can get over anything.”

  She was looking sad again so he picked up his water glass. “Hey.” When she glanced up, he raised it in a toast. “To resilience.”

  “To resilience.” She tapped his glass. “When you said people like us deserve more than one break…was that what you meant? That we shared less-than-perfect upbringings?”

  “I guess.” He’d wanted her to understand that what he felt for her wasn’t pity. Affinity maybe. Affection? Uncomfortable with where his thoughts were heading, he changed the subject. “Your Kiwi accent sucked big-time, by the way.”

  “It didn’t help that you started laughing every time I opened my mouth,” she retorted.

  “Yeah, sorry I undermined your cover.” The bacon was good, crunchy and full of salt and oil. “I told Rhonda you’ve been in the States a few months and picked up an American accent. Let’s play that up in future.” He grinned as he attacked his fried eggs. “She described you as a character.”

  “I liked her too. She’s different from your usual pickups.”

  That’s right, she’d witnessed him in action at The Comfort Zone, not to mention on tour last year. “How?”

  “Less plastic, more real.” She hesitated then gave him a direct look. “Does she know the score?”

  “What do you mean?” He knew, but perversely he wanted her to spell it out.

  Her gaze didn’t falter. “That you’re the pickup king.”

  It was true and it stung. First time ever. “Not all wome
n engage their feelings every time they have sex.” He finished his last mouthful of egg. “Rhonda and I aren’t you and Zander. No one’s going to get hurt here.”

  “Wow!” She flashed a tight smile. “For someone who doesn’t do relationships you sure are free with your opinions on mine. Zander and I broke up during the reality show, you barely knew us together.”

  “I don’t talk much, which means I notice a lot.” Full, he left the hash browns and picked up his water glass. “It was pretty clear you wanted a commitment.”

  “Not to Zander.” She hadn’t meant to say that, he could tell by the way she set her jaw. “And I don’t need a postmortem on why he dumped me.”

  What? Moss nearly spilled his water. “He said you dumped him.” He’d never questioned Zander’s version because it had been long overdue.

  “To try and lessen the dam—fallout on me. Can we eat now?” She concentrated on her plate.

  Moss sat silently, his mind still processing.

  Zander had even moped after she’d left. Not long—the lead singer was still a self-absorbed asshole then—but still.

  When Lily partied hard after their breakup, Moss had assumed she was celebrating her freedom. When she’d been arrested for arguing with a cop who’d pulled over her date, he’d figured her nurturer reflex had gotten her into trouble. Travis had concerned him, but he’d only lasted a week before she’d kicked him to the curb as the piece of trash he was. Then Elizabeth and Zander had invited her to stay, Jared and Kayla had given her a job, and Moss had stopped worrying about her and lost himself in hedonism instead.

  “What an idiot,” he said aloud. He should have recognized the self-destruction lacing her post-breakup behavior. Who walked that edge better than he did?

  Lily’s knife and fork clattered onto the plate and she glared at him. “Thank you, Dr. Phil, but I already had that epiphany.”

  He blinked, regrouped. “I meant Zander.” He and his mentor were both idiots in this equation.

  “Oh. Sorry.” Her anger became sheepishness. “No one’s ever suggested I can do better than the man idolized by millions.”

  “You can.”

  “Thank you,” she said awkwardly, and he felt his face heat. Telling himself it was sunburn, he angled his chair for shade. But he couldn’t let the subject drop, not yet. He needed the whole picture if he was going to be of real use to her. “So, the dickheads you dated after the breakup. And Travis. They were about what? Proving to Zander you were over him?”

  Lily toyed with her food. “‘I’ll show you’ really worked out for me, huh?”

  “If you’re stuck in a famous breakup, it’s better to be photographed having a good time than crying your eyes out.”

  “With the result that the whole world gets to see me having a really good time with Travis Calvert.”

  There were no words that could soften that blow. He showed his respect by not offering any.

  Chapter Ten

  “I’ve been mulling over your insomnia,” Lily said a week later as Moss walked her from the parking lot to an all-night diner. Another midnight run, another seedy area, another over-brewed cup of Joe. “I’m thinking hot milk.” She yawned widely.

  “Or we buy Modafinil to keep you awake.” He opened the door for her, making the bell jangle.

  Bob, the night shift cook, glanced through the kitchen’s service hatch and waved a friendly hello with a spatula.

  “Wait.” She stopped. “Is that how you’re awake all night?”

  Moss ignored the question. “Bob, will you keep your eye on Lily when she walks to the heap of junk she calls a car later?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  He returned his attention to her. “I’ll text when I need a pickup.”

  “You didn’t give me an answer.”

  “No to the hot milk.” He tucked some cash into the breast pocket of the flannel shirt she wore to fit in around here. “Buy a double shot espresso on me.”

  She watched him lope across the street and disappear down a side alley to the right. Except the first club he was frequenting tonight was a block to the left.

  “The usual, Lily?” Bob left the kitchen and reached for the coffee pot.

  “Yeah, thanks.” Frowning, she made her way to a booth. Eleven at night and the place was sparsely populated, a table of hospital staff coming off a shift, a couple of blue-collar guys sitting alone, probably cabbies. It started humming around one a.m. when the partiers—some drunk, some not—started stopping by for a grease-laden fix.

  She no longer worried that she’d be recognized. Moss had been proved right—she looked too different. Tonight she had other things on her mind. The suspicion that her employer had a drug habit had been growing since she’d driven past him one night en route to their rendezvous, a half mile further down the road. Glancing in the rearview mirror to confirm his identity, she’d seen him exchanging something with a skinny, hooded guy.

  By the time she’d done a U-turn and pulled over, Moss was alone. When she asked if his friend needed a ride, he’d played dumb. “Passed a guy, though.”

  Lily wasn’t naive. He’d dabbled with coke and E on tour, but Dimity had said he’d cleaned up his act for the new band. Even if he hadn’t, he could definitely source what he needed more safely. Unless he’d developed a habit or graduated to the hard stuff? That would be something he’d keep from his friends. Neither Seth nor Jared touched drugs.

  “Or sleep deprivation is making you paranoid,” she muttered as she opened her laptop.

  No matter how late—or early—they got home she couldn’t sleep past five thirty a.m. Once an early bird, always an early bird. Often she joined Dimity and Madeleine for their morning walk, taking two cars to a nearby dog park, where the Jack Russell could ‘network.’ Seth would jog there, then he’d either head to Zander’s mansion with Dimity and their fur baby, or ride home with Lily, where he’d disappear to the music room and start pounding out new drum rhythms.

  Usually that was enough to drag Moss out of bed. He used the pool to shock himself awake, something she’d discovered the first morning, when an almighty splash followed by a curse had her rushing anxiously to the window. Moss was rising from the turbulent water, his muscled arms lifting to slick back his dripping hair. He climbed the ladder out of the pool, surprising her with a glimpse of his bare ass. She’d turned away, thinking that this was the second time she’d nearly seen him naked. For an obsessively private person, he had no qualms about revealing his body.

  And with a body as hot as that, why would you?

  Even as someone changing her type she could still appreciate that he had it all going on. But the past week had confirmed he was a grazer, a player, a hedonist…every smart woman’s worst nightmare.

  She’d become familiar with his haunts, knew every sleazy bar and pool hall, every dubious club in downtown LA. The GPS, which now talked like a regular GPS since she’d thrown herself on the car dealer’s mercy, was rarely needed unless Moss had enjoyed a big night.

  Then for some reason—decompression maybe?—he insisted on the most circuitous route home. He liked the inland roads, the less populated highways that cut through canyons and desert. Once they drove to Vegas to eat breakfast in some greasy diner on the outskirts of the city before returning at noon.

  To his credit, when Moss worked, he worked hard. She’d been around rock long enough to understand the obsessive, passionate focus of professional musicians. The calling. But outside band commitments he lived entirely for himself. It didn’t bother her that she found him attractive; it was liking him so much that rang alarm bells. When she was driving this blunt, taciturn man who guarded his space so jealously, a part of her relaxed, felt safe. It worried her, that disconnect between her emotions and her survival instinct. You didn’t relax around men like Moss; you doubled the sentries.

  Bob arrived with her order. “Strong coffee, a piece of cherry pie, no cream. So, what are we learning tonight?”

  She smiled at the big man’s e
agerness. His toddler was a fussy eater and Lily had passed on a few tips. They chatted a few minutes before another customer pulled him away, then she settled to her studies for as long as she could stay awake.

  A hour and a half later her cell chimed a call and she picked up automatically. “Yippee, an early night!”

  “Stormy, it’s Travis.”

  The cherry pie curdled in her stomach. “What’s happened now?”

  “Nothing. Fuck, isn’t this bad enough? They’re tearing us—”

  “I don’t want details,” she interrupted. “I’m ignoring this stuff.” The sex tape had gone viral five days ago. That was all she knew, all she needed to know. Dee Dee had left messages over the past week, but aside from texting her mother reassurances that she was fine, Lily wasn’t engaging. No plea would stop her mom from sharing a blow-by-blow of press coverage. Knowing Dee Dee, she was probably sharing links on her Facebook page, so she could rant about them.

  “How can you ignore it? It’s everywhere. I’m in Japan and—”

  “Stop! I mean it, Travis. I don’t need to hear this.”

  There was a brief silence. “The press have been going ape-shit trying to find you. Where are you hiding out?”

  As though she’d tell him. “Somewhere remote and secluded.”

  A pot clattered in the kitchen as one of T-Minus 6’s early release singles came on the radio. “Hear that, Lil?” Bob hollered through the service hatch. “It’s our guy.” He dialed up the volume and started singing along at the top of his voice.

  Travis said, “Who’s Lil? And the fuckwit singing?”

  “No one.” Jumping to her feet, Lily hurried into the ladies’ room. “Some DJ on a radio station.”

  “Change the station, then. Those no-names should have called themselves the Rage rip-offs. Their sound is fucking derivative, and the excitement around their album release is—”