by Tracy Wolff
An hour later they pulled into the parking lot of the Spotlight, bitching and moaning about the fact that Jared drove like an old woman.
Jared just flipped them off as he got out of the car, telling them, “You’re all more than welcome to drive next time. Of course, that would mean one of you would have to get a vehicle bigger than a roller skate, and somehow I don’t see that happening any time soon, so…”
“Yeah, but seriously, dude, there’s actually a minimum speed allowed for those roads we were driving on,” Drew said, pulling his cowboy hat low on his head as they walked toward the front door of the club.
“How would you know?” Jared demanded. “You’ve only lived here for like three days.”
“It’s been a very educational three days.”
Wyatt rolled his eyes but couldn’t help laughing at the bickering. Drew had fit in with the band so well it was like he’d been there all along. And their new sound, with him added in, was fucking brilliant.
He didn’t know how Poppy had known, but she had. More power to her.
He tried to shove the thought away as soon as he had it—not because she didn’t deserve credit, but because just that smallest idea of her was messing with his head, making him crazy when he’d promised himself he wasn’t going to go there anymore.
This was why they told addicts not to get into a relationship right out of rehab—because if it went bad, if the woman you’d fallen head over heels in love with didn’t feel the same, it was ten times as hard to stay clean. Ten times as hard to fight the voices in your head, telling you that you were weak and worthless. Turned out it was pretty good advice. Too bad he hadn’t listened to it.
But that’s what his friends were here for. A little extra support to make sure he didn’t score, no matter how much he wanted to. Last night, he’d lain in bed thinking about Poppy and wanting a hit so badly he’d nearly crawled out of his skin. He’d made it through it though, and he was going to make it through this as well.
One day at a time and all that. Maybe if he strung enough of those days together he’d finally have the nerve to go after Poppy, to apologize for essentially calling her a whore. He’d been hurt by her revelation—blindsided by it—but that wasn’t an excuse for saying what he had to her. He’d apologized, but shit. How did you come back from saying something like that?
For what had to be the hundredth time since she left, he pulled out his phone. Thought about texting her another apology. About begging her to come back to him. But he wasn’t sure he was strong enough to handle the rejection she was sure to send his way. Wasn’t sure he’d be able to stay sober if she told him to get lost.
And he wanted—needed to stay sober. To prove to her, and himself, that he was a better man than he’d ever thought he was.
Which meant no text. Not today. Not until he was sure he could handle the pain it would cause.
Once they made it into the bar—which was about half full—they snagged a table in the darkest corner. It was just one of the tricks they’d learned through the years, on how to be as unobtrusive as possible.
“First round’s on me,” Ryder said, heading to the bar. He didn’t ask what anyone wanted, but then again, after all these years, they all knew one another’s preferences.
Wyatt settled into a chair and turned his attention to the small stage at the front of the club. Big Bad Wolf was right in the center of it, playing a pretty decent song. He figured he’d go up when the set was done, say hello. Make sure they knew he’d come. But as the song came to an end, Jace’s eyes met his. The kid’s face went slack with shock and then he was surreptitiously pointing him out to his two bandmates.
The others turned to stare at him, too, huge grins on their faces. And then with what could only be described as a cackle of glee, they were launching into a pretty decent cover of Shaken Dirty’s “Closer.” All in all, he decided, it wasn’t a bad way to spend a Friday night.
Ryder came back from the bar with five bottles of Dr Pepper. Wyatt thought about making a comment, but then decided, fuck it. If his friends wanted to look out for him this way, then who was he to say any differently.
The band finished “Closer” with a drum riff that was pretty damn impressive, then launched into an earlier Shaken Dirty song that had all of the guys grinning and reminiscing as they filled Drew in on ancient history.
At least until Poppy walked up to the table and stopped right in front of Wyatt.
Then the whole group of them went wide-eyed and silent in a hurry. Including Wyatt himself.
His brain was screaming at him to say something to her, but it couldn’t figure out what words he was supposed to say. How could it when all he could think was beautiful and sexy and mine. That’s what really kept his mouth shut—the fear that when he opened it again the only word that would come out was mine.
And she wasn’t his, not anymore. Not ever, really, considering they were over before they’d actually had a chance to begin.
But she was here now, bouncing from one foot to another and looking at him with those big brown eyes of hers. That had to count for something, right? He hated the hope he felt, the way his heart skipped a beat at just the thought of talking to her again. Of kissing her, touching her, making love to her.
“Can I talk to you?” she said, shouting a little to be heard over the music.
For a second, just a second, he thought about turning her away. About telling her he wasn’t interested anymore. It had nearly killed him when she’d walked away from him at Antone’s, had taken every ounce of willpower he had not to drown himself in the bottom of a bottle of tequila.
But refusing to talk to her would be a lot like cutting off his nose to spite his face, so he nodded and said, “Yeah, of course.”
He was aware of the others shifting restlessly beside him—they’d been none too happy when Poppy had run back to New York and taken his heart with her—no matter how many times he’d assured them that it was as much his fault as hers. In fact, Jared looked like he was going to say something, but a quick look from Wyatt shut him up.
He followed her to the door, making sure to catch the attention of the band’s lead singer, to let him know he’d be back. The kid smiled a mile wide and sent him a huge thumbs up that he really hoped didn’t end up blowing his anonymity all to hell as half the bar turned to look at him.
Then again, he had better things to worry about than whether or not he was going to get swamped by fans. Things like what Poppy was doing in Austin and why she wanted to talk to him and—
“I’m sorry,” she blurted out the second they got outside, the words tumbling over each other in her haste to get them out. “I should have told you. It was wrong of me to lie to you and wrong of me to push you to talk to me when I wasn’t being truthful with you. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
That wasn’t what he’d been expecting to hear, and for long seconds he couldn’t answer, not even to accept her apology. But then his brain finally kicked in and he said, “No. I get why you didn’t tell me. It took me a few days to calm down but…I can see why you thought it would only put more pressure on me. I shouldn’t have yelled at you the way I did. Shouldn’t have said those things to you. There’s no excuse for that.” He could still see her face when she asked if he was calling her a whore, and it killed him.
“Yeah, but still. I was wrong not to give you the benefit of the doubt. I should have tried to talk to you after I got to know you.”
“Okay. Sure. Thanks.” He didn’t know what else to say. He knew what he wanted to do—he wanted to drop to his knees in front of her and make her come three or a half dozen times right here in the middle of the Spotlight parking lot. He just wasn’t sure she’d be amenable to that. After all, it was a long way from apologizing to letting a guy go down on you.
He waited for her to say something else, to make some kind of move that told him how he should respond. But all she did was stand there looking at him, and the hope he’d felt upon first seeing her starte
d to whither.
“I should probably go back in, then,” he said a little awkwardly. “I came here to see those kids play—I don’t want them to think I skipped out on them after two songs.”
“Right, of course.” She stepped back. “Go ahead.”
“But thanks for coming to talk to me. It means a lot.”
Feeling like absolute shit, he gave her the best smile he could muster, then forced himself to turn away. To head back inside the club.
He never made it. Instead, she threw herself at him so hard he stumbled. And then she was there, pressed against him, her arms wrapped around his waist and her face nuzzled into his neck.
“I love you,” she murmured into his skin. “I love you and I’m sorry and I want to try again. Please, please let me try again.”
He pulled her away from him—not because he didn’t want her touching him, but because he wanted to make sure he’d heard right. Wanted to make sure she meant what he thought she did.
“Say it again,” he told her, voice hoarse with more emotion than he had let himself feel in a long, long time. Maybe in forever.
She bit her lip, looked at him out of eyes he knew were going to break his heart again and again through the years—in the best possible way. “I said I love you,” Poppy told him. “I love you so much, and I know it isn’t going to be easy. I know we’re going to screw up. But I promise you, no matter what happens, that I’ll be honest with you. That I’ll be here for you. If you relapse, if you decide you don’t want to drum anymore, whatever it is. I promise, I’ll be here. I love you, and if you’ll have me, I want to spend the rest of my life proving that to you.”
“Wait.” Suddenly he couldn’t feel his hands. “Wait. Wait just a minute. Are you proposing to me?”
She turned pale under the parking lot lights. “Ummm… Do you want me to be proposing to you?”
“It doesn’t work that way! You can’t answer a question with a question!” he told her, panic and joy and love welling up in him like a crescendo. “Especially not a question like that!”
“Why not? You just did.”
“I did not. I asked— Oh.” So she had been proposing to him. Holy shit. Holy. Shit.
“I know. It’s too soon. And we’re a mess.” She started backing away. “I’m sorry. Forget I asked. Just—”
“I hate to be the one to break this to you, sweetheart, but I’m pretty sure there are no takebacks on wedding proposals.”
“Oh, yeah? What are you, the wedding proposal police? Since when have you been so big on rules anyway?”
“Since the woman I am head over heels in love with just asked me to marry her. You don’t actually think I’m going to let you weasel out of it so easily, do you?”
“I don’t weasel out— Wait a minute.” If possible, she turned even paler. “You love me?”
“Of course I love you! You’re smart and funny and kind and warm and beautiful, inside and out. Plus you have amazing taste in music and you love my band. How the fuck could I not love you?”
“I don’t know. I just—I can’t feel my feet.”
“That’s okay. I can’t feel my hands,” he told her with a laugh.
She laughed, too, at least for a second. Then she sobered up. “No jokes, Wyatt. I can’t take them right now. What does this mean?”
He pulled her into his arms then, cradling her head against his chest as he slowly rocked them back and forth. “It means yes,” he said, right before he took her mouth with his own.
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Acknowledgments
Wow. Just Wow. This book has been a long time coming and I’m so, so grateful to my fans for waiting nearly two years for it. Your excitement for the series—and for Wyatt, in particular—means the world to me. Thank you for giving Shaken Dirty a try and thank you for making the series the success that it is. I love and appreciate every single one of you.
I have to thank Stacy Cantor Abrams, who I adore and who put up with every excuse imaginable from me over the last two years—and whose patience, enthusiasm, and editorial skill finally managed to whip this book into shape.
Thank you to Liz Pelletier for being such an amazing publisher and for sticking with me, and to Jessica Turner for being the best marketing director on the planet (and a great friend, too)!!!!
Thank you to Emily Sylvan Kim, my amazing, wonderful, awe-inspiring agent, who is always, always, always there for me and without whom I would be lost.
Thank you to Emily McKay and Shellee Roberts, the best friends and brainstorming/writing partners a girl could ever have—I don’t know how to thank you two enough for everything you’ve done for me through the years. A special shout-out to Emily for all the whining she put up with during the writing of this book and to Shellee for reminding me all those years ago that “Drummers are always the fucked-up ones.”
Thank you to my mom, whose support means the world to me.
Thank you to my very dear friend, Martin Torres, who has shown me in a million different ways just how kind and strong and wonderful a man can be.
And finally, thank you to my guys, who put up with late dinners and missed movies and forgotten tae kwon do classes when Mom is “in the zone.” I love the three of you so much and am grateful every day that I have the chance to be your mother.
About the Author
National bestselling author Tracy Wolff lives with four men, teaches writing to local college students, and spends as much time as she can manage immersed in worlds of her own creation. Married to the alpha hero of her dreams for twelve years, she is the mother of three young sons who spend most of their time trying to make her as crazy as possible. Tracy is the author of numerous romances that run the gamut from contemporary to paranormal to erotic suspense. Visit her online at tracywolff.com.
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