Riptide (Rock Stars, Surf and Second Chances Book 2)

by Michelle Mankin

  When I reached his room, I rapped on the door. A brunette with a red Solo cup in her hand, her large boobs swinging unrestrained, answered it. She gave me the head to toe once over. “You’ll do. He digs blondes. But ditch the top and bra, sweetie. If your tits pass inspection, he might let you stay.”

  “I don’t,” I huffed. “I’m not.” I glanced over her shoulder, trying to locate Ramon through the thick haze that had that unpleasant though readily identifiable skunk odor. The Dirt Dogs’ guitarist lay sprawled on a small couch, his lips curved into a lazy grin, his heavy-lidded gaze focused on the two girls from Hooter’s that he’d had his arms around earlier in the day. They didn’t appear interested in him. They were completely nude and going after each other. Their orgasmic moaning had the attention of most of the other partiers packed inside the room.

  At any other time I might have turned around and left. But not tonight. Tonight he and I had unfinished business.

  “Hey, Romeo,” I called catching the attention of the sardonic king lounging on his ganja clouded throne. I snapped off my top and waved it in the air. “Your bouncer tells me you’re looking for blondes.” He came up and off of the couch with impressive speed, though he weaved as he stumbled toward me.

  “Put your shirt back on, Karen.” The wave of his dismissive hand made the defined muscles on his naked chest ripple.

  “Or what?” It hurt that he seemed to be rejecting me again like he had all those years ago at the first Dirt Dogs’ party. I tossed my Offshore shirt aside and reached backward between my shoulder blades to unclasp my bra. “I’m just playing along like all of the rest of your subjects.” The clasp came undone, the lacy cups drifted indecently low while the loosened straps slid to mid shoulder. “I’m tired of you ignoring me.”

  Like you have been doing for months, I thought to myself.

  His dark gaze dipped to my chest. I held the unfastened bra over my breasts, but it barely covered them. The nipples hardened to points beneath his rapt attention.

  “Everyone out!” he shouted abruptly, throwing one of his sculpted arms wide. His half-unbuttoned jeans slid lower on his narrow hips revealing an enticing arrow of dark hair. My mouth went dry. My pulse began to throb. I shifted from one restless leg to the other, but my eyes remained locked on his as people streamed by me on either side. More than a few glanced back and forth between Ramon and me before leaving.

  “Close the door,” he ordered gruffly after the last partygoer passed me. Holding my bra in place, I clicked it closed. When I turned around he had his back turned to me. It was as chiseled as his chest, and I couldn’t help but appreciate the way his jeans hugged his ass.

  “Put your clothes back on, Karen. You have my attention. What’s so important that you had to come here and disrobe in front of a room full of people?”

  “I don’t respond well to being ordered around. But I think you know that or maybe you don’t anymore since you haven’t said more than a few words to me in months.”

  “We’re not having this conversation until you have your shirt completely back on.” His long thick curls skimmed the top of his rigid spine. He turned his head slightly, but didn’t make direct eye contact with me over his shoulder.

  “Alright.” I managed to refasten the clasp and bent over to snag my shirt from the floor, but he turned around before I could pull it over my head. I held it in front of me, the fluttery feeling I got whenever he looked at me intensifying in that frozen moment with the bed so close and his eyes slowly running the length of me.

  Thoughts came rushing to the front of my mind, thoughts that I had buried, thoughts that probably should have sent me running for the door. I would wish I had later. But in the present moment, I acknowledged those secret thoughts, acknowledged that I wanted to touch him, acknowledged that I wanted to run my fingers all over his bronze skin. Was he warm? Was his body as hard as it looked, like heated copper over sinuous steel? I wanted to press my breasts to his chest. I wanted him to cradle them in his hands. I wanted him to press his sensuous lips to mine. I wanted to taste him. I wanted to know what so many other women knew. Would it be as good as I had imagined it…to be fucked by Ramon Martinez?

  Eyes locked on mine, Ramon took one step closer and then another. I held my breath. My heart practically pounded out of my chest. He stopped a foot away. I gripped the shirt tighter. Please, I pleaded silently as his eyes searched mine. Please set me free from the cage my life has become. Please tell me you feel the same way I do. I didn’t know what he was looking to find, but I latched onto his gaze and held tightly with everything I had in me, letting him see the emotions I had hidden away for years.

  “Say what you need to say, Karen.” His sharp voice sliced through me, leaving me feeling gravely wounded. “What are you waiting for? Let’s get this latest drama of yours over.” His eyes narrowed. “I’ve got more interesting things to occupy my time.”

  I dropped my gaze, my cheeks burning hot. He had totally humiliated me. Why had I let him see my desire? Stupid, stupid girl. He was right to reject me. Remember, I told myself. Never forget this. Never make the same mistake again.

  I poked my head through the opening in my shirt, wishing it were a shell I could crawl into and never come out. I avoided his gaze as I shrugged it back into place. He and I could never go back to the way things had been before. Our friendship had ended tonight. I knew it with a certainty that chilled my blood.

  “I just wanted to get things in the open.” I straightened my shoulders. “To let you know how grateful I am for everything you’ve done for me. The surf shop is a huge success.” My eyes filled. “I know about your part in it. That I wouldn’t have it if it weren’t for you.”

  “You’re making this out to be a big deal when it really isn’t.”

  “But…” I began.

  “Listen.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I made a promise a long time ago to Patch to look after you.” My chilled blood completely froze. “But the grind of that promise has gotten to be too much. The shop was a way to pay off that debt. An easy one, really.”

  “Oh, I…” I didn’t know what to say. I found myself completely alone and adrift, caught in a current in an unfamiliar sea.

  “I’m busy. I can’t be running back to OB all the time to sort you out anymore.” His accent was thick. “I thought if I bought the shop and put a little space between us you would take the hint and realize what a pain looking after you and all of this really is for me.”

  “So you’re telling me that our entire friendship was a lie?” I spat the accusation at him as if it were venom that needed to be quickly extracted before it could stop my heart.

  He wouldn’t meet my gaze. But he nodded.

  “You’re a liar.” I denounced, trembling with hurt, pain and rage.

  “Believe what you want to believe.”

  “I believe that you’re torpedoing our friendship because you’re chicken shit. You’re frightened of the way I make you feel. Scared of the power you think that gives me over you. Afraid that if you stick around you might act on those feelings.” I crossed my arms. “So you’re right to leave. It’s good for you to go. If you were a different man, a stronger man, a better man, you would stay, you would…”

  “That’s quite an elaborate friends-to-lovers fantasy,” he cut in looking at me coolly through his thick lashes. “Did it seem like any of that shit was true when you walked in here and started stripping?” I nearly rocked back on my heels from the force of the belligerence in his voice. “Fucking finally grow up, Karen. Why would I settle for you when I can have any pussy I want? I tell ‘em to spread, they spread. I tell ‘em to kneel, they kneel. Play they play, like those two were doing before you spoiled all my fun. I ever give you the impression I was baiting a hook I wanted you to bite?”

  I stared at him aghast, reeling from the ugliness in his twisted words.

  “I didn’t think so. I don’t need to poach off of my best friend. The kind of scenario you just dreamed up is exactly why
we’re through. You have an active imagination and too much fucking time on your hands.”

  Tears flooding my eyes, I turned away, my movements so awkward that I nearly tripped over my own feet. I got myself in motion though my footsteps fell heavily like lead. I had a mountain of worry and hurt weighing me down. In the past he had helped me shoulder those burdens. From now on I was going to have to find the strength to do it on my own.

  I yanked the handle on the door. He said something that I assumed was a final dismissal, but my pulse thundered too loudly inside my ears for me to hear the words.

  Out on the landing, the party was carrying on as enthusiastically as ever. The brunette that had let me in snickered as the door snapped open behind me. I didn’t have to look back to know he was beckoning her and the others back in.

  I straightened my spine and lifted my chin, pulling myself together the best I could, while gathering in the train of my tattered pride so that his legions didn’t trample it in their rush to return to him.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Ramon

  September 2007

  “Leave me alone, man.” I groaned. “Let me fucking die in peace.”

  “No way, asshole. Come on. Get up.” I cracked open my eyes to a blurry world that I didn’t want to face, not since I had cut my own heart out trying to do the right thing. A dismal world that I had to confront every time I had a single moment of clarity.

  “Fuck. How much did he take?”

  “I dunno. The syringe and the bowl he used are empty. Keep those in case he loses consciousness again. If he does we’re gonna have to take him in.”

  “It’ll go on his record. He’ll have to do rehab.”

  “Maybe he needs to do rehab.”

  “Maybe we can get a group rate.”

  “Get his legs over the rim.”

  “Shit!” I shouted as the cold water hit me. I sputtered as they forced my face under the spray. Their faces came into focus. Linc. Ash. And Diesel.

  “What the fuck?” I managed, trying to sound belligerent.

  Ash shut off the water and tossed me a towel.

  “What the fuck is right,” Linc said it like an avowal of my own stupidity.

  “You trying to kill yourself, dude?” Diesel asked point blank.

  I shook my head.

  “Good, but if you change your mind let me know. There are easier ways.”

  I gave Diesel a squinty eyed look. The guy had an odd sense of humor.

  “Do you remember anything?” Linc queried.

  I loved these guys. After being together and putting up with each other’s shit for as long as we had, it was that or hate ‘em. I chose the easier route. But I wasn’t going to talk about it. There was only one person on the entire face of the planet that might understand, and she hadn’t spoken a single word to me since the night I had crushed her.

  Three fucking years ago.

  “How are you feeling?” Linc squinted at me.

  “Is this a trick question?” I shot back.

  “He’s good,” Diesel decided. “He’ll live. We probably shouldn’t have called her.”

  “Called who?” My sluggishly beating heart stumbled on the next beat.

  “Karen,” Diesel replied.

  “Fuck!” I swore. “Why the hell would you do that?”

  “We thought you were about to check out. You were choking on your own vomit. We had to turn your head to the side to open up your airway.”

  In another time and place I might have found it disturbing how well versed we all were on the management of drug overdoses. Right now I was just grateful, except about Karen.

  “Call her back and tell her you were mistaken.”

  “Mistaken about what, Romeo?”

  I wouldn’t ever want her seeing me like I was right then, soaking wet and standing in the tub in my boxers with my band mates around me like we were having a fucking intervention in the master bathroom of my Malibu rental. I would have squeezed my eyes shut in mortification, but I was too busy filling my parched soul with the vision of her. “Mistaken about whatever they told you that brought you all the way up here from OB,” I managed to say.

  “Don’t read too much into it. I was in LA meeting with a rep from Roxy. Diesel mentioned you were dying. I can see that he was exaggerating, though you do look like hell.”

  “Thanks.” I grinned like a deranged person. She was giving me the business and good. Like the old days. And I missed it. Missed everything about her. My life sucked without her in it.

  “Well, you gentlemen seem busy. I’ll leave you to your Kumbaya moment.” She swept a cool gaze around the room stopping on Diesel. “Lose my number, bass man.”

  His lips lifted into a slow smile. I think he liked her attitude, too.

  “Don’t leave.” My voice broke adding to the pathetic nature of my current condition. But in my defense, my throat was on fire, and I didn’t want to let her go. Whatever it took, however we could manage it, I wanted her back in my life. I had done my penance for the surf shop purchase. If Patch wanted to re-up for a third tour and completely destroy their marriage, this time it was completely on him.

  She stopped just outside the bathroom, but she didn’t turn around. The guys all took that as their cue to spring into motion. I received wet slaps on my back while she received murmured goodbyes from everyone except Diesel.

  He looked back at me, and then at her, and just said, “Good luck.”

  I stepped out of the tub, dried off quickly and wrapped the towel around my waist over the wet boxers now plastered to my skin. Hopefully, she couldn’t tell how my cock reacted to her. After the things I had said the last time I saw her, I didn’t think she would let that go.

  “Why do you want me to stay?” She turned around slowly, challenging me.

  That was the final Jeopardy question, wasn’t it?

  “The truth. No bullshit,” she prompted, and it was like time rewound itself to the last time I had seen her, except that I could see the long years of my own loneliness reflected back to me in her own eyes. Along with the pain my words to her had inflicted. Distrust lingered in her guarded gaze.

  “Because you’re my closest friend, and I missed you.”

  She inhaled sharply. She obviously wasn’t expecting me to be quite that candid. “If that’s true, then why did you treat me the way you did?”

  This part would be tricky. I didn’t know the state of her marriage, and that had always been sacrosanct. “Your husband called me about the surf shop thing. Let’s just say we had a pointed discussion. He wasn’t real keen on me doing that for you.”

  “Yeah? Well, I can see why. It has certainly remained a source of contention between us. So much so that I’ve finally conceded it.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Her gaze shuttered. The years that couldn’t be erased suddenly came crashing down on her shoulders. She looked suddenly wan and tired, almost strung out like I was. “What really happened here, tonight, Ramon? I’ve never seen you so gaunt. Was this really an accidental overdose or something more?”

  “It’s a dose I’ve done before, but from a new supplier.” I shrugged dismissively.

  “Heroin?” She peered at my arms looking for needle tracks.

  I was more discreet than that. She would have to look between my toes.

  “You never used to do hard stuff like that,” she mused, and she was right.

  “That was before. Before I pushed you away.”

  “I wish…” She swallowed. “I wish you hadn’t. But you did, and here we are and…” She sighed. “I don’t want to worry about you, but I’m going to have to now, aren’t I?”

  “Not if we can be friends again.”

  “I’m not your crutch, Ramon. If you want to get sober, then get sober. Do it for yourself. Don’t drag me into it.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “You’re being extremely accommodating, but you’ll have to pardon me if I’m a little slow to start down this road again.”


  “I just want us to start over.”

  “Too much has happened for us to ever do that.”

  “Can we at least start talking to each other again?”

  “We’ll see.” She cocked her head to the side, and that’s when I realized she had no braid. She had cut her hair severely short. It barely covered her ears. I didn’t like the way it matched the rigidness of her expression. She seemed almost as detached as Patch had been the last time I had seen him. Her lips were pressed flat. Did she smile at all anymore? “You have my number,” she decided. “Call if you want to, only not between nine to five. I’m starting a new job next week, and I don’t want to be taking a lot of personal calls. I want them to know I take my position seriously.”

  “What about Offshore?”

  “It’s Simone’s now. I sold it to her. I’m taking a job with Roxy in their East coast branch in New York.”

  “You’re moving to the city?”

  She nodded.

  “You hate the east coast.”

  “I’m gonna try harder to like it.” She glanced away. “Dominic doesn’t like me being in OB anymore.”

  “He’s an idiot.” Her lips tipped up at my vehemence. I wondered what had happened with him that he would do this to her. OB was home to her. If a person had a compass, then OB was her true north.

  “It’s for his career. He has an opportunity to go up a pay grade and serve stateside. It’s a desk job which he doesn’t like very much, helping the manufacturer redesign an important piece of equipment, but we’re making compromises. Both of us.” She was putting on a brave face. I had seen her do it plenty, but this was all wrong, the sacrifice on her part too huge. You might take the surfer girl away from her ocean, but you couldn’t get the saltwater out of her veins.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She nodded once and then she was gone, her practical work heels clacking away on my wood floors. It made me sad to see her shoehorned into a role that didn’t suit her. Nor did it suit me to watch her walk out of my life again.