Playing At Love: A Rogue Series Novel

by Lara Ward Cosio

  Felicity couldn’t help but smile. “Sure, yeah he was. And just as controlling over his image then, too. Do you know he used to iron his jeans?”

  This elicited a laugh from Colette. “I’m somehow not surprised,” she said. “But you always look good, don’t you?”

  “Even better when you’re on my arm,” he replied and received several kisses for it.

  He lost track of Felicity after that as she slipped away into the crowd. When she had stayed out of sight for an hour he began to think he had offended her by turning his attention to Colette, but then she materialized, seated down and across from him, listening raptly with a group of others as Gavin told them some of the innumerable rock history factoids that had been burned into his brain.

  “So Pearlman hated Strummer so much that he actually mixed his voice lower than the bleedin’ drums on ‘Give ‘Em Enough Rope,’” Gavin said. “Can you fucking believe that a producer would get away with that on a Clash album?”

  Conor saw Felicity shake her head in wonder as the others expressed their disbelief as well. Gavin could always command a crowd and now here she was, the guest Conor had invited, in his thrall as well. He wondered for a moment at the feeling of possessiveness that had come over him.

  She looked up then, catching him watching her.

  “I’m going to go,” she shouted to him over the din. “Brilliant show, CQ.”

  He stood up when she did and watched as she said a quick goodbye to the crowd. Gavin tried unsuccessfully to get her to stay and made a show of kissing her hand as a goodbye.

  “I’m going to walk her out,” Conor told Colette and started out before she could respond.

  He caught Felicity by the elbow as they walked and she gave him a weary smile. It was after two in the morning. She wasn’t used to keeping rock star hours.

  “I’m glad you came,” he told her.

  “It’s pretty incredible to see you guys perform like that. God, to think last time I saw you play was probably this same grubby place when you were just a spotty teenager.”

  “I never had spots,” he said with amusement.

  “True.” She stifled a yawn. “I think I’ll remember that show for a good long while.”

  “How are you?”

  She glanced up at him. “I’m good, thanks.” She paused. “Colette seems nice.”

  He nodded dismissively. “Seeing you again—here—it takes me back to those good old days, Fee. It’s nice.”

  Felicity laughed. “And look how far you’ve come since those days in your Ma’s back garden.”

  He could instantly envision the scene of them banging away on instruments they didn’t quite know how to play as Felicity and Sophie watched from the sidelines. He smiled at the memory of it.

  They came out upon the parking lot in the back of the club and lingered under the gentle rain. Conor looked down at her and saw through the top of her blouse, glimpsing a hint of a black lace bra. He averted his eyes a full second after he should have.

  “Em, how are you getting on with your Ma, then?”

  “She’s not all there any more, to tell the truth. It’s really a hospice situation now. When she does come round, it’s with memories of when I was only little and me Da was still with us.” She took a deep breath. “But, the pain medication is doing its job mostly.”

  “That’s rough. You hanging in there all right?”

  She shrugged. “It is what it is.”

  “Wish I could do something.”

  “She was over the moon to see you.”

  After driving her home from their coffee date at the café, he had invited himself inside the house to say a quick hello. Seeing her mother in a full hospital-style bed, tethered to oxygen tubes running up her nose was a shock. He had run into her once or twice over the years and the woman prostrate before him was not the same woman he had known growing up.

  The open secret at school had been that Felicity’s mother was the one all the boys fantasized about. Despite being abandoned by her husband and left to raise a child by herself, she had always taken great pains with her appearance. She invariably wore some type of slim skirt to show off her shapely legs and favored a shade of deep red lipstick that especially got the teenage boys talking. There had been a series of ill-intentioned boyfriends, and the pattern was dutifully repeated over the years wherein she’d get her heart broken and lean even harder on her daughter for support before finding the next fella. Conor had been a close enough friend of Felicity’s to know this about her mother and therefore had never been infatuated.

  “You know she used to tell me I’d be crazy not to marry you,” Felicity said.

  “Did she now?”

  “That was only because you knew how to charm her. She didn’t know you were going to run off and join the rock circus.”

  He laughed. “Give us a hug before you go, then.”

  She put her arms around his neck and patted his back in a polite way until he forced her into a full embrace. He felt her melt into his arms, and the easy familiarity of her body against his was nice.

  “You’re a good one, Conor Quinn,” she said quietly as she pulled away.

  “Let’s keep in touch, Fee.”

  “Yeah, sure,” she said without confidence.

  “What’s that about?”

  “No, just . . . you’re getting married. You’re about to record an album and go on tour. You know me, I’d rather see things as they are than pretend them to be something else.”

  “Try this—have some faith in your old friend and see what happens.”

  Felicity smiled. “Sure, why not.”

  He leaned in to give her a kiss on the cheek but she turned at the wrong moment and they kissed on the mouth. It lasted longer than it should have for a friendly peck and he found he quite liked it. Just as he realized he could taste Guinness on her soft lips, she pulled away.

  “Fuck, sorry about that,” she said. “I’ve got to go.”

  Conor grabbed her hand to stop her from turning away from him. “It’s okay, honey. Relax. No harm done.”

  Felicity shook her head. “Take care, CQ,” she said and quickly walked through the wet parking lot.

  Conor stood still for a long while, trying to understand what was going on. Inside he had one of the most beautiful women in the world waiting for him. And out here he had an old friend that he felt so comfortable and connected with that it left him wanting to follow her home.

  It then occurred to him that maybe these feelings of being drawn to Felicity was his way of setting himself up to fail with Colette. He had let his feelings for Sophie keep him from truly giving anyone else a chance for so long, and now that he was trying to get beyond that self-imposed hurdle, was he just setting up a new obstacle?

  He shook his head and laughed quietly at himself before heading back inside.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Felicity walked down Crow Street, fists buried deep into her coat pockets. She tried to focus on the way the streetlights set the wet brick pavement aglow but she couldn’t keep her thoughts from the kiss. What was she playing at with that? Not that she had planned it. It really was purely accidental.

  The fact that neither one of them had ended it immediately was what troubled her. Maybe she was going through a midlife crisis. Only, that meant she would be dead by sixty-two. She didn’t like the sound of that.

  There were two twenty-something girls walking arm-in-arm ahead of her, weaving as they went and likely doing their own walk of shame after too many drinks. They might have been unsteady, but they were holding fast to one another and the sight made her long for a girlfriend to confide in.

  The divorce seemed to not only strip her of her husband but of all her friends as well. Once things went bad with their marriage, she found he had been the keeper of their friends. It was just one more way she realized too late that she had little by little given up her identity in deference to him. Of course, it hadn’t started out that way. He had claimed to love her for her spu
nkiness and she still believed that was true in the early years. But over time, he made it clear in overt and subtle ways alike how he wanted her to conform to his expectations. It was nothing dramatic or life altering. But it was persistent enough that she began to bend, almost without realizing it. She had buried the part of her that knew she was going against her own instincts, preferring to not cause any waves. Because she loved him and she knew he loved her. And, in comparison to some of her friends’ dysfunctional marriages, was tamping down some aspects of herself really that awful?

  Their marriage might have gone on like that had he not abruptly ended it. That had been part of his personality, to without warning drop friends who somehow disappointed him. But she had for so many years been on his “right” side that she never thought it could happen to her.

  When it did, however, it left her deeply shaken. She had to reevaluate everything about their life together, examine anew the signs she had purposely been blind to before in order to understand her part in their demise. In doing so, she realized she had lost her sense of what was true because the divorce had blindsided her. How could she have lived with a man for ten years only to find she didn’t know him? The answer was she couldn’t have. She realized she had simply let all the signs slide by unchecked because she’d rather not admit that what she built up in her mind as the perfect relationship was no such thing.

  Worst of all, she recognized her mother in the way she behaved. Her mother had always been desperate to find a new husband. With each new boyfriend, she would contort herself to appear to be whatever type of woman he wanted. Before long, however, they would sense her neediness, and move on. Felicity hated to think she had emulated that, even to a small degree, but she couldn’t deny it in the end. She hadn’t been as desperate as her mother was, but there were definite traces of that kind of weakness. It was so predictable that her absentee father had also had a part in how she had handled things. Of course she wanted to please her husband. The underlying lesson her father’s sketchy presence in her life had left her with was that men leave. Unless, unlike her mother, she could find the key to keeping one. It was with embarrassment now that she saw the superiority she had felt when she got married. She had thought she’d found the answer her mother never could. And she had been wrong.

  Being back in Dublin, despite the overwhelming task of caring for her now dying mother, had been exactly what she needed to reclaim a sense of her old self. Just walking these very streets reminded her of the tough, daring teen she had been. When she thought back to the nights she stayed out late, running with the boys, it made her smile. She had been brave and free, partly because of her age and partly because she had always had the plan to leave. The sense that her life there was only temporary, that there were no consequences to pay for being herself, meant she didn’t have to second guess her desires or succumb to anyone else’s view of what she should be.

  Telling Conor that he knew her to be someone who liked to see things as they were, well . . . that had been the old her. Before life got in the way, before she put on blinders so as not to admit that things weren’t what they seemed below the surface. It was funny that in Conor’s company she felt so much more like herself, even coming up with that line.

  But if he brought out her true self, what did that mean in regards to the kiss? Thinking of it once more brought a rush of heat to her body. Conor Quinn was absolutely gorgeous. And his mouth on hers had sparked a delicious combination of old memories and new desire.

  Not that any of that mattered. He was not only engaged to be married, but she certainly didn’t trust her own heart and mind after everything she had just been through. It would be a complete disaster to get involved with anyone now, let alone a handsome—taken—rock star.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Felicity’s first call came while Conor was in a sound booth on his own, trying desperately to get this song’s main hook to sound on his guitar the way it sounded in his head. The band had been in studio for a couple weeks, making painstaking progress. This album, their fifth, was gaining creative momentum but not without all of them dedicating every ounce of energy and focus they had. The sessions were especially emotionally taxing for Conor as he found himself singing backup to lyrics that made him immensely uncomfortable, which he supposed was part of Gavin’s goal. The penance for his sin would apparently be a process drawn out beyond the recording and into the tour after that.

  So, when he felt his phone vibrate he ignored it, assuming it was Colette. She had developed a habit of calling him randomly throughout the day, oblivious to the deadline he was under. Her calls increasingly had to do with getting him to commit to a wedding date and were thus another reason for letting them go to voicemail. He had absently agreed to the wedding happening before the next tour and realized too late that that didn’t exactly match up with his desire for a long engagement.

  An hour later, Conor left his guitar in the sound booth and went to the other side of the studio where the mixing boards were. He slumped into a recliner and rubbed his face. Gavin and Shay were huddled together with the band’s long-time producers, their excitement over the track they were working on obvious.

  There was a large whiteboard on the wall to the left side, and Conor studied for the thousandth time Gavin’s handwritten song titles. They included the songs that would make the final cut of this new album:

  “You’ve Been Found Out”

  “This Instrument”

  “Through Your Eyes”

  “Remember When”

  “Play It Live”

  “You Made Me This Way”

  “Let’s Go Back”

  “Don’t You Know (It Ain’t Ever What You Think)”

  “Give Me Just This”

  “Hooked”

  “The Sweetest Would Be”

  It was a good feeling to know they were headed in the right direction with this album. They would soon be able to wrap things up.

  The phone in his pocket buzzed again and he took it out, expecting his fiancée. He was surprised to see Felicity’s number showing instead.

  He had been good on his word and called her several times over the past few weeks but she hadn’t answered or returned his calls. At first he thought she was embarrassed about their parking lot encounter but he knew her to have a tougher skin than that. Then he began to worry that she was overwhelmed with caring for her mother.

  “Hey, you,” he said as he accepted the call.

  “She’s gone,” came the shaky reply.

  “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry,” he told her, sitting upright.

  “I’m sorry to call. I know you’re busy. I just…I don’t—”

  “Tell me where you are.”

  ~

  All the members of the band attended the funeral in support of their old friend, and with James’ help the paparazzi were kept almost entirely away from the event.

  Colette was unable to attend with Conor as she had a contracted job to fulfill. Felicity was honestly happy for it. The last thing she wanted at this time was to worry about niceties with strangers.

  The service was simple, followed by a procession to the burial. The open grave already held the coffin and a light smattering of rain tapped against the canopy overhead. A priest, suited rather than robed, spoke at length but Felicity only caught snippets of what he said. Then she was asked to say a few words and stumbled forward.

  The small group waited in silence for her to speak. She looked around, seeing the faces of her mother’s two best girlfriends. The older women were standing arm in arm, their eyes cast down. Felicity felt a sudden pang of guilt as she saw the grief on their faces. She had always derisively referred to her mother and theses two friends of hers as the “Lonely Hearts Club” due to their seemingly willful bad choices with men. But they had all been good mates to each other, and who was she to have judged anyway? Her own “perfect” marriage had turned out to be more illusion than reality.

  Felicity’s uncle and his family were there a
long with other extended family she hadn’t stayed close with. And then there was Conor, Gavin, Martin, and Shay. They had come for her. On this grim day, she felt lucky to have returned home to these friends.

  “I have to say, I didn’t catch much of what the Father said,” she started, and the crowd obliged her with quiet laughter. “What I did gather, the idea that Jesus is offering the overburdened rest, that my Ma will be welcomed into paradise with no weeping or pain—well, that’s lovely. My Ma, she never did ask for much. I’m honestly relieved her pain is over now. And I suppose the best version of heaven for her would be a man to love her that never leaves—and why would he if he’s in heaven with her? And, of course, to keep enjoying her nightly gin and tonics.” She paused and took in a deep breath, her chest aching. “Rest well, Mammy. I love you.”

  ~

  Later, the same small group of close family and friends joined together at the home Felicity had grown up in with her mother.

  Celia and Jessica took charge of making sure the guests had food and drink and were otherwise catered to, freeing Felicity to stand at a distance and go through the motions.

  The home was small but had always been enough for the two of them. A faint cigarette odor lingered in the walls, despite the hours Felicity had spent airing the place out upon her return. The sitting area was focused on a 1970s notched wood entertainment center that had no business being anywhere in the present day. The shelving around the television was crowded with what her mother had deemed “collectables” but were really inexpensive knick-knacks. She had developed a fondness for owls for some unknown reason and now dozens upon dozens of figurines were collecting dust to show for it. Two of the younger family members had set up a play area on the floor and were using the things for their own amusement. She was glad they were finally coming to some use.

  Felicity pulled at a loose thread in the hem of her plain black dress, glancing up now and again to see the others chatting, looking through old photos, and gazing back at her hesitantly. It was the oddest ritual, forcing people to be together at a time like this when most were so uncomfortable with the prospect of addressing why they were even there.