The Night Songs Collection
Vampire Rock Star Romance
Seasons in the Sun (Night Songs Collection #0.5)
Because the Night (Night Songs Collection #1)
Night Moves (Night Songs Collection #2)
We Own the Night (Night Songs Collection #3)
Silent Night (Night Songs Collection #4)
The Spotlight Series
Contemporary New Adult Romance
Secondhand Heart (Book #1)
The Trouble with Bree (Book #1.5)
Too Many Reasons (Book #2)
Colorado Shifters
Paranormal Romance Novellas
Lion and the Doe (Book #1)
Doe and the Hunter (Book #2)
“Get him out of here,” my sister Mallory hissed, maybe even loudly enough to wake Devon, who was sprawled out on our futon in a drunken stupor. “How many more nights is this going to happen?”
“I’m not kicking him out. He’s not bothering you.” Our apartment was Devon’s safe haven, more so when my sister wasn’t around. I let him hide out here when he didn’t want to put up with the rest of the world’s shit. Tonight’s shit came courtesy of his current girlfriend, Lexi. By the time Devon got here, his words were slurred and he said the same things over and over. He wasn’t a reliable source. But I didn’t care. What mattered tonight was that I had him and she didn’t.
“It’s one in the morning. I’m awake. He’s bothering me.” Mallory stood in front of the futon, getting in the way of me covering Devon with a throw blanket before she stormed back into her bedroom.
Before I covered him, I took a good look at him, his long, lean limbs wrapped in colorful tattoos. The new ones were much better, but I loved the first one the best; a dragon that looked more like a dog crossed with an alligator. It barely had any color left. Looking at it brought me back to the day we’d skipped school and convinced the guy at the tattoo shop that the ID we’d found at the mall really belonged to Devon. Every time he got a new tattoo, I suggested he get that one fixed, but he wasn’t the type of guy to pretty things up. That was my department. The more ink he got, the worse that dragon looked, but he insisted he liked it just the way it was.
My cat, Ziggy, stood up from her place next to Devon’s stomach and shook violently. She gave me one of those looks only a cat can get away with, and there was no doubt what she thought about that blanket. Devon found her and she loved him, she only tolerated me because I fed her.
I pushed a lock of hair away from Devon’s cheek. The purple highlights were fading in his dark hair, and tomorrow I’d check to see if I had any more dye left to fix it. That meant my hair could use a touch up, too. We had a hair dying party tradition. I did his hair, he did mine, and we always watched Rocky Horror Picture Show while we did it. Devon insisted we sing along if my sister wasn’t home.
Like everything else about me and Devon, Mallory would think it was pathetic.
I could stand here and watch him sleep forever, but I had to be up in five hours, and Devon exhausted me. This wasn’t the first night this week he’d stayed here. I couldn’t even say I didn’t expect him anymore. He knew he was always welcome. We’d been friends too long and through too much together for me to ever turn him away. If I showed up yawning for my morning classes again tomorrow, I’d have to listen to everyone’s shit about how Devon was using me and that I needed to snap out of it and blah, blah, blah.
Devon loved me, just not the same way I loved him.
“Abby.” The shift of the mattress startled me awake when Devon crawled into bed with me. This happened almost every time he stayed here, too. He pressed his body against my back and wrapped his arms around me, his words hot whiskey breath against my neck. “Thank you.”
I nodded, reluctant to open my eyes. If he knew I was awake, he’d want to talk. The alarm was going to start screaming at me to get the fuck out of bed at quarter past six whether Devon worked out his feelings or not.
I nestled back against him, my body fitting perfectly against his. He didn’t react, but my heart stopped and sighed.
Devon took my movement as an invitation, just not the one I wanted. “How come you’re the one who just fucking gets me?”
I’d asked myself that same question more times than I could count. My eyes were open now. Three forty-five. Maybe we could make this quick. “I tell you the same thing every time.” I rolled over so I faced him. “You need to stop thinking you can make a relationship out of sex.”
“I don’t. At least, it doesn’t start that way.” He almost spoke in a regular tone now he knew I was awake, instead of the hush he’d used when he was only trying to wake me up. If his voice carried into Mallory’s room, she’d know he was in my bed again, and she’d barge in and go ballistic. “I thought I had so much in common with Lexi, but she’s doesn’t give a shit about my life, she doesn’t like any of the stuff we like. I wish I could find a girl just like you.”
I sucked in a breath that caught in the back of my throat, strangling the scream that I wrangled back. He had no idea how much his words fucking slayed me, and I had no idea how to tell him. We’d shared almost everything with each other since junior high and even though he lay in my bed with his arms around me, this was all that had ever happened. What would happen if I just leaned in and kissed him? Would it change everything, or even worse, would nothing change, and life would just go on as it would before? Would he just go back to Lexi? It killed me not to know. But it would kill me even more to lose him. So I continued my vigil, waiting for him to make the first move.
“You’ll find that girl.” I could barely get the words out. “When you least expect it.”
Devon didn’t say anything else, he just pulled me against his chest and rolled on to his back, the alcohol pulling him under for the second time that night. I should have been thankful for the chance to sleep instead of solving his problems, but sleep wasn’t coming. Instead, I lay against his chest with my heart pounding for two hours until it was time to step out of my warped little life back into the real world.
We both jumped when the alarm went off; it felt like five minutes later. “Good morning.” Devon blinked rapidly, like his eyes weren’t ready for daylight yet.
“Ugh.” Not ready to face the day either, I pulled the blanket over my head. I felt like someone had kicked me in the face, and I didn’t even drink last night.
Devon ripped the blankets away from me. “Time to get up.” How was he so cheery? He could barely speak English five hours ago. “What do you want for breakfast?”
I shook my head. “Just coffee.” Devon whacked me with a pillow. “What?”
“I’ll get cereal ready for you.” He jumped off the bed, still in his clothes from last night. I had yet to move. “Thanks. Again.”
“For what?” Movement hurt. Why did I pick classes that started at eight? Oh yeah, because I wanted to graduate sometime this decade. Or better yet, this spring.
He tipped his head in confusion. “For everything.”
Mallory was already in the bathroom when I went in to take a shower. “You’re an idiot.” That’s how she greeted me after spitting out her toothpaste. I couldn’t wait until it was time for her to go out of town for work again. “When are you going to stop carrying a torch for that loser and move on?”
“He’s my best friend.” I caught sight of the dark smudges under my eyes when I locked glares with her in the mirror. “I need to take a shower.”
“Yeah, I know, you guys have matching hair so you’re meant for each other.” Mallory let out her usual sigh of disgust. “Has he even kissed you yet?”
She knew the answer to that. “Is that what you want to happen?”
Mallory groaned. “Has anyone? If I wasn’t your
sister, I’d just do it myself so you knew what you were missing.”
I ripped the towels down from the shower curtain. “Are you going to let me take a shower?”
“He’s never going to magically come to his senses and realize he’s madly in love with you. If it was going to happen, it would have already. You make it too easy for him. He can have his cake and Abby, too. Stop letting him walk all over you. Stop being band bitch and start concentrating on your own shit. You’re scared you’re not going to graduate because you spend all your time doing band stuff, and picking up the pieces every time Devon fucks something up.”
“I’m not band bitch. There’s more to it than you think.” That would be true even if Devon had nothing to do with Sinister Riot. Devon had been my muse since the eighth grade, and I’d always factored him into my future. If I couldn’t be a rock star, I was going to make damn sure he was. I’d helped him restyle clothes, I cut his hair, and I taught him how to put makeup on just like all the guys in our favorite bands for his shows. I knew things about Sinister Riot before the rest of the band even got to make decisions about them. I did all the promo and bookings for the band. I was the one who figured out how to make sure they got paid for shows before they even set foot on stage.
The only thing Devon didn’t talk to me about was his girlfriends, unless he was drunk and not making any sense. Not one of those girls had ever bothered to get to know me, they just expected me to disappear. Never going to happen. He might be fucking their brains out, but they didn’t care enough to see the side of him that I did. Advantage: me.
“I’ve been applying for internships,” I continued when Mallory shook her head. And I’d worried that it was going to be Devon who’d make me late for school. “No one’s answering me. But being band manager looks good on my resume.”
“Bullshit. You should have done that already. I was on set all last summer, what did you do? Sell T-shirts at a bunch of biker bars?” Mallory was a year older than me, and like everyone else in my major, she wanted to pursue film production, an industry that had boomed under the Louisiana tax credit. Even though she had no job guarantees either, everyone respected her choice. “No one is going to ooh and ahh that you’ve been the merch girl for a bar band. And you’ve said it yourself. There aren’t any record companies doing what you want to do.”
I’d stopped telling her that Sinister Riot was on the brink of something big. The slower the negotiations crawled forward, the more I looked like a liar. “I’m looking at indie labels. Something with heart. I know what I’m doing.”
Everyone thought they could just snap their fingers and I’d change my mind, and go into something safe and respectable, like teaching. Or film production, since everyone was all over that. That might be great for Mallory, but I just wasn’t interested. It didn’t matter how many ways people told me my plans weren’t practical. No guts, no glory. I always told them the same thing: I’d fall flat on my face doing what I loved before I did anything just for the money.
Mallory’s hand rested on the doorknob on her way out of the bathroom. Maybe I’d get my shower after all. “You’ve always been the smart one, Abby. Stop letting Devon Sinclair define who you are. It’s time he started chasing after you.”
“I’m nervous,” Devon said for the fifth time as we walked down Magazine Street toward The Jezebel Tavern. We swung our hands back and forth between us as we walked, as we always did when something good was about to happen.
And something good was about to happen tonight. We had a meeting with the talent guy from a major record label who’d come down to New Orleans and caught a Sinister Riot show last summer. He loved what he saw on stage, and encouraged the guys to send him a demo. I moved hell and high water to make the guys get that thing done and sent to New York. You’d think recording a demo was just getting the band in a room to play and hitting record, but it was so much more than that. It was takes, layers, mixing, and figuring out how to put the songs together to tell the very best version of Sinister Riot’s story. Tonight, we got our review.
I always referred to the band as “we.” I might not play with the guys on stage, but I was part of the team.
“Don’t be nervous.” I wished I could take my own advice. I was frigging terrified. “You’ve already done everything you can do. He loved your performance and wanted more. They made the trip back down here to meet with the band. That would be a really expensive way to tell us to go fuck ourselves, wouldn’t it?”
“You’re right.” Devon laughed, but it was uneasy. “I keep picturing the album cover. I want to be something cool, like an old New York Dolls cover. Even one of the illustrated ones would work, don’t you think?”
Devon had been drawing album covers as long as I knew him. I’d used a ton of his designs for the band’s T-shirts. “Let’s see if we’re making an album first, then we’ll worry about cover art.”
“I know, but I mean, this could really be it.” He swung my arm as fast as he talked. “You look amazing, did I tell you that?”
“Thanks.” I’d insisted we dress up. The band might not be playing tonight, but we still needed to project the best possible image. Not that we had any proper dress up clothes by regular standards, but I thought we cleaned up pretty damn good. Devon wore dark blue jeans that pooled up over his combat boots, and a black velvet blazer with a Sinister Riot T-shirt underneath. I’d worn my most professional looking skirt, pinstriped and corseted in the back, flaring out mermaid style just below the knee. My lace-front granny boots disappeared under the hem. It was still early enough in the spring that the humidity had yet to turn the air to soup, so I wore a black angora cardigan with a lacy tank underneath. We dyed each other’s hair last night, watching Rocky Horror, while going over every possible scenario for this meeting. My hair was held back on one side with the feathery barrette Devon got me for Christmas. We looked more like we were headed to the gothic prom than a business meeting, but considering the circumstances I thought we looked perfect.
A wolf whistle sounded from Devon’s jacket pocket, and I knew who that was. Lexi. Ugh.
He let go of my hand, the emptiness stinging the space he’d occupied just seconds before. He hunched his shoulders forward as he spoke to her, almost like he wanted to hide from me. Pacing back and forth, he could only get a word in here and there. I wanted to pry the phone from his hand and throw it in the fucking gutter.
“This needs to stop,” he muttered. After he shoved the phone back in his pocket, he let out a heavy breath. “Is it okay if I crash at your place again tonight? Things are still weird with Lexi, and—“
“No.” I said quickly before I let him change my mind. Mallory’s words had been swirling around my head all day, and I even though I didn’t want to admit it, I knew she was right. After that phone call, I had the balls to actually do something about it. But I knew was going to feel like shit later about saying no to him. I couldn’t win. “Ask one of the guys.”
“Are you serious?” He sounded crushed. Damn it.
“Yeah.” Don’t ask me again, I silently pleaded. My resolve was shaky. “I have a big test tomorrow. I can’t fail.”
“I’ll help you study,” he offered, raising an eyebrow hopefully. “Gong show?”
Devon loved helping me study, and it was the only thing that made getting ready for tests bearable. As much as he actually did help me, I had to stand firm. “Not tonight.”
“Okay.” He looked disappointed but didn’t push it anymore.
Devon stopped in front of The Jezebel, and looked up at the balcony, the sign for the bar obscured by robust fern fronds. Rumor had it the rooms of the old boarding house upstairs were haunted, like half the city was, but the flood had washed any ghosts away from the bar. His top lip worried against his lip ring again.
I squeezed his hand. “Relax, it’s going to be good.”
He cocked an eyebrow, unconvinced. “Promise?”
“I promise.”
Devon’s shoulders rose and fell before he
held open the door for me. The Jezebel was home court for Sinister Riot, they played here almost every Saturday night. Otherwise, it was probably indistinguishable from any other dive bar in the city. Its drab décor looked washed in sepia on this quiet Tuesday night. Only a few regulars nursed beers and munched on popcorn, staring up at the Pelicans game, slightly obscured by the smoky cloud that hung from the ceiling. We waved to the bartender and headed straight to the back room.
The rest of the band had already gathered at the table. Everyone nodded as we took the last remaining seats. They all looked as nervous as I felt. I could barely breathe.
Three strangers sat at the head of the table. I recognized Andrew Caselli from when he’d approached me at the merch table all those months ago, needing to know more about the band. Even though I’d only talked to him via email since that night, he felt like an ally. A guy in a suit sat to his right; I’d expected to see at least one of those. To his left was a guy who looked vaguely familiar. He was definitely a musician, I could tell by his shaggy hair and the way he dressed. Andrew and the suit guy sat up straight and leaned forward, and this other guy leaned back in his chair, rocking back and forth slightly.
The musician’s eyes followed me as I took my seat and scooted closer to the table. I wasn’t sure if I should meet his gaze or look away. Devon put his arm around me, and I shifted toward him.
Once we settled, Devon reached for the pitcher of beer in the middle of the table and grabbed two glasses. I put my hand on his arm and shook my head. “Oh yeah. Test,” he said quietly, and filled only one glass.
I still felt like that guy was watching me, and when I looked back at him, I was right.
“Now that we’re all here,” Andrew started the meeting, leaning forward and taking out his tablet, “let me introduce everyone in the band to John Marx, our legal representative for American Original Records, and Eli Jamison, who you might remember as this season’s winner of The Spotlight.”
So that’s where I knew him from.
Too Many Reasons Page 1