The Fire Walker: A Rock Star Romance

by Amity Cross

  “I never go in halves.”

  “Where are you?” Zoe was keeping tabs on me like a worried parent.

  “Some shithole motel outside of Denver.”

  She let out a long whistle. “You’ve driven a long way, Dee Dee.”

  “So? I’m driving to New York.” I just decided it.

  “That’s even further.”

  “I’ve got the time and the money. So what?”

  “You’re doing this because of Jessie,” she said bluntly.

  “I’m doing this because I want to,” I said sharply. “Please, Zo. I fucking love you, but just drop it.”

  “Dee, I’m just worried about you,” she said in a small voice, and I knew I’d hurt her feelings. Damn it.

  “Look, Zo… I’m sorry, okay? I just… I don’t know. I’ll be okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “You’ll be there a while? In Denver?”

  “I guess. I mean, I haven’t decided which way to go yet. There’s some stuff I want to see here.”

  “Like what?”

  “Dunno. Check out a baseball game.”

  “Is it baseball season?”

  “No idea. If it’s not, maybe football.”

  There was a rustling over the line and the sound of a door closing. “You shouldn’t be alone, Dee.”

  I knew she was referring to that comment I’d made about silence. The comment that gave away just how borderline I was. I was that close from crying, and the moment I did, my manly reputation was out the window.

  “It might be different for me, Zo, but maybe different is exactly what I need.”

  “You’ll be in Denver for a while?”

  “You’re not fucking up your trip to come here.”

  “Fine.”

  “I’ll talk to you later, hot legs.” Time to sign this convo off before it got worse.

  “Okay.”

  I pressed the end call button and tossed the phone back onto the table. I knew Zoe meant well, but this whole thing was beginning to grate on my nerves. Talking about it endlessly was like rubbing sandpaper on an open wound.

  Maybe next time, I should stick to a text message.

  The next day, after wandering around Denver and finding nothing that held my interest, I went back to my seedy motel room on the road out of town with a bottle of scotch under one arm and a bag of greasy takeaway. I was just like one of those down and out types from the movies. I hadn’t shaved in a week, and I was beginning to look the part, as well.

  Staring up at the ceiling, feeling the slow burn of scotch in my stomach, I almost considered praying. Instead, I sat up and took another mouthful, deciding getting drunk might do the trick.

  Denver wasn’t doing it for me. I had to find the next place, and this time, I probably should plan where I was going. Kansas City was the next obvious choice to go from here. Maybe from there, I could find my way to Nashville. I wasn’t that into country, but music was what fed my soul. I would try for Nashville, wherever the fuck that was.

  Knocking interrupted my downward spiral, and with a groan, I got up to see who the hell would want to talk to me. Yanking open the door, I let out a sharp hiss as my eyes collided with none other than Jessie fucking Ware.

  What. The. Fuck.

  She slapped her hand on the door, pushed it out of my grasp, and just walked right in with a waft of jasmine and vanilla. No hello. No nothing.

  Despite my thumping heart, I felt anger simmer, and I slammed the door closed. Turning to face her, there was only one thing I wanted to do. The only thing my body would let me do.

  Stepping toward her, I grasped both sides of her face and shoved her back against the wall, my mouth over hers. Her hands fisted into my shirt as I kissed her with everything I had, her body pressed hard into mine. She tasted sweet like lust and cherries. Always with the fucking cherries.

  Her lips were on mine, kissing me back, and it would’ve been so easy just to keep going, to let her consume me again, but remembering what she’d done to me, I tore my mouth from hers and stepped away until my back hit the opposite wall.

  Shit. Fuck. Ass.

  I ran a hand over my face, the stubble I’d neglected to shave off for the last week rasping against my skin.

  I’d hoped it was out of my system after that, but it had just added fuel to the fire. I was hard, wound up, and drunk as fuck.

  “Dee…” she murmured with her sexy French-Canadian accent, and I felt my cock twitch. Fucking traitor.

  “What do you want?” I snapped. I knew what I wanted, but she wasn’t going to get it unless she wanted it, too.

  “I…” she began, but she closed her mouth and just stared at me with her fucking doe eyes.

  “You came all this way, and that’s all you can say?” I said angrily. “You ripped my fucking heart out.”

  “Dee…”

  “What. Do. You. Want?”

  “I can’t stop thinking about you,” she blurted, her eyes wet with tears.

  Now I felt like an ass for making her cry. Why was I even feeling sorry for her? She pulled a classic fuck and run, pissed on my heart and set it on fire.

  “Please, Dee. I’m sorry.”

  I shook my head, looking at the floor. “I said all those things…” Like a fucking moron.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I dropped my head into my hand, screwing my eyes shut, but she invaded all of my senses anyway. “How the fuck did you even find me?” As soon as I said it, I knew the answer. “Fucking Zoe,” I exclaimed with an annoyed sigh.

  I shouldn’t be mad at my best friend. She obviously wanted to help, but I wasn’t sure delivering Jessie to my door was the right way of going about it.

  Jessie shuffled from foot to foot. “She told me a few home truths.” I bet she did. “And she told me a few things about you.”

  I snorted. “Why did you come here? What do you want from me? It’s a long way to come for a quick fuck.”

  She flinched, wrapping her arms around herself, eyes on the floor.

  “Why are you here?” I asked again. “It’s not like you promised me shit.”

  “I want to fix it. I’m sorry.”

  “You fucking left me,” I yelled, slamming my fist against the wall. Thankfully, for my credit card, I didn’t leave a hole. “You left me in the middle of the night after I told you I wanted more. You were pretty fucking clear.”

  “Dee.” She sobbed, shrinking back like a frightened animal. Despite the rage I felt in the pit of my stomach, I would never hurt her. After everything that happened with Zoe and her psycho ex and common decency…I wasn’t like that.

  I took in her slight frame, her downcast eyes, and her perfect lips, and it would be so easy just to give in. I could just take her right now and sate this need, but she would fucking destroy me. She already had in record bloody time. I was on a one-way street to nowhere town, population me.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” I said.

  “But I did.”

  There was this twisted push and pull going on inside me. I’d never expected in a billion years to see her again, especially on my doorstep in the middle of the bloody country. A week ago, I would’ve done anything to keep her in my life. Now I couldn’t even look her in the eye.

  “Zoe said—”

  “I don’t care what Zoe said,” I interrupted.

  “I did a shitty thing,” she cried. “I did a shitty thing, and I’m sorry. I came all this way to make amends. To see…”

  “Stop.” My fingers curled into fists at my sides. I couldn’t do it. She couldn’t just walk back into my life after walking out of it so dramatically. What was stopping her from doing it again? The whole time I’d been truthful about who I was and what I wanted, and she walked away. She used me and walked away. What we did wasn’t a one-night stand, and she knew it the moment she let me into her room.

  “You need to leave,” I said.

  “Dee. Please, hear me out.”

  “No.”


  “Please.”

  I glanced up and saw the pain and desperation in her expression, and despite the pull I felt toward her, I just wanted her to leave. “There’s nothing you could say to make what you did better, Jessie. If you want closure…if you want to make yourself feel better by saying you’re sorry…you won’t get any of that from me.”

  Her lips moved like she was trying to say something but couldn’t get it out. After a moment, she backed away toward the door, shoulders sinking. I found myself beginning to feel sorry for her. Sorry that she wasted all her time and money by coming here.

  She opened the door and left, her gaze never leaving the carpet. When the latch clicked back into place, I strode over and drove the dead bolt home.

  I had no idea what Zoe said to Jessie to get her to come here, but it must have been epic, and really, she shouldn’t have bothered. I hoped she made a phone call and hadn’t gone in person because New York was a long way to go from Houston to tell someone a few home truths.

  Zoe just needed to let go of whatever stupid notion she had about trying to save me. I didn’t want to be saved. How many times did I have to say it? I knew I would have a few choice words lined up for when I called her, and I was already formulating the speech in my mind.

  I couldn’t do anything about it now. I was hardly drunk enough. Grabbing the bottle of scotch, I sank back onto the bed and resumed my downward spiral.

  Chapter 14

  Jessie

  The door slammed closed behind me, the boom echoing into the mostly empty lot. When the dead bolt drove home, I squeezed my eyes shut.

  He looked rough. The fact that his shirt was crumpled and he hadn’t shaved in a while, paired with the tang of scotch made me realize just how deeply he’d felt it. I’d walked away from something that could’ve been epic, and I didn’t even know it. Zoe had said he was taking it hard, and it wasn’t until the moment he opened the door that I realized how true that statement was. She’d also said that she thought I had a chance of winning him back.

  Maybe Zoe was wrong.

  The anger in his eyes, the hurt that was there, split me in two. I knew he wouldn’t lift a hand to me, but the memories that had flooded back when he hit the wall…I couldn’t help shrinking away. It was like an automatic response had been ingrained into my very soul. Someone got angry, so they had to hurt me. Dee wouldn’t hurt me. Not like that.

  My entire body flamed with embarrassment, shame, regret…all of that and then some. I was a fucking idiot. A scared, clueless idiot. The split second our eyes connected was the moment I released what I’d thrown away. The moment he’d kissed me, heat had flared so hotly it almost overwhelmed everything coherent. It was still there. The spark.

  With a shaky sigh, I walked back down to the dingy motel office intent on renting out a room for the night. I never realized how many crappy motels were on the highway out of Denver when I looked at the map on the way over here. This seemed the worst of the bunch, but it would do for a night.

  There was no doubt I had to formulate a plan. A way to try to fix this thing. No way was I going to give up after one attempt, not after coming all this way. Zoe and Will had altered their trip to convince me to come, and if that wasn’t an omen, I didn’t know what it was.

  Her belief in Dee was the thing that had given me the courage to try to overcome those past fears. It was time to finally step up and be the better person I’d been trying to become for the past five years.

  Pushing into the motel reception, I rang the bell, my mind ticking over different scenarios. Only one kept coming back to the surface of the whirlpool that was my thoughts. The only way Dee was even going to begin to forgive me was if I gave him no other option but to take me on his road trip to hell. If I forced him, then he would have to face me. He would have to listen. Spending time together was the only way I could even try to make this thing work.

  I would spend the night and face him in the morning. He’d obviously been drinking, and trying to convince a drunken man to stop hating you was near on impossible. Better to wait until he was sober and coherent.

  Ringing the bell again, I tapped my fingers on the counter. There was no going back now. New York wouldn’t be the same after the way I’d left everything, and the only thing that was certain right now was that I wanted Dee in my life. I needed him like a flower needed the sun. I would walk over a pit of fire to win him back.

  I’d done some pretty screwed-up things in my life, and letting Dee Cosgrove go was the worst one.

  Chapter 15

  Dee

  Rolling over with a groan, I cursed the bottle of scotch I’d devoured the night before

  It seemed like such a good idea at the time, but now I was paying for it. My head throbbed, and my mouth tasted like something had died in it. I hadn’t had a hangover in a long time, and now I remembered why I was usually so careful.

  A nagging feeling inside me was saying something happened last night. More than getting drunk. My head was in that foggy in between place, half in sleep and half in my impending hangover. Clawing my way out of the scratchy polyester quilt, I put my feet on the floor, and for the first time since Jessie had ditched me, I got up and started to pull it the hell together.

  Getting in the shower was the first step, and then I needed to shave this crap off my face, get in the car, and find my way to Nashville. It seemed like the promised land, and if I managed to get there, then I hoped things would get better.

  Music was the only thing I could count on to save me. I had to believe it because I couldn’t believe in anything else right now. The human race had let me down big-time.

  As the water pounded onto my skin, washing away the stench of alcohol, my mind wandered back to the night before. Had Jessie really been here? She’d turned up at my door, and I’d just lost it and kissed her. My tongue against hers, my hands in her hair, her perfect brown eyes. Running my fingers across my lips, I remembered what that felt like. Remembered what it was to be consumed. She was still in there, lodged in my heart, and I wanted her out.

  Shit, that scotch really did a number on me. Did I get so drunk that I hallucinated her? Fucking hell. How would she even be able to find me? The moment I thought it, Zoe’s face flashed in my mind. Fucking Zoe.

  Dragging my sorry ass out of the shower, I cleaned myself up, shaving and getting dressed. I had to focus on the task at hand because if I didn’t, then I would be focusing on someone else.

  Packing my bag and sliding my sunglasses on, I downed a glass of water before opening the door and walking out into the cool morning. The fresh air hit my face, and it was oddly soothing.

  What I didn’t expect was to find Jessie sitting on the bonnet of the car, and my heart did this stupid flip-flop thing. So, not an alcohol related hallucination after all. I felt a burning sensation at the thought of kissing her last night.

  “I don’t have a way to get home,” she said, her gaze fixed on me.

  “Not my problem.” I threw my stuff in the boot and slammed the back closed with a bang. Ignoring her, I went down to the office and dropped my key in the box. When I strode back, she was still standing there, her bag at her feet, hands shoved in her pockets. I looked her over, and I didn’t have it in me to abandon her in the middle of nowhere.

  Grimacing, I said, “Get in before I change my mind.” I slid into the driver’s seat and waited as she scrambled to throw her bag in the back. When she got in the front, it was in a cloud of vanilla perfume, and I closed my eyes trying to filter it out.

  Reversing out of the car park and pulling out onto the road, my jaw was tense. All that carefully placed facade and dream of going to Nashville was totally blown to smithereens. It was so blown it was splattered everywhere.

  Thinking about which way I was going now wasn’t much of an option. I’d looked at the map the night before to see where shit was. To get to New York, I would have to go through Kansas City, then St Louis. I would take her that far then figure out the rest later.

 
; After a while of driving in complete silence, Jessie finally spoke, “Where are we going?”

  “I’m taking you home,” I replied bluntly.

  “What, all the way to Brooklyn?”

  “I was going that way, anyway. May as well get there a little faster.”

  “Do you even know how long it will take to drive to New York from here?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve driven to Perth and back.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think that’s the same.”

  I rolled my eyes. “It’s the same. A long, boring trip full of nothing.”

  She visibly flinched, but I didn’t take my eyes off the road.

  “Why don’t you just put me on a plane?” she asked, her voice thin.

  I didn’t have an answer for that. Maybe I wanted to see if she was actually sorry. That she felt bad for what she did. But maybe I just didn’t want to give her the money.

  Even if I did have an answer, I didn’t bother replying, plugging in my iPod and turning up the stereo instead. If I couldn’t hear her, then she wasn’t really there. So fucking childish.

  She lasted three songs before she pulled out the iPod and stuffed it in the glove box. I scowled but didn’t take my eyes off the road. She wanted a reaction, and I didn’t want to give it to her.

  “When I was a teenager, I was angry all the time.” She sighed, running her fingers through her hair. “I acted out, fought with my parents, snuck out at night, got drunk at school. I was a bad egg. I was expelled twice, but somehow, I managed to graduate. The same night, I packed a bag and disappeared.”

  So she’d got it down to a fine art. “If this is the origin story to your ditching superpower, I don’t want to hear it.”

  “I know I’ve made a lot of bad choices,” she continued. “But I want to make this right. I fucked up.”

  “Nothing you say will change anything,” I said and flipped on the radio. What, did she think she could just turn up, and tell me a stupid story, and everything would be okay? She didn’t want me. She wanted to feel better about herself. She wanted closure, and fuck if I was giving it to her.