KADE: A Second Chance Rockstar Romance

by Jane Anthony

  Standing in front of the hanging door mirror, I turn at all angles to make sure everything is where it should be. The simple one shoulder dress fits like it was made for me. It’s conservative with a sexy flair. More my style than any of the other clothes I’ve worn on this tour. And it’s all black—Kade’s favorite color. “What are you guys doing tonight?”

  “There’s a bar downtown. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum have some stupid bet going about who could go the longest without showering and still get laid.” She tugs on one of my curls and watches it spring back up. “Lucky for them, they are good musicians because those two are idiots.”

  “Unhygienic idiots at that.”

  I refresh my berry lipstick and compulsively look at myself again. “I think this is as good as it’s gonna get.” A nervous rock sits in the pit of my stomach. I’ve already slept with him. A lot. We’ve spent almost every moment together since the day we met, but slapping the word “date” on it makes it feel less casual. Not only that, but this will be my first date since I was sixteen. I’m not sure I even know what to do.

  The accordion door squeezes open, and Kade walks in. “Hey A, you re—” He stops short. His smoldering gaze starts at my feet and rises up my body slowly, drinking me in like he’s just come from the desert and I’m a tall glass of water. “Damn.”

  He doesn’t look so bad himself. The gray dress shirt he wears hugs every hard curve of his body, and his black jeans fit just enough to showcase his strong thighs without being too tight. Don’t even get me started on his cologne. I could live for days on his scent alone.

  “Don’t just stand there, Romeo, say something nice. ‘Damn’ isn’t a compliment,” Jenny spits.

  Shooting her my signature death look, I grab his extended hand and gasp when he jerks me against him and leans in close. “You’re gorgeous.” The tickle of his breath on my ear combined with the velvety sound of his voice turns my nervous rock into a horde of butterflies. I take a deep breath in an effort to relax before I pass out from the stress of it all.

  We leave the bus hand in hand, and he leads me to a car idling in the lot. “You rented a car?”

  “I want this to be a real date. I can’t pick you up at your house, but I can pretend.”

  He opens the passenger side door, helps me in, and then closes it behind me. The night is just starting, but I already know it’s going to be my favorite part of the tour so far. He’s starting to let me in. To show me the real him, not just the Kade the rest of the world gets to see.

  Twinkling lights strung overhead illuminate the worn cobblestone patio in the tiny Italian restaurant. Kade’s hand settles into the small of my back as we follow the hostess to a secluded table in the corner. It’s both possessive and natural, and I love the way it feels.

  The light from a candle highlights his eyes in a way that gives them a bright, ethereal glow as he sits across from me. “I thought the terrace would be better than sitting inside. More privacy. You aren’t cold, are you?”

  “It’s wonderful, Kade.”

  My heart flutters as he flashes me ‘the grin’ for the second time. He’s obviously pleased with himself. He should be; he’s earned it. So far.

  “So,” he starts, “what do you like?”

  I peer across the table as he looks down at his menu, the realization striking hard that what I like is sitting across from me at this very moment. I’m into him. Hardcore.

  He feels my stare and looks up as I drop my gaze to my own menu, feeling the flush, and finding it hard to catch my breath. My skin feels hot and clammy. I chastise myself for feeling something I know I shouldn’t. I’m only going to end up getting hurt again.

  “I don’t know. Everything looks so good.”

  The waiter pours our wine and takes our orders, and Kade raises his glass in a toast. “To starting over.”

  “To starting over,” I repeat with a clink of his glass.

  “So,” I say, after taking a sip. “You know all the sordid details of my crazy life, tell me something about you. Something I wouldn’t have already read in the tabloids.”

  “What do you want to know? Ask away.”

  “Tell me what the great Kade Black was like as a boy.”

  “Believe it or not, I was kind of shy as a boy. I was a military brat who traveled around a lot.”

  “So that explains it.” He arches an eyebrow at my cryptic conclusion. “Those guys have a drawl that you don’t really have. Your accent is indistinguishable.”

  “Oh, right. Yeah, the rest of the band was raised in Georgia. I only lived there for a few years. Prior to that, I was all over.

  “Any siblings?”

  “No. Just me and my folks.”

  “You must be close with them. I bet they are really proud of you.”

  Talking about his parents makes him visibly uncomfortable. He shifts in his seat, fingering the stem of his wine glass. “They aren’t around anymore. They’ve been gone since I was a teenager.” The sparkle in his eyes dims, and his mouth turns down.

  The sudden urge to sweep him into my arms comes on strong. I want to hold him against me, kiss his pain away, and soothe the sad look that’s taken over his face merely mentioning his family.

  Kade Black is a beautiful, damaged soul with more depth than I gave him credit for. Unfortunately, he’s also six-foot-five inches of nothing but heartbreak. He’s testosterone and swagger eighty percent of the time, but the rare occasions that he’s allowed me to peek at the man behind the curtain have led me down a path I don’t know how to come back from. My body craves the cocky asshole side of him, but my heart is completely smitten with the man hiding underneath.

  CHAPTER 13

  EVERY DAY BLEEDS into the one before it in a monotonous string of concerts and highway. I’m so sick of the road. It feels like I haven’t slept in weeks. We’re heading back toward the direction of New Jersey now. Soon, we’ll be in Pittsburgh then, after that, the summer festival in Tuxedo, New York. It’s our last stop before splitting with Black Diamond. They’ll continue the tour out West, and I’ll go home.

  I roll over to grab my phone and send off a quick “Good Morning” text to Shay, like I’ve done every morning, before lying back in bed. Kade stirs next to me, slipping his hand around my waist, keeping me tethered to him. This bed is our haven. Our private sanctuary away from everyone else. It’s the only place where we can be us. In here, we aren’t a cocky rock star and a single mother. We’re Kade and Ainsley. No one has expectations of us. No one is watching, judging. He’s mine, and I’m his, in a lovely delusion that ends the second our feet hit the floor and reality sinks in. He and I only have a couple of more days together, and all of this will be over.

  “Where’d you go?”

  The deep, quiet sound of his voice cuts through my thoughts and pulls me back to him. The closer I get to our expiration date, the more I find myself daydreaming about what could have been if we met in another life. One where he isn’t famous and I’m not broken, and we can try to have a real relationship like a normal couple.

  “Just wondering what Shay’s doing.”

  Shay’s my first priority, the only thing that matters to me, and the biggest reason I can’t let myself continue on this path I’m headed down. She’s not just a part of my life, she is my life, and I let her down. Her father left us, and I shattered into a hundred pieces instead of being strong for her. It’s another reason on the list of many that I should never have gotten involved in this. She needs a mother more than I need a mate.

  “You miss her.” Kade props himself up on his elbow so he can look at me. He’s always focused. His mind never wanders; his eyes never leave mine. A few weeks ago, his intense gaze made me uncomfortable. I thought this was his way of being in control, but I was wrong. He just cares about what I have to say.

  “More than you can imagine.”

  “I can imagine, A,” he says, sweeping his fingertips across my cheek. Kade and I haven’t really discussed our imminent demise, but the air
between us gets heavier as time closes in on us. I can feel his rapid heartbeat against my palm. The wheels are turning in his head; I can see it in his eyes. “I don’t want you to go.”

  “I have to.”

  His spine curls as he sits up and rests his arms on his knees. “You don’t have to. You can stay on the tour, come back to California with me. We can do this, Ainsley. I want to do this.”

  I sit up in bed and kick my legs over the side, turning away from him. I’ve grown used to him demanding my body, but right now, he’s asking for my heart. Any normal woman would jump at this chance, but I’m not other women. I’m me. Irreparably broken and unwilling to give myself to another person like that again. “We shouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “No,” he says turning me to face him. “We should have had this conversation weeks ago. The second I felt myself falling for you, I should have laid it out on the table. I’m a man who gets what he wants, and what I want is you.”

  “Well, you can’t have me!” Jumping from the bed, I start throwing on my clothes. “My life is in New Jersey with my daughter! My feelings for you are irrelevant. You have no right to even ask me to move across the country with you!”

  Kade stands up, pulling on pajama pants and a T-shirt. “So you admit you have feelings for me. Why are you being so obtuse about this? You’ll still be Shay’s mother in California!”

  “You don’t get it! I can’t take Shay from Bob, and I wouldn’t want to. She needs us both.”

  Bob may be a cheating ass, but he’s the only father Shay has. Even if I wanted to go, he would never allow me to move her three thousand miles away from him.

  “Ah, fuck Bob!” he shouts, backhanding the air in front of him.

  He’s too arrogant for his own good. A caveman. An ornery toddler expecting people to bend to his will. I’m not his assistant, his lackey, or his friend. After this, I’m not even sure I’m a fan of his anymore. “No. Fuck you! If given the choice between my family and you, my family wins. Every time.”

  Something comes over Kade. A veil falls over his eyes, darkening them from blue to black. Hands shake at his sides, and his trembling lips turn into a scowl. “After everything he put you through, you still love him,” he seethes, his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths.

  It sickens me, but I do. I can’t just turn it off like a faucet. Love doesn’t work that way. But that doesn’t lessen my feelings for Kade. I’m so confused I just want to cry. “I don’t know who I love.”

  He takes a step forward, his fingers twitch like a methadone patient, and his nostrils flare. A rumbling growl comes from deep inside his chest. I’ve seen him mad a dozen times, but I’ve never seen him like this. If it were anyone else, I might be afraid. I’ve witnessed how Kade’s temper could spiral out of control. I half expect him to turn green and start tearing the entire place apart, but I know he’d never hurt me. He stomps past me, throws open the door, and disappears at the front of the bus.

  Jenny peeks her head in the room. “I could hear you two yelling all the way in the kitchen. What’s going on?”

  I grab her hand, pull her in, and close the door behind her. “He broke the rules, Jen!” I explode, pacing the room. “He’s such a cocky son of a bitch sometimes; I want to wring his neck!”

  Jen and I both lurch forward as the bus comes to an abrupt stop. “We can’t possibly be in Pittsburgh already. We just left Baltimore,” Jenny says, changing the subject.

  She pokes her head out the door to see what’s going on. Vic is buzzing back and forth like an angry hornet about to sting. “Band meeting! Everyone off the bus!”

  Jen backs up, sliding the door closed again and leans against it. “So what are you going to do?”

  “What kind of question is that? I’m going home.” I grab a duffel bag from the closet and start stuffing my clothes in it. “I can’t stay here anymore.”

  “Wait.” She grabs my arm. “You can’t leave right now. We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  Kade’s words run through my head. I always get what I want. I fall onto the edge of the bed, tears flooding my eyes. Three weeks after my divorce, here I am crying over yet another man. I’m pathetic. The minute Kade realizes that fact, he’ll only turn around and leave me too. It’s inevitable. “How am I supposed to face him now?”

  The bed bounces as Jenny plops next to me. “Do you love him?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrug. Starting a new relationship so quickly after the last one ends is a recipe for disaster. I’ll never know if my feelings for him are real or not until it’s too late, and I don’t have the luxury of taking that risk. There’s too much at stake for me to chase down a rebound. “I’m just so confused.”

  “Of course you are. Everyone saw this coming but you, Ains. I warned you he was falling for you. How could he not?”

  Voices filter through the bus as the guys pile back on. “Jen, you in there?” Banger’s drawl is soft spoken as usual.

  “What’s going on?” she says, as she opens the door.

  Banger’s beanie is missing. It’s so rare to see him without it that it almost doesn’t look like him at all. His blond hair falls past his chin, covering a portion of his face. He swipes his overly tattooed hand across his forehead and pushes it back behind his ear. “We’re makin’ a change to the schedule.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  Banger’s aqua eyes are tired and bloodshot. He’s always so kind and quiet, the type of guy who prefers animals to humans, and watching a movie over having a party. He’s the calm one in the group. The center. But judging by the tight set of his jaw, I can tell that whatever happened outside wasn’t good. “Kade wants to work on new material.”

  “Where’s he now?”

  “He’s sitting up front. Give him some time, Ainsley.”

  Blame is written all over his face. I’m causing a problem. Our private life is leaking into his professional one, and it’s all my fault. For fifteen years, the band has played together in flawless harmony. Until I showed up. I’m throwing off the balance, and I can’t be here anymore.

  ***

  It’s still dark out as I sit in the kitchenette sipping my coffee. Kade and I are barely speaking. The band is giving me the cold shoulder. I’ve made a disaster of everything. I can’t stay here, but there’s no way I’ll be able to say goodbye. The decision weighs heavily on me, and I know what I have to do.

  Sneaking down the quiet corridor, I pull back the curtain on Jenny’s bunk and gently shake her awake. Her eyes flutter open. “Ains, it’s five a.m. What the hell?”

  “I’m leaving.”

  “Thank you for sharing. I’ll talk to you when you get back.” She pulls her covers up over her shoulder and rolls over.

  “No. I mean, I’m leaving the tour. I just called the car service. Troy should be here in twenty minutes.”

  Jenny pushes herself up on her elbow. “What do you mean you’re leaving the tour? What happened? Did Kade do something? I’ll kill the son of a bitch.”

  “No, no. It’s nothing like that. It’s just . . .” I blow out a breath, collecting my thoughts. I’m a coward for sneaking out, but this fantasy can’t last forever. It’s best to make a clean exit before I make everything worse. Kade is fun and hot, but I’m too much of a realist. I tried living the dream once, and it turned into a nightmare. “You don’t have to leave with me. Stay the last couple of days and enjoy the festival. I just didn’t want you to wake up and find me gone.”

  Jenny sucks her bottom lip between her teeth. “Banger asked me to stay. I told him yes.”

  My eyes turn as wide as saucers. “Really?” I raise an eyebrow in disbelief.

  “He did. I have no idea where this is going, but I really like him. He’s quiet, but he’s sweet and funny. I have nothing to go back to. No family, no home. I live in an apartment, and I’m self-employed. I can do my job from anywhere. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I just didn’t know how.”

  “Have you even slept togeth
er yet?”

  She lowers her gaze then looks back up at me through her light lashes. “A few times.”

  “Wow. We really are a couple of sluts, aren’t we?” I say with a grin.

  “Are you going to be okay, Ains?”

  Pressing my lips together, I consider it for a moment. “You know what, Jen? I am.”

  With tears in my eyes, I hug my best friend goodbye. Everything’s changing, but it’s just a part of life. I swallow the lump in my throat and get out of the bunk. I can do this. For the first time in my life, I’m completely alone yet unafraid.

  In our room, Kade lies asleep on his stomach with the sheets tangled around his body. I resist the urge to get back into that bed next to him because I know if I did, I’d never want to get up again. When he wakes up, he’ll breathe a sigh of relief that I’m not there. A nice clean break and we’ll both continue with our lives as if we never met.

  As I walk out the accordion door for the last time, I look back, burning the image into my memory. I’ll never forget the time we shared. Kade gave me more than multiple orgasms. He gave me the confidence to stand on my own two feet. He showed me Bob hadn’t broken me completely, and that I will love again. Jenny was right in more ways than she knew. This experience was exactly what I needed—it helped me get myself back again.

  The crunch of gravel outside alerts me to Troy’s presence. Giving my surroundings one last long look, I send a silent “thank you” into the atmosphere before disappearing into the morning air.

  It’s funny how leaving home feels like an endless journey but returning seems to take no time at all. As the car pulls onto my street, I brace myself. The last time I was here, I felt like my life was crumbling, but today, a piece of me feels like it’s coming back together again. Strange to believe it was only three weeks ago. So much has changed, and I’m not the same Ainsley I was then. A storm of emotions rages within me, but within them is the feeling of hope. I vow that from this moment on, I am going to be the superhero Shay looks up to.