I know I’m lying to myself.
I’ve loved you from the start.
I let my head get in the way
And trample on my heart.
I happened to glance over at Pete during his guitar solo (which was amazing, as usual). He was looking right at me with the sweetest smile on his face. My heart, which I didn’t think could get any fuller tonight, grew warm as I finished out the song.
With you, I’m who I want to be.
You bring out the real me.
Shouldn’t fight it, can’t deny it.
My heart keeps on telling me
You’re the only one for me.
Shouldn’t fight it, can’t deny it,
Still I’m torn.
Still I’m torn.
I’m still torn.
The crowd erupted into applause, and the moment the lights went down, I felt Pete sweep me up into a crushing hug.
“You did it, Jules. I am so proud of you. I can’t…I can’t even find the words.”
We were so close, his breath was hot on my neck as he spoke, and at the end, he let his lips brush against my collarbone. An electric tingle shot through my entire body, and I had to struggle to keep my focus. The rush of being onstage with Pete kindled all kinds of feelings I’d worked for years to keep dormant.
“Thank you. You know I couldn’t have done it without you.”
He pulled back and looked down at me, his expression serious and intense. Before he could say anything, Javier and Mick came over to give us high fives and hugs. We all congratulated one another on a performance that frankly had exceeded all of our expectations, especially since it was the first time we’d played together as a group outside of rehearsals. We went down into the sea of friends and family in the audience, all impatiently waiting to give hugs and congratulations of their own.
—
Once most of our audience had cleared out and the next band began to play, Cooper found me and gave me a quick hug. “That was great, Juliet.”
“Thank you. I appreciate you coming out to hear us.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it. Hey, I’m going to be sitting at the bar for a while—giving you your space—so if you have time, you’re welcome to come over and hang with me there. No pressure, though.”
“Thanks, Coop,” I replied. Ugh. Why did he have to be so stinking nice?
When I returned to the table with my friends, Maya asked, “Who was that?” openly staring at Cooper as he walked away.
“My neighbor.”
Pete frowned. “You mean your boy toy.”
I winced. Well, now my secret was out whether I liked it or not.
“Seriously?” said Mallory Beaumont, jaw dropping. Mallory was an old college friend of mine, a former Java Jive employee who was now a doctor.
I shrugged. “I guess you could call him that…It’s nothing serious.”
Maya was still ogling Cooper. “How old is he?”
Ryder snorted. “Hold on there. What does he have that I don’t?”
“Youth, no gray hair, no wrinkles…Should I go on?” Maya said, eyes twinkling as Ryder clenched his jaw at her playful needling.
I said, “He’s twenty-three.”
On either side of me, Maya and Mallory each wordlessly put up a hand at the same time. I high-fived them while the male members of our group grumbled.
Stan Hollingsworth, another man I’d once dated but was now friends with, let out a harrumph. “Weren’t you the one who not so long ago looked down her nose at my involvement with my young secretary?”
I shook my head. “Stan, she wasn’t even of legal drinking age. If you’d taken her on a date, it would’ve had to have been at Chuck E. Cheese’s.”
While Stan frowned at me and the rest of my friends had a laugh at his expense, Pete pulled me aside and nodded toward the bar. “On a serious note, you need to go have a talk with Cooper. Like now.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Is now really a good time?”
“As you would say to me, sack up.”
“Does that work to say to girls?”
He huffed, “I don’t know, but I do know that you need to go get this over with.”
“Why the rush?”
“Trust me, you’ll feel much better. Plus, I’m starving and craving some duck fat tater tots from Merchants. We can make it there for a late dinner if you don’t waste a lot of time dumping your boy toy.”
I stuck my tongue out at him, but headed over to talk to Cooper.
Cooper brightened when I sat down next to him at the bar. “Hey, I’m glad you came over. Want a drink?”
“No thanks.” As gently as possible, I said, “I appreciate the fact that you want to give me some time to think about our…arrangement. But I know that it’s not working for me. I’m sorry. You’re a great—”
His face became stony. “So that’s it. You’ve made your decision, and it doesn’t matter what I think.”
“I care what you think, but for a relationship to work, both people—”
Clearly agitated, he interrupted me again. “Oh, right. You’re the relationship expert, because you’re older and so much wiser.”
Ouch. “Well, I have been through a lot of breakups…”
“Never mind. I’m never going to win with you, so why should I bother? Your personality is too strong, and you always have to be right. So, that makes me wrong by default, which makes this discussion over. Goodbye, Juliet.” He brushed past me and stormed out.
Pete, who no doubt had been watching our whole exchange, wandered over and took Cooper’s vacated barstool. Not quite able to control the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, he said, “I think that must be a new record for quick breakups. I clocked it at a smidge under a minute.”
I sighed. “Shut up and buy me some tater tots.”
—
Hanging at the bar with our friends had been fun, but unwinding at a quiet dinner with Pete was even better. Just like we used to, we relived the whole performance, discussing little things that happened to us, like me dropping three guitar picks (I always kept a stash in a pick holder attached to my mic stand for that very reason) and him busting a string on one of his guitars and having to limp along with only five for the last few bars of one of our songs.
We lingered over a shared dessert until closing time, and then Pete drove me home. He insisted on carrying my guitar up to my apartment for me. I figured he didn’t want the evening to end. I knew I didn’t.
When we got to my door, he took my hand. “I don’t think your performance could have gone any better.”
“Our performance. And I agree. It was perfect. Tonight was perfect.” I smiled up at him. The look in his deep brown eyes gave me a tug at my heart.
He leaned my guitar against my door and moved to take my other hand, but stopped suddenly when the weight of the guitar pushed my door open. “What the hell?” he said, staring into my apartment.
I looked inside, my warm and fuzzy feeling turning instantly to ice. My apartment was in shambles.
Chapter 12
We stepped inside, and I had to choke back a sob. Every drawer and cabinet in my living room and kitchen was open, the contents spilling out and strewn on the floor. Nothing seemed to be broken, but someone had spent a lot of time making a mess, which was going to take a lot of my time to clean up.
Pete put his arm around me. “We need to call the police. You’ve been robbed.”
Getting a sick feeling in my gut, I replied, “Let’s take a look around first.”
I hurried to my bedroom, Pete hot on my heels. My drawers and closets were open, and it looked like a bomb had gone off in here as well. However, my jewelry was sitting untouched on my dresser, like my TV had been in my living room. This was no robbery.
I sank down onto my bed, lost in thought.
Pete sat down next to me. “Can I call the cops now?”
I shook my head. “No need. I don’t want to press charges.”
His jaw dropping, he re
plied, “Why would you say that? You don’t even know who did it.”
“I’m pretty sure I do.”
“How?”
I turned to him. “Do you think I did anything in the past couple of hours that might have warranted a retaliation?”
“No.” His eyes bulged out. “Oh…yeah.”
“Yeah. And if we went knocking on doors, which of my neighbors do you think would conveniently not be home?”
“The one who tossed your apartment.”
“Bingo.”
“You sure know how to pick ’em, Jules.”
I sighed heavily.
Pete put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Grab an overnight bag. You’re staying with me tonight.”
“Pete, I’ll be fine here. This is nothing more than a childish prank.”
He shook his head and stood up. “Not up for discussion. Start packing.” He reached down and plucked a particularly lacy pair of my underwear from the floor, then shot it at me like a rubber band. “I’ll help.”
I chuckled in spite of the situation. “Okay, I’ll let you do your macho man–protector thing. But only for tonight, and mainly because I wouldn’t be able to sleep with this place looking like it does.”
“Let’s not forget the fact that your doorframe is busted where your jilted boy toy forced his way in, which leaves you here with no security. Someone could come in and murder you in your sleep.”
“There’s a pleasant thought,” I grumbled, stuffing clothes and toiletries into a bag.
—
As I followed Pete on the short drive over to his house, I tried again to wrap my mind around what had happened. I didn’t take mild-mannered Cooper for a vindictive ex, but who else would have gone to the trouble to mess up my apartment but yet still show a degree of respect by not vandalizing the place or robbing me?
When we got to Pete’s house, I went in and collapsed on the couch, placing my head in my hands. Between the rush and excitement of performing and the contrasting bottoming out when I saw my apartment, I was crazy exhausted, and my head was killing me.
“Jules,” Pete said.
I looked up to find he’d sat down on the coffee table, facing me. “Yeah?”
“If I had my way, you’d never have to go back to that craphole of an apartment ever again. Move in with me permanently. Tonight.”
I groaned. “Pete, I so don’t have the energy to discuss this. And it’s a moot point anyway because your spare room is so packed with junk it could be featured on Hoarders.”
Taking my hands, he pulled me to a standing position. “I have something to show you.” He led me down the hallway and opened the door to his spare room. It was completely empty.
My jaw dropped as I walked into the room. “No freaking way. When did you have time to do this?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been chipping away at it for a while.”
“I totally take back the Hoarders comment. This is amazing.”
Pete walked over and took my hands again. “I thought it was time to let go of some stuff to make room for something more important.”
Whoa. That sounded pretty serious. He’d never presented me moving in here that way before. The whole situation scared the hell out of me in the first place, which was why every other time he’d brought it up, I’d deflected. Living in the same house it would be way too tempting, not to mention convenient, to bypass the friend zone and take things to the next level. And then what? Would it get awkward between us? Even though he never acted like it, he was my boss, after all, so that muddied the waters even more. But then again, I loved him, and I always had. Like the song said, I’m torn.
“Pete, I…”
He smiled. “I’m well aware of the million reasons why you think moving in with me is a bad idea. Let me give you one reason why it’s not.”
Leaning toward me, he brushed my lips with his. I tilted my face up, and his lips met mine again, this time hungry and lustful, as if trying to make up for the years of lost time we’d spent keeping each other at arm’s length. I kissed him back every bit as passionately, wrapping my arms around his waist and holding on tight.
When we finally pulled apart, he smiled down at me and set his forehead against mine. “Well?”
“You make a compelling argument.”
“I’m just getting started,” he replied, planting a row of steamy kisses down my neck.
My insides trembling like jelly, I cleared my throat. “Don’t you think we’re rushing things just a bit?”
Pete stopped what he was doing to give me a confused look. “Rushing things? It’s been twelve years, Jules. We probably hold the record for not rushing things.”
“Maybe this”—I gestured between the two of us—“is post-performance adrenaline. Plus the whole thing with my apartment and Scott and…”
Pete took a step back from me. “You want to take it slow? I can do that.”
This was it. The moment I’d been waiting for since I was nineteen—when Pete and I finally came to the conclusion (at the same time) that we were both ready to give a relationship a real try. I thought I’d be elated, which I was, but I was also more frightened than I’d ever been in my life—and that was saying something given my knack for getting myself into dangerous situations.
I let out a sharp breath. “Like, glacially slow? That would be okay with you?”
“Whatever it takes to do this right—for both of us. You are the most important person in the world to me.”
Feeling tears prickle at my eyes from his incredibly sweet words, I whispered, “You, too.”
He took my hands again. “Okay, here goes. Juliet Langley, would you like to go out on a date with me tomorrow night?”
I froze. “Tomorrow? I thought we were taking this slow.”
A hint of frustration in his voice, he replied, “We have to start this at some point.”
I tried to block out the hysteria in my brain. Taking a calming breath, I said, “Okay, tomorrow it is.”
—
Even though Pete tried quite valiantly to persuade me to take his bed for the night (alone, of course), I refused. I knew I couldn’t handle that. The more platonic this sleepover was, the better, so I staked out a place on his couch and didn’t move from my spot. Morning was a tad awkward, because neither of us knew whether to greet each other with a wave, a hug, or another screaming hot kiss. We settled on a one-armed hug/squeeze type of thing. From the look on Pete’s face, he was as confused as I was about the whole situation. I got showered and ready in record time and headed off to the coffeehouse, looking forward to my early-morning routine of baking our selection of pastries for the day, which was always a calming influence on me.
Today, though, the quiet alone time only served to allow my thoughts to run wild. What was I going to wear tonight on my date with Pete? Was the whole evening going to be as awkward as it was around his house this morning? And what about after the date—would we be able to stop at a good-night kiss? I’d contacted the super of my apartment building last night about my busted door, and he’d promised to have it fixed sometime this morning, so there was no pressing reason for me to stay the night at Pete’s again…unless it was for a different reason altogether.
But he and I had agreed to take it slow. Whatever that meant, it likely didn’t include jumping into bed after our first official date, so I was probably worrying over nothing. Not that I didn’t not want to jump into bed with him. But once you did that, you couldn’t undo it. Plus, I still had a few feelings that needed to be worked through concerning Ryder, which was admittedly one of many reasons I’d lobbied so hard for things with Pete to progress slowly. I wanted all the time I could get to make sure that Ryder Hamilton was out of my system for good.
As the staff arrived and began their pre-opening prep work, my thoughts quieted down somewhat, and by the time Java Jive was open and bustling with customers, my uneasy feeling had subsided. To my delight, my apprehension didn’t rear its ugly head when Pete came i
n to get his breakfast. All I felt was a surge of happiness. Maybe we could do this, after all.
I was filling Gertie’s coffee mug when Pete came up singing, “ ‘No way I can get you up and outta my mind, you’re my Juliet.’ ”
I did my best to squelch the blush warming my cheeks, but I was sure Pete saw it from the smile he tried to hide by leaning down to give Gertie a peck on the cheek.
“Good morning, Gert,” he said, drumming his hands on the counter.
“You’re certainly chipper this morning,” she remarked.
He winked at me. “That’s because I have a hot date tonight.”
This time, I had to turn around to hide the hot wave I felt flushing my whole face. I placed the coffeepot on the warmer and tried to compose myself before returning to the counter.
While my back was turned, I heard Gertie ask, “Who’s the lucky girl?”
“You’re looking at her,” Pete replied, his voice radiating happiness. “Well, sort of.”
I took a breath and turned back around to find both of them staring at me. I gave a little wave. “I’m the lucky girl.”
“Well, it’s about damn time,” was her only response, although she couldn’t stop beaming from ear to ear. Gertie had always wanted us to get together, which she wasn’t shy about telling us on a regular basis.
After that, my discomfort vanished and the three of us talked and laughed like we did every morning. I had the feeling it was going to be a great day. My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was from a number I didn’t recognize, but from the area code and prefix, I assumed that it was someone in Liberty.
I excused myself and walked to the edge of the counter to take the call. “Hello?”
“Juliet?” asked a female voice.
“Yes.”
“Hi, this is Lizzie Hart Morgan. Bethany McCool gave me your number. I hope that’s okay.”
Thinking I was going to have to have a talk with Bethany later about giving out my phone number, especially to her coworkers, I replied, “I’m sorry, but I have no comment about…well, anything.”
“Oh, I’m not asking for an exclusive for the Chronicle. I’m only the lowly copy editor around here. I’m calling because I have some news I thought you might want to hear. Mandi O’Malley is missing.”
Murder Over Mochas Page 10