by Shona Husk
Out of Chances
Shona Husk
www.escapepublishing.com.au
Out of Chances
Shona Husk
Shona Husk’s sexy new adult series about emerging rock band Selling the Sun concludes this month with a story about a woman who doesn’t want to connect, a man who’s forgotten how and the friendships that save our lives.
Dan Clarke knows he doesn’t have a problem, regardless of whatever his band members, his friends, his family and everyone else thinks. Drinking isn’t keeping him from doing what needs to be done, and it helps keep the anger and pain of his ex-girlfriend’s betrayal at bay. If only she would stay away as well, but, since the band’s return to Fremantle, she’s everywhere—on the phone, in his apartment, at his parents’ house—begging for another chance, reminding him of how good they had been together, holding him hostage to the past. It’s no wonder he needs a beer now and again.
Indigo Matthews is all about control: she trains hard, she works hard and she plays hard. Men are for fun, not forever, and she will never end up like her mother, trapped and miserable. A huge Selling the Sun fan, Indigo knows when Dan wanders into her bar that he is a conquest that she has to make. But their connection is stronger than just sex, and regardless of her credo Indigo finds herself going back for more. Then truths about Dan’s life start to emerge, and Indigo finds herself in the one position she swore she’d never find herself.
A DUI, a drunk one night stand and an ultimatum from the band bring Dan’s life to a halt. Picking up the pieces is something he can’t do alone, and there’s only one person that he trusts to give a damn. The one person that he hurt the most. Indigo.
About the Author
Shona Husk lives in Western Australia at the edge of the Indian Ocean. Blessed with a lively imagination, she spent most of her childhood making up stories. As an adult she discovered romance novels and hasn’t looked back.
With over forty published books ranging from sensual to scorching, she writes contemporary, paranormal, fantasy and sci-fi romance. You can find out more at www.shonahusk.com, www.twitter.com/ShonaHusk, www.facebook.com/shonahusk
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Acknowledgements
Thank you to my beta readers!
Jon, for understanding that a career in the arts is never linear.
Contents
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Bestselling Titles by Escape Publishing…
Chapter 1
Even though it was midafternoon the bar still had people coming in for a drink, enough that he could watch them unobserved. Dan sipped his beer and pulled out a battered notebook. It was almost full. A couple of times a week he liked to sit down and watch, listen and make up shit about other people’s lives.
He aimed for a page. Sometimes it was disconnected, sometimes something happened and the bones of a song formed out of the ether like he was a fucking magician. Today wasn’t one of those days. No one was interesting. Their conversations were boring. But he wrote that down anyway.
Unlike Gemma and Mike, the journal he kept wasn’t personal or private. There was nothing about him in the book. He didn’t write about his life. The song ‘One Mistake’ had been his observations about Gemma being heartbroken and making up a story about her … at the time his relationship had been breaking down but that was a coincidence.
Of course, now everyone thought that he was a cheating dog.
No one would ever believe that Lisa was a lying, manipulative bitch—on a good day.
He took a long swallow of beer. He didn’t fight battles that couldn’t be won. He just wished the wounds would hurry up and heal. Six months and every time he heard a baby cry he flinched. Two tables over was a happy couple with a sleeping kid in a pram. Maybe they weren’t really happy. Maybe they were trying to be happy but when they walked out of here the smiles would fade and she’d admit that it wasn’t working and he’d be relieved because he didn’t have the courage to pull that trigger …
Dan looked at his scribbles.
He should have ended it with Lisa before it had reached critical mass. Before she’d gone off the pill without him knowing, before she’d gotten pregnant to make him stay.
Quit the band.
You need a real job.
She’d ended up sounding like his parents, echoing their disappointment in him.
Yeah, well. Every family had a screw-up. He was it, according to everyone else. But Dan didn’t believe in half measures, so if they didn’t approve of what he was doing he made sure to run the full mile—what was the point in holding back?
However he had really tried with Lisa. He’d wanted it to work so damn badly that he hadn’t stopped to read the warning signs. At some point last year she’d gone from excited to whiney. He was away too much. Spent too much time with the band … with Gemma. If he had a dollar for every time Gemma’s name had come up in a fight, he’d drink for free for the rest of his life.
Then right before the awards night in November she’d dropped the bomb. It’s me and the baby or the band. Choose.
He’d chosen all right, and she hadn’t been happy. He wasn’t ready to be a father. He was over her demands. Admitting that it was over and paying child support had seemed like the best way forward.
Then had come the text messages. An endless stream that had threatened to drown him. Pleading, threatening, but always wanting him to come back. He hadn’t returned any of the messages. It was over and he was done and glad, but she’d saved the kicker for last.
I didn’t want to be a single mother.
The message was still on his phone. He remembered the fear that he was going to be a father, have a child with a woman he no longer loved. But that message had gutted him. However, he’d made a mistake and rung her before he’d had a chance to process and things had been said. She laid the termination at his feet. It was his fault there was no baby. His selfish choices.
He’d poured all the anger and hurt into one song. One song that he really regretted giving to the band as it was now on their second album. ‘Seppuku’ was all about him and Lisa. He wished he’d never written it. She didn’t deserve that much attention.
He’d never wanted her to come off the pill. She’d known the band was gaining traction. She hadn’t cared. He drew in a breath … the wound still stung as though freshly made. There was no blood, no outward sign. It would have been easier if there was. He blinked as the words in front of him blurred.
Instead, every time he looked at Gemma, Ed and Mike, all he thought of was Lisa and her demands.
Every time he thought of Lisa he wanted to be sick.
Her heart wasn’t just cold, it didn’t exist. He hated her. He hated what she’d done … he hated everything about her, including who he’d become. He’d given her his heart and she’d pulled it apart piece by piece.
His parents still loved her and couldn’t understand what had gone wrong. While it would be tempting to tell them the truth, he couldn’t find a way to do that that didn’t make him look like a dick. Whatever way he spun it he was still that guy who hadn’t stood by his girlfriend when she got pregnant. Mike would knock him flat if he knew. He had the bruise to prove Mike was capable of doing just that.
He probably had deserved that one.
He probably des
erved another. But if he didn’t want to be with Lisa, adding a child into the mix wasn’t going to make things work.
She was right about one thing. It was his fault.
He should’ve ended the relationship months before, but he hadn’t known how. He’d been with her for years and it was safe and familiar, even if it was also prickly. She’d be there when he got home from a gig or recording or whatever it was. The more he went away, the more resentful she’d become.
The couple with the kid got up. Dan watched them leave. They were smiling. He had his hand on her lower back. They weren’t going home to break up. Happy families. They did exist, he’d seen them. Ed was living it, with his parents and with his girlfriend.
He stared at the page until the words came back into focus. It was tempting to cross out everything he’d written, but that went against the rules he’d made when he’d started this. There was no crossing out. Sometimes he’d flick through weeks or days later and he’d find the feeling and imagery that he was looking for.
He needed a new target to watch.
And a new beer. He downed what was left, gathered up his notebook and pen then wandered over to the bar. There were only two of them on. A guy and a girl—woman, as she had to be over eighteen. Her red curly hair was knotted up in a messy bun and her black uniform t-shirt had nothing to really stretch over, yet something about her drew his eye; a snap in her gaze and the curve of her lip as she gave him a once-over before taking his order.
‘I’ll bring it over.’ She gave him a grin that was more than a little predatory.
Every other thought in his head dropped dead. Did she want to play? Another smile like that he’d let her sharpen her nails on his back.
‘It’s cool.’ He was fine with waiting and watching her. He generally made a point of not watching the staff when he was writing because they noticed if he did, but he’d noticed her when he’d walked in. And quickly decided that he wasn’t interested. He’d been too hasty.
‘I’ve got to clear tables anyway.’ She waved him off.
This time he didn’t argue. She didn’t seem like the kind of person that you argued with unless you wanted to lose.
That might be fun. He’d originally pegged her as too serious … too small in the boob department, if he was being entirely honest.
He sat back down at his table, but at a different seat so this time he could see the bar. Freshly inspired, he wrote a little about winning and losing. Losing wasn’t always bad, if it was a choice. That was the problem with Lisa. She’d taken away all of his choices and then presented him with a lose/lose option.
Since then he hadn’t been able to win at anything.
Indigo glanced at the dark-haired man sitting alone at the table as she poured his beer. It was him … maybe. This guy’s hair was a mess, but when Dan was on stage it was styled. The eyes though … she really wasn’t sure if it was him.
While she knew Selling the Sun was a Fremantle-based band, and she’d seen them play a stack of times, she hadn’t seen a band member in the wild. If that was Dan Clarke, the bass player, she didn’t want to let him slip away without saying something.
She’d actually like to do more than talk. Her lips curved as she considered what to say to him.
If it wasn’t him she was going to make an ass of herself.
It would totally be worth it.
She picked up a tray and a cloth, put on her most seductive smile and swaggered over like she owned the bar. He lifted his gaze as if aware that she was after him, but he didn’t startle and run the way some men did. When he looked her in the eye, for a moment she wasn’t sure who was doing the hunting.
It was always her. She reminded herself.
She would never be the prey and she’d never let anyone make her miserable. She was never going to end up like her mother, with nothing but the tattered shreds of dignity and faded love binding her to a man who really didn’t care. Every time her father slept elsewhere he’d blamed her mother. Too fat, too needy. If she could just stop crying …
The arguments had been the soundtrack to her childhood. As soon as she’d turned eighteen she’d left Kalgoorlie and hopped on the train to Perth. She went back for Christmas, sometimes midyear. She loved her parents, she just hated the way they treated each other. Her mother needed to get a lover so her father could see how it felt to be on the other side of the affair, but Indigo knew she wouldn’t. Her mother believed in love and keeping her vows no matter what.
Her mother would also be horrified if she ever learned of the kind of tally that Indigo was racking up.
Eh, Indigo really didn’t give damn. It was her life and she wasn’t going to live it for someone else.
At the man’s table she stopped, hip cocked to the side. ‘My buddy over there says that you’re no one famous. I think you are.’
He smiled, but it was cautious. ‘Who do you think I am?’
‘I have five bucks that says you’re the bass player from Selling the Sun.’ There was no money on the table, and the guy she was working with didn’t give a damn, but that didn’t stop nerves from pushing her heart harder or her hands from feeling a little slippery on the tray.
‘And if I am?’ He leaned back and his smile broadened.
‘A free beer?’ She put the one he’d ordered on the table.
He nodded. ‘I am.’
‘Prove it.’ Anyone could say that they were.
‘Driver’s licence okay? Or do you require a full hundred points?’ He was still smiling as though this was a game. ‘But that will only work if you know my name. Do you?’
‘What kind of fan wouldn’t, Dan Clarke?’
He lifted one eyebrow as he reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out his wallet. He flipped it open, covered his address with his thumb and showed her his name. Daniel Sean Clarke. ‘Happy?’
She nodded, more than happy. Her happy was doing its own happy dance. Now for part two of her daring plan. She’d never slept with anyone close to famous, and while she’d fancied Dan from the audience of the concerts, he was here now, right in front of her. She could reach out and touch him. She resisted. Just. ‘What are you doing later?’
‘How much later?’ His blue eyes took on a guarded look, as though he wasn’t sure where this was going.
She didn’t buy that for a moment. He’d broken up with his girlfriend and he must get hit on all the time. Indigo checked her watch. An hour and a half left of her shift. That was probably too long, yet there was no way she could have him out the back of the pub in the middle of the afternoon—no matter how appealing that seemed right now.
‘I finish in ninety minutes.’
‘And then?’ He drew a line in the condensation on his glass, his gaze firmly on her. He was waiting for her to make it clear. Maybe he wasn’t that interested. She could walk away, opportunity taken and declined. But he hadn’t said no.
So she gave a shrug as though the outcome didn’t matter. ‘We do whatever two consenting adults feel like.’
‘Are you hitting on me?’
‘Did I not make it clear enough for you?’ Did he not want to be hit on or was he not as smart as he appeared? She didn’t like either of those options.
Then he smiled and gave her a slow, lingering look that seemed to take in everything, from the top of her head down to her ass. ‘Just checking … I get that free beer while I wait?’
She nodded. She’d kind of promised him that anyway. Was he more interested in the beer than her? She drew in a breath, ready to blow him off at the first sign of rejection. Get in first before she got hurt was her motto.
Dan picked up the glass and took a sip, his gaze still on her. ‘Well, I guess the only question left is your place or mine.’
It was never her place. Would he want to go to his? She picked up his empty glass—she was supposed to be working after all—and leaned a little closer. ‘Who said it had to be either?’
His eyebrows lifted a fraction, but the shock was quickly hidden. ‘I’m s
taying in East Freo. That’s nice and close. Got a ride or do you need a lift?’
She held out her hand. ‘Just give me the address.’
Dan picked up his pen and wrote a flat number and street on the back of her hand. His touch was warm, his fingers calloused. Her heart was beating fast with excitement. She almost died on the spot. She’d just picked up one of her favourite rock stars.
On the outside she was keeping it cool. Just a smile before she turned.
God, she hoped he wasn’t a dud in bed.
She walked away to gather empties and wipe tables.
‘Hey,’ he called after her. ‘What’s your name?’
She glanced over her shoulder. ‘Do you really care?’
He frowned. ‘Yeah, I do.’
‘Indigo.’
‘Just Indigo?’
‘For now.’ The only guys who learned more were those that went beyond a third date. She didn’t expect this to go past one screw. She was a realist, not an optimist.
Chapter 2
Dan watched her back, then her butt for a moment. Her tight black jeans hugged every curve. She had a great ass. However if he stopped to think about what had just happened, he was pretty sure he’d get whiplash.
He couldn’t remember ever being picked up by a woman who was stone cold sober. He hadn’t even picked up that many drunk … he’d just let the guys think he did because he didn’t want them thinking he wasn’t over Lisa. He wasn’t. In part because he’d never had the chance to confront her and put it on the table. He should, but he was a little concerned that she’d somehow twist things around and they’d end up together again with promises that it would be different.
It was pretty fucked up to love someone without liking them. But there had been so many good times. She had been his first real relationship, they’d even moved in together. She’d even been talking rings and mortgages. His family had liked her—they never liked anything he did, or anyone he was with.
In hindsight, that should’ve been a warning.