by Karen Cimms
“Nice,” he said, twirling her around to get the full effect. “Kind of Little House on the Prairie meets Stevie Nicks.”
He ducked just in time.
When they’d left his apartment in the Bronx, she had been feeling excited and confident. Now, as they made their way up Second Avenue, her stomach was doing somersaults. She struggled to keep up with Joey’s long-legged stride, cursing her unfortunate choice of footwear—again.
“Slow down,” she begged, tugging on the sleeve of his navy pea coat. “I can’t keep up, and these boots pinch my toes.”
“You’re the one who’s in a hurry,” he reminded her.
She screwed up her face.
“What’s wrong?”
“I dunno. Nervous, I guess.”
“Oh, honey. You look beautiful.” He gave her a squeeze. “He should fall on his knees and beg you to have his babies.”
She attempted a laugh, but the sound that came out of her mouth was more like a strangled noise.
“Oh God,” she murmured, her fingers digging into Joey’s arm as they waited to cross Fifty-First Street. “There he is.”
Billy was easy to spot. Wearing a black leather jacket, ripped jeans, and boots, he stood beneath a marquee that announced Viper would be playing Friday and Saturday nights. Although they’d spoken on the phone almost every night since she’d last seen him, she was inconveniently reminded that she hardly knew him.
“I think I’m gonna throw up.”
“No, you’re not.” Joey linked his arm through hers. “Just breathe. Where is he?”
Billy hadn’t seen her yet, so she pointed. “There. Blond ponytail, leaning against the building.”
Joey’s mouth dropped. “Good lord. He looks like he stepped right off a Times Square billboard.”
She looked up, grinning. “Told you!”
They were separated by a sea of yellow taxis and hordes of holiday shoppers, but Billy couldn’t miss her. Kate stood on the corner, beneath the blinking do not walk sign. She lifted her hand and waved, and he was blindsided by two unexpected emotions. The first shocked the hell out of him. Her smile, even from across the street, seemed to light up the entire block. His chest tightened as an unfamiliar tingle spread through him. He wiped his sweaty palms hastily on his thighs before curling them into fists as the second emotion took hold—pure jealousy. They stood arm in arm, waiting for the light to change, and the sight was unsettling. This Joey was a good-looking guy. Kate said he was gay, but seeing him so familiar with her made Billy want to set him straight, just in case he wasn’t as gay as she thought.
He took a few steps as she darted into the street, surprised by how excited he was to see her. Words bubbled in his throat, but he swallowed them. It was too early, too crazy to say them. Let alone feel them.
“Katie!” His voice sounded strange and husky. He wrapped his arms around her, and to keep from saying anything, he kissed her so long and so hard that her friend pointed out that they were causing a disturbance in the middle of Second Avenue. Kate looked embarrassed when she pulled away. She made the introductions, but not before reaching up and wiping her lip gloss from his mouth.
He shook hands with her friend, then reached for her suitcase, swinging a possessive arm around her neck. “I missed you,” he whispered in her ear, hesitating long enough to take a whiff of her citrus-scented hair.
They stood in front of the club. Waiting. The silence had become awkward.
“Thanks for dropping her off,” he said finally. “I’ve got it from here.”
Joey’s eyes widened.
“I hope it’s okay.” Kate rushed to explain. “I asked Joey to stay, at least for a little while. Actually, I wanted him to take pictures, if that’s all right. He’s a great photographer.”
“Pictures?” He’d rather this dude would just leave, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. “Sure, why not?” He led Kate toward the door, his arm still around her neck. “C’mon,” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll introduce you around, buy you a drink.”
“Super,” Joey muttered.
Billy smiled. He’d gotten the message—Katie was his now.
The club was huge compared to Kildare’s and twice as dark. She and Joey settled at a table near the stage while Billy went to the bar. The moment he was out of earshot, Kate scooted closer to Joey.
“Well?” she asked, practically bouncing out of her seat.
He gave her a tight-lipped, wide-eyed smile.
She felt her own smile slide from her face. “What?”
Clearly stalling, he picked at a nonexistent spot on the cuff of his jacket.
“What?” she repeated, annoyed. “You’ve known him for less than a minute. You already have an opinion?”
“No-oo. Not really.”
“Then what? He’s not good-looking enough for you?”
“No. He’s gorgeous. Just like you said.”
“And?”
“And . . .” He folded his arms across his chest and stuck out his chin. “I bet he knows it.”
She snorted. “Really, Vanity Smurf? You can’t walk past a mirror without stopping to say hello.”
Judging by the look on his face, he was about to answer with something cutting, but instead he shushed her as Billy approached the table.
He handed her a club soda and Joey a Diet Pepsi, then went back to the bar and returned with a mug of tea.
“It’s good for my vocal cords,” he explained, patting his throat. “Especially when it’s cold. Plus, there’s a shot of whiskey in it.”
She caught Billy watching Joey over the rim of his cup. A glance in Joey’s direction showed him narrowing his eyes, trying to look equally threatening.
This wasn’t going well at all.
“Show him the pictures you took last summer,” she chirped, trying to disrupt the Mexican standoff that seemed to be brewing. “Joey’s a great photographer.”
“Yeah. You said that.” Billy cast a quick glance her way.
Joey glued on a phony smile and pulled a plastic sleeve of photos from his wallet. Still irritated, she snatched it from him and handed it to Billy. Most of the photos were of her, but there were several of them together.
“You guys are pretty close,” Billy said, looking through the photos.
“Yes,” Joey stated, rather emphatically. “We are.”
“These are good,” Billy said of the first few.
She took the sleeve from him. “Those are older. Look at the ones in the back—the black-and-white ones.”
Billy flipped through the photos, pausing to study each one. “The quality is exceptional. Katie’s pretty, that’s for sure, but these—she’s stunning.”
Her cheeks grew warmer.
“I really like this one.” Billy held up one of her sitting on the steps in a turtleneck and cardigan, the wind blowing her hair. He bookmarked that photo with his thumb as he flipped through the rest.
“That’s my favorite too,” Joey said.
“It’s okay,” Kate said, “but this is my favorite.” She pulled out a shot that showed her looking more provocative than preppy.
Billy nodded in a distracted way. “That’s beautiful. But this? This is you.” He looked at Joey. “You captured her soul here.”
“My soul? I think I look sexy in this one.”
Joey laughed. “Honey, you can’t look sexy when you barely even know what it means, so don’t even!”
If he weren’t sitting right next to her, she would have kicked him. Hard, too.
Billy laughed, then raked his eyes over her in a way that made her forget the pain she had been about to inflict on her best friend.
“So if you were to take her picture now, she’d look even sexier and more beautiful?”
There was a good chance her face was now exactly the shade of the roses in her dress.
“Oh yeah,” Joey assured him.
Billy drummed his fingers against the nicked surface of the table. “Then that’s what you should do
. I’ll pay for the film, developing. I’d like to see more pictures. Maybe something I can take with me when I’m on the road.”
She smiled. At least she hoped she was smiling. This was all so new. She already hated the idea of him going away.
“In the meantime, can I keep this?” Billy held up the photo of Kate on the steps.
When Joey hesitated, she gave him a tiny nod, silently begging him to say yes.
“Sure. I might still have the negatives somewhere.” Joey’s eyes swept her face. She knew exactly where those negatives were—or where they’d been—in a box under Joey’s bed back home. By now, his father would have thrown all his things away. She reached under the table for his hand. When she found it, she gave it two squeezes.
Thank you.
The night had gone well. The crowd was receptive, and the club remained packed right up until closing. The manager had booked them for a return weekend in April and again in May, with the understanding that Billy would be expanding from a duo to four or five pieces.
As exciting as all that was, none of it was responsible for the steady drumbeat of his heart against his ribs. He set his guitars down near the door of their hotel room as Kate slipped out of her jacket and draped it over a chair. Her hair fell in gentle waves down her back. The dress she wore, although innocent enough, emphasized her narrow waist and the swell of her hips. And those boots. He couldn’t remember how many times he’d pictured her wearing them and nothing else over the past two weeks. His body thudded against the door.
He hadn’t touched another woman since they’d met. That kind of celibacy had never happened before. Never. Two weeks. It was the longest he’d gone without sex since his first time.
And she hadn’t asked him to be faithful. Probably hadn’t even expected it. Neither had he, to be honest. But no one else interested him. It was the longest two weeks of his life. And now it felt as if his blood had begun to boil. If he didn’t have her soon . . .
Kate turned to find him staring. “Is anything wrong?”
Wrong? Yeah. She had somehow managed to turn him inside out. He nodded. “You.”
She looked as if he’d just told her that her puppy had died. Shit.
“No,” he added quickly. He searched for the right words. “It’s me, actually.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t want to scare you, but I’m about two seconds away from slamming you down on that bed. I can’t decide between acting like a caveman or taking my time and making love to you all night long.”
God, he sounded like an idiot.
A corner of her mouth quirked up.
“What do you want?” he asked, trying to ignore the growing discomfort in his already tight jeans.
She moved toward him until she was close enough for him to smell clementines. Lifting her chin, she looked up at him with those stormy sea-green eyes.
“You.” She pressed her hands into his chest, gripping the fabric of his shirt. “Just you.”
He ran his hand along the side of her face. Then weaving his fingers in that glorious hair, he kissed her. When she moaned into his mouth, he deepened the kiss and his heart cracked open, just wide enough to allow her to slip in the rest of the way.
Chapter Nine
The next afternoon, while Billy returned to the club to audition drummers and bass players, Joey met Kate at the hotel for her photo shoot. Some of the pictures he took were definitely more risqué than she would normally have been comfortable with, but she wanted to give Billy something that would make it hard for him to forget her. She was pretty sure they’d done exactly that. She couldn’t wait to see the finished photos.
Lunch¸ on the other hand, had been a disaster. Billy had given her money to treat Joey, but he had insisted on paying for himself. She realized why as soon as he started trying to convince her that she was making a mistake falling for Billy. She listened politely, then told him to stuff it. When she’d gotten up to walk out of the restaurant, he had followed and apologized until she had no choice but to forgive him. Still, it hurt that he didn’t have enough faith in her to know her own mind, let alone her heart.
The hotel room was empty when she returned. She drew a warm bath to shake the late November chill, then spent the rest of the afternoon getting ready. She was applying an extra layer of lip gloss when she heard the door open.
“Katie?”
“Just a sec.” She gave herself one last hit of hair spray. It might take a week to get a brush through her hair after this.
“Sorry I was gone all afternoon,” Billy called. “I didn’t think it would take so long. I picked up a pizza—” He froze when he saw her standing in the doorway. “Wow. Look at you.”
On her way back to the hotel, she’d stopped at a little boutique and bought a pair of black spandex pants, a satiny off-the-shoulder top, and a pair of gold hoop earrings. None of it was anything she would have considered wearing less than a month ago. Given his reaction, perhaps she’d made the wrong choice.
She turned so he could get the full effect. “Well?”
“Wow.”
She hooked her hands on her hips. “Good wow, or wow, what the hell did you do?”
“You look amazing.” He seemed rooted in place. “Wow.”
“You said that.” She took another look in the mirror. “Maybe it’s a little much. I just wanna fit in. I noticed the other girls last night, and I thought maybe that’s what you like. Besides, Pete said I should ‘dress the part.’ I’m not sure what he meant, but—”
“Pete’s a dick,” he said, breaking the spell. “Don’t worry about what he says. You looked beautiful last night, you look beautiful now, and you look beautiful first thing in the morning with no makeup and sleep in your eyes. I don’t want you to be anyone but who you are—but I gotta tell you, you look pretty hot.”
She met his grin with a confident smile of her own. “How’d the auditions go?”
“Good. I’m definitely going with the drummer, and I think I found our bass player, too. I’ll tell you more later. Right now, I have to eat and jump in the shower.” He gave her a look she could feel all the way down to her toes. “But to be honest, I’d rather jump you.”
“That sounds better than pizza.”
He took her into his arms and nuzzled her neck. “It’s pretty good pizza.”
“It better be.” She twisted away and grabbed a slice, feeling playful and even a bit powerful. Was this what it was like to have someone wrapped around your little finger? She almost laughed out loud. She couldn’t imagine anyone, especially her, having Billy McDonald at their beck and call.
After his shower, she watched as he stood over his suitcase in nothing but a towel, sorting through his clothes. He was so gorgeous, she should be black and blue from pinching herself. Here goes nothing. She tossed the book she’d been reading aside, stood, and looped her arms around his waist. “I want you.”
He looked at his watch, which she’d noticed was always the first thing he put on and the last thing he took off. “You’ve got five minutes,” he said, tossing her onto the bed. “You better make ’em count.”
They missed his five-minute deadline, but Billy wasn’t complaining. Pete, however, was pacing by the time they got there, even though their equipment was still set up from the night before.
“I don’t think he likes me,” Kate whispered to Billy after Pete grunted in response to her greeting.
“Fuck him. He’s just jealous.”
She wasn’t sure what that meant. Pete wasn’t interested in her. She’d only been around him a couple times, but was definitely not his type. Over the course of the night, she’d seen him with several girls. He’d disappear with one on a break, then later he’d slip out with another. When she asked Billy where they were going, he had just smiled and told her not to worry about it. She had a pretty good idea, though. Some of the girls, like the ones she saw him leave with at the end of the night, looked pretty wild, but they didn’t all fit the groupie image.
Did Billy see h
er that way? A groupie? That powerful feeling she’d had earlier began to ebb. With all the women vying for his attention, he could tire of her and walk out on the next break with someone else. She had no claim on him. Wondering how he behaved when she wasn’t around made her stomach clench.
With anxiety gnawing at her nerves, she headed for the restroom shortly before the end of the second set, then waited in line to find only two of the three toilets were working. The place was so filthy she couldn’t bring herself to use it no matter how badly she needed to pee. The jukebox was already playing over the speakers, which meant Billy was on break. She headed backstage, hoping to find him, but the dressing room was empty. Cursing herself for waiting so long, she practically danced across the room to the private toilet and yanked open the door.
Pete was leaning against the wall, his eyes closed, his hands tangled in the hair of the blonde kneeling in front of him.
“Oh my God! Sorry!” Kate exclaimed, backing up and tripping over her own feet. She scrambled for the door.
Pete called after her.
“Hey, Katie, don’t go. You can be next.” His laughter followed her into the hall even after she pulled the door closed behind her.
By the time she’d used the disgusting rest room and scrubbed her hands until they were raw, Billy’s break was nearly over. She found him standing at the bar, surrounded by women—women who might jump at the opportunity to do for Billy what Pete’s friend had been doing for him. A cold nugget of apprehension lodged itself into her chest.
“Where were you?” he asked, breaking away when he saw her.
“Bathroom.”
He grimaced. “Gross, huh? You should’ve just used the one in the dressing room. It’s not much better, but at least you don’t have to fight to get a seat.”
She nodded, too embarrassed to say anything. At least she knew now what Pete did between sets.