“I’m going to teach him to play guitar. That’s it.”
“Totally not cool. That will ruin my genius plan.” Samantha walked around her to peek out the door. They were hiding in the soundproof lesson room and Samantha let the curtain close again when she turned back around. “He’s perfect, Erin. I want an invitation to the wedding.”
“You’re losing touch with reality.”
“Ooooh, girl. You are in trouble. You like him.”
“Do not.”
“You totally want him.”
“No.”
“You can sing to him in bed. I bet that would make him go totally, crazy hot.” Samantha laughed.
“You’re insane.”
“Well, he wants you. Did you see the way he was looking at you?”
“Like something the cat dragged in? I look terrible.”
Samantha came back from the door and wrapped her arms around Erin’s waist, resting her chin on the much shorter Erin’s shoulder. “You’re beautiful and sexy and talented.”
“Thanks, Sam. But that kind of guy goes for rich girls with designer clothes, acrylic nails, four-inch heels and five-hundred-dollar handbags. Not a bare-faced singer who wears blue-jeans, with B-cups in a torn T-shirt.”
“Give yourself some credit. I hate it when you talk shit about yourself. Why do women do that? You’re the most amazing friend I have.”
“I’m the only friend you have. Facebook lies.”
“Ask him out.”
Erin sighed and hugged her friend, who had a rock the size of Texas on her left hand and plans for a June wedding next year. An eighteen-month engagement was not exactly what Erin would have wanted, but Sam was happy, which was all that mattered. “Not everyone has a sexy fiancé and happily ever after, Sam. You’re lucky.”
Samantha chuckled but squeezed tighter. “It wasn’t luck. That’s what I’m telling you. You can’t meet the man of your dreams if you refuse to date. Ask. Him. Out.”
“No way. He probably only dates Victoria’s Secret models.”
“Whatever. I give up. You are stubborn.”
“I know.”
“Are going to teach him to play or not?”
“Yes. I am.” Erin grinned.
Erin walked back out front to the counter and smiled. An extra hundred a week was going to buy her that new laptop in no time at all. Her old machine let her layer tracks, but the software was three years old. Ancient. So, when she thought about it that way, how bad could it be? All she had to do was give him a lesson, and not get personally involved. Easy. Right?
Hell, she’d teach a poodle to play with his teeth for a hundred dollars an hour.
“Okay. I’ll get you in the schedule book. What’s your name?”
“Chance Walker.”
Seriously? Erin shook her head and opened the old-fashioned pencil-and-paper book to Sunday so she could pencil him in. Chance Walker. Super hot. Super sexy. Nicely dressed. Movie star name. Was this guy perfect, or what? “Okay, Chance, what’s your number in case I need to reach you?”
He told her his cell, then shocked her.
“What’s your number? In case I can’t make it.”
Erin rattled off her number and he programmed it into his phone.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” She shrugged her shoulders. No problem at all.
Chance picked up his guitar case and she had to admit, it looked good on him. She expected him to walk out the door, but he stared.
“You are Erin, aren’t you?”
Her smile burst onto her face before she could even think about stopping it. So, he’d figured it out.
“Yes. I am.”
He set his guitar case down on the floor. “You were going to let me leave, and not tell me?”
She grinned at him. “Well, you would have figured it out on Sunday.”
He smiled. “True. But I’d like to get started. Are you free now?”
“Right now?”
“Yes. The store isn’t exactly filled with customers.”
Correct. He’d been their only live body in the last hour. “I’ll have to see if Sam can cover.”
Samantha chose that moment to burst out from behind the door. “I’ll cover. I got it.” She held the door open and waved her arm in front of her to indicate that he should go in.
Chance looked from Samantha’s eager grin to Erin. “Well?”
Erin didn’t have anything better to do. And she could use the extra hundred. “Okay. Why not?”
“Excellent.” Chance carried his guitar past a grinning Samantha, who let the door close behind him and mouthed a silent You owe me.
Erin rolled her eyes, but inside she was shaking like a leaf. Bluffing her way through five minutes with a glass counter between them was one thing. An hour alone, teaching him to play?
Samantha was right. She liked him. A lot.
Chapter Two
Chance carried his brand-new guitar into the small lesson room and sat down in one of the two padded folding chairs. The room was empty except for the chairs, one blue and one gray, two guitar amps, two music stands and an upright piano that had been shoved against the far wall.
Short, commercial-grade carpeting covered the floor and posters of rock stars and various instruments lined the walls. The room smelled old, like dust, mold, metal and concrete walls. It reminded him of how the halls of his old high school had smelled. Which was fitting, since at this very moment he felt like the new kid in class who didn’t have a clue.
He plugged in his guitar and sat down to watch the clock. Erin walked in but didn’t look at him. She was carrying an electric acoustic guitar and a stack of music.
She walked straight at him and he realized she was even shorter than he’d first thought. Maybe five-three, if she stretched, small…but curved in all the right places.
When she placed the music on the stand in front of the gray chair and sat down, he watched every move. She held the guitar like an old friend, like she had done it a thousand times and didn’t even have to think about it anymore, like it was part of her.
She intrigued him. He’d been around a lot of women lately who seemed more interested in their manicures than in having a real conversation. Erin seemed different. No makeup. No frills. No games. She looked him in the eye, but didn’t talk much. He found it unsettling and his gut churned with nerves. He hadn’t been this nervous since he’d asked Hannah Parker to the prom senior year.
And that one hadn’t worked out so well.
“Okay, Chance. Shall we do this?”
“Yes.”
She nodded, settled her guitar in her lap like it was part of her and started Travis Picking a sad, minor keyed pattern without looking. “All right. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
“I don’t remember anything.”
“It’s okay. Everybody has to start somewhere.” She smiled and her blue-gray eyes were soft and glowing as she lifted her chin with a nod at him. “Think of the guitar as your friend. It has a personality and a sound that’s unique in all the world, and it’s yours. Just yours. It will never yell at you if you miss a note, or judge what you choose to play. The only thing the guitar wants, the only thing that will make it happy, is singing for you.”
“Okay.” Wow. She really, really liked her guitar. As odd as her words were, they helped him to relax and he settled his own guitar on his lap and let his nerves go. The guitar became less an impossible, time-consuming challenge and more like a friendly partner.
“You said it’s been seven years. What do you remember?”
“G chord. That’s about it.”
“Well, G chord is better than nothing.” She switched her left-handed grip to match his and played a G Chord.
He mimicked her and missed the string because he was staring at her mouth. Jesus, what was wrong with him? He couldn’t focus. Maybe he needed to start getting more sleep. Or maybe it was just her, and that tight T-shirt. Or the barely there scent of flowers drifting in the air aro
und her.
Erin was completely focused on his hand and didn’t notice his lack of attention. “Okay. We’re going to start with the basic chords. I’ll run you through all of them, but you’ll need to get a chord chart and practice at home.”
“I used to have the chords on a poster on my bedroom wall.”
“I still do.” She smiled at him, for real, and he froze at the transformation. With the guitar in her lap, and that smile on her face, he could imagine her as one of the famous Greek muses, ethereal and lit by some kind of divine power over music and man. “We’re going to run through the major chords, slowly. Just follow me.”
She spent the next hour putting him through his paces and he didn’t have time to think. His fingertips burned and his neck hurt from bending over the guitar to watch the strings, but he had the basic chords down within the hour.
When their time was up, she set her guitar aside and went through the papers she’d set on the music stand. “Here. I’ve written all the chords down in a grid. I want you to practice switching chords. Start slow. It’s more important to get the fingering right than to go fast.”
“Okay.” Her T-shirt stretched across her breasts and hugged the curve of her waist as she leaned forward to point at the grid she’d created. Totally distracting.
“Start left to right, as if you were reading a book.” She traced the path with her finger and he stared at the smooth skin on the inside of her wrist. He wanted to kiss her there, for starters. Then he’d work his way up her arm to her neck, explore her mouth for a while before traveling south to her nipples, which had been playing peek-a-boo with him for the last hour. Would she like a little bite? Or would she want him to be gentle and slow?
His dick liked both plans and chose that moment to rise to attention in his pants. Thankfully, he had the guitar on his lap to hide his condition, but he was going to have to stand up eventually, and the lesson was about over. “Shit.”
“Excuse me?” Her brows arched over eyes that had gone round with confusion.
“Sorry. I was thinking about something else. I forgot to do something at work.” Her shock turned to a frown and he tried to fix his blunder. “I’m an attorney, I was thinking about a case.”
“Okay. Well, I guess it’s a good thing we’re done.” The warmth he’d seen moments ago fled from her eyes, leaving them remote and guarded. It was the face she’d used on him an hour ago, when they’d been strangers, and he found that he really wanted warm, smiling Erin back.
“Sorry.” And why had he said that, anyway? He wasn’t one to boast. Not his style. Was he seriously trying to impress his guitar teacher by pulling out the law degree? Lame ass move. So, he wanted her to like him. Why did he care?
Because she’s hot and you want to kiss her.
Great. Now he was actually talking to himself. She was not his normal type, but since the moment they’d met, she had him doing and saying stupid shit that he wouldn’t normally do or say. Something about her made him off balance. He couldn’t use his normal game plan of talking about work, because she didn’t care. She had her own passion, her own thing going on. And damn, but that was sexy as fuck.
“I apologize. Really, I’m not normally like this. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“Me neither.” She rubbed her palms over her jean-clad thighs and shrugged. “Okay. So, start left to right, top to bottom. When you’ve got that down, reverse it.”
“Insomnia?” The question flew from his mouth at Mach 3, even though he knew it was none of his business.
“Something like that. I have another job and I work a lot of late nights.” She sighed and stacked her music before setting it inside her still open guitar case. He was about to ask what her other job was, but she started talking again. “Practice the pattern. Once you can switch between chords in this order,” she traced the originally assigned path of chords with her finger, “you start at the bottom right and reverse the order. You have to learn to switch from any chord to any other chord like that.”
She snapped her fingers and he admired her method. He didn’t remember much, but the teacher he’d had in eighth grade had taken his mother’s money for a year and not had him this excited about playing.
Of course, he’d been a thirteen-year-old prick with an attitude back then. He still had an attitude, but he’d had more than a decade to master hiding it.
He could just hear his brothers now. They’d tell him he’d lost his fucking mind, sitting here with a guitar teacher, trying to learn to play an instrument he hadn’t touched since he was a kid. Worse, he couldn’t stop wanting to touch his teacher. Hot for teacher had never been his thing, but Erin made him too comfortable. She made him want to let the caveman out of the cave. Something about her made him feel like he could be himself. He towered over her, and liked it. Her small size made him feel primitive and protective.
Normally, he didn’t lust after any particular woman, and he didn’t play games. When he was dating, he took what his partner offered and kept his head, and his heart, firmly planted in the real world. He had too much going on at work to get into a serious relationship, too many custody battles, parental rights cases and ugly divorce settlements to take care of.
But there was something about Erin that had him letting down his guard. She was a complete surprise. She seemed to be simple and fun, someone who didn’t have an ugly past haunting her, or a closet full of dirty secrets. She felt real, and he was starting to think he could actually like her.
That train of thought was dangerous. He looked away from Erin and focused on putting his guitar away before reaching into his wallet and pulling out a hundred-dollar bill. He handed it to her with an apologetic grin.
“Here. Thank you for agreeing to do this on Sundays. It’s really important to me.”
“No problem.” She took the bill from his hand, careful not to touch his skin. Her caution tempted him to purposely slip, or grab her hand just to force her to make contact. Which was just stupid. Pawing at her was a surefire way be a jerk and make her cancel his lessons. That would not be good. He needed some time to get to know her better, to find out if she was really what she seemed. Two or three lessons, and he’d ask her out for dinner. Or a movie. Or something. Anything. He just knew that she intrigued him and he wanted to know more.
“Okay. I’ll see you Sunday.” He grabbed his homework and his guitar case and walked out the door. But he would swear that her eyes burned a hole in the back of his head the whole way out.
Chapter Three
Four half-empty pints of beer, an order of nachos and one giant jalapeño burger lined the bar. Chance sat between his brothers, with Jake on his right and his two older brothers on his left. Derek and Mitchell were both busy scouting the bar for women, as usual.
“How about her? Three o’clock. Blue sweater.” His oldest brother, Derek, wore his usual biker attire, ripped blue jeans, a black T-shirt, and a black leather jacket that advertised his European sport, custom bike shop on the back. Derek customized motorcycles, particularly the high speed, Italian race bikes, and he was damn good at it.
“Wedding ring, Derek. You know I don’t play that game.” Mitchell took a bite of his giant burger. If Derek, with his longer black hair and tattoos, had no problem attracting women, Mitchell literally had to beat them off with a stick. He was a second-year surgical resident at the local hospital, clean-cut, all-around playboy. He even drove the cherry-red sports car.
“Well, fine for you. But I don’t think Jake’s had any action for at least a year, not counting the sheep.” Derek’s sheep joke was getting old, but he’d been using it since Jake was about thirteen. The joke was practically tradition.
Jake, the youngest, tallest, and most sentimental of the bunch, just grinned, which Derek took as a personal challenge.
“Damn, man. You’re like Fort Knox over there. You got a sweet cowgirl out there on the ranch we don’t know about?” Derek was the oldest of his brothers, beating out Mitchell by less than six months
, but Jake’s six-foot four frame made the rest of them look small. Add the usual cowboy hat, and Jake was a very big boy.
“Naw. Just waiting for the right girl.”
“You turning into a monk, or what?” Mitchell’s question came out garbled by a mouth half full of burger.
“Aww. We better leave him alone. You know Courtney took Jake’s dick with her when she left.” Derek nodded at the bartender and ordered a shot of whiskey.
“You’re an asshole.” Chance intervened on Jake’s behalf. Courtney had been Jake’s college girlfriend. Jake proposed at the ripe old age of twenty-one. They’d all told him he was crazy, but Jake was in love. Until he brought her home. The city girl and the country life didn’t mesh and she gave Jake back his ring in just a few months. That was two years ago, and they hadn’t seen Jake with a woman since.
“Fuck you, Mr. Public Defender.” Derek seemed to be in a piss-poor mood tonight. “Our baby brother can answer for himself.”
“I’m a civil attorney, pencil dick.” Chance fired back.
“Whatever. Jake’s a big boy. He needs to get over that shit. Courtney was a selfish little princess. Just like Claire, back in high school.” Derek looked at his little brother and his dark brown eyes were all kinds of serious. “You can do a lot better.”
“Like you can talk, bro.” Mitchell washed down his last bite with a swig of beer. “That biker bitch of yours led you around by the balls and then slept with your competition.”
“True. But I moved on.”
“Fucking girls that you barely know in a string of one-night stands is not moving on.” Mitchell swirled a french fry in ketchup and ate it. Watching him eat was making Chance hungry.
“So, you think it’s better have a bunch of one-night stands with women you work with?” Derek shook his head and took another sip of his beer.
“Hey, they all know exactly what they’re getting into with me.” Mitchell shrugged and returned his attention to scanning the women in the bar.
“Look, guys. Can we not do this tonight?” Jake sighed and pushed his barstool back from the bar. His brown cowboy hat rested next to his empty beer mug on the bar top. “Can’t we just hang out, drink beer, and listen to some music?”
Crash and Burn (Love You Like A Love Song #1) Page 3