EMMA
Today was painfully slow. The thing about Chancy’s Claw—no one really wants to crack crab legs when the weather turns cold. Combine that with the decline in tourism, and we were all bored out of our minds. Not to mention, I was only making two something an hour. Still, I was happy for the hours and the distraction.
“I’m going to go find a job on the mainland. This is crap.” Kathy, another waitress, threw her apron right at Rhett’s face. And left. She just up and left, slamming the glass door beside the empty hostess stand on her way out.
I stood there in shock. “Wow.”
“It happens,” he shrugged, tossing her apron on the bar top. He rubbed a hand over his short-cropped hair as if her drama had messed it up, but it hadn’t. “Good news, kid, more tables for you if anyone comes in.”
“I hope we get at least one table today.” I pulled my phone out my apron pocket, checking it briefly, before returning it.
No new texts.
No missed calls.
I wanted to be okay with that—because it was my own fault he’d stopped communicating—but I don’t think I was. Each day that passed without another new text made me feel like I was sinking a little deeper, just an inch or two at a time, into quicksand. How many more days until the sand reached my heart…or my head? I tried to tell myself I knew what I was doing. But did I? Did I really?
“You expecting to hear from someone?” Rhett asked. He had an inability to stay out of other people’s business.
“Nope.”
“How’s your mom?”
“She’s okay. Hanging in there.”
“And—” Rhett stopped talking and stared straight forward.
I turned to see what had caused his loss of words. Sydney maybe? I’d only ever seen him turn this calm with her. But it wasn’t his girlfriend. Someone else had just entered the restaurant. Four someones to be exact. And I knew in that moment all bets were off and all good intentions lost. It was Caleb, walking in like he was walking straight out of the pages of a magazine.
Hot damn. I couldn’t breathe.
That quicksand ate me the rest of the way, all at once.
Caleb wasn’t alone. He had his whole band—his two brothers and his cousin—with him. But I couldn’t process the others. My eyes were laser-beam focused on him.
He had on sunglasses. His brown hair, short on the sides, long on the top, both styled and messy at the same time. He wore a tan leather jacket that looked like it had been sewn just for his body. The heavy stubble that had been on his face before was gone. He’d shaved. He’d shaved when I’d specifically said I liked it. He looked pretty great either way, but what did that mean? I didn’t know if I’d ever seen him in a leather jacket before. Ollie was the leather jacket type, not Caleb.
In the time it took my brain to process his presence in my world, to convince myself he wasn’t a hallucination, the four of them had walked the distance from the front door over to us.
Menus. Where were the menus? There were some behind me on the bar. I turned and fumbled with them, all thumbs, while little pin prickles jabbed at the skin on my neck.
“Did you guys want a table?” I asked as I whipped back around, over-eager with my damn menus. “Are you here to eat?”
“Or drink?” Rhett added, as he was bartending.
“I could eat,” Dani said. “But no alcohol for us.” She took the menus out of my shaking hands. “We’ll just seat ourselves. Looks like we’ve got the pick of the place. Nice to see you, Emma.”
She gestured for the guys to follow. Luke and Ollie did. Ollie gave me a small wink, which I had no idea how to interpret. Luke didn’t make eye contact.
Caleb stayed, standing there in front of me. He had a subtle smirk on his face. For all the anxiety I had flooding through me, he appeared as if he had none.
“What are you doing here?” I muttered. This wasn’t some coincidence.
“We cancelled the rest of the tour.”
I nearly chocked on my own tongue. “What?”
“Yeah, Luke’s going through a hard time. And we’re here to get him sober. We’ve rented a beach house in Carova. Seems like it will be just the right amount of secluded up there. It might give us all a chance to work on family shit too.”
I didn’t know Luke had a drinking problem. And Carova was the furthest town north. If you could even call it a town. No roads, you had to drive on the sand to reach the houses up there. With the slow speed limits, it was at least an hour drive from here. So, wait, was he even here to see me?
He was physically standing in front of me, so... yes?
And if I wasn’t already confused and terrified enough, he hugged me. If I wasn’t previously in a state of panic or shock, I most certainly was now. It was a friendly hug, a lot like the hug I’d given him the last night we saw each other, and it seemed innocent right up until the moment he whispered against my ear. “You’re so fucking beautiful like this.”
Like what? A waitress?
He left me to follow the others to the booth they’d picked. And I realized, he meant my freckles. Holy hell, my freckles!
It was a regular day. I had on a regular amount of makeup, which meant I hadn’t worn the foundation to cover them. I felt sick to my stomach now. So damn nervous. Kathy had deserted us, which meant I had no choice. I had to go take their order.
~ CHAPTER 21 ~
CALEB
I lied to her. I lied to her about Luke because, well, I didn’t want to come across as the world’s biggest stalker. But the truth was—I’d cancelled my tour for her. I’d put my life on hold for her. I was here in North Carolina with one purpose and it was her.
I was normally a t-shirt and jeans type of a guy, even when I performed, but I’d spent some money on clothes before coming here. I’d changed up my look. I’d gotten a fresh haircut. I’d shaved my beard. Again, all for her.
But everything came to a halt the moment I saw her face.
It knocked the wind out of my lungs.
She was stunning.
Her freckles were stunning. Sexy, raw, and unique. I could never have guessed she had so many. Or that when we’d previously met something so different had been hiding underneath. The change was night and day. So startling that I hadn’t been able to control myself when I told her she was so fucking beautiful. Because she was. So. Fucking. Beautiful.
Ollie kicked my shin under the table the moment I sat down. I knew he was kicking me over those freckles. He stared at me, and I stared back at him, daring him to open his mouth. It would not end well for him if he did. Smartly, he did not say anything.
Emma came up in her tight white t-shirt and cute green apron. A notepad in one hand, a pen in the other, ready to take our order.
I hated this dynamic.
I hated the idea of her waiting on me.
I realized I didn’t have much of a plan past my leather jacket and my grand entrance. I could ask her about my hoodie, but that felt lame. After all, she’d been the one to stop texting me. I still didn’t know why. I didn’t know if she was happy or annoyed by my presence.
And now she had to take my lunch order? It felt wrong somehow.
“You want to join us?” Dani asked Emma, practically reading my mind, coming to my rescue. “Caleb’s treat, of course. You could take our order and then have lunch with us. It’s not like you have any other tables at the moment. What do you say?”
Emma cheeks flushed. Her hands clutched the hell out of her notepad. “I guess I could ask Rhett.”
“Why don’t you ask Rhett to join us, too?” Dani asked, nibbling her lower lip. “He looks pretty damn delicious.”
I glanced over my shoulder. Rhett? The same guy from Tennessee? I hadn’t made the connection. So he was her boss?
“I’ll ask,” Emma said.
“Perfect. And four burgers for us. Fries. Cokes. That’s easy enough, right?” Dani made the decision and none of us guys said anything to the contrary.
“I’ll go put yo
ur order in.”
Emma left, disappearing into the back of the restaurant.
The moment she was gone, I took off my sunglasses, tossing them on the table. I felt a little sick to my stomach. Why hadn’t I thought this through more? I felt like an asshole. I could tell I was making her nervous.
“Calm the hell down,” Dani whispered to me. “You’re sweating.”
“I should be—in this fucking leather jacket when it’s seventy degrees outside.”
“I told you, you need to play up the famous singer thing. Okay? Trust me. That’s what you have over all other men in this world. That’s what you have over her boyfriend. Over her hot as hell bartender/boss over there. Use it. And the first chance you get to sing to that girl—you sing to that girl. Trust me, trust me, trust me.”
“I second that,” Ollie said. “I remind every girl I meet who I am even if they already know.”
I glared at him. That wasn’t me—using my status to get Emma into bed. I just wanted her to see me. Shit, I realized suddenly, today I looked like Ollie’s wannabe clone. The jacket. The hair. I shrugged off the leather immediately and wished I hadn’t shaved my beard.
Emma returned a few seconds later with our sodas. She handed them out, plus an extra one for herself, before she pulled up a chair at the end of the booth. She sat directly to my right. It was a little cramped, but I didn’t mind having her so close, even when her leg bumped mine as she scooted her chair into the table. “Rhett said it was fine if I joined you,” she said. “I don’t think he’s going to come over though.”
“Is he star-struck?” Dani smiled, sipping her soda. “Sometimes I intimidate men.” She rarely went after men this hard, but when she did, she was all in.
“One of his best friends is Nate West. So I don’t think Rhett gets star-struck.”
I recalled Emma mentioning Nate West’s name before. How did Rhett know Nate West? He was the star of one of the most popular tv shows of all time, Dragon Wars.
“Rhett has a girlfriend,” Emma added. “And he’s about the most loyal person I know.”
Dani shrugged. “Oh well. His loss.”
An awkward silence followed. Why did I suddenly feel like I was on a first date with my entire family present—watching us, judging us? Only this wasn’t a date. Because she had a boyfriend.
“Is it always this slow?” I asked her, meaning the restaurant.
“This time of year…yes. It picks up a little in the evenings. But I haven’t worked here long enough to get those kind of hours. So I settle for whatever they’ll give me.”
“How long have you worked here?”
“Eight months maybe.”
That seemed like an awfully long time to be working somewhere and not getting the hours you wanted. How many more years would she have to put into this place before she got to work what she wanted? Was this even what she wanted? I thought of the bottle-cap art she’d mentioned and knew with certainty it wasn’t.
“So Nate West?” Ollie asked. His curiosity had taken him less than two minutes to ask. The conversation then shifted to the notorious, perhaps even more famous than us, Dragon Slayer. And it didn’t shift back.
But at some point, as Emma politely answered Ollie’s annoying questions, and as Dani looked bored enough to fall asleep, and Luke possibly was asleep to my left—somewhere in the middle of that, Emma’s hand brushed mine under the table.
I couldn’t tell if it had been intentional or not. But when it happened a second time, I froze. Our pinkies were touching barely under the table. How could one little touch make me feel like I was flying? I moved my hand the rest of the way and grabbed hers in mine. She didn’t pull back, she let it happen. She even gave my fingers a little squeeze before lacing hers through mine.
Above the table her expression never changed. But below the table she gripped my fingers tight. It was enough to tell me I hadn’t been stupid for coming here.
~ CHAPTER 22 ~
EMMA
Caleb and I were holding hands under the table. My body was screaming. Somewhere in the craziness of him showing up today, I realized how excited I was to see him. And being near his body, sitting next to him on the end of this booth, I swear my hand had just gravitated toward his hand, like a magnetized pull. Now I was listening to Ollie speak, not hearing a word Ollie was saying, seeming to only feel all the blood in my body rush through that one hand of mine. I wasn’t going to be able to eat my veggie burger like this, and I was dreading the moment I had to break away from him.
I was the worst girlfriend ever.
Seriously, ever.
I had all these feelings for Caleb, which I was trying my damnedest to fight because I could never let myself fall for him. I knew it would crush me in the end. I’d tried to cut off communication. But now Caleb was here, next to me, and my thoughts were swirling with confusion.
Let go of his hand. Let go of his hand.
I couldn’t. I physically couldn’t move.
Right up until I heard the door at the front of the restaurant open. We had more customers. High school-aged girls started piling into the building. A whole bus load of them. What was this? A field trip to Chancy’s Claw?
“That looks like fun,” Dani commented sarcastically, meaning the girls who were now all waiting to be seated by the hostess stand.
I was on the fence about whether I liked Dani or not. I found her annoying and funny simultaneously. But overall, I had this strong impression that she was on my side. So, I guess I liked her.
“I have to go work now, guys,” I told the table, dropping Caleb’s hand under it.
I stood up without saying anything else. Caleb gave me a small smile, which might as well have been a kiss for the way my heart reacted to it, as I left them.
Everything turned busy fast. Rhett left the bar to assist in pushing tables together and then he helped me take their order. Other than delivering a bunch of hamburgers to Caleb’s table, I barely had the opportunity to interact with them again. And when they all stood up to leave a little later—I felt my stomach drop.
What if this was the last time I ever saw Caleb? Carova was forever away. Far enough that if he didn’t want to see me again, he didn’t have to. For as confusing as everything was, that wasn’t what I wanted.
The others waved from across the room, leaving for the front door, while Caleb lingered by the table. He seemed to be waiting to tell me goodbye.
In between some girl asking me for her fourth glass of water, I went over to him.
“I settled the bill with Rhett at the bar,” he told me. “He has your tip.”
“Crap.” I slapped my hand to my forehead. “I forget your check. I’m so sorry.” He had to think I was a terrible waitress.
“Don’t be. I realize me being here is throwing you off.”
Was I that obvious? “Okay. Well it was good seeing you today—”
“You stopped texting me,” he muttered, cutting me off.
The whole restaurant instantly faded out of existence. Sometimes I felt like every moment I spent with Nick was polite conversations where neither of us ever said what we were really thinking. Caleb, for as polite as he was, had a way of instantly getting at the heart of things.
“I know,” I whispered.
“Why?”
My heart pounded under my Chancy’s Claw t-shirt. I couldn’t answer him. I couldn’t tell him the truth. I stopped texting because I felt something for him. Something so strong it frightened me. I needed to figure out my feelings for Nick first. And Caleb made that impossible to do.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said when it took me too long to answer. “I can’t tell if you want me here or not. So I’ll make it easy. I can walk out that door and I can stay at our beach house miles from here. That can be the end of that. Or I can text you again tonight, since I’ve really started to miss that favorite hoodie of mine, and we can pick up where we left off. Okay? Simple as that. I have to go, though. I think those girls at your other table might be
starting to question who I am. They’re pretending to take selfies now.”
Caleb wasn’t messing around. He grabbed his sunglasses off the table, his jacket from the booth, and in the next second, he was walking for the door.
I looked at Rhett, who’d been watching our interaction from across the restaurant behind the bar. “Go,” he mouthed.
Adrenaline made my fingers tingle.
The front door to the restaurant squeaked as Caleb disappeared outside. I stared at my giant table of girls. Half of them were watching me. Had they caught on that he was Caleb Mills?
“The four o’clock shift will be in here in like twenty minutes,” Rhett hollered across the room. “Seriously—go. I can finish your table.”
I felt a little dizzy but didn’t hesitate another moment. I hurried after Caleb. I pushed open the front doors to Chancy’s Claw and into the blinding sun. I jogged across the gravel-sand parking lot. There was one vehicle in the lot that I decided had to be his.
A giant Hummer that screamed rental.
I hurried up to it.
Sure enough, it was his. He hopped down from the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind him the moment I got close. I briefly wondered where his family had gone, because they weren’t here with him now.
“I, um,” I stammered, noticing for the first time how much gold his hair picked up in the sunlight. “I think you should text me again. Your hoodie misses you, too.”
I’d always thought Ollie had a smile that could melt underwear and drop women to their knees. But the grin that moved over Caleb’s lips as I said I missed him too—it blew Ollie’s rehearsed smile out of the water and it flooded me with heat. His eyes raked over my body in a way they never had before, and I felt a tidal wave of lust rolling off him. This was new. This was intense. This was way past a look a friend would give.
His eyes and his smile—they continued to render me helpless. While he took my hand in his, tugging me a little closer. Our bodies brushed against one another. I lightly touched his chest, staring up at him, half terrified. With his other hand, he traced his fingers up my arm, over my shoulder, and along the curve of my neck. His touch sent goosebumps exploding all over me. I just knew he was about to kiss me. Right here in the broad daylight of the Chancy’s Claw parking lot, and I’d never wanted anything more.
Never Trust a Rockstar Page 8