Promise Me Forever (Top Shelf Romance)

by Kate Stewart

  His expression was a mix of skepticism and amusement.

  “Yeah,” he said with wide eyes, his voice laced with sarcasm. “Because we’re going to get signed,” he whispered as he slipped our second condom off and threw it in a Taco Bell bag.

  “Yeah, you are,” I said as he sat up and looked back at me over his shoulder with drawn brows.

  “You need to ease up on Brodi’s weed, Stella.”

  “You know I don’t smoke. You really don’t think you’ll get signed, do you? You don’t believe it’s going to happen?”

  “We’ve been playing for three years. So, no, I fucking don’t.” He moved to stand and held out his hand.

  I took it and stood with him. “You will get signed. It’s just a matter of when. And kicking me out is rude, Reid. I have to say, I’m close to taking a nut with me.”

  He deadpanned, “I was hoping you would wash my hair, but telling a naked man to fear for his nuts, I’ll be afraid to turn my back.”

  “Fine, but you have two hands now. You can wash your own hair.”

  He pulled me to him and gripped my bare ass. “I want your hands. And I never—” he swallowed, his eyes lit with sincerity “—I never told you how much I appreciated all that shit you did for me.”

  I shook my head. “It was nothing.”

  “Stella, it was everything.” His eyes punctured me, and I felt the warmth spread. “It meant everything. I was in a fucked-up place.”

  “And now you’re not?” I said, my voice laced with hope, but I knew better because the guilt he carried was still evident on his face.

  “No, I’m still in a fucked-up place,” he said with a shrug, “but it sucks a lot less here with you around.”

  “Huh,” I said as he started toward his bathroom. “And I thought I got on your nerves.”

  He walked down the hall, his perfect ass my focal point. “You do.”

  I briefly thought about biting it. “I thought I pissed you off.”

  “That too,” he said, starting the shower.

  “So . . . I get on your nerves and piss you off.”

  “Daily,” he said without reservation.

  “But you like me.”

  He looked me over and shrugged as he stepped into a stream of hot water.

  “So, what in the hell am I doing here?” I asked as he yanked me into the shower and pushed me under the water. “Because I want to talk to you every day. I want to look at you every day. Because I can’t fucking wait to see what completely inappropriate T-shirt you wear to work next.”

  “You like me a lot.” I grinned.

  “Enough to risk a nut,” he mused as he poured cheap shampoo into his hand. “Turn around,” he ordered, “let me return the favor.” He playfully slapped a handful of shampoo on the top of my head before he scraped his fingernails in my scalp and through my hair, his ready cock hard between us as he gently washed me and then himself. Minutes later, I was rummaging through his cabinets—starving—and came up with shrimp flavored Ramen noodles. But it didn’t matter; we were content eating hot bowls full of plastic pasta, me in one of his clean T-shirts and him in fresh underwear. In that moment on his lumpy mattress slurping noodles, I felt like I could fly. I was trying my best to keep cool. It was as if I’d finally been granted permission to feel anything when it came to him. Looking at him, being able to touch him, it was the purest drug.

  Trying to tamp down my elation, I scoured his living room, and in the far corner next to the patio door was a stack of at least a hundred spiral notebooks. Most of them looked worn.

  I nodded toward them. “Music?”

  “Yeah,” he said, pulling my empty bowl from my hands.

  “Can I look?”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Why not tonight?”

  “Because it’s four thirty in the morning.”

  “What?” I looked at the clock on his stove. “Oh, shit, I should go.” I moved to stand and he shook his head.

  “Stay. Just a little longer.” My heart leapt as he tugged me back into his grip. Our bowls stacked beside his mattress, I was pressed on my back beneath him, our mouths latched as we clawed and gasped and let go before all that was left was a lingering kiss at his front door.

  I wasn’t about to ask him for an explanation when it came to us. I wasn’t sure what I wanted, besides more of the same, him. As we lingered, wordless, I could feel the tension in him start to build. I didn’t want to think about anything other than what had just happened between us. I just wanted to keep the warmth as long as possible. I was brimming with it.

  “Stella, let me talk to Paige, okay?”

  “It’s not her business.”

  “It kind of is,” he said as he gripped my mouth tight so my lips smashed together. “So, keep this closed, okay?”

  “Fine,” I agreed through duck lips.

  He bruised them thoroughly before I made a mad dash for my sister’s apartment. My heart pounded wildly with the fresh reality and the fear of getting caught.

  I was on fire with freedom and deliciously sore. His touch still lingered on my flesh; his desire still danced on my tongue. Up the stairs and feeling confident I could keep us a secret just a little while longer, I shut the door softly and found the apartment quiet. I moved toward my duffle and jumped when I saw Paige on the couch. I froze and then hung my head.

  Her voice was ice. “You can’t stay here.”

  “What?”

  “Get out, Stella. Leave your key.”

  “No, what? No, Paige. You don’t mean that. You can’t mean that.”

  “I do. This is a big mistake, and I will not watch you make it.”

  “Please,” I pleaded through the dark room. “Please don’t do this. I only need a few weeks.”

  “Should have thought about that before you fucked my best friend.”

  Anger built, and I couldn’t help my bite of defense. “Why, would you rather it be you?”

  “Get out.”

  “Paige.” I shook my head. “I didn’t mean that. It’s just—”

  “Get out. Now.”

  “Paige?” Neil said as he walked into the kitchen and turned on the light, making us both wince.

  “She’s leaving,” she said as she walked up to Neil and kissed his cheek. “Now.”

  “Paige,” I said as my voice cracked. “I really care about him. I want to be with him. Why is that so wrong?”

  She walked into the bedroom and closed the door.

  “I’m sorry,” I told Neil as I stuffed a few loose T-shirts in my bag and zipped it up. “Thank you for letting me stay.”

  “I’ll talk to her, Stella.”

  “She’s never been this mad at me, ever.”

  Neil sighed and scrubbed his face. “She’ll get over it. She’s more pissed at Reid.”

  The gnawing sensation hit my chest as I thought for a second I might have made a mistake. “Is he that bad?”

  Neil looked at me with clear eyes. “If he wants to be.” He walked over to his CD collection and pulled a hundred-dollar bill from one of the shelved discs. “Take this and get a cab and cheap motel for the night. I’ll talk to her.”

  “No,” I said, giving him a quick hug. “No, keep your money. I’ll figure it out. Bye,” I choked out as I closed the door behind me. A tidal wave struck the second I was out the door as the tears built and fell freely.

  Fuck.

  I had money for a hotel, but it was 5:00 in the morning. There was only one place for me to go. I took the walk of shame, that only my sister had brought on, and dragged my duffle across the lawn. I looked up to see Reid smoking a cigarette on his balcony. I paused as he stood and crushed it under his foot.

  He met me at his front door, my face burning with fresh tears. “Did she call you?”

  “If you want to call it that,” he said as he grabbed my bag, tossed it behind him, and pulled me inside.

  “I’m sorry,” I said as my breath hitched and more tears flowed. I was embarrassed, furious, and
temporarily homeless.

  “We both did this,” he said as he thumbed my jawline. “We, not you.”

  “She’s so pissed.”

  “She’ll get over it.” Nothing in his voice told me he believed she would. Had I just cost him his best friend?

  “Can I just stay today? I need some sleep. I need to think.”

  Reid nodded as I shook with the revelation that I’d completely alienated my sister.

  Was I wrong? Was she? Would Reid make a fool out of me? And what were we? Was it even worth it?

  Reid bit his lip and pawed the top of my head. “Stop your brain.”

  “I’m so screwed.”

  “Welcome to adulthood,” he said with a Cheshire grin. “It fucking sucks here.”

  “God, please don’t ever volunteer for a suicide hotline,” I said as I looked around his place in the early morning light. “This looked so different an hour ago,” I said under my breath.

  “Because you weren’t stuck here,” he said softly behind me.

  I looked his way and saw the shame my words brought him. “I didn’t mean it like that at all. If you think this is bad, you should visit my Uncle Julio in Mexico. He has a dirt floor. You live like royalty compared to him.”

  Reid shook his head the way he always did when he dismissed my eternal optimism and led me to his mattress. Tucked in his hold, he kissed me until I came undone for him and fell asleep on his chest.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Watching the Wheels: John Lennon

  The next week was a mixture of heaven and hell on earth between Paige’s wrath and Reid’s healing lips. My parents were pissed. She wasted no time telling them I was shacking up with Reid. I avoided their calls. Paige glared at us both from a distance while keeping hers. She refused to speak to either of us. As soon as we clocked in on the same shift, I could feel the heat wave she let off. Reid tried to approach her a few days after she kicked me out, but she just walked away and embarrassed him. We were completely screwed in our footing. I wasn’t welcome back to her house, and she made it known by telling my parents everything, which put me in the doghouse with them as well.

  I avoided it all, completely fixated on my bubble with Reid. When I got to The Plate Bar, I went straight to work, doing my best to avoid Paige as we all scurried around like mice trying to tame the dinner rush. But that Friday, we were so busy at one point Paige got temporary amnesia, and we worked together to get through it. My hopes of any sort of truce were dashed when an hour after the doors closed, she slammed her hands into Reid’s chest and yelled at him without an ounce of restraint.

  “My sister? You. Fucking. Asshole! You just couldn’t help yourself, could you? Well, you wanted her, you got her!”

  Leslie came out of her office and nipped it in the bud, but Paige’s tear-filled and angry eyes were enough to silence us both until we reached the parking lot. Reid had a Chevy truck that was ten years older than I was and had just been repainted black. The repairs from the accident had taken forever because the car was considered a classic. The AC barely blew enough air to cool us both, and the switch was one of those you had to push to the right with your finger to amp it up. But he loved that truck. It was obvious. The cabin was clean and in decent shape. It wasn’t what I pictured him driving, but when he chauffeured me around in it, I couldn’t see him in anything else.

  I stared at his profile as he took us through the streets that led us back to safety, away from the scrutiny of my sister. “Why is she doing this?” I asked

  Reid drove silently for a few minutes. “Because she loves me, but she thinks I’m a piece of shit, Stella.”

  Once we pulled up, we sat in his truck. A silent relief radiated between us both.

  “And you believe her,” I stated and turned to face him on the bench seat.

  “Nope, no, we’re not arguing tonight,” he said as he leaned in and took my lips before he pulled the key out the ignition and gripped the door handle. “Don’t believe her,” I said as he ignored me and got out of the truck. I wasn’t having it. I met him at his stairs. “Reid, look at me,” I demanded. His tired eyes met mine as I laid my hands on his chest. “Believe me, not her. Not what goes on inside that head of yours. Believe me.”

  “Stella, it’s not that easy.”

  “It is that easy. You aren’t who you were yesterday or the day before. Believe that. You are not your circumstances. You aren’t that empty apartment.” I nodded toward the door. “That isn’t who you are.”

  I stood one step above so we were eye level.

  He pushed a piece of hair from my lips and brushed it past my shoulders. “And who do you think I am, Stella?”

  “You’re the band nerd who grew up to be a rock star. This is just the in between.”

  I got a smirk.

  “And who are you?”

  “I’m the woman who’s going to watch it happen. I’m the woman with a huge I told you so on the edge of her tongue.”

  Reid hoisted me over his shoulder, and I yelped as he slapped my ass. “Enough with the pep talk I didn’t ask for, Grenade.”

  “I’m starting to love that nickname.” Love you. Starting to love you, Reid.

  Later that night, I peeked over my laptop to watch Reid pace his apartment and smoke like he was about to get on an overseas flight. He’d gotten off the phone with his mother an hour before the march started and refused to talk to me. From what I gathered, his dad was getting worse. I was too afraid to push. Far too unsure of what my place was, if I had any at all. Reid hadn’t said a word about the fact that I’d been there for days. He knew it was just a matter of time before I got my own apartment. Still, he was quiet when the pacing stopped. He scribbled in his notebooks and chain-smoked on his balcony. I wondered if we hadn’t gotten busted by Paige if I would even be here, if I would be welcome. But then his dark eyes would find mine in the space between us and he’d give me that smirk, and I just knew. We were okay. It was okay.

  “When are you going to let me look at your music?” I asked as he sat on the concrete on his balcony, boots crossed, cigarette in his mouth, pen in hand.

  He shrugged and kept writing.

  “You’re probably drawing puppies anyway.”

  He ran his hands through his hair and sighed. Even though he was blatantly ignoring me so I would shut up, I couldn’t help it. I smiled. And then I found someone else to pester.

  Hey, Ben’s bitch! What’s the good word?

  Lexi: I’m nobody’s bitch. Days. I’ll be there in days!

  Ten!

  Lexi: Days sounds better. How is it going?

  I feel weird being here. It’s like he has to keep me because we had sex. How screwed up is this? I’ll never forgive Paige. Seriously, I hate her right now. I’m setting out on foot tomorrow to find a place and it will be done. I have two places in mind.

  Lexi: Is he worth it?

  He’s sad and he’s beautiful. I’m done with musicians. That’s what I said, remember? And you didn’t bother to remind me of that. I’m sitting on a floor staring at him. That’s how it’s going.

  Lexi: You are so going to fall for him.

  Maybe. But Ben’s waiting on you to get here and you are looking pretty screwed yourself.

  Lexi: Are we groupies?

  No. We are music enthusiasts who occasionally sleep with musicians. We aren’t quite Meg Ryan playing Pam Courson giving Jim Morrison head in the sound booth.

  Lexi: I would totally do that.

  You’re a groupie. No doubt.

  Lexi: Tomorrow makes nine days.

  Love you, bitch.

  Lexi: X

  “Now let me see what you just texted,” Reid said, standing above me.

  “What?” I looked up and my smile slipped. “How the hell did you sneak up on me like that?”

  “Don’t change the subject. Let me see it,” he said, cupping his hand in front of my face in wait.

  “Uh, no,” I said, quickly shoving my phone down my pants.

  He arc
hed a brow. “You think I won’t go after that? Read it . . . out loud.”

  “No way, man,” I said, shooting to my feet and putting the island between us.

  Reid seemed satisfied as he watched my chest heave. “My songs are just as personal to me until I’m ready to share them.” He gave up, victorious.

  “Fine. I’ll read it out loud,” I said to his retreating back.

  I looked like an idiot pulling my phone from my pants, and I caught his smirk. I cleared my throat, scanned the text, and slumped in defeat. I saw groupies, whores, and head in a booth. “Never mind, carry on.”

  His loud laugh was the best part of that day.

  Well, that and the fact that an hour later, he found his way into my phone holster.

  Chapter Nineteen

  1,2,3,4: Plain White T’s

  “You really don’t have to do this,” I said to Reid as he sat in his truck, waiting on the address. “I can find my way around.”

  “Where to, Stella?”

  I gave him the name of the street and he nodded. “You know where this is?”

  “I do.”

  “Is it a decent area?”

  “For you, it’s safe enough.”

  “Enough?”

  “Safe is an illusion, Stella,” he said as he turned on the radio.

  “I see you’ve had your morning box of Lucky Charms.” He cut his eyes at me and pulled out of the parking lot. We asked Leslie to schedule our shifts as close together as possible for the next week. It took little maneuvering due to Paige’s outburst, and she agreed, but only after giving us a lecture on leaving our personal shit at our front door.

  Reid and I had both been humiliated and punished for our decision. And as the days passed, I was starting to care less and less about how everyone else felt. Except for Reid. In his company, I couldn’t shut up. Under his stare, I’d never felt so beautiful. And beneath him . . .

  “What?” he asked as I grinned at my window. “I can see you smiling.”

  “I was just thinking about Jim Morrison.”