The Complete Rock Stars, Surf and Second Chances Series, books 1-5

by Michelle Mankin

  “I can’t.”

  “Ash.” Hollie stepped closer.

  The door to the penthouse burst open and slammed into the wall. I released Fanny. “Get behind me, both of you!” I threw my arms to the sides protectively in front of her and her sister. Not knowing what to expect, I turned to see Linc and Simone with Ramon and Karen right behind them.

  “What’s going on?” Linc asked. “It’s a madhouse down there. But no one is getting up into this penthouse that’s not on your list though, I can tell you that. It is that serious. The extra security you asked for is here in force. Cash has taken charge. If you can believe it, he made all of us show him our ID’s. Plus, your mom’s gotten involved. Even though she’s supposed to be taking a medical leave, she made a quiet call and now SDPD is handling things outside the building.” He strode closer, his gaze sweeping the room. His brows rose. “Seems like things are serious in here, too. What’d we miss?”

  “Renee was here. I updated everyone about what Hart turned up. And Fanny asked me to let her go,” I summarized.

  “Well, hell no on that last one. You’re not going to do it.” His gaze slid away from me. I shifted to see Fanny had moved to stand by Hollie. They were holding on to each other. I felt a twinge of déjà vu remembering the first night I had brought them up to the apartment and had watched them holding hands in their sleep. “Ash tells me you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to him. It would be crazy to let you go. But I guess he hasn’t told you yet.”

  Fanny shook her head.

  “I think she already knows,” Karen said.

  Fanny shook her head harder.

  “Anyone can see how good you are for him. I’m sure it’s just as clear to you what you mean to him, Fanny. You’re the one for him.”

  “He never even had Karen or me up to the apartment until you came along,” Ramon said. “He’s repressed. He’s an isolationist and a control freak when it comes to letting people close, but you’ve changed that.”

  “He can’t take his eyes off of you. He couldn’t even before he knew who you were. You’re all he sees,” Simone said softly.

  “And that kiss, Fanny,” Hollie reminded me. “You told me about it, but I’ve seen the pictures now on the internet. He was on his knee in front of you.”

  “But Linc,” Fanny whispered. Her eyes finally returned to me, her body shifting in my direction.

  “Not anymore, little rose. Not since you. It took me a little while to see it. But I think the process of falling out of love with him started the first time I met you.”

  “I don’t understand. How can you say that?”

  “I can say a lot of things. I want to. But as much as I love my friends, and love that they’re all here and supportive, and as much as I agree with everything they said about me and you, the rest I want to share is private, and it’s only for you.” I cast my eyes to Linc quickly then back to her. “My cousin told me I had to be willing to try to find a special person to share my life with if I wanted something like he has with Simone. He told me that the day I chased you down the embankment and almost caught you. He said I had to be willing to let that someone in when they came along. That someone is you. And I’ve been trying, Fanny. I’ve been letting you in. Sharing with you. Making you a part of my life. Things I never even imagined doing with anyone else.”

  My eyes burned as I stared at her. “I’ve done those first two with you, at least. I was working on the last part of his advice last night, but I botched it badly.”

  “What was the last part?” she asked, her expression soft. Her grey eyes shining with brilliance I hoped was the same intense emotion that was ripping through me.

  “That I had to be willing to get on with my life in order to truly experience it. I’m willing to do that. With you. For you, my gypsy rose. If you’ll come with me to the roof, I can tell you everything you want and need to know.”

  Chapter Forty

  * * *

  Fanny

  “Would you rather sit or stand?” Ash asked me, looking uncertain. I couldn’t remember him ever looking at a loss. It rocked me.

  “I’d like to whisk us both back to the beach and that kiss.” Everything had seemed so solid then. At least to me. Probably not to him considering all that he hadn’t revealed.

  “I’d like that, too.” Sadness flickered in his eyes clouding the blue. “What if we stand over by the half wall closer to the ocean?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good.” He reached for my hand. I didn’t pull away this time. I slid my fingers into the gaps between his. He shifted to angle his body toward me, lifted our joined hands and brushed his lips across my knuckles. “A perfect fit,” he said, and my heart fluttered as he lifted his head and stared deeply into my eyes. “I knew you were right the moment I first looked at you.”

  He didn’t wait for me to respond. He tucked our hands to the center of his chest, which coincidently brought the side of my body in direct alignment with his. “Knew it with even more certainty when I held you. Every moment, every conversation, every facet of your personality has confirmed my initial impression.” He cast his gaze to the ocean giving me his profile. The breeze lifted the strands of hair that had escaped the tie holding the rest back.

  “Ash,” I breathed. “Please. You’re making me cry.” I used my free hand to swipe the wetness from my cheeks.

  “Sorry, little one.” He dipped his gaze to me. I tried to give him a smile. It trembled like the waves did when they lifted to high as if to touch the clouds before gravity brought them crashing back to their rightful place. “Sorry for the mess I made of things after that kiss. I told you out on the pier that I was clueless about you and me, and it was the fucking truth.” He turned his gaze back out to the water, and I pressed closer to him. It was all I could do. The rest was up to him.

  “But knowing who you were, I also knew who I wasn’t. I lived a hedonistic life all those years on the road. I Ioved Linc. He loved Simone. He spiraled without her and instead of yanking him out of the abyss I dove right into it with him. Drugs were a part of it. But so was a lot of experimentation. Guys. Girls. Threesomes. I don’t know all that Renee told you, but I have tried almost everything hoping to fill the void. None of it worked. When I met you I had finally come to that realization. All part of the crossroads I mentioned to you.”

  “Not good timing to meet me.”

  “No.” He turned his head. His gaze was turbulent. “Because even without all the stuff I had to work through at the time including my diagnosis, I knew I was overreaching by desiring someone so perfect.”

  “I have my faults, Ash. I’m impulsive. Flighty. Emotional. I think you’ve seen all those things while I’ve been here. I’m far from perfect.”

  “Ok, you’re very grounded, at the least. Name one impetuous, highly risky thing you’ve done besides running away that night with your sister?”

  My mind went blank.

  “Yeah,” he nodded. “I thought so. I bet the most rebellious thing you ever did was follow bands like ours. So yeah in comparison to me you’re perfect.” His gaze went back to the ocean. “I wish I could give you that in return.” His eyes narrowed. “Wish I could go back to the start.” His tone matched his introspective profile. “Be the man I was before the band left OB that first time. But the past can’t be undone. I am a sum of my parts and a product of my past. You know all the truth of it now. That kiss was the only untainted part of me I had left to give you.”

  “What about me being the only woman you’ve ever been affectionate with?”

  He stilled, turned his head toward me, a light flickering to brighten the dark in his eyes.

  “Has Renee ever gone surfing with you?”

  “No.”

  “So that’s mine, too. Has any woman ever been with and your friends at a dinner party up here on your roof? In your studio? Sung a duet with you? You ever let anyone stay in your bedroom overnight in your bed? You ever carried a woman when she was weak? Tease her when she wa
s sad?”

  He shook his head, the darkness in his eyes receding like the inky night sky from the dawn.

  “You ever let Simone or Linc sit with you, talk with you, touch you or comfort you after one of your bad dreams?”

  “No, little one.”

  “You’re vulnerable with me. Unguarded. Not one hundred percent all of the time, but the times you have been are mine, too. But you’re also strong, too. Incredibly strong. You’ve had your own demons to slay, yet you’ve championed my cause, not once but several times. Intervening between me and my stepfather. Setting me up to pursue my dream. You beat up someone who terrorized me. You rescued me and my sister when we were in trouble. You do all that wonderful strong stuff for anyone else?”

  “Just you.” His lips curved.

  “Just me.” I smiled.

  “Fanny.” He shifted, released my hand, but only to pull me more fully into him.

  “That’s another thing.” I was worked up now. “How do you do that? Make my unique name sound like something so beautiful.” I placed my hands on his chest, on his silky soft shirt comforted by the warmth of his skin and the steady pounding of the perfect heart I knew beat beneath it.

  “It’s not anything I do, little one. That’s just you being you. I don’t think there’s another person on the planet who would have reacted to the things Renee told you or the news that I was HIV positive the way you did.”

  “I don’t know about other people. I just know about you and me. And it wouldn’t say very much about me as a person if I rejected you because of something your ex-arrangement girl told me or because you were sick. It wouldn’t say much about my feelings for you, either. It would mean I was pretty superficial.”

  “HIV isn’t just a sickness.”

  “I know it’s a serious chronic condition. But it’s not a curse, either. Having HIV doesn’t define who you are. It doesn’t mean you should punish yourself or cut yourself off from the world like Quasimodo in his tower. It doesn’t make you unlovable if that’s what you think.”

  “I got it being irresponsible with the drugs and unprotected sex.”

  “So you made bad choices. One plus one equals condemnation in your eyes since you process things in equations and absolutes. But I see things differently. My mom marrying Samuel was a mistake, but she did it because she loved me and my sister. Me running away with Hollie was dangerous, but I did what I felt was best to protect her.” I offered him a soft smile. “Why you did the things you did is an important part of your story. You were in love with someone who didn’t love you back. You said you had a void inside you. You sought to fill that emptiness with things that would never satisfy. Well, there’s emptiness inside of me, too. A loneliness. Only it disappears when I’m with you.” I stared deeply into his aquamarine eyes willing him to understand. “Stop beating yourself up about the past. You’ve learned from it. Move on. It’s not an end. It’s only the beginning of something beautiful if you give the girl who’s always wanted you a chance to fill that void inside of you.”

  “There’s no resisting you, Fanny. You’re an incredible woman. Turning this completely around, so that instead of me apologizing, you’re comforting me, and not just comforting me but making me almost believe that I can be worthy of you.”

  “No believing about it.” I brought my hands to his handsome face and framed it. “You are.”

  “On that you’ll have to believe for both of us. Your faith in me is what truly matters.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that. Didn’t he need to believe in himself to fully give all of himself, all that was inside his heart to me? But I let it slide for now. We were here. I was where I wanted to be. Where he wanted me to be.

  “So moving forward?” Eyes searching mine, he covered my hands with his own, removed them from his face, gathered them together in his warm strong grip and placed them between us. “A relationship. Full emotional and physical connection. Is that offer still on the table?”

  “Yes, of course it is.”

  “Good. Because I want that. I want it all. No closed doors between us anymore.”

  “I want that, too.”

  “But there have to be some boundaries, Fanny. Your safety is and always will be a priority to me.”

  “I understand. Yours is to me, too. I didn’t mean…”

  “I know you didn’t. Not exactly. But trust goes two ways, right?” He pulled in a breath. “I got retested. You remember the day Linc stayed in the apartment?”

  I nodded. He had been gone a long time. I had missed him.

  “Well, I wanted to see what my titers were. If they were still as favorable as the last time I got checked. They are. The virus is undetectable in my blood. The risk of spreading it through intercourse is so low right now that it’s practically not even quantifiable. But for me that’s still not good enough. We’ll have to use a condom. Latex. The virus can’t pass through it.”

  “That’s good news about your results. I wouldn’t know what it all really means.” Only that I wanted him. Maybe I had made it too simple. Possibly he had made it too complex. So here we were in the middle but no longer in limbo. “Thank you for explaining.”

  “I want to share everything we can, Fanny. I want you. I want you in my bed. Starting right now and then the next day and the one after that. I don’t want to wait anymore. Last night when I realized that’s what you had in mind, what you had wanted too, well it only made me more miserable to have that closed door between us. So I called my doctor on the way up to LA. I talked to him about you and me and us moving forward. He told me you would have no risk at all of contracting the virus if I use a latex condom properly, which I plan to, and if you take the medication he prescribed for when we have intercourse. But I don’t want you to just take my word for it. I want you to talk to him yourself. Dr. Landry. His cell number is programed into the phone up here. I’m going to leave you now. Give you some privacy to call him if you want to. I already signed a release and told him you might. I also got the prescription filled for you just in case. If you want to take it after talking to him, it’s right here.” He released my hands and reached into his jacket pocket. He pressed a small bottle in my hand. “It might not be the most romantic proposal you’ve ever received.” His expression was wry, but this was Ash. He was gorgeous and his ocean blue eyes sparkled with sincerity. “But this is me wanting you right back, gypsy rose. It’s me needing you and caring for you. Me being real. And me taking care of you the best way I know how.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  * * *

  Ashland

  “One of the hardest things I ever did,” I confessed to Linc when he intercepted me as I came down from the roof.

  “She’ll call him.” Earlier I had shared my plan with him. “Then she’ll come to you.”

  “No doubt about it.” Simone nodded confidently. Apparently Linc had filled her in on my intentions. No surprise given how tight knit our circle was.

  “I told her everything,” I explained, noticing everyone was listening in now including Hollie. “About me. About my past. My status and how that might affect us as a couple. I told her to talk to the infectious disease doctor who’s in charge of my care if she wants to. But I want it to be her choice. Where we go from here.” I was out of the persuasive coercion business. I wanted Fanny of her own free will. Nothing or no one I had ever wanted more, not even the man in front of me who possessed as beautiful a soul as she did.

  “We’re rooting for you,” Karen said.

  “Absolutely,” Ramon agreed.

  I acknowledged their support with a nod, though their words hadn’t been necessary. Their actions had already proved they were firmly behind Fanny and me.

  “I hope she makes the call,” Hollie said, joining the growing gathering at the base of the stairwell. She shook her head at me when I lifted my brows. “Yeah, I gave you a hard time last night. You deserved it. But that was then. This is now.” She arched a brow. “So is there anything we can do to help?”


  “Get out of his way.” Diesel lifted his half empty beer bottle in the air like a toast. “Out of their way. This place is only so big.” He grinned. “I hope it works out, believe it or not. So I’m heading back to my hotel now.”

  “Yeah. For sure,” Ramon said. “We’re gone, too. Headed to the house.”

  “We’ll be as close as the phone, so call if you need anything,” Karen added over her shoulder as Ramon steered her toward the door.

  Linc and Simone echoed similar sentiments as they followed them to the foyer.

  “You had better make her ridiculously happy,” Hollie said right after the door closed.

  “I’ll do everything I can,” I promised.

  She nodded. “I’ll be in the guest room then. I’m going to use your land line when it’s available. Call the attorney. Let him know I’m ready to proceed. Fanny phoned Samuel earlier. I think he threatened her. I want to give Hart a heads up about that. See that he handles all further communication. My agent wants Fanny and me to do a press conference ASAP so we can take control of the narrative.”

  “Sounds like a sound plan and good advice.” I watched her move away, staring at the closed door a moment then telling myself not to worry. The world outside Fanny and me, outside my penthouse wasn’t going to stop turning just because it felt like all that should matter was what was going on inside it between the two of us. I knew life didn’t work that way, though I had acted as if it did before Fanny. But as Hollie had said, that was then, and this was now. The conference might need to take place soon, but soon wasn’t now. Fanny wasn’t leaving just yet. She was here with me. A few stolen moments could be an eternity, if you poured as much living into them as you could.

  I turned toward the kitchen, shrugging out of my blazer and hanging it on the back of one of the barstools. I also took off my shoes and socks, sliding them under the same chair, then loosened a few more buttons on my shirt on the way into the kitchen. Since I couldn’t go up to the roof to play my drums, I was going to lay out my practice pad on the table and have a beer, if there were any left after Diesel had been in the apartment all day. I opened the refrigerator and discovered that I was in luck. I grabbed the last bottle, folded the empty cardboard carrier flat and crossed to toss it into the recycling drawer. When I straightened and lifted my gaze I saw her. Too far away on the other side of the living room. But she was there.