Hung Out: A Needles and Pins Rock Romance (28 page)

“That motherfuckin’ son of a bitch!” Gage shot to his feet. “He wasn’t supposed to―” When he looked at my face and halted what was surely about to become a tirade, I realized I was grinning. “The fuck, Scar. Did he? Were you… fucking?”

“Listen to what you’re saying.” My smile fell away, and I felt my face scrunch up with the feelings of animosity bubbling inside. “My ‘boyfriend’ you arranged for me wasn’t supposed to fuck me! You fixed things so that I didn’t have sex for almost six months! Did
you
go without for six months?” His face flushed, and I almost stopped my tirade at the shame I saw, but I was too wound up. “Not only that, I thought there was something
wrong
with me that he wouldn’t.”

“Why would you think that?” He sounded angry, but when his next words gentled into a sweet tease, I knew his anger was self-directed. “You have a mirror in your house, right?”

I wanted this conversation to dissolve. To have never happened. Especially because of the turn it had taken. And so I refrained from answering, and turned back to the fishbowl of a world beyond the glass.

“You know what you look like…” He argued as he walked, stopped at the door, turned and started across the room again. Dropping his voice to a rumbly almost whisper he added, “You know what you’re like. You’re so pretty. As much inside as out.”

Maybe he wanted to leave as much as I wanted to scream at him to go. But there was still something intangible hanging in the atmosphere.

“I’d lost a lot of weight. I was skin and bones. You saw me when I first came on tour. Besides, I thought he thought I was too pathetically in love with you still, and that’s why he wouldn’t touch me.”

“Were you? Still in love?”

Screw him for even asking. Somehow I refrained from cursing at him and instead glared my best ‘it’s-none-of-your-damn-business’ look.

His pacing stopped and he reached for my hand, coaxing me closer. “New question, then.
Are
you?” I pulled and he tugged back using the momentum to propel me into his arms. “I still love you, Scar Dar’. His thumb traced my lips. “Maybe one of these days we’ll figure us out.” Gently he brushed his lips to mine. “Thanks for the new memories.”

When the door closed behind him, I was left wondering if his exit was abrupt or overdue. And if his parting line had been sweet or ridiculous. Because whatever had been lingering in the air was still there. Unresolved.

The guitar found its way into my hands and I alternately picked and hummed a melody.

Bought a one-way ticket to sadness

Off the rails at badness

Riding the rockstar train to madness

Lame.
Why couldn’t I write poetic verses like Gage?

Gage.

The sudden loneliness was engulfing. Trading the guitar for my phone, I scrolled to my contacts and dialed.

“Ivy. Thank God.” I collapsed into the chair, almost crying in relief when my friend and not voicemail answered.

The unkempt bed taunted me. All but two pillows were strewn around. The spread was on the floor. One corner of the bottom sheet had become untucked.

After I spilled everything to my friend—my fake boyfriend, my night with Gage—Ivy was quiet. And then after telling me to hang on, she spoke quietly to someone on the other end of the phone. There was a click as if a door had closed and the background noise on my friend’s end went away.

“Scarlette? Are you wanting advice or a listen?”

“I don’t know.” I stabbed at the strawberries, watching the juice pool and joked. “Depends on what the advice is, I guess.”

“I know I’ve been anti-Gage since your breakup, because of the way it happened. And because I thought your time with him might be one relapse after another. But he’s been clean now for a year?”

“Yeah. But a year is not that long in rehab time.”

“But Gage wasn’t a longtime junkie. All I’m trying to say is, I think he’s a good guy. And everyone else who knows him has the same opinion. I realize at this point, the two of you are plugging along one day at a time. But don’t fight this thing between you two because you think he’s some degenerate like your mother’s boyfriends.”

“Maybe not. But he paid someone to go out with me. To take up my time!”

“That’s wrong and weird. I’ll give you that. But what it all boils down to is he wanted another chance with you. Because he loves you.”

“Why does this have to be so confusing? I should be mad at him.”

“But you’re not?”

“One second I am. And the next…”

“What you’re feeling in the next is what you need to work out.”

While on the phone with Ivy, call waiting flashed twice, both times Logan. I stabbed a blueberry and thanked Ivy for the talk.

“Oh, Scarlette… Way to go, girl.”

“For?”

“Your song.”

“Oh. Thanks.” My session at Jewelstone’s seemed like forever ago and I’d never talked to Ivy about it afterward. Had Jax released the project? After hanging up, I tapped the email icon, but before the site came up, my screen lit up again with Logan’s ID. Enough was enough. I was angry with Gage and hadn’t decided how to feel about Logan’s part in this great pretense. Steeling myself for whatever emotional upheaval was about to hit, I pressed ‘answer.’

“Y
ou didn’t show.” Landon moved nothing except the muscles it took to form the accusation the moment Gage let himself into the room.

Feeling flippant about this morning’s missed Entertainment Vlog interview in the scheme of things his morning had wrought, Gage tossed his phone onto the bed. He’d already texted through the absentee bullshit with their pissed off tour manager. “Oh well. Always another one.”

“Sure.” Now Landon moved, reaching for the remote and flipping through channels. “Not like anyone cares whether you’re there or not.”

“Exactly.” Ignoring the jeer, Gage played into it.

“You stay the night with hot sister?”

“Fuck off.”

“Maybe I don’t want to.”

“The topic of who I’m doing what with is off limits. None of your business. Just like it’s none of mine what you’re putting up your nose and how much.”

“Whatever. Jeezus, you’re a turd. I’m just making friendly conversation.”

Yanking a clean shirt from his luggage, he mentally debated on his options of places to get away from the bandmate he always seemed to be stuck with.

He needed to be alone with his thoughts. Hell. Scarlette had practically admitted she loved him. It was a game changer.

As if that thought had conjured her up, his phone beeped, and seeing her name on the text preview caused his pulse to jump. With one shirt shrugged off and the other on, he snagged the phone, glanced at the text, and pocketed the cell without a reply.

He didn’t feel like fighting with her anymore. The way he’d used Logan was shitty. Would he do it again for the same reason? Maybe. So what was the point of arguing?

Downstairs in the lobby, he perused the newspapers and picked up a copy of ‘The Florentine,’ which was the only paper in sight printed in English. He left on foot. The only familiar landmark in his mind was The Pastry Shoppe he’d seen from Scar’s hotel window, and that’s where he ended up.

He was sitting at a table in the corner with a coffee, skimming news headlines without reading them when he felt her. Looking over the paper, he saw her standing just outside the glass and staring in. Her eyes narrowed, and as always, he was taken with her beauty even when she looked furious. His hand closed around the bulk of the phone in his pocket as if he could make it right by texting her back too late.

The bell tinkled over the door when she entered. Throwing one more look his way, she strolled to the counter. He watched, mesmerized, and listened, soaking up her sultry voice as she ordered—in a deceptively cheerful manner. Her public sunshine-and-roses persona. As she waited, the thin strap of her shirt slipped from her shoulder, and she shrugged it back into place. The neon pink against the buttery, barely-there tan of her skin made his mouth water.

The server was clearly smitten too. He slid a large coffee mug and a pastry across the countertop to her, and she shook her head. It took a moment of honing in on the conversation to realize she was protesting the order of the sweet treat and the young man was insisting it was his treat to her. With typical Scar graciousness, she accepted it with a sincere thanks and warm smile.

And then she pivoted and her smile slipped away.

“How’d you find me?” He headed her off the moment she came into range and those luscious lips parted, likely to dress him down.

“Why are you hiding from me?” She countered, dropping into the seat across from him.

“I’m not.”

“I texted you.”

“I know.”

“I saw you from the window of my room.”

He inclined his head accepting the bad luck—or was it good luck—of that and took a sip of his now-lukewarm coffee. “I’m sorry for not answering. I didn’t want to fight about things.”

Her purse strap diagonally bisected her body, pulling the material of the stretchy cotton shirt tight against her generous tits. His palms tingled, retentive of their weight and the tickle of their tips. Her hand delved beyond the zipper of the bag. When it emerged with her phone, she dabbed at it with her fingertips and passed it over the table to him.

Seeing the name winking at him, he looked away. “I told you, no. I swear to you we can hash this out later. But please, not today…” His gaze was drawn to the way the silver cross of her necklace disappeared into the hint of cleavage at her neckline. Were her nipples still red and chaffed from all the attention he’d given them just hours ago?

“It’s not him. He’s not the one who called and texted a hundred times since yesterday afternoon.” The urgency in her tone had his gaze riveting back to the screen and the sixteen missed calls from Logan. “I called back, and that snake Wayne Ketchum answered.”

“What!” Gage grabbed the phone, distancing it from her as if that could keep her safe.

“He said it was ‘about time I checked in’ and said my payment was late.”

“Fuckin’ son of a bitch.” An overwhelming urge to protect her had him relocating to the seat beside hers. “I’m lost. How is it that Logan’s number is showing up if it’s him?”

“That’s what we need to find out—now.” Her face was ashen, and she admitted, “I hung up on him. Without saying… Without
asking
anything. And I’m too afraid to call back.”

Of its own accord, his thumb jabbed at the ‘return call’ icon, and she immediately clutched at his wrist in a clear panic. He held up his hand as it began to ring. When the call was answered mid-ring before the third ring, he simply listened at first.

“Daughter of mine. I hope you’re calling with the transaction confirmation number.”

“Listen here you stupid pussy. Don’t you ever contact her again. And if you―”

The ‘call ended’ tone sounded. He stared at the phone, his mind turning. Slipping his own from his pocket, he dialed Mike and left an urgent voicemail with his security detail. Feeling Scar’s gaze, he finally met it after he searched his contacts for the next number he needed.

“Hi there, Leah?” When the female on the other side of the world predictably asked ‘Who wants to know?’ he explained. “Logan works for me. He gave your number as an alternate contact.” Emergency contact. But he adjusted his wording. “I’ve been trying to reach him and was wondering if everything is okay.”

“He just left. I can give him a message. His phone was stolen he thinks. He’s working it out with his carrier now at the store.”

“Stolen? But he’s okay?” He switched the speaker on so Scar could hear. Even in these circumstances, her face so close to his as she leaned in to listen was making him hard. He thanked the heavens and cursed inwardly at the same time when she moved back into her own space.

“Yeah. He, thought he lost it last night at that bar where he’s doing some part time work. Wasted some time trying to track it. But today when he figured out the tracker was off, he knew it was stolen.”

“Thanks, Leah. I’m not in the country. So tell him not to worry about calling me. Just ask him to text me. I’ll give him some time to get his new phone activated and call him.”

Scarlette blew out a relieved breath the second the call disengaged, and he ran a comforting touch down a strand of her hair. A movement behind the pastry counter caught his eye. But the worker was seemingly oblivious to them and he wondered if he’d imagined the cell phone camera. Paranoia from days gone by, possibly.

He wished Mike would hurry the hell up and call back. He wanted security on Scar here for the duration of their time in Europe, and Mike would be able to set that up.

“Who’s Leah?” Crossing her legs, she tilted her head so that her hair was no longer in his fingers.

“His sister or cousin, I think.” Seeing the familiar set of her jaw, he added firmly, “A family relation.”

There it was again. A phone aimed their way. Seeing he was busted, the young man who had served Scar put it away and his accent was heavy when he called over, “Need anything? Refills?”