LOW: A Rockstar Romance (14 page)

Chapter 27

Zoe

As I pulled on his shoe, Max reached out and pressed his finger against the freckle on my arm, his eyes filled with curiosity.

His little nail dug into my skin. "Ow! Buddy, stop that! It hurts!" I cried, snatching my arm away.

"Zoe hurts," he echoed, looking perturbed, and a little horrified.

Then he broke out into a wide, cheesy smile.

I couldn't help but reflexively smile back...and then I realized what he was up to. "Aw bud, are you trying to make me feel better after hurting me?"

"Zoe feel better."

"Come here you little booger." I gathered my brother into my arms, ignoring his stiffness and wriggling. "You're such a love."

He squirmed and planted his arms against my chest and pushed away. I laughed and set him down and he ran right back to the door, turning eagerly. "Want to go to the park?" he ventured, eyes shining with hope.

It was the forty-seventh time he'd repeated this request.

I'd been keeping count.

He'd been standing by the door for two whole hours now. He stayed there all through the long, terrible hour it took me to eat breakfast, take a shower and get dressed. He'd stayed there while I helped my mom clean up from breakfast and helped Greg sweep all of the excess doorbell parts off of the dining room table and into a plastic bin. My mom dressed him by the door. I brushed his teeth by the door. Greg packed a bag full of snacks and wipes while Max waited there by the door.

Once I'd told him we were going to the park, there was no deterring him. The kid had an Olympian force of will. If I could have him send out resumes and cover letters for me, I'd have a job in no time.

Instead, I sighed and smiled at him. "You were a patient little guy, and I know waiting is hard. Guess what?"

His eyes got huge.

"It's time to grab your shoes!" I cheered.

He gave a high-pitched squeal and ran to get his shoes from their place in the hall closet. His fine motor delays made the Velcro difficult to fasten by himself, so he skidded back to me and plopped his butt down into my lap so I could put them on for him.

"Okay! We're finally going!" I called to Greg and my mom.

"Be a good listener, Max!" my mother called from the kitchen.

"No dying!" Greg admonished us, coming over to kiss us both on the forehead. "That goes for both of you!"

"You're a dork," I teased.

"Least I'm in good company." He ruffled my hair on purpose.

"Thanks, Pops. You just undid all my efforts with the straight-iron." I grabbed an elastic off my wrist and snagged my hair back into a quick, sloppy ponytail.

"Looks better that way. Now we can see your face" He squeezed my shoulder. "Thanks for being a good kid."

"I'm in good company." This time, it was my turn to ruffle Max's hair.

He didn't notice of course. His entire being was focused on getting to the park. I opened the front door, grabbed his hand before he could bolt into the street and then shut the door behind me, all in one uninterrupted motion.

Last night had been some kind of fantasy.
This
was my real life and I had lots of practice living it.

"Wanna run?" I asked Max, raising my eyebrows. Instinctively I held on to his hand a little tighter.

He grinned and took off. I ran beside him, whooping, while he half ran, half leaned on me. His little legs were a blur. Together we sprinted all the way to the corner park.

I was winded by the time we got there, but Max didn't miss a step. He rushed right to the swing-set that stood at the very edge of the playground, close to the jogging path. "Push!" he called.

"What do you say?" I chided.

"Push me please!" he parroted, kicking his legs.

It amazed me how
long
he was getting. There was no chub left anywhere on his body. He was all knobby elbows and sharp little knees and gigantic feet that looked like he needed new shoes for pretty soon. I made a mental note to tell my mom.

"Underdog!" I roared, rushing at him with my head down. He whooped as I pushed my way under him, and ran to the other side.

And then froze solid.

"Low?"

The lean, dark-haired runner slowed his pace. He pulled his earbuds from his ears and wiped the sweat away from his forehead, then looked at me like I was some kind of mirage.

All my resolve seemed to flow out of me in a rush the second I was face to face with him. My body went hot, but my skin danced with goosebumps. I felt my jaw go slack and my stomach bottom out.

Fuck, the way he was panting, the flush across his face, the way the sweat glistened all over the body I had only begun to start exploring....

I needed a moment. Or a cigarette and a cold shower.

"What are you doing here?" I gulped, amazed that I could muster the powers of speech.

He pulled his mirrored shades off his face and shielded his eyes. Fuck, those
eyes.
Amber. Burnt sugar. The color of heat. There was no mistaking his eyes. It was really him, here in broad daylight, in my own neighborhood.

"Zoe?" His smile spread slowly at first, like it was taking a while to understand what he was seeing. That yes, the girl in the sweatpants, with her hair pulled back and her face completely devoid of makeup was the same girl he had given three orgasms to last night. The girl he'd just seen shouting and carrying on with the little boy on the swing was the same girl who had fucked him on an empty stage while spotlights glowed all around us

"Hey there," he said, his easy grin wide and delighted.

There was no way to stop the blush once it started. I looked back over my shoulder, ostensibly to check on Max, but really just to collect myself. "What are you doing here?" I wondered.

He lifted the hem of his T-shirt to wipe his mouth. I tried valiantly not to look at his exposed stomach. After all, I'd solemnly resolved that I would never again see him naked. I didn't need this temptation - not after all the effort I'd gone through to find reasons to break things off - but my eyes betrayed me, going to that flat, toned expanse like it was fucking magnetized. The dark hair below his belly button made a perfect trail leading down and down - below the waistband of his low-slung running shorts - and down, and down, and down to....

"...Hellman Park, and then I just kind of kept going."

I blinked. "What?" I hadn't been listening to a word he said.

And he seemed to realize that, because he just grinned his easy grin. "I was on a run, Zoe. What are
you
doing here?"

"I live around here?" It came out like a question. If you'd asked me what planet I was on right now, I'd have to ponder and get back to you.

"Yeah?" He tucked his phone into the waistband of his running shorts, giving me a nice long glimpse of deep, muscular V that ran beside his hipbones.

My mouth was completely dry. "Yeah."

"Oh." He seemed to run out of things to say after that.

We stood there, face to face, not saying a word, and I felt like the whole world had flipped upside down. Here he was, in my neighborhood, four blocks from my house, within a hundred feet of my brother. The rockstar who had played my body like an instrument last night. I had never actually seen him in broad daylight like this.

And I was wearing no makeup, sweatpants and had my hair back in a sloppy ponytail.

And my baby brother was bellowing for me to come back and push him on the swing.

At the sound of Max's pleas, Low looked up. "Is that your brother? The one you had to watch?"

I was surprised he remembered. "Yup. That's Max."

"You're watching him again?"

"I watch him almost every day," I explained. Then I winced. I had basically just admitted to not having a job.

Max yelled again, "Zo-weeee! Push! Zo-weeee! Push!" in a repetitive sing-song. I shifted my weight from side to side, mentally begging Low to move in the direction of the swings.

"In a minute, bud!" I called.

I looked at Low, expecting his expression to be one of disgust. After all, to the outside eye, Max was acting like a total brat.

But actually, Low had this big grin on his face. And as much as I'd like to think
I
was the reason for it, I had to admit, it had me stumped. Why would he be so happy to see that I had a hard-to-manage little brother?

Low lifted his chin towards the swings "Sounds like your brother wants you."

"Yeah, he's...um...not good at patience."

He nodded. "I get it."

No, you don't
, I didn't say. Instead, I said, "Yeah," as if that made any sense. I inched closer to the swings.

Low looked down at his hands, and then back up at me, seemingly on the verge of needing to say something but unsure how to say it. "So, you watch your brother every day...." he echoed, trailing off like he needed more details.

"I try to help out my parents as much as I can, yeah."

"Yeah?"

He sounded like this made him really happy, and even though I couldn't imagine why, I felt some of the tightness in my throat start to loosen. "I do," I said, and my voice almost sounded normal.

"Can I meet him?" Low asked.

I couldn't help the double-take. "You
want
to?"

Low nodded vigorously. "I really do."

"Okay," I smiled, and to my great relief, we both started walking towards Max. Having him that far away was giving me an anxiety attack. "Are you any good at pushing swings? Because that's all he's going to want from you."

Low grinned. "I was a what, five? He's five right?" He looked over at Max. "Yeah, I was a five-year-old boy once. I remember exactly how I wanted to be pushed on the swings."

"As high as you could get?"

"You got it," he grinned.

I had never met someone who smiled so readily.

I felt like the earth had started rotating the other way. This wasn't supposed to happen. The two parts of my life were never supposed to meet. I was supposed to break things off with Low because of my brother. Not introduce Low
to
my brother.

But all of a sudden that was exactly what I was doing. "Max," I said, getting down to his eye level. "This is my friend Mr. Low. Could you please say hi?"

"Hi," Max said, not even looking in Low's direction.

I looked up apologetically, but Low was just beaming down at my brother like he'd solved world hunger or something. "Hey little man, I'm glad I could meet you."

"Push," Max repeated emphatically.

I stood up. "Can Mr. Low push you?"

"Mr. Low push me."

"Could you say please?"

Max swiveled in his seat. "Please push me, Mr. Low."

"You got it. Hold on tight, you're going to the moon!"

Max whooped as Low sent him flying into the sky. I pressed my hand to my heart and looked away deliberately. And as I did, something loosened in my chest and I realized I was grinning from ear to ear.

Low was my fantasy. But here he was in my reality.

He turned and smiled at me. I smiled back and sat down, leaning back on my elbows to watch my rock and roll fantasy man pushing my brother on the swing like we were just...just a couple. A couple of people who liked each other.

A couple of people who really wanted to get to know each other even more.

Low caught my eye. "Hey, Zoe?"

I moved to him. "You need me?" Anxiously I looked at the swings, checking my brother from head to toe. But all seemed well.

Low beckoned me closer. "I forgot something."

"What's that?"

He tilted my chin upward. "This." His lips brushed across mine, soft and sweet. He kissed me like he couldn't believe his luck.

Chapter 28

Low

I'd kept her out quite late last night. I had every expectation that she wouldn't be up before noon.

But here she was up and dressed and at the park with her quirky little brother, who she clearly adored. She said she was with him every day.

I don't know why, but that sort of changed everything.

I pushed Max on the swing until he got bored and suddenly jumped off. He ran off to dig under a tree, and I watched Zoe watch him - her palms pressed together, her fingertips pressed to her lips. Once again, I had that strange feeling of deja vu. Like I already knew her and understood her. That maybe she'd understand me.

"Hey Low?" she called, her eyes never leaving her brother. "It's almost lunch time. We need to head home."

This feeling of connection with her, I didn't want it to end.  "I'll walk you home," I said eagerly.

She looked startled, but then she bit her lip and nodded and there was no mistaking the shy delight in her eyes. I loved how I knew what she was feeling because I was feeling the same way.

A small, quiet revolution was going on inside of me, overturning everything I knew about chicks.

Zoe wasn't a
chick
.

One-Week-Woe wouldn't work here.

Zoe. This girl, this
woman
...

She was a keeper.

"Max, one more minute!" she called, holding up one finger. She had this oddly precise way of talking to him, like she was following a script. That, combined with his quirky speech patterns and the way he completely ignored the other kids on the playground, made me wonder if something was up with Max. It would explain the look of overly anxious love that I saw in her eyes as they followed him all over the park.

Max shot up from the spot where he'd been digging in the dirt and ran to his sister. She grabbed his hand and held on tight, then looked up at me. "You're coming?"

"Lead the way," I told her. Then I looked down at her brother. "Could you please show me how to get to your house?" I asked, mimicking Zoe's carefully precise enunciation. Zoe shot me a grateful look.

"It's this way!" Max crowed, yanking Zoe forward and making us both laugh.

Max led us through a pretty, normal little neighborhood. Zoe and I walked in silence. I didn't know what kept
her
from talking, but
I
was afraid that if I opened my mouth, I would somehow fuck up and break the connection that sizzled between us. Every nerve ending in my skin was aware of her nearness. She held her brother's hand as he balanced on top of a rock wall, and I wanted so badly to hold her other hand that I could hardly breathe.

Too soon for my liking, Max turned and zoomed up the front walkway of a tidy little rambler that gave off all the signals that a busy, happy family lived inside. I looked around for Zoe's car and saw it parked in the driveway. It was really sweet of her to come by so early.

I smiled as Max ran up to the door and yanked it open. Zoe stood next to me on the sidewalk, looking up at him, but not moving to her car. Not moving at all, as a matter of fact. She stood awkwardly, twisting her fingers.

Understanding was starting to dawn even before Max yelled, "Zo-weeee come inside!"

I looked at her. "You live here too?"

She swallowed and nodded, and looked really embarrassed.

"Hey, smart move," I said, trying to smooth her feelings. "Working, and staying at home, you're probably banking a lot of money right now."

She averted her eyes. "I actually lost my job a year ago. I'm unemployed."

"I thought...." Fuck, had I missed something. "You told me you were a music writer."

She lifted her chin. "I am."

Shit.
Little snippets of memory sounded in my head, of Scarlett talking about how the magazine she used to work for had folded and laid off ninety percent of the workers. I could have kicked myself. "Of course," I said out loud.

Her eyes flashed angrily. "Of course?"

I held up my hands. "No, that came out wrong, I'm just remembering that I knew this."

"You knew it?"

"Yeah, and it's no big deal."

The corners of her mouth tightened. "It's a really big deal."

"I don't think it is."

"That's because you don't have to worry about money."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Do you think I was born the drummer for Ruthless?"

Zoe held up her hand. "Stop. Don't patronize me."

This conversation had taken a sour turn so sharply it was giving me whiplash. "I'm not."

"You don't think you are, but you are. This is real life here."

"Oh, and you think I don't understand real life or something?"

"Well... yeah." Her words started tumbling out fast, like she needed to move faster than her brain to say what needed to be said. "You're a rock star whose face watches me from billboards everywhere I go. I watched you get interviewed on Good Day LA. You have so much money that you can just pay off some people to let us have a whole amphitheater to ourselves." She blinked and turned away.  "And I'm just... a girl. I have no job. I live with my parents. I'm living in reality over here. "

"And I'm not?" Anger flashed across my face, quicker than I could steady myself and for a second I hated the fear in her eyes. She didn't know me, no matter the connection I felt, it still wasn't the same connection that came from really knowing and trusting a person. And standing here, yelling at her in her front yard, wasn't going to get me any closer to that trust.

But she'd touched a fucking nerve with that 'living in reality' bullshit. "Do you think I'm some sort of character in your life story?" I asked her, keeping my voice controlled. "I'm a real fucking person, Zoe. I have thoughts and feelings too, you know. I'm not just a face in a magazine. Or your two-dimensional fantasy come to life."

She flushed scarlet. "That's not what I meant."

"Well then tell me what you meant," I pleaded.

"I mean...you're not...this isn't...there's no way that this can be anything else than just a fling. It ends with you going back to your world, and me going back to mine." She yanked out her ponytail and shook her hair so that it fell into a protective curtain around her face and then started up the walkway.

And before I knew what I was doing, I was running to catch up with her.

Even though I agreed with her. Even though I was actively trying to disengage - to tamp down my feelings before they hurt somebody - the fact that she felt the same way really fucking wounded me.

Was I really this hypocritical?

She was doing the exact same thing I was gearing up to do - end this before it could begin - but instead of being relieved, I was pissed.

What did it say about me, that a girl could tell from the very beginning that I'd break her heart? She was holding up a mirror and I didn't like what I saw. Not one bit.

I grabbed her and a startled little gasp fell from her mouth. We were right there on her doorstep, in full view of anyone who happened to be walking by, but I didn't care. "Fuck all of that," I growled. "We live in the same fucking world."

"We don't." She shook her head emphatically, that undone hair falling about her shoulders in a tangle that I just ached to sink my fingers into. She looked so...real. More real than anything else in my life. Her face was a mix of anger and regret, and something else I couldn't identify. She looked like she wanted to say something further. But instead, she turned and pushed her way into her house.

Without meaning to, I found myself stepping into the doorway. She looked around her, alarmed.

I looked around too. If I hadn't felt so wrung out, the sight of the messy, broken in living room would have made me smile.

I had grown up in a house.

This was a home.

This place - with the homey feeling, all the photographs, and knickknacks, the warm smells of cooking, the lived-in look of the couch - was a place where a
family
lived.

A family who loved each other fiercely.

Something tugged hard at my heart and I felt old hurts trying to close me down. The same old hurts that told me last night that this girl could never understand my life. Nothing had changed...

Except my willingness to ignore them

From the kitchen, I could hear Max singing tunelessly to himself. A thump from upstairs signaled the presence of a parent. It was all so normal in a way I'd never had, that the smile that had been threatening to overtake my face finally caught up to me and I grinned.

Zoe stared at me like I had grown a second head.

"I like your house," I told her. It was the truth, but not the whole truth.

"I live with my parents. It's not mine."

"Yes, it is. This is the place that made
you
." 

I couldn't possibly explain any further without sitting her down on the couch and spilling my whole life story. How I could never commit, because I was already committed to the family I'd built through music. Zoe...Zoe had commitments too, and maybe...maybe that meant we could....

She was staring at me with those big brown eyes and I sheepishly remembered that she couldn't actually read my mind. That all of the revelations that were currently punching me in the gut were not actually audible. She had no idea the storm that was raging under my skin, and there was no way to tell her except....

"Oh!" she cried when I took her face in my hands and kissed her abruptly. I was rougher than I wanted to be but she needed to
feel
what I couldn't find the words to say.

Her gaze bounced between each of my eyes, as if she was trying to interrogate them each separately, but she didn't pull away.

"Zoe," I breathed. "Fuck being afraid of the ending, okay? Your world, my world, whatever the fuck is separating us, we don't have to let it matter. We can make our own world. There's no way to explain this without sounding like a crazy person, or like I'm quoting Disney or shit, but fuck it. I like you. I like this. Let me be a part of this?" I paused, waited. "Please?"

"Max has autism," she blurted, lifting her chin in a sudden challenge.

I blinked. "Yeah, I figured. He's a cool kid."

Her eyelids fluttered and then suddenly she was kissing me. And I was kissing her back. And then she was laughing and I was laughing. I held this amazing girl tightly in my arms because something nameless and wonderful had just happened. It was nothing we could capture on camera but I knew I'd remember it always just the same.