Summer Star (The Blue Phoenix Series Book 1.5) (5 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

The splintering wooden chair outside the cottage scratches my legs as I sit and pick at the paint on the table, annoyed how quickly the happy peace withdrew the moment I saw other people.

Dylan Morgan, who's front and centre in the media all the time, disappeared and there'll be people looking for him. Every day of my life, someone lurks nearby with a camera. The paparazzi appear to know where I’m going every single fucking time I leave the house. How will this be any different just because I cut my hair and drive a few hours?

Everybody will have their questions: what is he running from? Who is he with? The press can make up their own answers; they fill the world with constant lies and bullshit about me anyway. They were an ordinary couple on the beach, on holiday like me and Sky. Am I paranoid? Maybe but anybody I pass could be a journalist. What if Bryn's taxi driver told somebody? Or Bryn told the guys where I am?

No, Bryn knows I need this even if he is pissed off with me about walking out on the band.

Sky? Either she’s biding her time or genuinely doesn't have a clue. I'm edging toward the ‘no clue’ explanation although I fail to see how she's never heard of Dylan Morgan. If Sky doesn't know me as him, what does she think of me? A guy with tattoos who she's pretending she's not attracted to?

Like me, ignoring the fact Sky's the most irresistible chick I've come across for months, precisely at the time I decide I'm not going to fuck her. Or at least try not to.

Sky's figure heads across the sand. I easily spot her in the distance, her wavy blonde hair blowing in the breeze as she shakes it out of her face. As Sky approaches, she licks the melting ice cream from her fingers and holds a cone out.

“Here.”

My body jolts to alert at the action. A combination of thinking about Sky and how much I want to stay around her and my male brain imagining her doing other things with her tongue. This chick only has to look at me with those widened, blue eyes; there only needs to be a hint of pink on her cheeks. One parted-mouthed look of confused desire and I get a semi; Sky doesn't need to touch me and my body fires with need for her.

“Thanks.” I carefully take the cone, not wanting to make contact with her skin.

The charged atmosphere intensifies the longer the silence continues. I attempt to focus on the sound of the seagulls but all I hear is my blood whooshing into my head. With Sky, I’m a bloody teenager fighting against rampant hormones, confused what to do next. She shifts to the edge of her seat and angles her body away, preventing me from seeing her eat.

Sky's a person. Talk to her like a person; remove her from the ‘girls I’d like to fuck’ list.

“So, where are you from, Sky?”

She looks up. “I live in Bristol.”

“What do you do there?” I take a huge bite of my cone, and when I lick the ice cream from my lips, her parted mouth staring at the action doesn’t help. Looks like I'm not alone in the bad thoughts department.

“I thought we weren't going to talk about this stuff,” she says.

“Just curious. Can I guess? And if I guess right will you tell me?”

“Okay.”

I have to know. My body screams 'please let her be a groupie' but the other Dylan shoves him and says 'better if she isn't.' Either way, this conversation could trip her up.

“Teacher?” I ask.

“No.”

“Hmm. Nurse?”

“What? No.”

“Do you work in an office?”

A muscle twitches in her cheek. “No. Not really.”

“You do work?”

“Yes!”

“Lion tamer?”

“Ha, ha.”

I stretch my legs out. “No idea then.”

Sky licks her cone, conjuring more sex images in my depraved mind. “How about you?”

“You're serious, aren't you?”

“About?”

I sit forward, move closer to read her expression. Blank.
She's telling the truth
. “I thought you recognised me but were pretending you didn’t.”

“Are you famous or something?”

Oh, my fucking God, she’s hilarious
. I laugh loudly and she scowls at me. “A little.”

Her eyes roam across my face, and then she switches to stare at the tattoo on my bicep
. It's a blue phoenix, come on...
“Are you an actor?”

“Nope.”

“Musician then?”

“Correct.” I straighten.

Sky’s expression remains neutral, or worse, disinterested. “I don't listen to much music so that's probably why I have no idea who you are.”

“Never heard my name?”

“I don't know band names, never mind the people in them,” Sky snaps, and she returns to eating her ice cream and ignoring me.

Tension lifts from my shoulders at her words. “Seriously? Well, I'm glad then because now you'll keep being you.”

After a few moments where only the seagulls speak, she asks, “So what sort of music?”

“Loud. Guitars.”

“Heavy metal?”

“Hmm. More rock than metal.”

“Which band?”

“Guess.”

“I told you, I don't know band names.”

“Then why ask?”

“Maybe so I can tell people about my secret holiday with the famous rock star.” Sky makes an amused snort and my doubt creeps back in. “Or not, I really don't care.”

At that moment, the clarity hits.

I don't want her to leave.

“And that, summer Sky, is why I like you.”

****

I sit upstairs so I can avoid discussions about when Sky’s leaving, and gaze out of the window at my summer world. The blue sky remains untouched by clouds, the horizon clear of the buildings that surround me when I’m in the city. The idyllic picture matches my memories of perfect childhood summers. How long before the grey rolls in?

My phone rings and I glance at the caller ID. Steve. I click the phone off and shove it into the bottom of my rucksack. The bottle of pills are pushed to the top by the action and I push those back down too. They’re no good, all I've done is swap one drug for another, something else controlling my life.

Things need to change. I wish I really could disappear, not just skulk around here for a few days. My mind wanders off to the future, a place I can't comprehend currently, and the old anxiety crawls across my shoulders and into my head. My decision to be alone wasn't the best idea.

But I don’t need to be alone.

I head back downstairs where Sky’s curled up in an armchair with a book. She eyes me warily and we both know why – we’re edging around the ‘who's leaving the house?’ conversation.

Not now.

“Good book?” I ask.

Sky shoves the paperback behind a cushion and blushes. “It's okay.”

Weird.

“Gonna make me some lunch, summer Sky?”

“What the hell? Who do you think...?” She pauses at my bitten down smile. “No.”

“Huh. After I made you an awesome bacon sandwich this morning? You owe me.”

“Excuse me? That was my food!” she retorts.

“No problem, I'll pay you back before you leave.”

We both ignore the connotations of that.

“I bought the ice creams.” Sky crosses her arms, daring me to argue.

“And very good ice creams they were too, but you didn't make them.”

“I carried them across the beach.”

“You ate half of mine!”

“If you'd waited, the bloody thing wouldn't have melted all over my hands!” she shoots back.

“Yeah, my ice cream and you licked it off.”

“Well I wasn't going to ask you to lick your ice-cream off my hands, was I?”

Crap, Sky. Yes. Jesus.
Images of what I’d like to do with my tongue jump into my head and I head to the kitchen before I respond with something that'll piss her off. Such as, telling Sky I wouldn't stop at her hands and exactly what else I want to do to her.

What would she have done? Blushed? Agreed? No, she'd have laughed at me because she doesn’t fall for the Dylan Morgan charms.

Sky appears in the doorway, watching curiously. Is she aware of my reaction? “Okay, but all I can make you is a cheese sandwich.”

Again, I search Sky’s expression for any hint she’s lying; with each hour that passes I’m convinced she isn’t. Or is it because I want to believe she isn’t? 

“You really don't know who I am, do you?”

Sky pulls a bag of bread from the cupboard, and cheese and butter from the fridge. She searches for a knife in a drawer instead of looking at me. “You're a man with too many tattoos who probably isn't a serial killer and...”

“And?”

“Nothing.” Tucking loose hair behind her ears, Sky busies herself making sandwiches, hacking at the block of cheese and thickly buttering the bread. A couple of minutes later, she pushes a plate across the counter. “There you go, we're even now.”

“A cheese sandwich will never be equal to a bacon one!”

A smile tugs at the edges of Sky’s mouth; I bloody love her smile, the sun in the summer Sky. “Nothing's better than a bacon sandwich.”

“Even mine?” I pick up the sandwich and take a bite.

“Especially yours.”

****

Words.

When was the last time I wrote a song?

The tracks on the latest album are from over a year ago, nothing new would gel when I attempted to write new material. Steve’s happy, the songs fit the Blue Phoenix formula, but I itch to break away from our old style. Other bands have taken our sounds and morphed the music into something else, why shouldn't we? Blue Phoenix needs to evolve.

The words wash onto the page, the way the nearby waves dump shells and seaweed on the beach. A song about summer, freedom from the past. And a girl. I glance at the girl, summer Sky, sent into my life to reinforce how wrong things are. If she stayed here, she could kick common sense in every time I drift back to 'Blue Phoenix' Dylan.

Maybe.

Summer Sky. I’m writing a romantic ballad about a girl who called me a dickhead? Ha. I wonder if I could work that into the song. I grin to myself and focus back on the words written.

“Did you think I was a groupie when you first found me in the house?” Sky blurts.

Lost in these thoughts, Sky’s quiet confusion surprises me. “When I discovered a girl's underwear strewn across the bed, I was suspicious. Although normally, the underwear people throw at me is a little...lacier. And smaller.”

Sky fights her reaction but fails.
Dylan, you know you only tease her because the pink cheeks on the snarky girl are as funny as the retorts.

“That would be some determination, tracking you to a Cornish seaside town in the back of beyond,” she replies, fighting my attempts to embarrass her.

“You'd be surprised. They've done a lot worse.” Chewing my pen, I study the page but don’t see the words.

“What do we do about the house?” she continues.

“I'll leave if you want. How long are you staying?”

“I don't feel comfortable kicking you out. You’ve paid. Where would you go?” Where would I go? Back? My chest tightens at the thought. No, not back. “Are you hiding?”

I tap the pen on the paper. “Kind of.”

“And if you stay at a hotel...”

“I won't be hidden anymore.”

When she meets my eyes, her face softens into concern. “I can come back down here next month when you're gone.”

“But you're hiding as well, Sky?”

“Not from knicker-throwing harpies, no. I'll be okay.”

“Fuck, you’re funny.” I put my hand over my mouth, as I consider whether to share the solution to the situation. “What if I want you to stay around? There are two bedrooms.”

When she doesn't reply, I kick myself for asking something that will disappoint me if she says 'no'. Less than twenty-four hours, and I want this? Normally a chick's lucky if she gets four hours with me.

“Why do you want me to stay?”

“For the same reason I think you want to stay. I feel like I've escaped to a different time and you remember that time, too.” I pause before the other reason falls from my mouth. “And you don't know how refreshing it is to meet a girl who'd rather talk to me than fuck me.”

Sky’s face loses the friendliness.
Oh, shit
. She grabs her book and disappears into the kitchen. I've misjudged this. Sky does want me; of course, she bloody does, she’s female. This is all we are, after such a short period of time. How can it be anything other than lust?

As I stand in the kitchen doorway, I consider whether I should indulge her Dylan Morgan fantasies, then we can get this over with and she can go.

No, I want her to stay.

“Even though I'm tempted to kiss that sarcastic mouth of yours, I promise I won't,” I say to myself as much as her.