RIPPED: A Rockstar Romance (Wreckage Book 2) Page 7

  "'Scuse me," Eric said.

  I looked up, startled. "Oh, sorry," I said as I realized he couldn't get by. Not with me practically hanging out of the booth like this. He set two beers down on the table. "Thanks," I muttered as I lunged for it.

  "Nice place, huh?"

  "What?"

  He gestured around the dimly lit bar. "Nice, huh? They just renovated."

  I looked around. With its U-shaped bar of gleaming hardwood and cold pint glasses, it certainly passed muster as a drinking establishment. And the guys sure seemed to be enjoying the jukebox filled with 70s New York punk. But I could barely muster enough enthusiasm to smile at Eric when I replied. "Yeah. Nice."

  I took a sip of my beer. And then a gulp.

  Two birds with one stone. That's what tonight was supposed to be. Simultaneously keeping my promise to Jules and his need to unwind, while also seeking out the attention of normal guys for once in my life. Nice guys like Eric here who bought my beer for me and was now looking at me expectantly like he was waiting for me to say something.

  Shit, did he say something?

  "I'm sorry, what was that?" I sounded like an asshole. I felt like an asshole.

  I also felt like I wanted to crawl out of my skin.

  Eric looked miffed at having to repeat himself. "Sorry," I repeated as I gulped down another swig. "Loud in here."

  That was a lie. The pub was dead. The music had fallen silent and now the only sounds were the clink of glasses and the guys over by the jukebox, giving Niall shit about his selection.

  Eric launched into his story again. As far as I could tell it was the same one he'd been trying to tell me since I'd climbed into his truck. Something about the time Jaxson Blue had stayed at the hotel.

  This time I made it all the way through to the end of the story, only to be convinced he was bullshitting me. There was no way in hell the cocky, blue-haired king of pop would ever stay in such a quiet place. Hell, the only reason Wreckage was here was because I'd forced them to be.

  I snuck a fond glance in the direction of the guys. Eric shifted in his seat, clearly made uncomfortable by the fact that my attention was wavering. "How about you?" he asked.

  "How about me what?"

  "Your best celebrity story!" he prompted, as if that was the point of this conversation all along.

  I smiled but I was sure it came out more like a grimace. Over at the jukebox, the guys burst into easy laughter and Jules' laugh was the loudest of them all. I glanced wistfully over my shoulder, wishing we could pick up and join them, but Eric was being nice, and he was interested in me and he was the kind of guy I needed to start paying more attention to, so...

  "Well? I've been sneaking into shows since my best friend and I were fourteen...."

  "Your parents let you go to concerts at fourteen?" He looked horrified.

  "Let is a strong word, don't you think? I've got four younger brother," I chuckled. "My parents always had a bigger problem to worry about."

  He laughed a little, but seemed really uncomfortable doing it.

  I leaned back. "So my first concert was some death metal thing I had no business being at," I mused, picking at my nail. "Some drunk guy broke a beer bottle near my head." I parted my hair over my ear. "Still have the scar, can you see it?"

  "Jesus!" Eric hissed.

  I laughed. "It's a battle scar! A trophy! My friend CeCe and I, we would collect 'em, show each other our bruises. We thought of them as badges of honor."

  "That's messed up."

  I took another sip of my beer and looked back over at the boys.

  Jules was watching me. I had the fleeting desire to call him over. I had a feeling he'd appreciate my mosh pit stories.

  "So yeah, as far as celebrities are concerned?" I turned back to Eric, but I could still feel Jules' eyes on my back, heating up my skin. He'd been acting pissed at me all night, but whatever I'd done, it seemed I was now forgiven. I looked back over my shoulder at him and he lifted his lager in salute. "Um..." I tried to remember what I was going to say. "I can't think of the biggest one."

  "Probably right now, huh?" Eric said glumly.

  "Yeah probably." I looked up at him. Solid. Nice. Boring as fuck. I suppressed a yawn. "Eric, it's been a long day. I need to get back and get some sleep, I'm exhausted."

  "You sure? The evening's still young."

  "We have an early call tomorrow."

  "What about them?" he gestured to the guys.

  I pressed my lips together. Jules was sitting down on a stool now, hunched in conversation with Ewan and some townie. But he seemed to have a sixth sense because the second I looked at him, his head popped up to see me getting up from my booth.

  No. Distance. Boundaries. "They'll be fine," I said, even though every control-freak nerve in my body sounded a jangling alarm at the idea of leaving them alone in a bar like this. It went against everything I stood for.

  But I had to get away. "Yeah, they'll be fine," I repeated. "Just...take me back?"

  The truck sliced the night with its high beams but around us the night was so black that even though I was sitting next to Eric in his passenger seat, I could almost imagine I was all alone. It was so dark I had no idea how he knew what turns to make. How earth would the guys get back on their own? For a moment I thought about asking Eric to go get them for me once he dropped me off. But I knew that I was pushing the limits of his niceness. That'd be a bitchy move, even for me.

  He didn't try to kiss me, just gave a friendly, distant hug on my porch, and then drove away, leaving me standing there feeling shitty. He really was a nice guy.

  Why the hell couldn't I fall for a nice guy?

  I collapsed into bed. My body was exhausted but my mind kept whirling around like a snake trying to eat its own tail. I tried to replay some of tonight in my head, tried to remember the way Eric looked, the things he said. But hovering at the edges was always Jules.

  Fucking Jules. Getting in the way. Messing everything up. Messing me up.

  My mind flashed back to him sprawled out naked on his bed. His fist closing around his cock.

  I inhaled sharply, my hips rising up off the bed. The sound that escaped my mouth was half frustrated growl, half anguished moan. I flopped to my side, feeling heat spread through my body, burning me up so that I leaped to my feet, confused as fuck about what was happening to me.

  My head was buzzing. I needed to sleep. But there was no way I could go to sleep with Jules still lodged in my head like this. I needed to dislodge him. Think about something, anything, else.

  As I padded over to the dresser, I told myself that this was just to alleviate frustration. Just so I could sleep.

  Then I opened the drawer and took out my vibrator.

  The second I brushed it between my legs it was like a bomb went off inside of me. I arched up, gasping in shock at how fast I was coming...and how hard. It seemed to go on and on, my whole body stiff like an electric current was coursing through me until it finally fell away by degrees and I was left with only a pleasant spreading warmth. I closed my eyes, finally relaxed enough to let sleep take me, and let my arm drop down the side of the bed to let the vibrator fall to the floor to pick up later. But as I did, my fingers brushed something soft on the hard floor.

  I opened my eyes and leaned over. On the floor, as bright red as a stop sign and just as accusatory, puddled a pair of well-cut boxers. It had tumbled out from the pile under the bed.

  Jules had been going commando all day today because of me. He knew. He knew I had them.

  "Shit," I hissed.

  And just like that, I was wide awake again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jules

  She left with him.

  She fucking left with him.

  I have no idea how long I stood there, staring at the door in disbelief. I'd been keeping an eye on her expression all night long, and the longer I'd watched, the more I'd relaxed. This Eric guy wasn't any sort of competition. She was antsy, distracted. Bored as he
ll. Her desire to be doing literally anything else was palpable. Anything would be better than talking with this dude. Doing her taxes. Getting a root canal. Even from far away, I could still feel her contempt for him emanating off her in waves.

  So why the fuck had she left with him?

  I finished one beer, and then another without even tasting them. I was still staring at the door as if I could summon her back here out of sheer will.

  When Ewan put his hand on my arm, I nearly jumped out of my skin. "What?" I growled.

  "Mate," he said. I hated that cautious note in his voice. "We should be heading back."

  Back. Back there to the cabins.

  Hell fucking no.

  I barked out a short, ugly laugh. "The night is still young, you pussy."

  Ewan sighed and pulled out his phone to show me the time. "It is exactly the opposite of that. And we're all knackered from the studio today. Come on, you look wrung out too," he pleaded. "Pub's probably closing soon anyway, mate."

  I looked at the door again, unsure of what was keeping me here. Maybe I still believed August might come back and dance that song with me. Or more like maybe I didn't want to go back to the place where she and Eric had headed together.

  If that asshole touched her....

  But it wasn't any of my business was it? We weren't together. She didn't owe me shit. If she wanted Eric to touch her, it was up to her except the very idea made me want to punch my hand through the jukebox. Or Eric's face. If I went back right now, there was no way one of those things wasn't happening, and there was no juke box at the cabins.

  "I'm staying," I suddenly declared.

  Ewan blinked at me like I'd lost my mind. He was probably right, but a decision is a decision. "How the fuck you getting back?" he laughed.

  "I'll call me a bloody cab," I grumbled.

  "Doubt they have fucking cab service round here, you daft twit," Niall piped up.

  The bartender chose that very moment to interrupt. "'Scuse me gentleman, someone need a ride home? Calvin over there runs a drunk bus up to Hunter." He gestured to a bearded Santa Claus impersonator seated at the corner of the bar with a Coke in front of him.

  "See?" I slurred. "Calvin's got me all set. Don't you Cal?"

  "Mate," Ewan started.

  "I'm staying."

  "Don't be stupid."

  "I'm not being stupid."

  "I disagree."

  "Will you bloody go and leave me alone?" I shouted.

  My best friend stepped back. "Fine, arsehole." He lifted two-fingers in the V-sign and turned towards the door.

  Niall glared at me and followed. Hudson mouthed a hasty apology before rushing out after them with the keys jingling in his still sober hands.

  When the door shut, I nodded, happy with my decision. I turned to the bartender. "Gimme another one," I said, lifting my empty pint glass.

  The bartender shook his head sadly. "Too close to closing time. I'm cutting you off."

  I blinked. "You fucking kidding me? I'm sober as a judge, mate."

  He shook his head and screwed up his mouth. "You're swaying," he said matter-of-factly.

  "Am not," I protested. And to show him how wrong he was, I straightened up. But as I did, my elbow jostled some ski-jacketed wanker who was making his way back from the bar with three beers in hand. "Hey watch it!" he cried as they sloshed down the front of his stupid puffy coat.

  I blinked, unsure where the hell he'd just come from. "Oy, sorry mate."

  "Mate?" he scoffed, setting the half empty glasses down on the bar and getting in my face. He smelled like cologne and crappy beer. "What are you?" he bellowed. "A fucking pirate?"

  I looked him up and down. "What are you? A fucking twat? Aspen's that way, you wanker."

  His eyes blazed. "The fuck did you just call me?"

  I planted my feet, adrenaline already burning some of the drunken misery away. "I called you a wanker," I declared, relishing the indignation on his stupid face. A face I'd have no problems punching and pretending it was Eric's. "You have a problem with the Queen's English?"

  "I have a problem with you!" he said, rolling up his sleeves.

  I was already nodding. Yes. Let's do this. Sweeping my arm towards the door, I beckoned him. "Yeah? I have an idea how we can solve it!"

  He obliged, following me three steps out of the door before he took a swing. And as the bright pain flared in my skull, all I could think was, she left.

  She bloody left with him and not me.

  Chapter Seventeen

  August

  When I was growing up I had my own room, acknowledgment of my exalted status as oldest and only girl. But it was tiny, no larger than a walk-in closet, which is exactly what it was before my Dad remodeled the upstairs. To maximize the space, he lofted my bed, bolting it to the wall and setting my desk underneath it for me to do my homework.

  Since it was originally a closet, the walls were paper thin. I'm not sure my father ever considered that my room's location - practically in the center of the upstairs - combined with the lack of soundproofing, meant that I could be sitting in there out of sight but still know everything that was going on in my family. The low conversations my parents had after they sent us to bed. The whispered shouting matches Leo and Cabot would have late at night. I spent many hours eavesdropping on my brothers living their private lives on the other side of those thin walls, learning their secrets.

  And of course, using the information against them.

  My mother always wondered how I always knew what was going on in her sons' lives better than she ever could., but I never told her it was because I could hear everything. My room gave me powers. For a while I had Simon actually believing I was telepathic because of those thin walls.

  But I also heard everything at night too. Every snort, every snuffle, every furtive sneeze. And Tate was, and probably still is, a violent sleeper. His bed was right up against that shared wall my bed was bolted to, so I had to learn to sleep through the bangs and thumps as he fought off various nighttime monsters. On some nights, when it was really bad and his hands and feet were knocking over and over again, I'd knock back. "Hey Tater Tot," I'd whisper, knowing my favorite brother could hear me through that thin wall. "You're okay, buddy. I'm right here."

  I hadn't lived at home since I was eighteen, but when I heard the knocking, then the pounding, that was my first instinct. "Tater, I'm right here," I mumbled sleepily, reaching up to knock at the shared wall.

  My hand fell through space and smacked into something hard. The memory of my tiny old room faded as I blinked myself awake and sat up.

  I was in the cabin. And the pounding was coming from the front door. I grabbed my robe off the side chair and knotted it as I raced down the stairs and flung open the door. Jules stumbled over my threshold, fist still in position to knock again.

  "What the hell? Are you trying to wake the dead?" I clutched my robe more tightly closed and gaped at him for a second, unsure of what the hell to do.

  And that's when I saw the cut on his face. My drummer was bleeding from a gash on his forehead, blood oozing down in two little rivers down the side of his face. His bloodstained shirt was balled up in his hand and his bare chest was covered in goosebumps from being naked in the cool night air.

  I swallowed hard and looked out the door into the darkness. Distance, a little voice in my head whispered. Boundaries.

  But he was hurt and instinct was already kicking in. "Get in here!" I ordered.

  I stepped back and held the door open. Jules swayed on his feet for a second, and then staggered inside.

  "Were you waiting' up for me, love?" he slurred, slumping against the wall. "

  "You're bleeding," I pointed out.

  He reached up and gingerly pressed his fingers to the oozing cut over his eye, then looked at them for a long time. "Right. So I am." he muttered.

  "Are you gonna tell me what happened?"

  "Some bloke at the bar with anger issues."

  I clench
ed my fist and then released it. "You got in a fight?" I hissed.

  "Weren't much a fight, love. I know it's a cliche, but - " he grinned and then winced a little. "You should see the other guy."

  I rolled my eyes. "You smell like a distillery and you look like death. Go," I pointed at the bathroom. "Sit down."

  He blinked for a second and then ducked his head and silently slumped over to the cramped little bathroom. "Sit," I commanded again.

  He wavered there for a second. "What are you waiting for?An invitation?"

  "I don't want to sit on your loo," he protested.

  I let out an exasperated sigh. "What are you, suddenly squeamish? Sit on the edge of the bathtub then, I don't care."

  He glanced at me with slitted eyes. "You gonna drown me like a cat?"

  I knelt down and reached into the cabins under the sink where I'd stored my bag. "Why the hell do you know anything about drowning cats, you psycho?" I muttered, pawing through it until I found the first aid kit.

  His eyes widened slightly. "Well. Aren't you prepared..."

  "I have four brothers," I reminded him as I selected one of the butterfly bandages.

  "I know."

  I looked at him. He shrugged. "You told me. On the bus up here."

  "And you listened for once?" I laughed. "Since when do you do that? You never listen."

  "Aye, that's a true statement. Oy!" he pulled back with a wince, smacking my hand away.

  I grabbed his wrist. "Stop being a baby. If I don't close this up, you're gonna bleed all over your hotel sheets and the label's gonna be pissed."

  "'S rock and roll, baby," he slurred.

  "It's not the seventies anymore, Jules. And you're not a big enough name to pull shit like that."

  "I'm Jules fucking Spencer. I was in Wrecked for fuck's sake, show some goddamned respect."

  "You're not in Wrecked anymore, are you? You guys have to prove yourself all over again. I don't think you understand that."

  "Oh, aye, I understand I gotta prove myself to you."

  I froze and then turned away to run a washcloth under tap. "You don't have to prove anything to me, I'm your manager, I work for you."