“Yep. Nothing’s broken and we both know I have a pretty hard head. I was lost in thought. I just need to pay closer attention when I run or I’m going to end up falling on my face again.”
He gave me a funny look and shoved his hands in the front pockets of his leather jacket. I always wondered how he could wear it when it was wintertime. I figured the zippers and studs had to be icy cold, but it was such a part of his look that he just wouldn’t be Jet without it.
“Okay, if you’re sure you’re fine. I gotta get going. I have a session with a band from New Mexico this afternoon, and then practice later. One of the bands we played with at Metalfest last year is going on tour this summer, and they need some new stuff.”
I shivered because I was getting cold and because I hated the idea of him going on tour again. It actually made me sick to my stomach. I had heard the stories, listened to the tales the guys told about what happened when a guy in a popular band went on tour, and it wasn’t pretty. I forced a smile and took a couple steps back toward the stairs. “Well, that sounds like a busy day. I have class, and then I close tonight, so I won’t be home until really late.”
He was watching me and I was watching him, and I realized that Cora was right. I was a genius when it came to chemistry, and what was going on between us was bound to explode eventually. I had been keeping it under pressure and on a slow and steady boil and nothing reactive could handle that kind of heat for long.
He scratched his chin with a finger and lifted an eyebrow at me. “Maybe if the guys and I get done early we can swing by for a beer.”
I gulped down a surge of panic and forced a smile that I’m sure he didn’t buy for one second.
“Sounds great.”
I didn’t wait to see what his response was as I darted for the door. This time I made it into the house without incident, but I was running late, so I had to scramble into the shower, throw on some jeans and a long-sleeved top before getting into my Jeep and racing toward the campus.
The University of Denver wasn’t too far from home, but parking tended to be a pain in the neck and I was already stressed out, so when my phone rang I didn’t bother to dig it out of my bag. I was the last person into the classroom and had to suffer through questioning looks and irritated glowers as I interrupted the professor while I made my way to my seat. I tried to pay attention, but my mind was a million miles away, and after sleepwalking through my lab and my second class, I realized I had better get my head out of the clouds or work tonight was going to be a nightmare.
I worked at a popular sports bar in LoDo, or lower downtown Denver, where we had to wear ridiculous outfits that showed more skin than they covered. We were right down by Coors Field, so even with football season over, we were still packed with hockey and basketball fans. I made enough money to easily make rent and whatever my scholarships didn’t cover for school. I didn’t mind shaking my ass a little, as long as it got the bills paid.
I had to be on alert, though, because there was no shortage of drunken, grabby hands and overly affectionate regulars who wanted to touch things that were not allowed. I also had to keep my head in the game when it came to dealing with my catty coworkers. Those girls lived for gossip and any kind of dirt they could find. Shaw and I had a long-standing feud with Loren Decker, the reigning queen bee, and if I showed up for my shift like I was now, she would find an opening and make the night hell for me.
It wasn’t until I was in the changing room at the back of the bar, getting into my silly cheerleader outfit, that I remembered my phone ringing earlier, and I blinked in surprise when I saw I now had five missed calls from a 502 area code. I didn’t know why anyone in Kentucky would be trying to get ahold of me, let alone how they had gotten my number. There were no voice mails or text messages, so I just tucked the phone into my bra, where it lived for my shift, and made a note to try to call the number tomorrow.
I was slicking my black hair down and shoving a sparkly bobby pin in the front, when Loren’s sickly sweet voice came from somewhere over my shoulder. I so wasn’t in a mood to deal with her, so I just gritted my teeth and turned to look at her.
She was the perfect fit for a bar like the Goal Line. She was every guy’s cheerleader fantasy all grown up, complete with fake double Ds. She had about as much sense as a bobblehead doll, and I couldn’t figure out why she tried to go toe-to-toe with me, because she never won. Besides, she was, like, three inches shorter than me, even more than that when I wore the spiked heels I used to up my tips, and I always ended up looking down on her. Both figuratively and literally.
“How’s it going, Ayden?”
“I’m having a crap day, Loren, what do you want?”
She played with the ends of her hair in a way that made me want to strip them out of her head, one perfect blond strand at a time.
“I was wondering if you could do me a teeny-tiny favor?”
I rolled my eyes and slammed the locker shut behind me. “I already work all weekend, so I can’t cover you.”
She blinked her big cornflower blue eyes at me, and I swear in that second it solidified my hatred of her until the end of time. I had to take a deep breath, because I knew I was being irrational and irritable for no reason.
“No, I was wondering if you could talk to Jet and see if he could get me and a couple of my girls in to see Bryan Walker at the Ogden. He has a bunch of connections, doesn’t he?”
Bryan Walker was a pop singer, along the lines of Justin Bieber, but way less famous. There was no way on this green earth I was ever going to ask Jet if he could get this nimrod into that show. I moved past her with a frown.
“Why don’t you ask him? He said he was probably going to come in tonight for a beer.”
She looked at me like I had just landed from another planet. “I can’t talk to him.”
That brought me up short and I turned to look at her in confusion.
“Why the hell not? He’s in here all the time. I know you’ve waited on him before.”
She shook her head like I was an idiot and shared a smile with one of her girlfriends. “Oh, Ayden, you are just so sweet. I just think it’s so cute how you hang out with all those superhot, superyummy boys and yet you don’t know the first thing about wrapping one around your finger. If I ask Jet for a favor it means he knows that I know who he is and what a big deal he is in this town. If I want him to notice me, I have to ignore him and treat him like he’s no one special. Otherwise I’ll be like you, forever stuck in the friend zone, and dating a guy who has a sweater vest in every color of the rainbow.”
I was so stunned, I just stared at her. I was pretty sure all the blood went from my head straight to my face because, for one, I couldn’t believe she was interested in Jet after her interest in Rule had been shut down so mercilessly by Shaw. I also couldn’t believe she was criticizing Adam or my taste in men.
Loren was custom-made to be a trophy wife who would be cheated on after she lost her shine. She had no idea what a real future looked like or what a steady guy like Adam had to offer.
I was about to unleash a torrent of shit at her. I was ready to pull her apart verbally, and maybe even physically, with the mood I was in. But the urge passed when Lou, the bar’s door guy, stuck his head in and told us to haul ass. He said that a busload of after-work guys had just piled in, and paying my bills was way more important than putting Loren in her place. The straighter path didn’t have stops for taking down bimbos on it, either.
I gave her a tight-lipped smile and tossed over my shoulder, “And I just think it’s so cute how you drool all over those superhot, superyummy boys I hang out with, like you have a chance in hell of ever even getting into the friend zone. Those guys can spot a fake a mile away, Loren, and that’s why, even with all your attributes”—I sent a scornful gaze over her very fake boobs—“they don’t give you the time of day.”
I flounced to my section, hoping all the talk of asking Jet for favors was put to bed. The guys could spot a fake; in fact, I had seen them do it on more than one occasion. As far as I was concerned, it was a miracle they all still thought I was such a good girl, still worthy of their friendship and protection, and if it took learning to love sweater vests to keep the act up, then by God, I would do it, and I would do it with a smile.
Chapter 2
This stupid dance I was doing around Ayden was getting old and tired pretty damn fast. When I first moved into their place, I thought having Cora and her big mouth there would make it easier. When that didn’t happen, I thought having a revolving door in my bedroom might do the trick, but nothing seemed to be working.
She was on my mind all the time—in my head when I was trying to work, under my skin when I was with another girl—and I swear that soft, Southern drawl was designed to turn me inside-out every time she spoke to me. I hated that I didn’t know what to do with it. Girls always came easy to me, but that girl was anything but.
A year ago, I had a shot to do everything to her I dreamed about at night. In fact, I think I had fallen a little bit in love with her the first time I saw her at the Goal Line in her sexy uniform, wearing heels up to the sky. She had a “take no shit” attitude wrapped up in superlong legs and whiskey-colored eyes that did way more than Jameson when it came to going to my head fast and hard. I wanted her, wanted her like an addict wanted a fix, but she was so far out of my league, and played on such a different field than me, it was a wonder we even managed to maintain a loose form of friendship.
Rule had warned me in no uncertain terms that if I upset Ayden, and if that, in turn, upset Shaw, there would a reckoning like Denver hadn’t seen in years.
I could hold my own in most cases and spent a fair amount of time trying not to get my ass kicked in mosh pits across the country, but Rule was someone I knew firsthand not to mess with. He was even scarier now that he was all caveman-protective over Shaw.
So I had done the right thing, the decent thing, and told her no when all I wanted to do was tell her yes. Now I was stuck in this awful place where we were friends, but not, and where I had endless dreams about that voice and those legs while she slept soundly across the hall. It sucked to epic proportions, and I didn’t know what to do about it besides either moving out or quit talking to her altogether—options which were neither practical nor enjoyable. I liked living with the girls. Cora was a riot and Ayden was hardly there as it was, but when we all got together it was fun and easy. I didn’t have to worry about all my shit ending up on the curb with the garbage because I pissed one of them off while I was on tour.
My studio was in an old warehouse off California downtown. The acoustics were great and after the band’s last tour, I had enough money to really trick it out.
I knew everyone, and I mean everyone, in this town who had anything to do with music. Granted, Denver isn’t L.A. or New York, but it is right in the center of the country. It has such a huge and diverse population that it really is a destination for bands, some more famous than others, to come and record.
My band was really popular locally, and after going on tour with Artifice for Metalfest last year, we were getting better known nationally. What paid the bills was the studio and putting together tracks for other people. I didn’t care—as long as I got to make music and got to write songs, I was a happy guy. Music was what made me get up in the morning and what followed me to bed at night. Sure, I sang in a heavy-metal band, but when I was younger it had been all about punk rock and the indie scene. The reality was I just liked good music. I didn’t care what color or creed it came in, even if I gave Ayden endless shit about her addiction to Top 40 Country. The truth was, I liked to get her riled up just to see those amber eyes of hers shoot sparks.