Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
HENDRIX
Thud, thud, thud.
My skull is pounding.
Thud, thud, thud.
No, wait. That’s not my head. That’s the door. Or a door? Fuck, where am I? I crack an eyelid open and search my surroundings. Familiar dark gray walls. Vintage oak dresser. The boho rug I got on sale at Ikea.
Home. I am home. And alone.
But wasn’t I…
The pounding stops, and it’s replaced with the sound of the doorbell. Who the hell is that?
Before I have a chance to recount the events of the previous night, I throw on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt and jog down the hallway. I scrub a hand down my face as I try and fail to knock the residual brain fog from my mind. I’m not hungover, but fuck, I’m tired.
Walking through the living room, I flip the lock on the front door and am nearly clobbered the second I pull it open.
“What the hell?”
“Sorry, gotta pee,” my sister hollers over her shoulder, a streak of honey-blonde hair, as she barrels down the hall.
“Is that why you were pounding on my door at—” I check my watch. “How is it already ten in the morning?”
“I don’t know, dude,” Presley shouts from the bathroom. “But you texted me last night to say you were stopping by the bar and never showed. So I came over to make sure you weren’t dead.”
“Thanks, I guess? But can we continue this conversation when you’re not urinating?”
“You’re such a fucking baby,” she mutters with amusement before I hear the toilet flush and the faucet start.
I make my way to the kitchen to start some much-needed coffee.
As I begin to scoop coffee grounds into the machine, Presley reemerges from the bathroom and begins to rummage through my fridge like the mooching little sister she is.
“Don’t you have food at your place?” I ask as soon as I see her pulling out eggs and a block of cheese.
“I mean, sure. But why waste it when I could just eat yours?”
She cracks two eggs into a bowl and then reaches for a third. I give her a dirty look as I watch her separate just the whites and add them to the bowl. “That was like five bucks of egg yolks you just tossed down the garbage disposal.”
She rolls her eyes. “It was not, and it’s not like you’re hard up for cash, Hen.”
“Oh, right. I forgot. Dad gave me a raise. I’m now getting six figures to fetch his coffee and answer the damn phone.” She doesn’t miss the sarcastic tone in my voice.
“It’s not like I’m making bank managing the bar, and I swear half my income goes to rent. At least you don’t have a house payment, thanks to Z.”
Yeah, okay. She’s got me there. Another perk of having a rock star best friend?
Zander and I used to co-own this place, and when he moved out to marry Elena, he insisted on paying off not just his share but mine too.
So here I am, in a modest three-bedroom house in the LA suburbs worth more than it has any right to be, and it’s bought and paid for. In cash.
“I think you can spare a few eggs for your loving sister, whose only reason for showing up today was to make sure you were safe.”
“Only reason?”
“Okay, the food may have been an added bonus. The Starbucks near my apartment was insane. I swear, half of LA County must have been there. And you know how I get without coffee in the morning.”
“Well, if you’re gonna eat all my food, at least make me some.”
“Egg sandwiches okay?”
As long as I didn’t have to make it. “Sure.”
She continues to flit around my kitchen, and now that the coffee is brewing, I choose to get out of the way and take a seat on one of the stools at the island.
She’s dressed much like me—weekend casual—in a pair of dark-gray sweats and a hoodie.
Her blonde hair is piled on her head in a messy bun, highlighting the tiny cluster of stars she has inked behind her ear.
“So what happened to you last night?” she asks over her shoulder as she flips the burner on and drops a few dollops of olive oil into a pan. “And I don’t want details if it isn’t PG.”
I laugh because same. Presley is only two years younger than I am, and we’ve always been tight.
Growing up, we shared everything: toys, friends, secrets.
But right around high school, when our guy friends started to realize that Presley was an actual girl and Presley, in turn, did the same with our guy friends, was around the time we agreed maybe we don’t share everything anymore.
Because there are some things you just don’t want to know about siblings.
The details of their sexual exploits are at the top of that list. Honestly, that pretty much makes up the entirety of the list.
“I went to an engagement party last night and reconnected with a girl from college,” I explain, leaving Edwin’s name out of the explanation because I don’t need that conversation this morning. “I, uh, was going to bring her by the bar, but—”
She raises a hand. “You hooked up instead. No need for further details.”
I wasn’t going to offer any, but that doesn’t stop my mind from conjuring them. I swallow hard as every detail comes rushing back.
The awkward trip up to her apartment, where I started to second-guess myself. She literally just got divorced. The ink was barely dry.
A better man would turn around.
But this was Zara Valentine.
The one girl from college that I always wanted but could never have.
The one girl who always turned me down was now saying yes.
I would be an idiot to walk away, right?
So I followed her inside.
And the rest of the night was…
“So what the fuck are you doing home already, Romeo?”
My head snaps up to my sister, feeling almost startled by the interruption. “I, uh…” I choke on my words, but Pres thankfully doesn’t seem to notice as she scoops the eggs out of the pan and plops them onto the toasted bagels. “I never sleep over. Gives the wrong impression, you know?”
But that isn’t true. I’ve spent the night at a woman’s house before.
Not a lot, but occasionally, when it’s late, or I’m too tired to get home.
Last night, it wasn’t late, and I definitely wasn’t tired.
Which is precisely why I didn’t, because I knew that if I did, I would have spent the entire night wrapped up in Zara.
I would have fucked her until the sun came up and maybe even longer.
It was that good.
I think I have scratch marks down my back from her nails, and I know she’s suffering from some serious beard burn between those silky thighs of hers.
She rolls her eyes. “You know, there’s nothing wrong with sleeping with the same woman more than once,” she says, a hint of amusement in her tone. “I know you act as if monogamy is some kind of contracted disease, but it’s not.”
“I’ve slept with the same woman more than once.” I point out, but then drop it because having a casual hookup for a week isn’t that different from a one-night stand. “Look, Pres. I know you’re all about relationships now that you’re happily in one. But it doesn’t mean it’s for everyone.”
She walks over and puts a plate down in front of me, with a bit more force than necessary, I might add. “This isn’t about me and Jace. And how would you even know? Have you ever even tried? I mean, do you really want just to have meaningless sex for the rest of your life?”
“Clearly, you haven’t had enough meaningless sex to know the value of the word.” My eyes widen in horror. “God, why did those words just come out of my mouth? Gross. Anyway, moving on ’cause I don’t ever want to know the answer to that.”
She laughs as I stuff a bite of the sandwich in my mouth. It’s good. Way better than anything I could whip up. She even poured me a cup of coffee and dumped in the proper amount of cream and sugar.
Damn, maybe she should stop over more often.
“It’s not that I don’t want a relationship,” I begin. Her eyebrow arches, and I let out a sigh. “Okay, what I mean is I’m just not looking for one right now.” My mind, for some reason, goes immediately to last night to the feel of Zara’s slick, naked body writhing under mine.
Fuuuck.
I nearly choke on the coffee I’m drinking as my mind goes blank. What was I saying? Right, relationships. “It’s just that where I am in my life, where I’m headed with the tour and everything, I just can’t have any distractions. I need this tour to work out, Pres,” I insist.
I need to prove to Edwin and every other fucker who doubted me.
I need to prove I’m worth something.
I need to…succeed.
“It will,” she assures me. “Dad told me you were in his office yesterday, gunning for that gig. They’d be stupid not to sign you as Evans’s replacement.”
“Temporary replacement,” I clarify, for her sake and mine. I can’t let myself get comfortable. “He’s not leaving forever.”
“Which means you have the tour to showcase your talent all over the country. It will get you noticed, and then bands will be falling all over themselves to sign you.”
I appreciated her enthusiasm, and I really hope that’s how it all pans out, but there are still so many hurdles left between here and there. And to get there, I need to be at the top of my game.
That means total focus.
Nonstop practicing and absolutely no distractions.
“I went over to Zander’s yesterday, and I think I’ve got the gig. But, he wants a doctor on tour,” I tell her after I guzzle down nearly half my mug of coffee.
“That’s great, Hen. But why a doctor? For Marisa?”
I nod. “He’s worried about her getting sick or hurt or witnessing her first orgy.”
“What?” She nearly spits out her coffee.
I just shake my head. “Never mind.” I wave my hand. “The point is, we need a doctor, and we need one fast. I might have made it sound like I could get him one, or at least Dad could.”
Her eyes widen. “But the tour starts in just a couple of weeks. How are you possibly going to find someone willing to leave their job on such short notice? No one even remotely qualified would do that…” She holds her hand up to stop the argument I am about to throw her way.
“Even for the opportunity to gallivant all over the country with rock stars. Nowhere reputable would hold a position for someone that long. Doctors are in short supply as it is.”
I know all of this. It is exactly the same shit that has been racing through my mind ever since I left Zander’s yesterday.
But what the hell else am I supposed to do?
Zander is my best friend, and he wants to protect his family. I can’t fault him for that.
“Well, it’s either that or risk the potential fallout of having to delay the tour because, as rich as Zander is, I don’t think any of them want to incur those costs. So which one is worse?”
She leans over the counter on the other side of the kitchen island, holding her coffee mug tightly in her hands. I can tell the gears in her head are turning. Finally, she says, “You could check with Cash tonight at family dinner.”
“Why?”
“I think his best friend from college is a doctor. He might know someone.”
“I hate asking Cash for favors.”
She shrugs. “I don’t see you coming up with any bright ideas. It’s not like you happen to know of any doctors, do you?”
“Right, yeah.” I scoff. Everyone I know is either a musician or…
A flash of dark hair and a pair of chocolate-brown eyes flashed through my mind, and suddenly, I’m struck with an idea. A really bad, but possibly good idea. “Actually, I just might know the perfect person.”