Chapter Two. Sam
chapter two
SAM
Well, shit. If there was a chance I was over Mackenzie Waters, it’s shot to hell now.
I knew what I would be in for if I ran into her here tonight, but I was cocky enough to think it wouldn’t matter. That time would have dulled the effect of all that wild blond hair flying with each step, all that bare, sun-kissed skin exposed by the thin straps and low plunge of her tank top.
But now she’s settled in my arms, her small, panting body an inferno against mine. Now she’s tilting her head to look at me, her startling blue eyes flashing under her dark brows.
Now she looks like something about to mess me up all over again, and damn if it doesn’t feel good. Apparently two years wasn’t near long enough for me to stop wanting something I know I can’t have.
She lets out a little gasp against my chest as she pushes herself off me. She’s back in my space just as fast, her full, flushed cheeks tilted up to face me. She parts her lips, stares deeply into my eyes, and says, “Give me your phone.”
I let out a huff of laughter. “No ‘thank you, dashing hero, for saving my life’?”
She’s already snaking a hand behind me, reaching into my back pocket for my phone. I snatch it first, unlocking it and holding it up over my head. She’s about as tall as Tinker Bell, but she’s desperate enough for it that she tries to reach it anyway.
“Someone will be saving your life if you don’t fork that over,” she warns.
I hold it higher, dangling it between two fingers. “At least say ‘please.’”
She takes a sharp step closer and lets out a growl through her teeth that I enjoy a little too much for my own good.
It’s distracting enough that she manages to reach down and tweak my side, making me double over in surprise and drop the phone.
She catches it in midair and darts to the wall of the alley before I know what hit me.
A familiar feeling, when it comes to Mackenzie Waters.
I saunter in her direction, taking in the rest of her—tight denim jeans hugging the curves of her hips, a pair of cowboy boots I haven’t seen before.
Nothing like the loud neon getup she and the rest of Thunder Hearts used to wear back on tour, leaving trails of glitter behind them like calling cards.
I told myself if I saw her tonight that it would be enough. That I’d head over to a discreet bar down the street and leave her be. But old habits die hard, and this one has me bracing my hand against the brick wall, leaning over her.
“You clean up well, Sparkles.”
She chafes at the old nickname, her eyes still trained on the phone. “Why are you here? Ego too big to fit on the west side?”
My smirk widens. So she knows I’m in the West Village. Guess I’m not the only one who’s been keeping tabs.
“I have a meeting with Twyla.”
One that I’ve been dreading all day, even if I’ve just short of forgotten it now. I crane my neck to glimpse at the phone screen, but she dips under me, her wild hair brushing my arm.
“Lightning Strike is our turf,” she says.
She taps something on the phone that makes her go stiller than the walls.
Then she blows out a breath and taps it again, exiting out of an app.
She knocks the phone into my chest to return it and I let out an exaggerated “oof,” then clap my hand on top of hers, holding her there before she can stalk off.
“Turf, huh? I didn’t realize we divided up the city.” I lean in so the words are closer to her ear. Not as close as I used to, but closer than I should. “What other lines am I not supposed to cross?”
Thing is I swore upside down and backward I wouldn’t try to rile this woman tonight.
She’s doing just fine without me around and I should be glad for it.
But I can’t help myself. I remember why the second her eyes fly to mine, more paralyzing than any comeback.
With looks like the kind she can throw at me, she’s always had home court advantage in our little spats, both onstage and off.
She doesn’t pull away, but presses her hand harder against my chest. She tilts her head up to better meet my eye, close enough that I can smell the faint fruitiness of her hair.
“I’d make you a whole damn map of lines,” she says, “but you’d trip over the beds of half the women in this city before you found them.”
The steeliness in her expression cracks just enough that I know something must have cracked in mine first.
Shit. I shouldn’t have come here in the first place.
The last thing I need is to kick up another round of this again—letting myself feel too much for this woman I’m no damn good for, who has zero interest in a guy like me.
I could blame the circumstances in the past, but now there’s nobody to blame but myself.
So before she can soften, I raise my eyebrows, easing myself back. Cocky. Distant. The version of me she loves to hate.
“Ouch,” I say. “You think I could only pull half?”
Right on cue she snatches her hand back, rolling her eyes. “Depends on how many are in the mood to make a mistake.”
I keep my own hand on my chest, leaning back like I’ve been wounded. “Aw, c’mon. You’re breaking my heart over here.”
“You can cut the antics, Blaze,” she says, heading for the back door. “Our little sideshow is long over, and the last thing I need is an encore.”
She disappears into Lightning Strike, but it’s never hard to follow Mackenzie with that curtain of yellow hair in her wake.
Still, I stop in my tracks when I reach the main part of the bar.
It’s unrecognizable from that grimy, tetanus-infected dive bar we used as a hideaway back in the day.
Back when I wasn’t just Sam, but Samuel Blaze, front man of Candy Shard.
Back when I was here with a different woman every month, keeping my distance from the one woman who knew how to get under my skin.
Back when I was on the verge of a life unrecognizable from the one I have now.
I skim the braided bracelet tight around my wrist. There are parts of those days I miss like a hole in me, but I’d be a damn fool to take any of what I have now for granted.
The new interiors of the bar are still dark but warm, with Technicolor on the walls and a retro shine on the stools and high-top tables. Mackenzie’s hair catches the pink light like a beacon in the back corner.
You’re no. Damn. Good for her , I remind myself.
I’ve seen her. She’s alive and well. Time to get back to my own problems.
I turn to look for Twyla, nearly colliding with another man. The haircut-twice-a-month, loafer-wearing kind who clearly just got off work somewhere farther downtown.
He opens his mouth to apologize, then blinks.
“Oh,” he says. That’s how these conversations always start when I get recognized—an oh , and then they’ll ask for an autograph or a selfie or tell me how Candy Shard’s music got them through high school, and I’ll be grateful to hear it, even if it makes me feel like the most ancient thirty-one-year-old man alive.
Normally I’m happy to stop, but these days it usually comes with a follow-up of So what’s next for you, man? And if I knew the answer to that I wouldn’t be having this meeting with Twyla tonight.
So I give the stranger a firm, friendly smile I use when I don’t feel like chatting. Only he’s not looking at me anymore. His eyes are squarely set on the best part of this bar: the pixie of a woman heading toward him, smiling widely, arms outstretched for a hug.
“Grayson!” Mackenzie calls.
It’s like watching one of those cute viral videos about unlikely animal friendships. I am so unused to seeing Mackenzie interact with a man who doesn’t have “bad news” written all over him that there’s no other way for my brain to rationalize it.
Then Mackenzie plants a kiss on his cheek, and the scene is anything but cute. A hot coil of jealousy rises up in me so fast that I take a step back. Both because I am not the jealous type and also because it’s ridiculous that I’m feeling it at all.
“Hey, you,” says Grayson warmly.
Well, I’m officially in need of a drink. It’s the only way I’m going to survive glancing up and seeing Mackenzie making doe eyes at a finance bro all night. I’m about to duck out, but Grayson turns back to me.
“You two dated,” he says, like he’s pleased with himself for remembering.
The instant Mackenzie spots me, her nostrils flare. “Our bands toured together. He’s just an old coworker.”
“One hell of an office we worked in, if that’s the case,” I say wryly.
She shoots me a warning look I can’t blame her for. I used to mercilessly roast all those idiot “boyfriends” she dragged around our tour buses and hotels—the walking red flags who would make her fall head over her sequined heels by saying all the right things before doing all the wrong ones.
But this guy doesn’t look like the type. He looks like he fell out of a nineties rom-com called something cliché like Mister Right .
“But that love song you two did. Oh, what was it?” Grayson asks. “It was stuck in my head that whole summer—‘Play You by Heart’!”
“That wasn’t a love song,” says Mackenzie.
“Wasn’t the chorus something about your heartstrings being tangled?” Grayson asks.
Mackenzie smiles tightly. “The label made us release it. It was only a big deal because our bands were in a feud.”
Understatement of the century. Our rivalry with Thunder Hearts was a mismatch, considering they were a pop girl group and we were a punk rock band, but by the peak it was so notorious that there were internet writers whose entire jobs were keeping up with our antics when we were on tour together.
Antics that were so well-memorialized that there’s a literal “Candy Shards vs. Thunder Hearts” Wikipedia page about it.
(One Mackenzie liberally edited to change my name to Asswipe, even if she never copped to it.)
“Oh yeah? I didn’t know about the feud.” Grayson shrugs affably, turning to me. “I was a big nerd in law school. Hannah had to catch me up on half a decade of pop culture once I started working for her, and Mackenzie’s filling in the gaps.”
“And she forgot to tell you that Mackenzie and I were in a forbidden, star-crossed romance that spanned continents, years, and dozens of songs?” I ask.
Mackenzie’s boot grinds into the toe of my shoe, a clear Get lost. And damn it if I’m not trying.
But something about seeing the familiar, friendly way Grayson puts a hand on her arm is locking me in place.
I’ve always had a talent for masochism, but if I don’t get out of here, I’m about to add assholery to the list.
“They made us pretend there was this whole ‘will they, won’t they’ thing between us when we toured together,” she explains to Grayson. “Publicity stunt.”
“Aw,” says Grayson, laughing in that way that nice guys do. Earnest. Unbothered. It probably doesn’t say anything all that good about me that it makes me hate him more than any of Mackenzie’s exes combined. “You must have been good at it. Sounded like you two were in love.”
I know right then that it’s the last time I’m ever going to see Mackenzie Waters.
At least, the last time I’ll do it on purpose.
She’s been up-front about what she wanted with every song she’s ever written: someone who’s in it for the long haul.
Looks like she’s finally picking the right ones for the job.
Best I can do for her now is stay the hell out of her way.