Chapter 1
CURTIS
A soft note echoed in my wake as I brushed past the cymbals, crossing the shop floor to the wall display of guitars. Tuned was quiet today…it always was, for that matter, and I loved that it allowed me to disappear into my own world for four hours at a time. It gave me time to think, away from the noise of London Southwark University, and away from my band, the 2Bit Princes.
Not that I didn’t love being a part of the band, but I also needed my downtime, and my part-time job in this quiet little south London music shop was the perfect way to unwind. I flexed my wrists, going through the range of hand exercises I’d discovered on a YouTube video a week earlier. As the 2Bit Princes’ drummer, my hands were kind of important. Okay, yeah, they were for all the band members, since everyone played an instrument, but hand exercises were my new thing. I continued to rotate through the range of movements in between arranging the guitars in a more aesthetically pleasing way—not that there was anything wrong with the way they were displayed, but there was only so much I could do with an empty shop on a Monday afternoon.
Humming along with the music that was playing softly through the speakers, I lifted my wrists?—
“What are you doing?”
I spun around at the voice, my heart pounding out of my chest.
It was him. He was back, for the fourth time in two weeks, and this time, he was actually speaking to me, rather than shooting me sideways glances before disappearing from the shop without buying anything.
“Sorry, that was rude. It just came out. Excuse me. Let me start again.”
The stranger ran his hand through his dark, overgrown hair, tugging his full bottom lip between his teeth as he scuffed the floor with the toe of a battered Converse shoe. “I saw you doing that—”
He paused, waving his hands in the air, and I smiled. “—thing with your hands.”
My smile widened. This guy was so cute. No…he was hot, even in his nondescript ripped jeans and faded T-shirt, with hair that desperately needed a trim. But from the first time I’d set eyes on him, I’d been unable to look away. His face was fucking gorgeous. Perfect, symmetrical lines and angles, soulful, deep blue eyes, and a mouth that was made for kissing…among other things.
Calm down, Curtis.
When he’d first walked into Tuned, I’d felt like there was something vaguely familiar about him, almost like déjà vu, but I was positive he hadn’t been in the shop before. And now I’d heard him speak with that sexy American accent, I was betting he was a tourist.
“I was doing hand exercises. I’m a drummer. Can I help you with anything?”
The guy flashed me a tentative smile, revealing a glimpse of straight, white teeth. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’m, uh, going to be in England for a while, and I thought about playing the guitar?”
It came out as a question.
“Okay. Acoustic?”
“A drummer?”
he asked at the same time, stepping closer to me.
“Yeah. I’m in a band. The 2Bit Princes. We mostly do local gigs, but we’re getting a decent following on our social media. We play covers, as well as our own original stuff.”
“Yeah? That’s cool.”
He was right next to me now, those deep blue eyes fixed on mine. This close, I could feel the heat radiating from his body, and I caught the scent of something fresh and beachy. Delicious. He shot me another smile, and my stomach flipped.
“It’s great. You should come and hear us play sometime. We have a gig on Saturday, if you’re still here then.”
Fishing for information as well as casually inviting him to spend more time with me? I was so smooth.
Turning to face me fully, his gaze trailed down my body, then back up to my face. As if he realized he’d been caught checking me out, his eyes widened, and he coughed, rubbing his hand across his jaw. “I’ll be here for a while. So yeah, I’d like to see you play.”
“You would?”
Biting down on his lip, he nodded, then moved away, breaking our connection as his gaze slid toward the display of guitars. “I guess you should tell me more about your band. What kind of music do you play? It’s not…pop, is it?”
I gestured at myself. “Do I look like someone who plays pop music?”
“Looks can be deceiving,”
he said softly. “I wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at you. You look like…uh…you look…you look good.”
My cheeks flushed, and I busied myself with rearranging the guitar display for the tenth time, doing my best to ignore my hammering heart, which was far too excited by this cute American boy. “Not pop music. Like I said before, we play a lot of covers—mostly Britpop and indie rock—as well as our own music. If you come and see us on Saturday, you’ll see. We’re playing at the Rose and Crown pub in Southwark. We’ll be onstage somewhere around eight-ish, I think.”
When I glanced back at him, his own cheeks were flushed, and he was grimacing. “Sorry. I don’t know how to do this. This is all new to me.”
So fucking cute. Maybe teasing him would help to put him at ease. “What is? Talking? Britpop?”
Shaking his head, he ran his hand down the strings of one of the guitars on the wall. “Being me. Fuck. Sorry. That sounded weird. I should just—I should go.”
With that, he spun on his heel and bolted from the shop, leaving me alone.