Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
“You’re being weird,”Cassie murmured to Presley the following weekend as they unpacked their instruments at the bar. “You promised…”
“I’m not being weird.” He frowned at her. “How am I being weird?”
“You insisted on carrying my bag in,” she pointed out. “Even Marley thought that was weird.”
“I’m a fucking gentleman,” he said, looking annoyed.
“I know.” She lifted a brow. “With an emphasis on fucking.”
Okay, now he was pissed. He was pretty damn sure that if he’d ignored her as they drove to the bar for their next gig she’d have been annoyed at that, too.
He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to behave. Especially when she was wearing jeans that looked like they were painted on her ass and a top that barely covered the parts of her he loved the most.
All he could think about was how she’d felt when he slid inside of her. How her skin flushed whenever he’d touched her.
And yeah, it had been a week and he’d been busy as hell, but they’d managed to talk a couple of times on the phone once Delilah was in bed.
He’d seen her at rehearsals, too. Then followed her home afterward so they could make out in his car for twenty minutes before he headed home to take over from his mom.
But his life was complicated. Between his work and his daughter he didn’t have a whole lot of time. Even less now that they had the band. But he wanted to see her.
Wanted to see her tonight.
Wanted to make her breath tight and short the way he had when his head was buried between her thighs.
“What are you thinking about?” Cassie whispered.
Busted. “About how much of a pain in my ass you are.”
A smile pulled at her lips. “I’m not the weird one.”
“Don’t you have a keyboard to set up?” he muttered.
“Just going over there now.” She smiled at him over her shoulder and left him standing there. Staring at her sweet ass.
There was a bigger crowd here tonight. They were playing the Rainbow Bar. It was a roadhouse kind of joint, right outside of Hartson’s Creek, and they’d attracted a big local crowd.
“Everything okay?” Marley asked him, as Presley walked over to help him set up the drum kit.
“Everything’s fine. Why?”
“I saw you and Cassie having a heated conversation. Don’t tell me you’ve pissed her off right before the show.”
Okay, now this was too much. Even his brother had it in for him. “What the hell do you mean by that?”
It came out more vehemently than he’d intended. And Marley actually flinched. “Whoa,” he said. “Where did that come from?”
He ran his hands through his hair. “I don’t know. Sorry. It’s just all a bit intense in here. A lot of old faces, you know?”
“It’s nice that they’ve all come to watch us,” Marley said. “We’ve been gone for so long.”
And yeah, that was his fault. “Not anymore.”
“Nope.” Marley grinned. “So everything’s okay then? I don’t have to worry about you and Cassie screaming at each other on stage?”
“No.”
“Good.”
From the corner of his eye, Presley saw his two girl cousins arrive. Sabrina was the youngest, currently in college. And technically she wasn’t old enough to be in a bar. But he’d squared it with the owner. If she sat with a chaperone and drank sodas all night she’d be good.
So his other cousin, Grace, had agreed to be the chaperone. And right now Grace was hugging Cassie.
Cassie had been right. This was a small town.
Too fucking small.
And that’s when he saw Sadie. Jade’s sister. Standing with a group of friends at the bar down from Cassie and his cousins. She caught him looking at her and smiled.
He nodded back.
Fuck. Guilt at staring at Cassie immediately washed over him. Had Sadie seen them talking? He hoped to hell not. Sadie was a few years younger than Jade. He’d gotten along with her fine, but she was still a kid when he and his wife had started dating.
“Come on, let’s go say hi to Sabrina and Grace,” Marley said, punching his arm lightly. “You can give Sabrina the riot act again.”
“I’m not her dad,” he muttered.
Still, they walked over and hugged their cousins. Sabrina ranting about something her dad had said about her clothes. He tuned it out, all too aware that he’d have said the same fucking thing if Delilah had tried to walk out of the house half-dressed.
Shit, he was so not looking forward to her being a teenager.
“Presley,” Sadie called out. Marley lifted a brow.
“Did you invite her?” he asked.
“Nope. But it’s a free world.” And it was kind of sweet that Jade’s sister was here. He walked over to hug her.
“Hey. Thanks for coming.”
Sadie smiled at him. “You should have told me you were playing. I had to find out from a flier at work.”
Sadie ran a shop a couple of towns over. She lived above it. She was busy, he knew that, but she still made time for Delilah. She and her parents saw her every month.
“Who’s that?” she asked, looking over his shoulder.
He turned to look. And of course it was Cassie, back on stage. Staring at him with her brows pulled tight.
“Our new keyboardist.”
“What happened to the last one?”
“Alex.”
Sadie wrinkled her nose. “I remember Jade telling me about him.”
Yeah, Alex had a reputation. “I gotta go. Have a good time tonight,” he told her.
“And you break a leg.”
“I’ll try not to.” He winked. That would finish Marley off completely. “Don’t drink and drive, okay.”
Her eyes met his and he could see understanding there. “Of course I won’t,” she said softly. “I promise.”
“You’re definitely being weird,” Cassie hiss-whispered after the first song. He’d barely looked at her the whole time they’d been on stage. What was it with his mood swings? She felt like she was watching a damn tennis match. “Can you at least look at me when you sing?”
“I was looking at you.”
Alex wandered over. “You two ready for the next song?”
She nodded and walked back to the keyboard. They’d already chosen to go with the previous playlist. Starting off with a fast song, segueing into the slower one.
And at least she could hide the fact that Presley was completely ignoring her with the fast one. But “Beautiful Liar” needed him to be singing to her.
This is your fault for telling him not to carry your bag.
He’d swung the other way. Was completely ignoring her. And truth be told, she didn’t like it.
She watched, her breath catching in her throat as Presley tipped his head down, his fingers forming the first chord. She could see the tip of his tattoo as it snaked up his neck, and the beads of perspiration that were breaking out on his skin.
And then he leaned forward. The room was so quiet she could hear the sharp inhalation of his breath before he strummed the first note and sang into the microphone.
“You walked toward me, your body full of grace…”
His voice was thick. True. It sent a shiver down her spine. She’d never met a man who put more emotion into his songs than Presley Hartson.
His eyes slid to hers as he hit the second line.
“The wind in your hair, the sun on your face.”
She parted her lips. His eyes narrowed but didn’t move from her at all. She felt the rush of blood through her veins as his lips formed the lyrics. A shiver snaked down her spine.
“Your lips were full of promises you never meant to keep.”
The corner of his own mouth quirked up at that line. She half smiled back, because she knew he was singing about himself here. The promise that it wouldn’t be weird.
But maybe she’d been wrong. Of course it would be weird. They’d had mind blowing sex and she was expecting him to act normally.
She was the weird one for making those kinds of demands.
It was hard to breathe as he continued to stare at her, the atmosphere between them thick and electric. She could vaguely hear a woman in the crowd scream out Presley’s name, but it just made her smile.
Because right now he felt like he belonged to her.
Her heart started hammering against her chest as he made it to the bridge. She had to pull her microphone toward her, take a breath to steady her heartbeat. And then she sang like her life depended on it.
“You told me that you loved me,
Your lips knew it was a lie,
You said you’d never leave me,
Then every touch was a goodbye.”
His brows knitted as he sung. Like he was trying to work her out. Work himself out, maybe. She’d noticed before that he wasn’t great with words when they weren’t lyrics. He was a man who didn’t talk when it wasn’t needed. He guarded his emotions like they were bars of gold.
But right now it felt like he was cutting himself open. Revealing himself to her. She wanted to do the same for him.
She wanted to do everything for him. That was the problem. This man was addictive in the worst kind of way.
The way that broke up bands and shattered hearts. He made you want to dig deep to find out all his secrets.
Only to find out they could cut you like a knife.
It was her verse now. She sang of hurt, of being rejected. Of never trusting love again. And he watched her, his eyes hooded, his fingers slowly strumming his chords.
She was so hot her cheeks were flaming. She shook her hair to get rid of the perspiration, and he gave her another one of those half smiles.
The ones that she liked to fantasize were only for her.
When they got to the chorus this time, he walked toward her, still playing the guitar, leaning into her microphone like he did the first time they sang this song.
But he was closer. Hotter. She felt his arm brush hers every time he strummed the guitar. And as they reached the crescendo she didn’t know if they were working together or fighting each other.
He sounded almost angry. Lost. So rough against the sweet notes she was hitting. It was magical and heartbreaking.
She never wanted it to end.
But then they were on the last note and he leaned in so close she could feel the roughness of his jaw touching hers. His lips were a turn of the head away, his cheek warm against hers.
Her muscles tightened at his nearness. Like it wanted more.
Wanted everything.
He sang the final word, his voice fading into nothing and the crowd exploded with applause. Marley was grinning, Alex was staring out into the audience, lapping it up.
“I’m so turned on right now,” Pres whispered in her ear, his voice so low she had to concentrate to make it out. “It’s taking everything I’ve got not to carry you off this stage.”
She looked at him, breathless and shocked.
“Thank you, everybody,” Marley shouted into his own mic, clearly bored of waiting for Presley to move things on. “Now let’s get this bar rocking. Our next song is ‘Rising From The Flames’.”
“What are you doing?” Cassie asked Alex later, when the four of them were sitting at a table, along with Presley’s cousins. Pres was busy talking to Grace about something, the two of them looking serious. And Marley was messaging somebody, she assumed either a woman or one of his friends from the fire station.
“I got somebody to record us playing ‘Beautiful Liar’,” Alex said. “I’m uploading it to our TikTok.”
“We have a TikTok?” she asked, surprised.
Alex blew out a mouthful of air. “Kind of. Pres and Marley are shit at social media. I always took the lead. First on Facebook, then Insta. We even had a Snap for a while. But then TikTok came along so I made an account last year and added some old stuff, but this is the first new video I’ve posted.” He held his phone up. “Look how good you look.”
She watched as she was singing into the mic, Presley staring at her like he hated and loved her at the same time.
“You two are fucking gold together.”
“Our voices work well,” she murmured, almost certain that Alex finding out about the other night would be the last thing Pres would want.
“I used to sing sometimes,” Alex told her, changing the subject. “Maybe we should try a song together.”
She tipped her head, surprised. “Is that a euphemism?”
He laughed and shook his head. “No, but should it be?” He shrugged. “If you ever need somebody to sing a song with, I’m your guy.”
“I’ve heard a little about you and keyboardists,” she said, batting off his suggestion. Presley or no Presley, she’d never go there.
“So you’ve been talking about me?” he said, looking pleased at that.
The man was virtually impossible to dislike. Sure he was a bad flirt, but he didn’t mean anything by it.
“I’ve been warned off,” she told him, trying not to grin. “And it was effective.”
He took a sip of beer and gave her a lopsided smile. “You’ll change your mind.”
“You have a big opinion of yourself,” she said lightly.
“I figure if I don’t have it, nobody else will. You’ve got to be your own biggest supporter in this game. It’s dog eat dog.” He looked down at his phone. “Hell yeah, we have our first like.”
“Does that make us famous?” she asked dryly.
“No, but we will be.” This time he wasn’t smiling. He was deadly serious. And she hated to burst his bubble and point out that they were just a little band in a small town that got the locals excited.
Let him ride the wave of the euphoria for a little longer.
“Sure.” She smiled at him, lifting her glass.
Over his shoulder she noticed Presley had stopped talking. His eyes were on hers.
He looked annoyed about something.
“I’ll tell you what, let’s make a bet,” Alex said. “If we get famous, you owe me a date.”
“It’s not going to happen.” She was certain of that.
“Then there’s no reason to refuse the bet.”
She frowned. “That’s the first logical thing I’ve heard you say all night. It’s kind of scary.”
“Is that a yes?”
“You’re not getting a kiss.”
“Okay.” He shrugged. “But you’re getting famous.”
A chill went down her spine despite the heat of the room. She looked up again. Presley was back talking to his cousin, shaking his head at something she’d said.
Truth was, she didn’t want to be famous. She liked things the way they were. Easy. Fun. In control.
Especially the control part. Because her life had been out of her control for so long, it felt like she was finally getting back on an even keel.