12. Calla
TWELVE
CALLA
“Are you up?” Ashley’s voice comes through my phone.
My early morning intrusive thoughts tell me I should throw my phone over the hotel room balcony.
“Unfortunately,” I grumble back.
“Ok, good. Gym is open. I’ll have breakfast sent up for you in an hour and a half.” With that, she hangs up.
Yes, it’s my morning off, but I’m forced to get up and work out before getting on the road. There’s no show tonight, so I have to do an actual workout because, god forbid, I actually rest my body.
I stare up at the ceiling for a solid five minutes before I finally get out of bed and throw on some leggings and a sports bra.
When I walk out into the living area, I startle at seeing Luke on the couch. I forgot he was staying here. I peek over the back of the couch and see him sleeping peacefully with his arms crossed over his chest and his brows furrowed. He’s even grumpy in his sleep. How cute.
I should probably wake him and let him know where I’m going, but he needs his rest. Instead, I tip-toe to the kitchen area and grab a water bottle from the fridge.
“What are you doing?” His gravelly voice scares me.
“Oh my god, you were literally just asleep.”
“I felt you trying to sneak off.”
I roll my eyes. “I was not trying to sneak off. I was rudely woken up and told to get my ass to the gym so that’s where I’m headed.”
I see his frown even in the dark. He throws his blanket off and stands to stretch, his white T-shirt riding up just enough for me to see the defined V that leads into his sleep pants. “Give me a second to change, and we’ll go.”
“You don’t have to go.”
He rummages through his backpack and pulls out some gym shorts. “Out of the two of us, I’m the one who truly needs to work out. I didn’t perform my ass off for three hours last night.”
Luke is the only one who actually seems to notice how hard I work on a daily basis. It’s kind of nice to get the recognition.
“You have been looking a little soft lately,” I say.
He huffs a laugh. “You better watch your mouth, Ms. James.”
I grab another water bottle and toss it to him when he comes back from the bathroom in his shorts.
“Alright, let’s go.”
We head down to the hotel gym, which is actually pretty nice and also entirely empty besides just the two of us. We start off in the weights section.
He lets me do my thing while he does his. I try really hard not to stare at his arms as he curls dumbbells or his shoulders flexing as he does lateral raises. I know Luke is good-looking. That’s obvious to anyone with eyes. But this… this is making me feral, and that’s not ok. I can’t be drooling over my bodyguard when I have a boyfriend. Even if I don’t particularly like my boyfriend at the moment. I subtly move away from Luke to another part of the gym so I can finish my weights portion without any more drooling.
I make my way to the treadmill and start off with a warm-up jog before Luke gets on the treadmill right next to me. He starts his jog one full point faster than mine. Obviously, I have to increase my pace to match it.
We stay at the same pace for a few minutes until he starts to increase his speed. I press my speed button a few times until I’m just over his speed. He doesn’t like that, though, and bumps up his speed. So, then I go faster. We keep doing this back and forth until we’re full-on sprinting.
“Tired?” he calls to me. I can tell he’s out of breath since he practically yells the question at me.
“Nope,” I lie, my gasping response giving me away.
He keeps glancing at my machine, waiting, hoping maybe, that I’m going to give in. But I don’t. I keep pushing and pushing until finally, he presses the stop button on his. I don’t even wait a second until I follow suit. We’re both panting with our hands above our heads as our treadmills slow down.
“You are a freak of nature,” he says once he catches his breath.
“Oh, stop. You’re too kind.”
That makes him smile, and I’m really starting to like when he does that.
“Can we eat now? I’m fucking starving,” he says.
“Yeah, Ashley said she would have room service sent up. I should warn you, though. It’s probably egg whites and turkey sausage or something else flavorless.”
“I’m sure it’s not that bad.”
“Just don’t get your hopes up,” I tell him.
We make our way upstairs, and not even five minutes later, there’s a knock, and a room service cart is being rolled in.
We lift up the food covers and see fresh fruit, scrambled eggs, hard-boiled eggs, turkey sausage links, and greens. None of it looks particularly appetizing, but it’s nothing I’m not used to. I guess I was hoping for some kind of carbs.
I must not hide my disgust well because Luke says, “Not to your liking?”
“Eh, it’s fine. I’m just going to take a shower first. Help yourself.”
He nods as I head to the shower.
When I’m finished, I throw on the hotel-provided fluffy robe and go back to the living room. Luke is still sitting at the table, but there’s a plate of pastries, bagels, and toast in addition to the food Ashley sent up.
“What’s all this?” I ask.
“They’re not feeding you enough. You just did a strenuous workout and need carbs to recover.” He pushes the plate toward me. The angel on one shoulder is telling me to ignore him and eat what Ashley sent up for me. This is what everyone wants me to eat so I should just do it. But the devil on my other shoulder is saying how fucking hungry I am and that I deserve to eat. And that pastry looks damn good.
I reach for the plate and grab a cherry pastry, taking a seat next to Luke at the table.
“Where did these even come from?” I ask, knowing damn well Ashley wouldn’t have approved of this being sent to my room.
“I went and got them,” he says, biting some sort of Danish.
“From where?”
“There’s this thing that some hotels have called a free continental breakfast. It’s for us peasants, so I doubt you would know about it.”
I gasp. “Shut up.”
He laughs and shrugs. “They’ve got all sorts of things. Pastries, cereal, bacon. This one even has a yogurt parfait bar, which was kinda cool.”
“It’s cute that you think they would even allow me to go to something like that.”
He looks up at me. “I know they wouldn’t. That’s why I went and got it for you.”
“Well, thank you.”
We eat our breakfast in mostly silence until I realize something. “Hey, you left me alone while you went and got these.”
“I made sure you were actually in the shower first and took a chance that you weren’t going to sneak out in a towel.”
I laugh. “Contrary to what you seem to think, I don’t normally try to sneak off. You caught me one time in a moment of weakness, and it was the first time in my life that I tried to do something like that.”
“It was one time too many for my liking,” he grumbles.
“Oh my god. Are you ever going to trust me again?”
“Maybe. Trust is earned, princess.” I glare at him. “Right now I only trust you to be a pain in my ass.”
“You’re ridiculous.” I grab another pastry and stand from the table, going to pack my bags so we can get on the road.
Later that day, I’m working on a new song in the front of the bus. I’ve got my guitar and a notepad, which is how I like to work. Normally, I would do this alone, but I couldn’t focus sitting in my bed in the back, and since I’m being pressured to finish this next album, I don’t have time to waste.
Ashley is in her bunk, probably answering emails or scheduling more stupid stuff for me, but Luke is sitting across from me at the small table we have, reading a book while I work on my music.
I play a few chords but don’t like how it sounds, so I try again… and again and again until it’s finally something I can live with. Then I try adding in lyrics. I stop and write them down. Sing it again and change a few words.
I do this a few more times until I have a verse down. I stop and grab my water bottle to take a sip.
“That song about lover boy?” Luke asks.
I huff a laugh. “I’m sure he’ll think so.”
“What’s it about then?”
“Loving myself,” I say plainly because that’s what I’m trying to work on. With every day that passes, I realize that if I don’t love myself, how is anyone else going to truly love me? A real love, not the love that Thompson claims he has for me.
Luke nods slowly as if he’s thinking the same thing. “Good. I like it.”
I gasp. “You like one of my songs?! There’s no way.”
“I like your songs,” he says with a slight wince on his face.
“Your face says otherwise.”
He rolls his eyes. “They’re not bad, just not my typical style. But this you,” he gestures to my guitar and my notebook, “I like this. A stripped-down version. Your voice is spectacular, but you don’t need a nobody like me to tell you that.”
“You’re not a nobody, Luke.” In fact, he might have just given me the best compliment I’ve ever gotten. I know I can sing. I know I can write catchy songs. But when someone who doesn’t like your music and has no reason to flatter you tells you you’re spectacular, that’s really something. “And thank you. It actually means a lot coming from you.”
He gives me a curt nod and focuses back on his book. “Well, remember it because I don’t just go around handing out compliments.”
“Of course you don’t.”
“I don’t see you handing out many compliments either,” he says.
“Fishing for something, Mr. Pierson?”
“No. But you can’t call me out for not doing it when you don’t do it either.”
“You’re right.” I look him over to think of a compliment. To be honest, there are so many things I like about him, but I’m not sure what I can say without sounding inappropriate.
“Don’t hurt yourself thinking,”
“Shut up,” I say, grabbing one of my crumpled pieces of paper and throwing it at him. “That’s not it.”
“Trying to figure out a way to tell me how good-looking I am?” he teases.
“No, you clearly already know that, so I wouldn’t want to inflate your ego.” He smiles, and it makes him even more attractive, which is so annoying. “I was going to say that you’ve only seen me as an actual person since you got here and I really do appreciate that.”
“You are an actual person, Calla.”
“Yes, but you treat me like one. You talk to me like I’m just Calla and not Calla James . I know you probably don’t consider yourself a nice person.” He chuckles. “But doing that for me is the nicest thing you could do.”
He’s silent as he looks at me like he’s trying to figure something out. The silence kills me, so I blurt out, “Fine, you have really nice arms, too.”
He smirks and flexes his arm.
“Oh, god. Forget I said anything. I have to get back to work.”
He rolls up the sleeve of his T-shirt. “Don’t let me distract you. I’ll just be over here… with my arms.”
He flexes again. My face heats, and I look back to my notebook to focus on my song. Unfortunately, I don’t get much more written.