Chapter 5
Chapter Five
“ Yeah, all you do is hit a drum set and sleep with women .”
That was what Thea thought of him. Screw. That. As he laid back on his bed and closed his eyes, the image of her smirking at him after she wrote that burned in his mind. And suddenly, lyrics flowed out of him.
He grabbed his pen and the new notepad he bought to interact with his new roommate. His every breath rushed out of him as words poured from every stroke of the pen.
“Piercing eyes I hoped would see me.
Cactus skin I hoped would bleed me.
I’ll be the poison apple to your fairytale lips.
Bite me, devour me, send in your warships.
Give me that mutual destruction, that killer seduction.
Make me sheer; see me here.”
Stupid. Draven ripped the paper out and crumpled it into a ball. He threw it to the floor and groaned. Draven The Drummer did not write songs. He played the beats his friends told him to play. He suggested some changes here and there. But writing music? Writing lyrics? About her ?
Unacceptable.
When he felt like this, dejected and raw and vulnerable, he typically distracted himself with sex. When I can’t do anything else right, I do the one thing I know I’m the best at. Aka, give women multiple screaming orgasms.
But due to having to prove a Little Miss wrong— oh, one-week sex-ban, how I loathe you —all he could think to do was stomp back into the kitchen and grab a beer. Should probably put the thermostat back to normal too . Now, a temperature war with Thea sounded a lot less fun.
The second he stepped into the hallway, he fanned his face. Yeah, he was shirtless and rocking only boxers and sweatpants, but damn, it was hot. I may have gone overboard with the heat . But, he supposed, all was fair in love and war. Not that it had anything to do with love. Obviously.
More like every time I look at her, my skin feels too tight, like my soul wants to freaking hop out and wrap around her, but she thinks I’m the worst, so …
He strode to the fridge, hankering for a beer and hoping Thea had gone back to her room for the rest of the night. It was six o’clock, but she had never “hung out” in their shared space over the last few days of living together.
She hides from me . His shoulders sank inward, and he opened the fridge and grabbed a silver can. Cracking it open, he turned and faced the open space. His direct line of sight aligned with the living room, where Thea touched his drum set.
She touched his drums while wearing a pair of hot pink short-shorts.
He did not know what was more infuriating: that she dared to touch his drums or that his body lit on fire and his cock twitched between his legs at the sight of her in shorts. Goddamn, those legs …
He had only ever seen her in knee-length dresses. The vision of Thea in shorts was too much for his nearly thirty-year-old heart to take. It thudded dangerously fast behind his rib cage; tingles ran up and down his skin. Is that what she wears to bed?
“What are you doing?” he shouted over to her, which, of course, she did not hear.
He grabbed a grocery list from one of the fridge magnets and turned it over for a blank side. He wrote, “ Why are you touching my drums ?”
When she noticed him walking up behind her, she jumped and landed a hand on her chest. Such a perfect chest . No! Those curves belonged to a crazy woman who lied about buying milk.
She read his note and stepped away from the drum set. She grabbed her notepad and wrote back, “ I was just looking at them .”
“ You were touching them . Why ?” Was she thinking of doing some enemy-roommate prank on his drums?
She scowled at his response. She underlined her previous note of “ looking at them .”
“This is looking,” Draven said aloud, gesturing to his eyes. He demonstrated dragging his gaze over her body from head to toe. “This is touching.” He took her hand and pressed it to his warm, hard pectoral muscle. “See the difference?”
She blinked those gray-blues at him, staring at where he placed her hand over his taut skin. Could she feel how hard and fast his heart beat? It has been like that since you moved in .
Draven pointed to his previous note. “ Why were you touching my drums ?”
She hesitantly dropped her hand from his chest, squeezing her fingers into a fist, releasing them, and stretching out the digits. He tried to ignore the lingering tingles of where her skin had touched his.
She took her time writing a response. “ I’m trying to figure out my dream. How did you know music was yours ?”
Draven sipped in an uneven breath. It had been years since someone asked him that.
When his college boy band became popular, everyone coined him as the player, drummer “bad boy.” They asked people like Wren or Yin about their musical influences or song writing process. Reporters tended to ask Draven about what female musicians he had hooked up with and left brokenhearted.
No one asked Draven about music. His reply to her question felt especially important, like she might finally see him if he answered correctly.
He wrote, “ Music chose me, but I chose to get good at it. Does that make sense? Sometimes, a passion will overwhelm you, and you want to master it. You want to be the best and have others see how good you are. There’s adoration to be had. Pride in what you do. A creative outlet .” Damn, he wished he was better with words. “ There’s a peace. When I play the drums, the whole world feels quiet .”
Thea stared hard at his note. Particularly the word quiet . His whole world felt quiet when he played the drums? He played loud rock . Yet, he described pursuing his dream as a peaceful quiet. That resonated with Thea more than if he had described it any other way.
She also understood wanting to be the best at something—needing to be the best. As the only deaf daughter to parents of other hearing siblings, as the deaf girl in hearing classrooms growing up, she had always strived to be the best. To be noticed. To be seen as something more than a label or an inconvenience or the “odd one.”
Adoration , Draven had written. An answering tug occurred behind her ribcage. If there was anything Thea could understand, it was the need to be loved. I just never thought a man like Draven would feel that need too .
As she stared into those light green eyes, she saw a reflection of pain she felt in herself. But, of course, such a thing was ridiculous. How could a heartthrob drummer ever feel the same loneliness she did? He is adored by everyone .
She bit her lip as her gaze fell to examine his mouth. It was almost eye level, after all. Well, not really. He is just so tall .
He inched closer, as if pulled by that same invisible force that yanked her toward him. His bare chest—because he was still shirtless—rose and fell in front of her. She wanted to touch it again. To feel those hot muscles twitch beneath her fingers. To feel his heartbeat again. Strong and demanding.
His scent tickled her nose—linen and citrus bergamot oil. The rocker smelled like clean sheets and looked like he could spend all night doing dirty, dirty things in them. Limbs entangled. Heavy breathing. His lips slanted on hers.
She watched his mouth move as he asked her something, but she couldn’t make out the words. Her pulse skipped and thrummed in her throat as she watched his tongue dab out and lick those full lips.
Oh damn, I want to kiss him .
Danger!
She blinked several times, trying to clear her thoughts. He frowned at her now, concern and confusion lighting up those hypnotic eyes.
He wrote, “ What do you like to do, Thea ?”
Right. He was helping her figure out her dream. Wait, he was helping her figure out her dream? More traitor warmth settled and swirled in her lower stomach.
She stared at his note. Because she didn’t know what she liked to do. And how pitiful was that?
Finance had never been fun to her. It had only ever been easy. She needed to find her passion that made the world fade away around her. After so long of suppressing any artistic inklings, she worried nothing would rise to the surface.
She knew what she needed to do.
She hastily wrote to Draven, “ Can I have my friends over tomorrow night ?”
He shot her an offended “ Of course. I’m not your keeper ” expression.
She added, “ Do you promise not to flirt with them ?”
This time, real offense—not the playful kind—poured over his emotive face. Shaking his head, he wrote, “ I’m not interested in anyone else .”
She blinked. Anyone else ? What did that mean? That he was interested in…her?
He examined her surprised expression, looked back at what he had written, and quickly crossed it out. He scribbled over it again and again until it was illegible, then wrote, “ I mean, I won’t flirt with them. I’d never try to make any of your friends uncomfortable .”
So much to unpack there. She had meant she did not want him flirting with them because, well, she didn’t like the idea of one of her friends flirting right back with him. She had not meant her request to be taken like she thought he would leer at them.
Draven would never be crude or cringey enough to make them uncomfortable. He was…Draven. If anything, some might try to seduce him .
She shook her head and wrote, “ I know you wouldn’t. You’re not a bad person. I’m sorry about what I said before .”
His eyes widened, so big and dramatic, her lips nearly quirked into a smile. He made a big show of fanning himself. He glanced around like he looked for TV cameras on a Punk’d show. He wrote, “ Thea Gullybil apologizing? To ME? ” He even drew an open-mouthed, gaping stick figure.
He was such a brat, and she kind of liked it. He had the rare type of smile that made everyone who saw it want to mirror it right back to him.
“ Now, are you going to apologize for drinking my milk ?” he wrote, raising an eyebrow.
Just because he was hot and funny, he thought he could charm her into forgetting she was the one who bought the almond milk?
“ No, I bought that milk ,” she replied, adamant.
His scowl was back.