2. Mav
TWO
MAV
“No fucking way,” I blurt out, thrown by Mckenna’s little announcement.
Her smile widens. That gesture—those gleaming white teeth with a tiny gap between the front two—tells me she’s serious. Mckenna Byrne takes pleasure in my suffering. I swear she gets off on it.
“Way,” she replies. Chipper. Fucking chipper.
I frown. “Derek would’ve told me.” I pull my new cell out of my sweatpants pocket and dial my bandmate. I swear when it goes to voicemail. I glance at Mckenna and call Allegra instead. “Why? Don’t you have a sweet little condo near campus, decorated in all monochromatic neutrals, thanks to some fancy interior designer your parents hired? Mommy and Daddy Byrne seem to hand you everything on a silver platter.”
It’s no secret that Mckenna is flush. I’m not exactly sure what her parents do, but merino wool sweaters and Burberry trench coats don’t scream “unemployed student.” Family holiday cards, complete with a Goldendoodle, hardly indicate “neglected offspring.” Nah, the Byrne family is nothing like the Tates. They’re all about stability, rolling with the country club crowds who brunch and sail. I’m cut from a different kind of cloth. A grimier, grittier, woven-with-secrets, and knotted-with-disappointments variety.
At my glare, Mckenna’s cheeks heat, and she averts her gaze. I’m about to press for a response when Derek’s girl answers.
“Mav! I heard you’re back in town,” Allegra says, yawning. I either woke her up, or she hasn’t crashed yet.
I glare at the pain in my ass. “Wonder where you heard that from.”
Mckenna sighs.
Allegra snorts. “Look, I don’t want to get involved. You and Kenny are both important to me. You’re two of my closest friends. The brownstone sits empty most of the time, she needed a place to stay, and I tried to give you a heads-up. Derek said he left you three messages too.”
“You know I don’t check my voicemails,” I whine, earning a snarled lip from Mckenna. “Besides, I lost my phone.”
“Not my fault,” Allegra quips. “We’ve reached out for the past two weeks. If you weren’t losing yourself across Central America?—”
“Just Costa Rica,” I correct. I have a place there. It’s the only house I own, and its fucking heaven—a sweet little bungalow right on the beach. Sand, surfing, and sun all day. Tequila and sweet pussy all night. My vacation was much needed and didn’t include checking in with the guys I had just spent the last nine months touring with.
“You would have answered Derek’s and my calls and known that Kenny was moving into our room for a bit,” Allegra continues, unfazed.
“Define ‘a bit’?” I press.
Mckenna’s grip on her espresso cup tightens, her knuckles straining.
Allegra huffs. “Until she no longer needs a place to stay. She’s my friend, Mav. Be nice.”
“Whatever,” I mutter, not because I mean it but because I love Allegra Rousell like a little sister. In fact, she’s my bandmate Levi’s kid sister, and the summer she moved in here was epic.
Unlike her friend, stuck-up Mckenna Byrne, Allegra is fucking fun .
“I really need to sleep. Love you. ‘Byeeeee!” Allegra hangs up.
I toss down the phone and glance at my new roommate. “We should establish some ground rules.”
Mckenna smiles as if I announced I’m buying beer and pizza every Friday night. I study her. With dark auburn hair that curls around her shoulders and deep blue eyes, Mckenna is striking.
Back when her hair was blonder, she was cute. But now, she looks sophisticated. She’s got an old-fashioned vibe, with her peaches-and-cream complexion and rosebud mouth. A timepiece photo of her would look like someone’s great-grandmother from back in the day. She’s classically pretty. If she tried not to be a stuck-up prude, she could be hot by modern standards. Just not by my standards.
“I agree,” she says civilly.
“Of course, you do,” I mutter. Mckenna’s nothing if not a rule follower. Boring to the fucking core.
“No drugs,” she says off the bat.
I close my eyes. Maybe I should just go back to Costa Rica. I’m not a druggie or anything, but a little recreational fun isn’t outside my wheelhouse.
Mckenna scoffs. “What’s the matter? Can’t control yourself?”
I open my eyes. “Fine, no drugs.”
“And no girls,” Mckenna tacks on, pointing toward the front door Lia walked through minutes earlier.
I laugh. “Are you fucking kidding me? No girls.” I shake my head. “Be real, Mckenna. This is my house,” I remind her.
She glares at me.
Holding up a hand in surrender, I compromise. “How ‘bout this, we each get veto power over three people?”
“What?”
I sigh, insinuating she’s daft, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Mckenna narrows her eyes, and I fight the urge to laugh. As much as she pisses me off, I like the spark of ferocity that lurks in the depths of her navy eyes. “Veto power. We can each invoke it three times if there’s someone the other one of us brings around that we don’t like. I don’t want any of your weirdo friends asking me for autographs or trying to steal my shit.”
“My friends would never?—”
“And I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable living here. So, we protect our space, yeah?”
Mckenna’s quiet for a long moment as if searching my words for a hidden meaning. A catch. What a fucking lawyer. “Yeah, okay,” she finally agrees.
“Anything else?” I prompt.
She bites her bottom lip, thinking. “No parties without clearing it with the other person.”
I smirk. As if she’s going to throw a rager? Outside of Allegra, Ivy, and Nova, I wonder if Mckenna even has friends. “Fine.”
“And we split cleaning responsibilities. I’ll do?—”
“We have someone for that,” I cut her off. “Eleanor comes two mornings a week.”
“Oh, okay.” Her eyes dart around the kitchen. “Well, I’ll split the cost wi?—”
“What else?” I’m not taking her money for a cleaning service we keep going year-round, whether anyone is living here or not.
Mckenna rolls her lips together. “I guess that’s it. Just, you know, if you’re not going to come home for a stretch of time—like days or weeks—some common decency would be nice. Let me know.” Her voice goes soft and catches at the end.
If I was a decent guy, I’d feel something at the vulnerability she shows. At least something that would hold me back from taunting her. Unfortunately, I’m my father’s son, so definitely not that guy. Placing a hand over my heart, I tilt my head. “Aw, you’d worry?”
Her eyes snap to mine, a faint blush staining her cheeks. “I, uh, well, yeah,” she stutters, unlike herself.
I chuckle, but inside, surprise ripples through me. Would Mckenna care if I disappeared? My vanishing act, inherited from dear old dad, is my specialty. I’ve pulled it off enough times that my bandmates, Mom, and even Jameson don’t bother trying to find me.
Something pulls tight in my chest, and I rub at it, caught off guard by Mckenna’s concern. It’s nice to know someone would notice. That she would give a damn.
“Just, don’t go on any stupid benders and forget to phone in,” she snaps, her annoyance flaring.
Ah, there she is. I exhale, relieved to be back on steady ground.
Sighing, Mckenna adds, “I gotta get to class. We good?” She places her espresso cup in the sink and turns on the faucet.
“We’re good. Just one more thing.”
She quirts dish soap onto a sponge and glances at me over her shoulder.
I point at her, needing to drive this one home. “Stay out of my room and out of the studio.”
The last thing I need is Mckenna wading through my shit, or worse, seeing some of the lyrics and music I write to shake off the silence. It’s something I mess around with in the studio we’ve got downstairs. Since we started renting out space with more equipment, I’ve claimed the one in our brownstone as my haven. My lyrics are nowhere near as good as Derek’s, but they’re a hell of a lot better than when I first started writing.
She snorts and goes back to washing her cup. “No problem.” She places it on the drying rack and wipes her hands across the ass of her jeans. “See you later, Mav.”
She walks out of the kitchen, and I try not to stare at her ass as she moves up the stairs. I fail. Fucking Mckenna is an uptight prude, but damn if she doesn’t have curves.
Shaking my head, I pour myself a bowl of cereal and chomp on it until Mckenna leaves for campus. Then, I dial my brother.
“No,” he answers on the first ring.
“No, what?” I say around a mouthful of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
“No, I don’t want to hear you bitch about Mckenna Byrne.”
“You knew?” I accuse.
Jameson sighs. “Of course, I knew. I texted you twice.”
“I lost my phone in Costa Rica.”
“Shocking.”
“Took me a minute to replace it.”
“Right,” Jameson agrees, used to my bullshit. “Well, make sure you don’t lose it again. We may have a few months to dick around, but when it’s time to record, you need to be accessible.”
I mutter a swear word but don’t respond.
When I go off the grid, I’m unreachable. And, as my brother likes to remind me, it usually bites me in the ass. At least this time, it didn’t cut into band time. After our last tour, we earned a handful of months off, and I thoroughly enjoyed mine.
“Too bad, or you would’ve known Mckenna was moving in,” Jameson says, right on cue.
“Yeah,” I mumble, knowing I’m not going to get any sympathy from him.
Nope, as far as everyone is concerned, Mckenna Byrne is an ambitious, hardworking, thoughtful delight.
Too bad she’s also a thorn in my fucking side.