I looked down at my plate. I’d eaten all the shrimp, left some pasta. It wasn’t a big deal. If I got hungry later, I’d munch on Animal Crackers. “You mind taking care of the cleanup? Actually, if you want, I’ll do it tomorrow.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Killian rose, peering at me. “You okay?”
“Yeah, fine. I just, you know, forgot something, and I have to take care of it right now. Otherwise…er…my editor can’t start working on my book.” It was a terrible lie, but he wasn’t a writer. He wouldn’t know.
I rushed home…then stopped in front of the door. Shit. The snake nest. I pulled out my phone to call the pest control and animal removal company, and spotted a text from them an hour earlier informing me my house was clear. My phone must’ve gone off while I was cooking.
I went inside my house. Now that I was away from Killian, my heart was beating more steadily, my skin wasn’t prickling and my chest didn’t feel funny.
I trudged to the fridge, keeping an eye out for random serpents, and grabbed a beer. I wished I hadn’t said anything about my faith in real love—or lack thereof. It wasn’t something I’d ever told anybody. As a romance author, it was expected of me to believe in the power of love, just like Killian was supposed to believe in the power of rock and roll.
It was just that my guard came down every time I was around him. He made it easy for me to bypass my safeguards—even my all-time favorite: keep my mouth shut so nobody would have anything to lob back at me. My dad had taught me the value of silence by using his cross-examination skills over and over again to corner me into saying or admitting things I didn’t believe in.
I put my feet up on the table, slowly sipped my beer and thought back on the day so I’d be better prepared next time I saw Killian. I wondered what it was like to believe in love the way he did. He’d seemed genuine when he told me. On the other hand, my exes had seemed pretty genuine too until things started to get hard for them. As in I’d started to pay more attention to my career than their needs.
It was most likely that Killian loved the idea of love—having somebody who’d put him above all else. Didn’t rock stars have egos? He was successful, too. And hot. It only made sense.
I cued up Netflix to watch some movies until I fell asleep, even as my mind whispered that Killian might be different.
Chapter Twenty-One
Killian
The morning after the dinner with Emily, Billy’s Plumbing and All Things Water called. They had a cancelation, and could come out if I was okay.
Was the sky blue? Hell yeah, I was okay. I wanted hot water for my dishwasher and laundry. Grandma had always said the whites never looked right without a hot-water cycle, and my recent loads had proven her right.
So I put some music on and waited for their work van to show up while reading one of Emily’s books. But I kept drifting, thinking about Emily’s reaction toward the end of the dinner. The wide, uncomfortable look in her eyes. The squirming. The slight trembling of her fingers. I didn’t think she’d realized how transparent she was. An unfamiliar ache wrapped around me, because she was obviously freaked out about making what we had between us something more.
My phone—the personal one—buzzed on the table, interrupting my train of thought. I picked it up to see who it was, since it wasn’t playing Darth Vader’s theme.
Group video call with the guys. I hadn’t talked to them in a while. Smiling, I answered it.
“Hey.”
“Yo, yo, yo, yo! How’s life?” Dev said with a wide grin. Mischief and good humor lit his eyes, his black hair slicked back. The man hadn’t shaved in at least two days, but that undoubtedly hadn’t stopped him from scoring. It looked like he was in a hotel suite.
“I’m good. How’s Fiji?” I asked. He’d been wanting to go since forever, and had split for the archipelago as soon as the tour was over and the doctors said I was okay.
“Wasn’t bad. But I’m in Spain now. Lots of hot chicks, man. Lots of hot chicks.”
I almost laughed. Dev lived for women. He didn’t believe in “limiting his horizons,” and he was the biggest reason the band always had a swarm of women buzzing around. They knew he welcomed them all, even if I didn’t. And that was okay. It was a big improvement over the dark phase of his life immediately after his relationship with Ashley imploded. She’d been cheating on him, and he basically quit believing in commitment.
“You should join me,” Dev said. “I know you hate flying, but man, it’s awesome. I kept a box of chocolate-flavored condoms for you.”
“Thanks, but I haven’t even opened the one you snuck into my bag.” It had been his not-so-subtle way of telling me to get laid. There was no problem a vagina couldn’t fix.
Max rolled his eyes. He also enjoyed women, but didn’t pursue them the way Dev did.
Cole merely shook his head. He was engaged, so he kept his dick on the straight and narrow.
“How you feeling, K? Better?” Max said.
“Yup,” I replied, smiling a little. Max never called me Killian. Mainly because he didn’t want to say more syllables than absolutely necessary. He preferred nonverbal communication when possible, grunting when some kind of sound was required.
But that didn’t mean he didn’t say what needed to be said. Max was the one who’d suggested taking time off and doing our own thing after my hospitalization. We’d lived and breathed in each other’s space for a decade. He thought it’d do us good to do our separate thing for some time. Everyone had agreed, and we generally looked more energetic and rested now, the break and time away obviously having done everyone some good.
Did I look better too? I was still bothered by the fact that my brain wasn’t creating music yet, but I didn’t bring it up. I didn’t want to cause any unnecessary concerns when I hadn’t given Emily’s method a try yet. Not the bath idea, but trusting the process. I hadn’t done that before because I’d never had to. Ideas had always come to me in a fire-hydrant gush, more than I could ever possibly use. But things were different now, and I was a firm believer in trying pretty much anything at least once to see if it works.