Beneath the Stars (Falling Stars #4) - A.L. Jackson Page 0,42

’em away before someone gets hurt, lovie humps.”

On top of that whole bane of my existence thing? She was also one of my closest friends. Other than Richard and Emily, she was the only one who knew. Mostly because she was in the business of getting me out of the disasters I got myself into.

Diving into hot water to drag my pathetic, drowning ass out.

“Don’t lovie humps me,” she growled, those hands perched on her hips. “Tell me what’s goin’ on in that warped little mind of yours.”

She pointed her finger at my head like she might be pointing at a crusty pair of underwear stuck to the rug in the corner of her bedroom, and she wasn’t quite sure how they’d gotten there.

“Knew the second I saw you that somethin’ was up.”

She’d shown up this morning right before what turned out to be our first practice since we’d delayed yesterday’s after Maggie had taken that tumble. Melanie had come in a few days after the rest of us because she’d been in Vegas for her sister’s bachelorette party.

As per her usual M.O., the second she’d walked through the door, she’d started flinging demands left and right. Had done my best to keep any wayward emotions under the radar, but those beady hawk eyes had been watching me the whole damn time.

Still, I shrugged and said, “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

Tipping the beer up, I gave it a good guzzle.

“Yeah, right. I see those dodgy eyes, and believe me, I’ve seen those dodgy-ass eyes enough times to know when you’ve gone and gotten yourself into a load of trouble. Now what did you do?”

Wasn’t really the question of if I’d gotten myself into somethin’. It was which somethin’ I was gonna fess up to.

In this case, I was going for deflection.

“Um… you were here for the whole showdown. Thanks to Leif and Richey-Poo, I now have to write an epic song that goes on the album or I have to ditch my hashtag that I’ve built up with nothing but years of TLC. The pressure,” I whined, playin’ it up.

During practice, my online ‘antics’ had once again been called into question.

I had a little tradition that after each show, I’d do the crowd a solid and strip off my shirt and toss the sweaty mess out into the mayhem. Girls would go nuts. Clamoring to get it, fighting over it like it was their own personal version of MMA.

Tradition had it that whoever finally managed to take it home would take a picture of themselves in it and post it with the hashtag, #IGotWetWithRhys. Usually, they didn’t have anything on underneath.

Most of the time, I’d be waitin’ on the sidelines. Doing another honor of helping them out of said shirt.

It made for a great distraction.

Easy sex. Easy smiles. Easy fun.

Both parties more than satisfied.

For a little while, it kept my mind from wandering to places I didn’t want it to go and let the tension I carried around bleed free.

For a moment, that lonely, vacant space didn’t gape so wide.

Turns out, the rest of the band didn’t like it all that much, and they thought it’d become unfitting for the type of music we were putting out into the world. They’d gone and challenged me to write a song that would blow Sebastian Stone’s rock ‘n’ roll mind.

It would be the first time a song I had personally written would be included on an album.

If I failed? I had to put that whole hashtag biz to rest.

Unease squeezed my rib cage.

Thing was, I wasn’t so sure I liked the whole hashtag thing all that much these days, either.

Tried to snuff my thoughts from racing toward the reason for that.

The girl who was gettin’ under my skin.

Far too deep.

“Bullshit. You think I don’t know you’re salivatin’ all over that challenge? A chance to show how great you are? Come on.” Ponytail swishing around her shoulders, Mel rolled her light-brown eyes before they sharpened again. “Now fess up.”

I blew out a sigh. Might as well go for gold. “So, I might have gone back to Tennessee and snuck in to see her.” I hem-hawed the confession out, like maybe there was a chance I hadn’t actually done it and I was contemplating the viridity of the statement, head bobbing before I was chugging the second half of the beer.

I turned my back on her and went for another.

I might as well have opened the freezer side with the artic chill that