Rocked (The Everyday Heroes World) - Julia Wolf Page 0,43
“You little shit. Does that work on your dad?”
She smirked. “Pretty much.”
Giving in to her, I strummed along with Gavin Rossdale and sang the lyrics I remembered, humming the ones I didn’t. Ellie played along with me, really getting into it when the chorus hit. She wailed with me, sounding as tortured as the original song. I was honestly impressed by the pipes she had on her.
When the song came to an end, Kat ran her hand over Ellie’s hair, pride filling her eyes. “Dad’s going to love that, kiddo.”
Ellie tucked her hair behind her ear. “Devon?”
“Yeah?”
“There’s this harvest festival in October we always go to. There’s music and food and all my friends are there. Anyway, they let amateurs play at the beginning of the day, and I was kind of thinking I might sign up...if you do it with me.”
Kat slapped her forehead. “Ellie, you can’t ask Devon to do that.”
I kind of fucking loved that Ellie had asked. It was brazen as hell, just like her. “I’ll do it.”
Both of them stared at me with round eyes and dropped jaws. “You will?” Ellie squealed.
“Sure, why not? As long as I’m only your backup,” I said.
She nodded, her hair swishing around her shoulders. “Yes, obviously.”
That had me laughing harder. Obviously Ellie was the star.
“I have to practice a lot more before then. Don’t tell Dad, okay? I want him to be surprised at the festival.”
Kat mimed zipping her lips, and I held up my hands. “Can’t say I’ll have too many opportunities to spill the beans, but if I happen to run into your dad, my lips are sealed.”
We practiced for a while longer before Ellie declared herself done for the night and ran inside with Leroy to call her friend, Molly. Kat’s head fell back on her cushion, and she sighed. Setting my guitar aside, I picked up her feet and set them in my lap.
She lifted her head. “What are you doing?”
“Helping you relax.” I dug my thumb into the arch of her foot, and her head collapsed back again. “Have you been avoiding me?”
“No...not really. Ells came home, then I worked. Life’s busy. I don’t have very many days where I can have sex on the dining room table.”
I huffed. “Pretty sure I’d die if I had days like that regularly.” I kept kneading her feet, the skin on the bottom smooth and soft. “You have nice feet.”
Her head rolled to the side, and she grinned. “I always accuse Veego of having a foot fetish. Don’t tell me you actually have one.”
“I don’t, but yours are pretty.” Dipping my head, I kissed the arch of her foot. When she didn’t kick me in the face, I ran my tongue along the side, then nibbled her big toe.
“Devon...you can’t…” Her eyelids lowered, not in fatigue, but pleasure.
“I’m not gonna fuck you with Ellie wandering around, Kat. I’m just taking care of you when you spent the last twenty-four hours taking care of people who needed it.” She stopped protesting, so I kept rubbing her feet, sometimes stopping to lick or nibble, but mostly keeping it PG.
“How’s your music coming along?” she asked.
“Good,” I grunted. “I have a couple complete songs. Not enough for an album, but it’s something, you know? I’ve actually been able to think while I’ve been here. All my usual distractions are far away.”
“Man, I loved your first couple albums.” She smoothed a hand over the top of her head. “There was so much soul in that music. I used to play it for Ellie when she was an itty baby, and she’d calm down to listen. Where’d that soul go, Devon?”
“I guess I lost it along the way. Listened to people who care more about dollars than art. And maybe I started caring more about the dollars than art too.”
“Why?”
“Ah, god…” I groaned. “So many reasons. The industry changed. I changed. I’m not the twenty-two-year-old kid who was crazy in love with his wife and the world and his fans. I’m a thirty-five-year-old man and I’ve lived my life in a way that’s left me alone. The only thing I’ve got is my fame, and if I lose that, who am I? Will I fade out of existence? That fucking scares me, Kat, so yeah, I listened to producers who told me to evolve my sound with the trends instead of keeping true to the music that got me here in the first place.”