Stripped Love (Guys Next Door #1) - Baylin Crow Page 0,21

expect in return. I shut the solid, wooden door and locked it.

He huffed a quiet laugh. "Okay, then."

As if he'd been inside my house a hundred times, he walked into the living room and dropped on the far end of the worn leather couch. I leaned against the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room, watching him as he scoped out my space. I was suddenly conscious of the condition of the rental. It was in need of updating the worst way. It was clean, but dated, with off-white walls and boring Berber carpet. But I wasn’t going to invest in a house that didn’t belong to me.

He scanned the photos that hung on my walls. Most of them were taken in Nashville of me posing with different bands I'd been able to meet across many genres in the thriving hub of musicians. His forehead creased, and I wondered what he was thinking.

Archer tipped his chin toward an acoustic guitar propped in the corner of the room. "Do you play?"

I kicked off the wall and wandered over to the instrument I'd saved for and bought just before I'd packed up and moved to Tennessee. All for nothing, I thought with a familiar sinking sensation in my belly as I ran my fingers along the neck. "I did. Not so much anymore."

"Why not?" The question was innocent, but it stirred a sore spot.

I shrugged and headed for the kitchen. "I'm going to grab a beer. Want one?"

"Sure." His reply was heavy with disappointment, and I hated that I was the cause of it.

I retrieved the beer from the refrigerator, and my heart slammed against my ribcage when I reentered the living room and found him reaching for my notebook that sat open on the coffee table. Shit. I hadn't realized I'd left it out from when I'd written a verse yesterday after talking to him at the shop. I hurried across the room and gently pulled it away. He jerked his hand back, but then he accepted the beer I offered in peace.

"I didn't read it," he rushed to say, but then scrunched his nose. "Well, I was going to because it was open… I'm sorry."

"No, it's fine." I glanced down at the page and breathed out a sigh of relief when I saw he'd been on a fairly innocent page—ramblings really. I'd tried to write about something else that wasn't inspired by him, and the best I could do was…uninspiring. "I just never planned on anyone reading it."

He nodded as if he understood, which I'm sure he couldn't since I hadn't told him what the sheets held. Since Archer wrote his own material, I knew he'd understand if I explained, but the questions that would follow? I wasn't ready for that. It also might've been a bit awkward if he figured out he'd been the source of many of the lyrics.

I closed the notebook and slid it beneath the couch before I sank into the cushion at the opposite end from him.

"You said you were just messing around when I asked about it before, but I think it's more than that." His casual statement was followed with a pull of his beer.

I began absently peeling at the label on the bottle and sighed. "Maybe."

"You don't have to tell me." He handed me his book, and a twinge of guilt snagged in my chest as I set down my beer and clutched his own creation in my hands.

The cover was solid white without a hint of what the pages held, and I hesitated to open it. "What's the book about?"

He rubbed his hands on his cargo shorts. "Villains."

"That's all you're going to give me?" My eyebrows rose. "I'm intrigued."

"Well, sometimes I start rambling when I try to explain," he began and shifted to face me. "Okay, so we have the queen of the sea, a siren named Phetea. Her kin keep disappearing. A pirate, immune to the call of the sirens, seeks vengeance on them for pulling his brother below the surface on a treasure hunt expedition, killing him. Violence, gore and hate." He took a leisurely drink of the beer as if he hadn't just shocked the shit out of me.

"Wait, who is the villain then?" My eyebrows scrunched together.

"All of them," he stated with a hint of a smile.

"Didn't realize you were so vicious, Arch," I teased, but had to admit I was even more intrigued.

He snorted, which was fucking adorable, and seemed to be something he