Bedded Bliss (Found in Oblivion #1) - Cari Quinn Page 0,3
the side of the bed and grabbed the sheet, wrapping it around himself toga-style.
She spluttered, apparently not liking being left sheetless although she’d been so damn intent on getting naked. “You’re going to regret tossing me out. I don’t give second chances.”
Michael crossed his arms over his chest. The champagne was still drying on his skin. “Yeah, well, let’s hope your fiancé does, after you’ve dragged his name through the dirt with all your chasing after me and God knows who else.”
She had the decency to direct her gaze at her left hand, now clutching her towel—his towel—to her chest. “Is it so hard to believe I thought we had a connection?”
“Even if we did, what kind of guy would I be to get with you while you’re hooked up with another man? You know what they say—how she did the last guy is how she’ll do you next time.”
“You know what? Forget it. If you want to pretend you’re no longer into me, that’s fine. I don’t have to beg for scraps.” She rose from the bed, still holding the champagne bottle. At least she’d brought that, since he rarely drank the stuff and definitely didn’t stock it. “You’ll regret treated me so harshly the next time you’re on that bus and wishing you weren’t all by your miserable self.” She yanked off the key necklace around her neck and tossed it in the middle of his bed before flouncing out the door.
A moment later, he heard the front door slam in her wake.
He rubbed his forehead and stumbled into the bathroom. Yep, he looked as bad as he thought. He needed a piss, a shave and a shower, in that order.
His cell buzzed before he’d completed the second thing.
Heaving out a breath, he headed back into the bedroom and grabbed his phone off the nightstand. Ryan Waters, his favorite bandmate. Most of the time, he was his favorite anyway. When he wasn’t pissing him off by being so damn together all the time.
Fuck, was he late for rehearsal? He was almost sure it wasn’t until five. They’d be up late anyway, so no one wanted to start working early.
Except Ry. That guy made the early bird look like a slacker for not pulling an all-nighter.
“What’s up? You mad at me because I didn’t camp out in the rehearsal hall?” Michael asked, returning to the bathroom. Maybe he could finish his freaking shave. The halfway scruffy look wasn’t doing him any favors.
He’d just picked up his straight razor—he was all about the old school when it came to shaving—when Ryan’s desolate voice came over the line.
“Dude, I’m out. I can’t play.”
“What do you mean you can’t play?” Michael gripped his razor hard enough to open up a line in his palm. He barely felt it even as blood trickled down his wrist. “We have Vegas tomorrow night. Our biggest fucking show yet.”
“I sprained my hand. I’m out. Doc says I won’t be able to play the drums for weeks, depending how I heal.”
Michael couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. “What the hell happened?”
“That doesn’t matter right now. Man, we’re fucked.”
Chapter 2
Fucked in every way but the one that included an orgasm. Yeah, that about summed it up.
“I went biking, you know down at Shelby Ridge? Those crazy paths, up through the woods, and when I came down—” Ryan broke off.
“When you jumped down, you mean. With your bike. Because you’re a crazy motherfucker.”
His best friend cleared his throat. “Correct on all counts.”
Michael tried to relax the tension in his spine. It had been an accident. Stuff happened. He couldn’t say Ryan hadn’t granted him the same courtesy after his own numerous fuckups.
They’d been friends since the first day of college at Caltech, when they’d found themselves in the same engineering seminar and wondering why they’d thought that was the right career path when all they wanted to do was play music.
Michael knew why he’d been there, of course. Controlling, overbearing father, need to please, yadda yadda, pass the therapy bill. Next.
Ryan, though, had been battling his own concerns that music wasn’t a viable choice. His family had a business repairing instruments, and he’d always had a skill with them, but he’d fallen into the “I should be doing something more” trap. Especially since he had a genius level ability with math and science, which actually explained some of his ability to play just about any instrument since math and music were way more linked than most people realized.