No Commitment (Capital Kingsmen #1) - Lisa Suzanne Page 0,13

is the one who usually deals directly with musicians or their team.”

“It’s, uh, regarding a personal matter,” I explain.

She nods, and then she hands me a sheet of paper. “Can you make it out to C-L-A-I-R-E?”

I give her the smile I know melts panties right off women, and she blushes as she picks up her phone and dials a number.

“It’s Claire, and I have someone at my window who would like to speak with you,” she says into the phone, her eyes still on me.

My heart palpitates.

This is it.

A reunion two long years in the making.

I draw in a deep breath as I sign the paper.

To Claire: Thanks for helping me out. Love, Tyler Caldwell

Or, rather, the legible part looks more like Ty Cal.

“Can we get a selfie, too?” she begs.

I nod. “Of course.”

The plexiglass still separates us, but I get as close as I can to the window and she sits on her desk and smiles as she snaps the photo.

My phone buzzes in my pocket while I wait, and I grab it to see who’s texting me.

Brett: What the fuck happened with you and Tommy?

I sigh as I stare at the message. I don’t want to deal with it now, but I sure as fuck won’t want to deal with it later, either.

I’m just sliding my phone back in my pocket when I hear a voice. “Can I help you?”

The voice is loud enough that it has to be coming from the other side of this window. I glance up and see not my Dani but a man standing there.

“Are you the assistant manager?” I ask.

The man nods. “Ford Pruitt. Can I help you?” he repeats.

“Isn’t the assistant manager Danielle Watson?” I ask.

“The former assistant manager, yes,” Ford says, his brows dipping together. “Why? Who wants to know?”

“Tyler Caldwell, bassist for Capital Kingsmen,” I say, patting my chest.

Recognition seems to dawn in his eyes, and then his eyes widen into...something else. I can’t put my finger on what it is, though.

“Why do you care?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at him.

“Because she’s my wife.”

CHAPTER 8

TYLER

His wife?

As in...she’s married?

Of all the ways I saw this playing out, this was not one of them.

I don’t know what to say.

It’s only been two years.

Well, two years plus that month I spent in the house without my phone for that stupid reality show that was the entire reason she stopped talking to me.

I could’ve gotten her to talk to me if I would’ve had just a minute to get to Wisconsin to talk to her, but I wasn’t afforded that luxury.

And now she’s married.

To the guy who apparently took her job.

What the actual fuck?

“Oh.” It’s all I can manage to say. I’m at a true loss for words.

Do they have kids?

Are they newlyweds, or have they been married a while?

Does she still love me?

How did she so easily move on when I haven’t been able to?

“Is there some message you’d like me to relay to my wife?” he asks, and his last two words are a fucking knife through my heart. She’s a wife.

“Uh, no,” I say, grabbing onto the brim of my hat with both hands as I yank it down still lower. “Thanks anyway.”

I speed away on foot as fast as I can from the ticket booth, and the Uber who dropped me is long gone. I figured she’d take me back to her office, and maybe we’d talk, or we’d make up for lost time and fuck right there on her desk. That wasn’t my expectation, but a guy can still hold out hope.

And instead of any of that, I’m walking away from the ticket window with a brand-new hole in the heart that was already crushed into pieces.

I find a hotel with a room available nearby. I book it on my phone, and I find it’s less than a mile away, so I decide to hoof it.

Each action gets me one step closer to getting the hell off this property, but it does nothing to repair the damage that was made here.

The walk doesn’t do me as much good as I’d hoped.

And it gets worse. Once I check in, I look out my window over downtown Milwaukee, and I’m looking out right over the Forum. The place where she worked. The place that was first such a magical epicenter for our reunion and now represents this place of broken dreams and hopelessness.

I could ask to change rooms, I guess, or I could just shut the fucking drapes. I