No Commitment (Capital Kingsmen #1) - Lisa Suzanne Page 0,2
mind of his own. He can still opt not to drag the pen across the paper to sign up for something so stupid. He can still be a big boy and make an adult decision.
“Well this time I don’t,” he snaps, and I don’t know if I’m just overly sensitive because my hormones are already all out of whack or if he’s being a dick, but his tone is rubbing the anger—and the fear—already pulsing in me the wrong way.
“Hey, don’t yell at me because you’re choosing to go down a stupid path,” I snap back.
“It’s not stupid,” he snarls. “It’s what I have to do.” He draws in a calming breath and softens his tone. “I have an obligation to three other men and my label.”
He has an obligation to me, too. He just doesn’t know it.
“Don’t you have an obligation to us?” I ask softly, trying to get him to see this is all wrong.
He looks sad when he says his next words. “Yeah, Dani. I feel it. I do. But we both agreed to no commitment until we had time in person together, and it’s not that big a deal. It’s only another month max and then we can figure things out between us.”
“Not that big a deal?” I yell. “Only another month? Okay, then fine. Don’t bother calling me when it’s all over.” I spit the words out without really thinking about them, without really meaning them, but now they’re out there.
His brows push together in some combination of anger and surprise. “You can’t be serious right now.”
“Then how come I am?” I hang up, and I throw my phone down beside me.
He tries calling back, but I’m too angry to answer.
It’s a dumb fight. I know this. I know we’ll get past it and make it through to the other side a month from now.
We have to.
There’s a baby in the picture that he doesn’t even know about.
CHAPTER 2
TYLER
TWO YEARS AGO
“Dammit,” I mutter when she doesn’t answer. I toss my phone and it hits the side panel of the bus where I’ve been sleeping most nights over the last six months. If it breaks, well, that’s life. Everything else around me is breaking, too.
The end is in sight. We’ve got one more show tomorrow night in New York and that’s it. Boom. This tour will be roasted. I’ve never been more ready for a tour to end.
Normally I love the road. I love touring, I love music, I love everything about my job.
But my job has come between me and the woman I’ve wanted since I was a teenager. I finally got my shot. I took things slowly...well, after that first night. Nothing about that first night was slow.
Despite my history and my natural inclination to hump and dump, as Tommy so eloquently puts our shared penchant for one-night stands and flings with women we know we won’t see beyond a night or two, I haven’t done any of that shit since Danielle Watson waltzed back into my life.
And it was all a fluke, too. Her boss had an emergency, so she had to step into his role as the venue manager, which put her right in my path. If she would’ve just stuck to her normal back of house duties at the arena, we never would’ve crossed paths. She wouldn’t have known who I was—in particular because I’m not the skinny band nerd who was a distant part of her past.
I’ve replaced those memories now, by the way. It took one night in Milwaukee when Capital Kingsmen toured through her arena and then another weekend in California that was far too short to prove I’m all man now.
We grabbed a bite to eat at Carne’s, the chain restaurant where we worked together with locations right on the beach. We sang the slogan to each other all weekend: “Guacamole, fajitas chips! The salsa makes me do backflips!” I did an actual backflip in the sand. We fell in love with the people we are now since we missed our chance back when we were teenagers. We had sex.
And we didn’t make any commitments—not any verbal ones, anyway.
But my stupid heart clung onto hers in those moments, and now I can’t stop thinking about her.
I haven’t stopped thinking about her since I was seventeen. My days are filled with the bass guitar, but at night, the memories plague me. She’s the one girl I never got my chance with.