One More Time - Ali Parker Page 0,27

tapped ‘Save’ on my tablet and clicked the sleep button. “In that case, we’re all done.”

“Whoop whoop,” Matt cheered dryly, then surprised me by reaching out and giving me a quick, one-armed hug. “Thanks for making that relatively painless, little Diamond. I’m sure we’ll be seeing you soon.”

“Sure thing,” I told him, not able to stop from smiling. Matt’s easy way brought that out in me, it seemed. “Have fun with whatever it is you do later.”

He laughed and sauntered over to the door, stopping to shoot me a wink. “Always do. You too, Kelly. Peace.”

Without a backward glance, he pulled on the door handle and was gone. Dom and Nick said their goodbyes too, seeming to forget that I was even in the room as they left. They were heading off to practice next, and Dom was saying something about the setlist while Nick was muttering about how they’d better finish on time.

They followed Matt out the door with brief, final waves, and when it shut behind them, I sagged back into my seat and just took a minute to pull myself toward myself—proverbially speaking. I’d just interviewed three of the most adored, most desired, and undoubtedly most beloved sons of rock ‘n roll of our time, and I’d lived to tell the tale. And to tell it with some pretty cool, down-to-earth, and honest quotes.

Mentally congratulating myself on not having had a superfan moment or something, I couldn’t help but think about the members of Destitute who hadn’t been in attendance. And I didn’t really care where Jared had been. I was pretty sure he was out smooching my sister.

The missing member of Destitute I was thinking about was the other Larsen. Caleb’s deep brown eyes played in my mind as I wondered how he might have answered my questions. He didn’t seem like any of the other three, but he was still known for his one-night stands.

Even so, I hadn’t seen him photographed with anyone else since we’d started sleeping together, and it was really starting to mess with my head about what we were doing. He kept saying it was just fun, and boy, was it fun, but it still felt like something deeper was happening.

We’d slept together several times, sure. But we also kept going out to dinner together, and we always talked straight through. We weren’t worried about being seen out together since we had a cover: if a tabloid showed up, it would just look like a reporter interviewing a subject. Because of our cover, we could stay out for as long as we wanted to, and we took advantage of that, staying out for hours and eating wherever we wanted to, cameras be damned.

The more time we spent together, the more it started to feel like something more than fun. Caleb was so insistent that it wasn’t, though, that I had to be imagining things. Maybe I was in a state of semi-permanent, post-orgasmic bliss, and that was why I was seeing things or making things up that weren’t really there.

The man was a god in bed. Surely, my orgasms were what was actually messing with my head. There was nothing going on between me and Caleb. I just really liked sleeping with him. That was it. I had to stop imagining that it was anything more.

Chapter 11

Caleb

“I think that’s a wrap, boys.” Jared spun his microphone in the air, caught it in one hand, and grinned like a maniac. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta get out of here.”

“And into your fiancée,” Matt offered with an equally wicked grin and set his guitar down in its stand.

“Fuck yeah, you got that right.”

Jared fist-bumped him as he walked by, still carrying his favorite mic. He always guarded it like a talisman before we went on tour. No one knew where he went with the thing, but I couldn’t help but wonder if he took it to bed with him.

I laughed a little at the mental image that thought produced and then banished it immediately. I did not need to know what Jared did with that thing. Matt and Nick left with Jared, apparently having been invited to sundowners on a yacht that was rented for the album release party of a new girl band I couldn’t stand.

“Caleb, you got a minute?” Dom asked quietly, cornering me once the others were gone. I was packing up my guitar, wanting to make sure that this one got loaded in its correct case when