today? Couldn’t be one of the cute pairs. Nope, had to be the cotton ones I wore for work. My life sucked.
Not that it mattered. Hi, friends. Friend. Zone. That was it.
“So, did you have a wild night last night at the bar?” He leaned forward to rescue his cup from the coffee table and sipped. “Heard you and Tina killed it at karaoke.”
I winced. “You heard about that?”
He settled into the ancient couch. “I did. ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ will never be quite the same. At least according to the YouTube I saw.”
I pulled the blanket over my head. “I’m gonna kill Bree.”
“You should be honored. She created a channel just so she could post it. Lucky for me, she tagged me.”
And that would be my fault. If I hadn’t blathered to Bree, one of the other waitresses, that I’d known Myles since we were in college, then that little secret would have stayed in the pub.
“Forever immortalized.” He nudged me until I pulled the blanket down. He flashed me his phone and there I was, warbling like a cat on LSD. Tina was trying to sing with me, but we both kept dissolving into fits of hysterics.
“Kill me now.” I hooked the blanket back over my head.
He laughed and tugged it down. “It’s adorable.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Better than some of the YouTubes I’ve got up.” He scrunched down in the couch and stretched out his long legs then laced his long, ring-clad fingers around his coffee cup, tucking it above his buckle. “Wish I looked as good as you when I’m hungover, though.”
I tried to stifle the flush rising on my cheeks. “I’m sure that’s an overstatement.”
He turned his head and grinned at me. “Definitely not. I could easily wake up to this every morning.” He tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “Every damn day.”
“Myles,” I whispered, “what the hell are you doing here?” Screwing up all my plans. I wanted to say it aloud, but I didn’t.
Especially since all my plans seemed to be burning around my feet like ashes.
Six
This girl had been my very best friend for years, through college and into the first few years of my garage band status. It seemed only right to have her here while I was changing my whole life one more time. She was my constant. Even with a two-year gap, she was the one touchtone I’d never been without. She didn’t know how many times I’d almost called her from the road. Almost showed up on her porch.
Almost begged her to come on the road with me.
That night when we’d kissed, I’d known it was a mistake and yet I’d done it anyway. But walking away had been for her. And selfishly, for me. Navigating fame and the tour had been grueling. I couldn’t have put her through that.
Or asked her to wait.
I’d tasted her wide, lush mouth and knew ruin on a foundational level. That single kiss had been better than any other I’d had with the dozens of women who had rolled in and out of my life.
Not nearly as many as the music rags and blogs liked to pin on me. If a woman stood next to me, the paparazzi assumed we were fucking. First of all, no. Hell no, for most of them. And secondly, no man had that kind of stamina. Not even Bryan, our former pornstar drummer.
“I’m here for your surprise, remember?”
She frowned at me. “What kind of surprise?”
“That would ruin the…” I widened my eyes comically.
“Surprise,” she said with a groan. She popped the top off her coffee and gulped it down in a few swigs. A girl after my own heart.
Coffee was life blood.
Well, until I got another taste of Fee. I’d lived on the memory of that kiss for a damn long time. Either I’d built it up in my head to a feat close to nirvana, or she was going to kill me when I got her under me.
Either way, I was good with the collateral damage. This time, I was putting everything on the line. My heart, my pride, and more importantly, my future.
She leaned forward and wrapped the blanket around her, but not before I got a glimpse of her rubber ducky panties one more time. Along with the long, enticing stretch of tanned flesh and a little tattoo at her hip.
Hmm.
I’d be interested to see what that was. I would have bet money that Felicity had virgin skin.
She tossed a look over