Page 6 of My Song for You
The other part of me argued that I was making a big deal out of nothing. It would only be for the one time. Jared was busy and would be leaving soon on another tour. After the party, we’d probably never see him again.
While the yea and the nay were battling it out in my head, Jared raised an eyebrow at me. “So do I get an invite to the party? Or am I not cool enough to hang out with you guys tonight?”
He had askedme,but Logan decided to answer for me instead. “You’re invited.” Then he looked at me with those eyes that were impossible to say no to. “Right, Mommy?”
Just this one time,I reminded myself.Jared will come over, we’ll catch up on whatever I can tell him, and then I can go back to pretending he doesn’t exist in my life.
I told him where we lived. “Mrs. Rogers is coming over at five p.m.”
He told us he would see us then and left, suddenly leaving me to inwardly freak out again. I’d just made a huge mistake and it had nothing to do with Logan.
Instead, it had everything to do with the girl who Jared had once seen as his girlfriend’s annoying little sister, the little sister who’d wanted to tag along with the guy she idolized. The little sister who one day grew up and realized that the guy who was four years older than her really was an amazing guy. The real Jared, not the one the fans thought they knew. The Jared who I had been crushing on since I turned seventeen.
The little sister who couldn’t risk the crush becoming something more.
But by the time I realized it would be a mistake for Jared to come over, he was gone—and I had no way to cancel on him.
Chapter 3
Jared
The last time I saw Callie was five years ago, just before my world was turned upside down. Her sister, Alexis, was two years older than me, and had been my girlfriend when I was seventeen. Well, more accurately, she was the hot babe I’d enjoyed equally hot sex with on a regular basis. We’d dated for a few months, but then realized we were more interested in having sex together than having a relationship. Not that Callie knew that. At the time she had been a cute but awkward thirteen-year-old who I had always known would one day be beautiful.
No, Callie had been like no other girl…and she was still like no other girl, but in a whole new way. She might’ve been wearing baggy jeans and an oversized white T-shirt with paint splattered on it, but the awkward thirteen-year-old had clearly grown into the woman I had predicted she would be. A beautiful, curvy, sexy woman.
Logan’s dark hair must’ve belonged to his father. A father who wasn’t coming to the party. Callie hadn’t been wearing a ring, so she wasn’t married nor was she engaged. Maybe she had a boyfriend but he was too busy to attend tonight.
On the way home from the grocery store, I bought flowers for the mysterious Mrs. Rogers. I also found a dog-shaped helium balloon that was perfect for Logan. At home, I tossed the phone numbers that had been shoved into my jeans pocket during the radio event, then showered.
Afterward I sent Mason a text:Will be late meeting up with you.Have something I have to do first. I still wanted to hang out with the guys, but I was curious what Callie was up to these days—other than being a mother. The girl I remembered was a talented artist and had dreamed of one day working at Pixar, the animation studio.
My curiosity, though, extended only to Callie. The last thing I cared to hear about was the woman who had aborted my child two days after telling me she was pregnant, no matter what I wanted. Yes, at that point all Alexis and I had been to each other was a hot and satisfying fuck. A one-time thing. Nothing more. We had bumped into each other one day, and it hadn’t taken long before we were reminiscing about the backseat of my car…only the reminiscing took place in my apartment.
The restlessness that had struck while I was at the radio event returned. It had been hovering around me for the past year while touring. Back then it had been easy to ignore. But now, ever since I’d returned to L.A., it was harder to pretend the restlessness didn’t exist. It was like a mosquito bite. The more you tried to ignore it, the more it itched to the point of driving you completely insane.
But unlike with a mosquito bite, there was nothing I could put on this itch to soothe it. I just needed something to distract me.
Callie’s apartment was in a part of L.A. where rents were higher than most twenty-two-year-olds could afford. It was definitely in a nicer part of the city than where I lived. Maybe Logan’s father was in the picture after all, or she was living with a boyfriend. It seemed an ideal neighborhood to raise a child. The streets were clean, as were the houses and low-rise apartment buildings. The surrounding gardens were green and well maintained. People took pride in living here.
I found Callie’s building and parked my car in a visitor space. I gathered my gifts and walked to the front entrance. Inside, the place smelled clean and safe. Callie buzzed me in a moment later and I rode the elevator to the third floor, then walked down the hall to her apartment.
I knocked on the door, and a few seconds later it opened. Callie flashed me a small, uncertain smile and let me in. She had changed out of her T-shirt and jeans and was now in a red sundress, the color faded.
“Did you have any trouble finding the building?” she asked, voice slightly shaky. She glanced up at the balloon and smirked. “I take it that’s not for me.” The smirk slipped away, and her teeth pressed into her lower lip. Some girls did that when they were nervous. Callie did it whenever she was worried.
“No,” I said with a laugh. “I remembered how terrified you were of them.”
She rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t terrified of balloons.”
I leveled my gaze at her, enjoying this as much as I had enjoyed teasing her when she was a kid. “Really?”
“Hey, I couldn’t help that I didn’t like the loud bang when they popped.”
I snickered. “Is that why you always shrieked like a large hairy monster was after you?”
“Says the guy who freaked out when a caterpillar fell down the back of his T-shirt.”
“Hey, in my defense, I had just watched a TV special on venomous caterpillars. I thought it was one of those. Nice place, by the way.”
