Page 45 of The Roadie
Kira’s gaze shifted to Brandon. He lost his shirt somewhere between the backstage party and the show, and his bare chest glistened with heavy metal chains, nipple piercings, sweat, muscle and tattoos. Black eyeliner rimmed his dazzling blue eyes, and his hair was a wild lion’s mane. But it was his voice that outshined his stage presence. It was deep and husky. Guttural and harsh. Yet smooth as butter. It was a contradiction and made no sense. It was sort of like scratching an itch. The harder you dragged your nails across your skin, the better it felt.
Brandon suddenly threw his head back and let out his signature scream. It was throaty, sexy and raw, delivered from somewhere deep in his diaphragm, and it just about blew Kira’s mind. “Oh my God!” she exclaimed, pushing her fingers through her hair.
“That’s what I say every night,” Cam said, with a smile. He leaned closer to Kira and yelled over the roar of the crowd, “He’s amazing, isn’t he?”
“They’re all amazing,” she replied. “I don’t usually listen to music this hard. I have to tell you, my blood is pumping like crazy right now. It really incites the senses.”
“I never listened to anything like this before I met Brandon,” Cam admitted. “I thought it was just loud noise.” He clapped his hand over his mouth. “Don’t tell him I said that!”
Kira laughed. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
“What secret?” Brett asked, leaning into the conversation.
She mimed locking her lips and throwing away the key, and the three of them all laughed.
“Are you having a good time?” Brett asked.
“I’m having a great time! This trip has been wonderful!” It had been the most fun she’d had in a long time, but she stopped to think about what the last two days entailed. They really didn’t do anything yesterday. Brett showed her his house and his garden, and they’d made dinner. They’d made love and spent the night alone watching TV in bed. Today, they spent the day at the beach, but just a few hours lounging in the sand. Relaxing was a better word to describe it than fun. She hadn’t thought about work in two days. Not for one single second. And she wasn’t thinking about it now, either. She was experiencing a revelation. California – Brett’s California, not the hustle of conducting business in L.A. which is the only California she previously knew – was relaxing. Other than Bulletproof’s concert, which had her ready to jump out of her skin, the past two days have been stress free and soothed her soul. And, God, had she needed it!
This time, when Kira woke and noticed Brett wasn’t next to her, she pretended to be asleep in hopes that she’d get the breakfast in bed that she missed yesterday morning. As she lay there trying to hold in a giddy laugh, she let her body sink into the memory foam mattress. It was heavenly, and she made a mental note to buy one when she got back to New York. Maybe it wasn’t the mattress at all that had her body feeling like Jello. Maybe it was the freedom of not worrying about anything for three days.
A deep sigh escaped her as she lay in bed with her arms and legs stretched to the sides without any inclination to move. She laid there, as if suspended in the air, enjoying this serene moment as the sun bathed her from the window. Noise from the hallway made her peek one eye open. Brett was heading toward the bedroom, but he only had two cups of coffee in his hands. No tray filled with breakfast. Not even a muffin.
“Wake up, sleeping beauty.”
He sat on the edge of the bed, and the scent of his incredible freshly ground organic coffee made her reach for the cup before she was fully sitting up.
“Mmm,” she hummed, with the mug to her lips. “I’m going to have to buy one of those fancy coffeemakers when I get back to New York. You’ve spoiled me this weekend.”
“I’m not done, yet.”
When he settled in next to her, she glanced toward the hallway that led to the kitchen and raised her brow. “So, what’s for breakfast? Another famous Brett Navarro omelet?”
“I thought we’d go out for breakfast. I found this really nice restaurant in Rancho Palos Verdes that’s on a mountain overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I hear they have a phenomenal Sunday brunch. And then I thought we could take a boat ride to Catalina. There’s plenty of dolphins and sealions. I thought you’d like that.”
If he was trying to impress her, he certainly succeeded. “It sounds magnificent.” She tilted her chin up and pressed her lips to his, the taste of his delicious coffee flavoring their kiss. A long sigh left her lungs, and she snuggled into the crook of his arm as if it were made for her. If her stomach didn’t rumble, reminding her that she was starving, she could have stayed there all day.
As far as she knew, there was only one bathroom at the start of the foyer that led to the bedrooms from the kitchen. She hurried through a shower and decided she’d dry her hair in Brett’s room, so she didn’t tie up the bathroom.
While she padded down the foyer in her pink bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, she rubbed at her wet hair with the towel. Brett and Grant’s voices were coming from a third bedroom at the end of the long foyer. The door was open, so she started toward it so she could let Brett know that the bathroom was free. When she reached the doorway, she saw them. Brett had a towel around his waist and his hair was wet. Obviously, he’d already showered. But neither he nor Grant were smiling. They were having a serious discussion, which looked more like a confrontation.
The revelation hit her like a bulldozer. It was the master bedroom – their parents’ bedroom. She wanted to run back to Brett’s room, but she was frozen in place as a memory of her own mother’s death haunted her. She was suddenly seven years old again and sitting on her parents’ bed. She had her mother’s pillow in her hands, and she was crying into it. She remembered that she had it pressed so tightly to her face that she could barely breathe, but it smelled of her mother’s perfume and she just wanted to inhale the scent. She had told her father to never wash the pillow or change the pillowcase so that she could always hold the pillow and feel as if her mother was right there next to her. He had left the pillow on a chair in the bedroom because he didn’t want the housekeepers to accidently mix them up and change the wrong pillowcase, and that’s where it stayed.
When she first bought her apartment, her father had shown up with a big box tied with a ribbon as a housewarming gift. It had contained the pillow. She had broken down in tears and hugged the pillow and her father. She had slept with it that first night, then placed it in one of the cubbies in her closet for safekeeping, and it’s still there to this day.
Brett’s voice broke through her trance, and she realized that he and his brother were standing in front of her, instead of across the room. They were staring at her with concern creasing their brows. “Are you all right?” Brett asked, again.
Embarrassed, she realized that her vision was blurred with tears, but at least they hadn’t rolled down her face yet. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s all right.” Brett rubbed his hand up and down her arm. “It’s just our parents’ bedroom. You can come in.”
Her eyes widened as panic washed over her. The room looked as if no one had entered it for a very long time – until the need for a second bathroom arose. She realized that Grant wasn’t particularly happy about Brett using the master bath, and that’s what she walked in on.
Before she had a chance to retreat or shake her head, Brett took her elbow and led her into the room. “Our mother loved flowers.” He motioned to the framed floral prints on the walls.
“Our dad hated these paintings,” Grant said, his voice reminiscent of a fond memory. “They used to argue about it all the time, because he said the bedroom looked too feminine. He’d always give in though.”
Brett smiled broadly and met his brother’s eyes. Grant smiled back, obviously sharing a familiar story. Even though Kira wasn’t privy to whatever they were both thinking about, warmth filled her heart because she knew how precious those memories were.
