Page 21 of Rock & Roll Nights: The Lila and Rivers Edit
He cast her a slightly less shy smile. “My job. I’ve got orders, and they include borrowing your girl for a second.”
“Borrowing my girl?”
“Yep.” He turned back to me and slipped his fingers between mine. “Ready for this?”
“Ready for what?”
Instead of answering, he pulled me through the doors and into the bright, flashing lights of a number of cameras, all the lenses pointed at us as reporters shouted Rivers’ name and a bunch of questions, each of them trying to get his attention.
“Rivers, where are you off to first?”
“Do you have new music for us this time? I heard you were working on some love songs!”
Then they all stopped, like they’d just had their microphones silenced. And into the silence, a single voice called out, “Rivers, who’s the girl? Is this one actually something special?”
When he turned to me, his eyes were glinting with mischief. He ducked down and pressed his lips to my ear, the touch both soft and electrifying at the same time. “Just smile,” he whispered. “We need some pictures together, but you don’thave to say anything. Just pretend I’m saying something really funny.”
I smiled automatically, already knowing what the cameras would capture of this moment. Rivers’ face buried in my neck, my eyes glazed and a gentle smile on my mouth as if he was whispering sweet nothings to me. My bright, unmarked fingers caught in his tattooed hand like he had every right to claim me. These would be the perfect pictures to start us off on this whole scheme, and they would definitely make it look like we were an actual item.
We were doing the jobs Taylor had assigned us. And we were doing them perfectly.
And fucking hell, was I going to have trouble protecting my heart if this was the way he was going to go about it all.
10
RIVERS
Ifigured out within the first two days that the only way either of us was going to survive this was if I stayed as far away from her as I could.
Sure, I had to make public appearances with her. I had to make sure we were walking together on the sidewalk at times when the paparazzi were around, and that she was part of my entourage whenever I went anywhere. I found her in the crowd when I was on stage and did my best to make it look like every single song might actually be about her.
Despite the fact that I’d written all those songs before I even met her.
And most of that was easy. I had no problem taking her hand and walking with her like we were a cute couple out for a stroll. Leaning into her and saying something to make her laugh right when the cameras arrived. Looking at her like she was the most important and beautiful thing I’d ever laid eyes on, and like being with her filled me up to the top with something many people had never even felt before.
Putting on a show like that was easy. Hell, I’d spent most of my life performing and I’d practically perfected the ability topretend I felt something I’d never felt. I was a walking mask, giving the people what they wanted and protecting myself as best I could while I played their bad boy, in love with nothing but whiskey and rock and roll. I lost myself in a string of girls whose names I couldn’t remember and spun through towns I wouldn’t recognize if I saw them again. And I drowned all the loneliness with an act that everyone thought was the truth.
I knew how to pretend.
The problem was, I wasn’t pretending with Lila. When I leaned into her, it was to press my nose against her skin and smell the sunshine on her. When I took her hand, it was because I didn’t think I could stand one more moment of not touching her. I looked for opportunities to take her out, even started tipping the photographers off just so I could tell her we had to go take pictures.
Making her smile quickly became the best part of my day.
I was literally pretending to feel something I actually felt, and that was so fucked up that I could hardly wrap my mind around it.
Even worse was the fact that I knew I shouldn’t be feeling any of it. Lila Potter was the best person I’d ever met. She was literally sunshine and rainbows, her smiles lighting up the room and her laugh drawing everyone around her. It had taken her about five seconds to get to know every single one of my crew by name, and even less time to worm her way into the hearts of the guys in my band. Hudson, our rhythm guitarist, was so soft on her that he practically worshiped the ground she walked on, and Matt had taken to spending some of his free time teaching her how to play bass. Even Noah, our designated grouch, grinned every time he saw her.
It was infuriating.
Mostly because I wanted her to be mine and mine alone. I didn’t want the guys in the band realizing how special she was,much less the roadies and managers and agents. I hated the idea that she might look at anyone else with that soft, sweet smile, or bestow her laugh on another man. I wanted to tuck her up against my body and keep her away from everyone else.
Ridiculous.
I didn’t have any right to her. Not really. I was damaged goods, the baggage I was carrying around with me so heavy that I couldn’t stand it myself most days. I’d never had anything I didn’t break, and I knew enough to know that it was because of who I was. My parents had deserted me when I was just a baby, and I’d spent my entire childhood coming to terms with the fact that they’d done it because I hadn’t been enough for them.
Lila was soft and gentle and sweet, and way too perfect for me to touch. She had a family that loved her and a best friend so loyal that she’d dropped everything to come on this adventure. I didn’t know for sure, but I didn’t think anything had every gone really wrong in her life. She’d never known heartbreak of desertion.
The shadows in my past would break her, and I didn’t think I’d be able to stand it when they did.
