Page 30 of Play Dirty (Brooklyn Dawn 1)

We ate in the living room with the current album playing through his hidden speakers. And we argued over deep bowls of cheese and pasta and sauce.

We dissected the album and rearranged the songs well into the night until I passed out sometime around four in the chair in his living room. The damn thing had magical properties. I’d spent far too many nights sleeping in it.

The sun was slanting its way across the living room and the heat index was chasing it. Warmer today than the last, that was for sure. I must have slept more than my usual four hours. Not shocking since I was at Logan’s. I blamed the air—it was too clean. Fairly poisonous for a city boy like me.

Voices carried from out front, but I wasn’t quite up to playing the polite guest. A nose nudged under my hand. I scratched down the soft ginger nose of Bella’s massive dog. “Morning, Fi.”

She chuffed out a whine and I buried my fingers in her fur to get to her ears. She groaned and leaned into the hard scratch. Dogs, I understood. They had simple needs. They never meant to piss people off.

She tried to climb into the chair, and I grunted when she missed my junk by an inch. She plopped her ass down on my lap and laid her head down on my arm. I laughed and allowed myself to act as her personal couch. She was well over one hundred pounds and had never learned the words personal space.

I tipped back my head against the chair cushion and soaked up her warmth. Not a terrible way to start the day.

I closed my eyes and dozed again.

“What the hell is he doing here?”

My eyes shot open at the question. I must have drifted off and dreamed it. There was no possible way that voice was real.

“You’re a bastard, Logan.”

“Why?” Logan sounded honestly puzzled. “I thought this would be a good thing. You guys worked so well together at the festival.”

I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, but it was no use. Her voice was real, all right. Instead of the dreams I could forget about after a few minutes, this was a live-action nightmare walking into my life.

Lindsey-goddamn-York. In the flesh.

“Son of a bitch.”

Eight

No freaking way.

No way on this earth.

Alexander Nash was sprawled in my favorite chair in the middle of Logan’s living room with Fiona curled into him as if he was the king he believed himself to be. He was unshaven and his inky hair was tousled with sleep.

Soft.

Almost approachable.

Almost human.

Not the unforgiving man who’d invaded every part of me in that dive bar.

Instead, he seemed more like the man who intrigued me all those years ago. When I first met Nash at the summer festival, he’d played the piano like a demon. All that passion mirrored my own.

I’d been so light and carefree back then, a few months before we’d finally nailed a hit single. Fame had pushed Brooklyn Dawn along like a cork in a raging river. Bigger venues, bigger stages, bigger dreams. Jamie had been given the opportunity to create a line of custom instruments with Gibson. Oz and Zane had been visiting the Fender warehouses to create one-of-a-kind guitars.

We’d even added a new member to our family recently. Teagan had settled into the band as if we’d been waiting for her all along. Even the entertainment magazines loved us.

My life was good. Way more amazing than I deserved some days.

But sometimes I missed the girl at that festival. No glitter and glam, just the piano and an intimate crowd. A man staring at me for the handful of songs we’d performed together as if I was his personal oasis. His raspy voice was jagged and imperfect. It had slayed in ways I still didn’t understand. I was fairly sure he didn’t either.

Those moonlit eyes had excited me. A blue so light it reminded me of the wild, eerie eyes of a Husky. They’d been hungry and had made me dig deeper inside of myself for emotions I’d locked up. I couldn’t afford them when I was trying desperately to get my band seen and heard.

All those emotions and memories battered at me now. For a moment, it seemed as if our night in the darkened piano bar in New York City was utterly separate from those two people in a sawdust-scented barn.

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