Page 40 of Play Dirty (Brooklyn Dawn 1)

She scrubbed her palms against her thighs. “It’s a Christmas song. You don’t just whip one of those up. There’s nuance and history in the best ones. I don’t want to just make it good enough.”

“Nothing on this album is just good enough, duchess. We’ll work until we get it right.”

“Let’s give it a rest, guys. We’ve been at it all afternoon. We need some food and Lindsey needs some sleep. Tomorrow’s another day.” Logan stood up. “Let’s go into town and get some diner food. It soothes the soul.”

“You two go.” I rose and set the guitar in its stand. “I’m not hungry.”

“Well, I’m starving. I’m sure I’d digest my food better if he didn’t come along.” She popped up and brushed by me. The hint of fresh soap and those damn orchids seeped into my sinuses and stuck like a damn infection. “I’ll just wash up and we can go.”

Once she’d disappeared, Logan gave me a long, hard stare. “You really want to be this much of a bastard?”

I lifted a shoulder. “It’s a gift.”

“She’s here on her one week off on tour and you’re going to push at her like she’s never sung before?”

“She can do better.”

“She’s one of the few singers I know who can do everything effortlessly. Don’t fuck this up.”

“Imagine what she could do with some effort? I need a walk.” I rose and headed out, grabbing my coat off the rack by the back door.

Maybe if I got her scent and her sound out of my head, I’d get back on track.

Couldn’t get much worse.

Ten

The ride into town was quiet. Out of my periphery, I couldn’t help noticing Logan’s finger tapping on the steering wheel. He wasn’t a twitchy guy by nature.

Part of me wanted to tell him about my past with Nash, but the other part of me needed that knowledge to stay in my vault. Saying something made it real, and I’d tried damn hard to push that night out of my brain.

Not that it had worked.

“The song is really good. If you give me until tomorrow, I’m sure I can find my way around it. Tweak it to my—”

“We’re really going to talk about the song?”

I scrubbed my hand against my leggings. “That’s what I’m here for, right?”

“If that’s the way you want to play it, I’m game.”

I pressed my lips together. “We’ll be fine. Just gotta work the kinks out.”

“Or fuck it out,” he muttered.

My palms itched and I forced myself to keep cool. “Not everyone needs to do that, you know.”

“Right. Sorry. Maybe I read you two wrong.”

“You did.”

His lips twitched, but I allowed the lie to kill the conversation. “So, what happened with Angel?”

Logan lifted his shoulder with a sigh. “We’d been waiting for weeks to get all of our schedules to line up. Wasn’t so hard on my part. All the King’s Men are on a break.”

“A happy one?”

He turned down the stereo. “Amicable mostly. After Christian…” His voice deepened before he cleared his throat. “It was hard after the festival. Too many memories. Too much shit went down.”

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