Page 92 of Dirty Rock

When I opened my eyes again, she was frozen in place. Her eyes closed, lips parted, and her skin flushed.

She stayed that way for a long moment, and I’d remember that look of hers for a lifetime, no matter what happened next between us.

“I’ll get things back to how they should be right away. I wouldn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”

Her eyes flickered open, and a look of worry flashed over her perfect, porcelain face. I smiled tightly, knowing it wasn’t quite reaching my eyes, as I tucked her hair behind one ear and trailed my fingers down her neck.

“I get it,” I whispered. “There’s no room in this industry for a silly little twisted thing like love.”

Somehow, I walked away and disappeared into the bathroom, letting the door close behind me.

If she wanted to play, we were going to play.

I knew who was going to crumble first.

Over my dead body would it be me.

Chapter Thirty-Two

“You look like shit,” Dicky said, not so much as glancing at me as he leaned forward and tapped away on his phone. He was sitting on one of the sofas in the rehearsal studio while Hawk plucked some strings behind us, and the rest of the guys huddled in a corner, talking over some issues with the key they wanted me to sing in. I slumped back beside Dicky, my head thrown back, and my hand on my forehead.

“Rough night?”

“Nothing too wild,” I answered.

Julia walked past us both, glancing my way with a look on her face I couldn’t decipher before she lifted her chin and made her way to the others. I closed my eyes and groaned.

“What’s that about?” Dicky nudged my leg, forcing me to roll my head his way. He nodded to Julia.

“Fuck knows. She’s been pissy with me all morning.”

“What did you do this time?”

“Breathed?”

“She’s been different since she came back. Come to think of it, you’ve been different, too.”

I laughed softly, my chest barely bouncing. “Yeah, that’s because we’ve been secretly fucking behind everyone’s back. You dumb fucks just haven’t been paying enough attention to see what’s right in front of you.Self-involved bastards,” I whispered sarcastically.

Dicky’s silence forced me to peek an eye open and take him in. His face had dropped completely.

“Don’t you dare…”

I smirked right at him. “Are you forbidding me to fuck Julia? You know what happens when people tell me I can’t do something.”

There was an uncomfortable moment between us before he shook his head and turned back to his phone, mumbling under his breath about what a pain in the arse I was, and how Julia was way out of my league anyway. I glanced her way, watching her smiling and laughing with Pres, Hawk, Coops, and Big D, while each one took it in turns to hold her attention. Normally, I’d have argued with Dicky that she wasn’t out of my league, but now…

Now I wasn’t so sure.

Did the others see her the way I did when they looked at her? Had they always noticed her, and I’d just been the blind motherfucker too lost in his own ego to see what was right in front of me?

She never made things easy for me, and I liked that. It made me want to give her something neither one of us thought I could give. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t go there today. Not after the big show I’d put on in the hotel room that morning. I’d stepped out of bathroom, only to find she’d already left for the studio, leaving me to stare at the empty room like I’d lost something important.

Watching her with my bandmates—my best fucking friends in the world—was driving me crazy. I sat upright, bringing my arse to the edge of the sofa.

Just go to her, you prick. Make her squirm.

I was about to when the studio doors were pushed open by a security guy dressed from head to toe in black.

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