Текст книги "My Soul to Keep"

Автор книги: Kennedy Ryan

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

San fake coughs, bringing me back to my senses. I take several steps back, running my palms up and down my thighs and shoving them into my pockets.

“I was just leaving.” Rhyson looks around, frowning. “If I could find my phone. You see it, Pep?”

“Pep?” San asks.

“It’s a nickname.” I glare at him and look around for the phone. “And no, you cannot call me that.”

I grab my phone from the coffee table and find Rhyson’s number. He peers down at the screen.

“Is that how you saved me in your phone?” His incredulous laugh drags a smile to my face.

“I didn’t want to put your real name in case someone picked up my phone or . . . I don’t know.”

“So you saved me as R. Geritol?”

“Well, every time I see you, it’s as an old man.”

“Nice.” He shakes his head. “Call it.”

“It’s ringing.”

“Lost,” number nine from Rhyson’s first album, starts playing.

Rhyson and I grin at each other.

“Is that my ring tone?” I ask.

“Apparently so.” He looks around a little for where the sound is coming from before pulling it out from under a couch cushion. “Got it. I should get going.”

I glance at my phone. Wow. It’s two in the morning. Time sure flies when I’m with Rhyson. I walk with him to the door, conscious of San’s eyes on us even though he’s drinking his almond milk straight from the carton in the kitchen.

“I’ll call you tomorrow.” Rhyson pulls the door open and turns to face me.

“I’ve heard that before.” The words are out before I think.

“Did it bother you when I didn’t call for a week?” Rhyson’s lips bend a little like they’re really close to smiling.

“Of course not.”

“Still, friends stay in touch, right?” He tugs the ponytail resting on my shoulder.

We’ve done so well, besides the occasional spark and goose bump. I had to go and open my trap.

“I know you’re busy,” I say, finding it hard to breathe this close.

He backs up, facing me as he eases off the little stoop of our apartment and turns toward his car parked in a space a few feet away.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he says.

I close the door and lean against it. It’s holding me up because the combination of that last smile, his full lips, the beautiful grey eyes almost hidden by the dark hair kissing his forehead, made my knees weak.

“That was just sad.” San plops onto the couch, taking another gulp of his milk.

“Don’t start, San.” I cross into the kitchen, finding a bowl to put away in the dishwasher and a few bits of trash to toss. Anything to keep me out of the conversation San wants to force on me.

“Watching you guys trying to be friends is like watching porn with no penetration. Really hot, but no climax.”

“You’re disgusting.” I head toward my bedroom, not bothering to respond further.

“At least if I had a hot rock star wanting to screw me, I’d know what to do with him.”

“You’re welcome to try, but I don’t think Rhyson rolls that way.”

I close my bedroom door, hoping that’s the end of it. Of course, the door flies open immediately.

“He’d roll your way.” He grins at me, his handsome face and knowing grin working my nerves. “Pep.”

“Call me that again and I’m junk punching you.”

“Hey, that’d be more action than I’ve gotten in the last few weeks.”

“Ginny not servicing you?” I pull the elastic from my hair, shaking the waves loose.

“Spotted is keeping us both so busy.”

“You love it though, right?” I bring out the vintage Sonny and Cher nightshirt my mom gave me for my sixteenth birthday. It guarantees me a good night sleep every time.

“I love it, but I’m just exhausted and involuntarily celibate.”

“Two weeks?” I scoff. “Try . . .”

I trail off. My self-imposed celibacy hasn’t given me any problems until lately. San knows that, so this is a dangerous path that will only lead to more probing and poking about Rhyson and me. Or more digging about my last sexual encounter, which San knows is off limits.

“You haven’t gotten laid since that jerk from the video shoot?” San leans against the doorjamb. “How do you do it? I can’t make it through one shower without jerking off.”

“San, there is such a thing as TMI, even in this friendship.”

“Don’t get all prissy. We passed TMI around eighth grade when we went shopping for your first training bra.”

I snort laughing from that memory.

“Remember the sales lady was so polite, saying she thought I could wait a while?”

“There wasn’t much to train at the time, but you were determined not to be the only eighth grade girl still wearing undershirts.”

We’ve been through everything together. Middle school drama. High school heartbreaks. No one else could have dragged me away from Glory Falls so soon after Mama’s funeral.

“You know I love you right, San?”

His cocky grin softens until it’s just a soft crook that warms my heart and has made me feel at ease more than half my life.

“Sometimes I know you better than you know yourself, Kai.”

“True story.” I take off my earrings and stow them in the jewelry box.

“That’s how I know you’ll jump Rhyson’s bones before the year is out.”

I whirl around, pointing to the hall behind him.

“Out.”

San laughs, steps back into the hall, and closes his door. His parting words reach me through the door and stay with me until I fall asleep in my beloved nightshirt.

“Mark my words.”

IF I HADN’T BEEN BORN A musician, I’m pretty sure I could have made a living as a professional gamer. A lot less money. A lot fewer women. A much pastier complexion. Upside is I wouldn’t have to wear disguises to go out in public to avoid some camera shoved in my face every day. This is the alternate destiny I consider as I kick my best friend, Marlon’s, ass in Madden. Again. He just won’t give up.

Kai’s ring tone breaks my concentration. Where’s my damn phone?

“Pause it.” I tear my eyes away from the screen, scanning the floor for my phone. It doesn’t escape my notice that Marlon’s still playing.

“Man, pause it.” I toss my controller to the floor and start flipping couch cushions up searching for my phone. “You seen my phone?”

“What’s it look like?” he asks.

“What the hell do you mean what’s it—” I stop to look at him. Smartass is holding my phone up, inspecting the screen.

“Give me my phone, Marlon.” He thinks I’m playing, but if Kai hangs up, I’m suspending him from a chandelier by his dreadlocks.

“Who’s Pepper?” His teeth flash white against that dark chocolate skin the girls fall at his feet for. He wiggles his eyebrows. “Is that her stripper name?”

I snatch my phone and walk a few paces away, turning my back on him.

“Hey, Pep. What’s up?”

“Nothing much.” Her honeyed, husky voice goes straight to my dick. I should be used to it by now, but I’m not.

“Everything okay?”

Even though I’ve told her over and over to call me if she ever needs a ride, she never does. San usually will text me or call. I’m glad I resisted the urge to cut his balls off when I found out they lived together and that he was her first. How I restrained myself that night, I’m still not sure, but it’s apparent that aside from one random initiating sexual encounter in a storage room on a bag of grits, they’re like family. So for her to call . . . even Madden’s not worth missing this.

“Everything’s great,” she says. If we were together, I bet she’d be biting the sweet curve of her bottom lip. “I . . . um . . . well, I worked an extra shift at The Note today.”

Not surprising. She’s the hardest working girl I’ve ever met.

“An extra shift, huh?” I laugh and lean against the pool table Marlon insisted I had to have, but we rarely use. “That sounds like you.”

“Yeah. Well, my manager gave me the day off tomorrow.”

“Cool.”

I need to let her take the lead here. I’m always the one initiating contact, calling her, picking her up from work, texting first. In the six weeks we’ve known each other, this is one of the few times she’s reached out to me. I need to be patient enough to see how far she’ll come.

“And I don’t have a class to teach tomorrow.” She clears her throat. “And Grady doesn’t need me.”

Okay. That’s enough hanging back. Who am I kidding? I haven’t seen her in days, and I’m practically salivating at the chance.

“We should hang out or something,” I say, keeping my voice casual.

I’m really not used to being in this position. The one chasing and playing down my feelings. But Kai is like another species. I’m not even sure she’s fully girl. She rarely even acknowledges that I’m famous. Or rich. She won’t let me within an inch of paying for lunch, much less the gargantuan medical debt she’s struggling to pay off.

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” She sounds relieved that I suggested it first. “Maybe you could pick me up from work, if you don’t have anything to do.”

“I’m free all night,” I lie, already calculating just how much shifting it’ll take to free up my night. “What time should I pick you up?”

“I get off a little early. Nine o’clock.”

“What do you wanna do?”

“Well, I’m still pretty tired from the double shift. I was thinking . . . well, before I called you, I was thinking I would just stay home and catch the Sex and the City marathon.”

Shit. That’s a boring bullet through the head.

“You know, I’ve wanted to see that,” I force myself to say. “I never saw it when it was on television.”

Kai’s knowing chuckle loosens the air between us.

“I call BS, Rhys.”

“Okay, it sounds about as good as Legally Blonde.”

“That’s more like it!” She laughs outright on the other end. “But just like Legally Blonde, you have no idea what you’re missing.”

“Mmmmm.” Let’s just leave it at that.

“I’ll make a deal with you.”

“This should be good.”

“We’ll watch a few episodes, and if you hate them, we’ll watch something you want to see.”

“That sounds fair.”

“It’s really fair.”

“Now, if I agree to watch this marathon of girlery, you have to do something I want to do tomorrow on your day off.”

“The optimal word being ‘my.’ You want to dictate what I do on my day off?”

“I promise it’ll be more fun than what you were planning to do.”

“You don’t know what I was planning to do.”

“Ah, let’s see. Did it involve cleaning your bathroom, doing laundry, and watching something like, I don’t know, Burlesque?”

Her momentary silence on the other end makes me appreciate all the long nights in her living room after work when I actually listened.

“Burlesque is another movie you should give a chance, by the way.”

“The hell I’ll watch Cher and Christina Aguilera grinding on chairs and singing show tunes.”

“Wow, talk about oversimplification of a plot.”

“I’m pretty sure the plot was already pretty simple.”

“You’re such a snob.”

“I think we both knew that.”

She chuckles on the other end, and I’d like to teleport wherever she is right now. In a matter of weeks this girl has twisted me into a Boy Scout knot. She invades my mind at inconvenient times, like when I’m supposed to be writing, during meetings for the tour, or in the middle of sessions.

First thing in the morning. Just before I fall sleep.

“Okay, snob,” she says. “What are we doing tomorrow?”

I want to fist pump, but I’ve matured beyond that. Also, I feel Marlon’s inquisitive eyes on me. He’s already going to ride me about this.

“I was thinking a short ride to Pismo Beach to ride dune buggies.”

“A short ride?” Her voice squeaks. “Isn’t that like two hours away?”

Almost three, but who’s counting?

“Something like that, but we’ll make a day of it.”

It’s the closest we’ve come to a date. Usually our time together consists of me picking her up from work, taking her home, eating leftover food from her job, and us talking or watching movies until San comes home and cock blocks. Not that there is any cocking to block, but still.

“So is San out tonight working?” I ask.

His work for that sleazy online rag has picked up significantly. If I weren’t positive he’s completely loyal to Kai, I’d worry. Me dating a girl whose best friend is basically a pap? Not that we’re dating. We’re . . . friending. Just ask my right hand. Every morning in the shower it sees how I’m handling all this friending.

“He’s in Vegas on assignment,” she says softly. “So I’ll be home alone.”

This time I do fist pump, and sure enough, Marlon gives a knowing grunt, which I ignore.

“Maybe I’ll just stay over then.” I say it like it’s not monumental. “I don’t want you home by yourself.”

One of the things I love about Kai is her brain.

“Wow. That’s big of you,” she says, words dipped in sarcasm. “I think I’ll be fine. We’ll see.”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever,” I agree. “We’ll play it by ear.”

I’m staying.

“Okay, see you around nine then. And don’t worry about a disguise.” I can hear the smile in her voice, and it makes me smile even though I can’t see her. Goofy shit like this keeps happening. “Just text me when you’re outside, and I’ll come to the parking lot.”

“Okay. See you at nine.”

As soon as we hang up, I dial my manager.

“What’s up, Rhys?”

New York probably won’t ever leave Bristol’s voice, no matter how long she lives on this coast. Her words are always like tiny pellets coming fast and hard at me. Managing me is probably the only thing that would have ripped her away.

“Hey, I need you to reschedule tonight’s session for me.”

If I leave it at that, maybe she won’t act like it’s a big deal.

“What the hell?”

Or not.

“Don’t give me shit on this, Bris. Just do it.”

“That’s what you said when you made me bring all these musicians from all over the freaking world for these damn sessions.” Bristol wraps her hard-edged voice around the words to full advantage, like a wire hanger.

“They’re here for another few days. I’ll pay them the same no matter what. No skin off their backs. Just tell them we’ll pick up on Sunday night.”

“But you leave for New York Wednesday. You don’t want to rush this.”

“I think I’m the musician here. I know what I’m doing, Bris.”

“I just want you making the best use of your time, Rhyson. You brought in a damn flutist from Budapest.”

“I think he prefers flautist.”

“And I prefer not to have all my hard work undone, for what? What is more important than laying these tracks for your next album, Rhys?”

Usually nothing, but there is nothing “usual” about what’s been going on with me since I met Kai. I haven’t introduced her to Marlon or Bristol or anyone in that other part of my life. I’ve roped my time with Kai off from everyone else because, well, it’s mine. Mine and hers.

I threw the friendship flag out as a way to get closer to her because I thought I might want more. Now I know for sure I want more, but getting to know her this way is fantastic, and in all honesty, I just want to keep her to myself as long as I can. Not have Bris or Marlon questioning her motives or soiling what has been the purest connection I’ve ever shared with anyone. She asks nothing of me. She’s not after anything, except to know me the way I want to know her. To talk about music and movies and the things that have hurt and helped us. I have close friends, great friends, but this is something I’ve never had before. She is something I’ve never had before, and I can’t get enough.

I’ve told her a lot about emancipating from my parents and coming to live here. Not everything, but more than anyone who doesn’t already know. She’s told me about her mom and the years she stayed in Georgia taking care of her. Her dedication, her sacrifice, challenges me. I’ve lived for myself all my life, and music and ambition have been the constant driving forces. It’s hard for me to imagine delaying my dreams for anyone. I’ve never had to.

“Rhys, are you still there?” My extended silence has pushed Bristol from irate to angry in seconds. “What do you expect me to tell these session players?”

“Tell them I had a last minute conflict, and like I said, we’ll pick up with the session Sunday night. It’ll be fine.”

“But I just don’t—”

“Bris, what’s your job?” She had to go and make me play the boss card.

Her heavy sigh huffs between us.

“To make your life easier.”

“Then do it.”

I slide my phone into my pocket and make my way back over to the couch where Marlon sits. I feel his eyes on me, but I just press the button to restart the game.

He pauses it.

“So this Pepper girl is worth cancelling a session that’s costing you thousands of dollars?”

God of the joystick, give me patience.

“Man, don’t start.” My eyes don’t leave the action paused onscreen. “Let’s just finish the game.”

I press the button. So does he. Pause again.

“Was that Bristol on the phone?”

I run my hands through my hair and scrunch my face up. Can we not just play the damn game? I was winning.

“Yeah, and can I say how creepy it is that you perv on Bristol?”

“Your sister’s hot.”

“Of course she is. We’re twins.”

“If that head gets any bigger . . .”

“Let me worry about my head.”

“Which brings me back to Pepper. You getting any head?”

Comments like that make me keep Kai to myself. Well, that and the fact that I just want her to myself.

“I’m not talking about her with you.”

“Oh, so you like her.”

I could deny it, but I do like her. And I haven’t talked to anyone about it. Certainly not Grady. He’d hang me by my thumbs if he realized I was still trying with Kai. I’ve visited his studio and “bumped into” Kai while I was there a few times. I’m sure it’s obvious from our banter and teasing that we’re friends, but he trusted me when I said I wouldn’t pursue her. We were both fools to think I’d stick to that.

“I like her, yeah.”

It’s quiet for a few seconds. So quiet that I risk a glance at the man who has been my best friend since we met at the L.A. School for the Arts way before I won my Grammys and he became known as Grip to his fans. Two misfits who clicked immediately even though I was a classically trained dork pianist who couldn’t buy a clue, and Marlon was a straight-from-the-hood wannabe rapper and spoken word artist flapping around like a fish out of water. We’ve seen everything the other has been through since we were sixteen, over a decade of friendship, so he knows girls don’t ever really move beyond the “tapped that” category with me.

“You for real, Rhys?” Marlon’s dark brows pique with his interest. “You catching feelings?”

Screw it. If I have my way—and I always do eventually since it’s one of the perks of being me—he’ll meet her soon enough. And the sooner I give him what he wants to know, the sooner we can get back to my Madden domination.

“Long story short, she wants to be just friends. I’ve accepted it, but I’m kind of biding my time because I know she feels more for me than she admits.” I toss the controller to the floor and lean back, resting my head against the cool leather couch cushion. “So yeah, catching feelings or some shit like that.”

Marlon turns the corners of his mouth down, nods, and fixes his eyes on me for more of the inquisition.

“How’d you meet her?”

“Through Grady. She’s one of his students.”

He rolls his eyes and sucks his teeth, the universal sound of disgust.

“Aw, man. An aspiring singer? You sure she ain’t just thirsty?”

“She’s not. She barely accepts a ride home from me, much less wants help with her career. It’s ridiculous.”

“What’s she look like?”

I don’t even want to show him what I have on my phone. Kai had beaten me again at movie quotes and was dancing around like a goofball. She literally did the sprinkler. I caught it on video. Even acting goofy, you can see the lean curves of her dancer’s body and that tight, plump ass. Her dark, tilted eyes laugh into the camera. Her hair is pulled up into this big knot on top of her head. She’s wearing no makeup, but you want to bottle the way her face glows. My heart starts pounding harder watching this ten-second clip. When I show Marlon, his mouth drops open a little.

“Damn, she’s hot.”

He pulls his finger over the progress bar like he’s planning to watch the clip again.

“That’s enough.” I grab the phone and slide it into my pocket and out of reach.

“So why haven’t we met her? You haven’t brought her around or anything.”

“You know what a bitch Bris is. She’d scare her off.” I point an accusing finger at him. “And you’d freak her out with that player thing you do. And Jimmi . . .”

Jimmi, Marlon, and I all met in high school. We count on each other. We share everything. But this? I’m not sure I want to share yet. I’ve never brought a girl around. Not a groupie, a girl that I won’t be able to hide how much I like.

“Well, there’s also the fact that Jimmi’s in love with you.” Marlon leans back into the couch and crosses his feet on the oversized tree trunk that is my coffee table.

“She’s not.” I hate it when he says that. I hate it because it may be true, and I don’t know how to fix it without ruining my friendship with the girl I’ve known since I had acne.

“What about last summer between you two?”

Jimmi wasn’t my only regret from the ten-city tour we did together last summer, but she’s the only one I have to face on a regular basis.

“All kinds of shit happens on the road,” I counter with a shrug. “It was a mistake.”

“Yeah, but when the girl wants to keep making that mistake over and over and over again for the rest of her life, that’s called being in love.” Marlon pulls his locks out of the elastic band holding them back from his face, freeing them to fall around his shoulders. “See, that’s why you need to introduce me to this Pepper. You don’t know women. I know women.”

“Is that why you’ve been asking my sister out for two years and have exactly zero dates to show for it?”

“We’re playing a game of cat and mouse, me and Bris.”

“More like Never Will I Ever.”

I have to laugh at myself for that one, which doesn’t please Marlon.

“So do we get to meet her soon or what? You could bring her to Jimmi’s birthday party in a couple of weeks.”

It’s a private party, so there won’t be any media. Kai has made it clear she doesn’t want anyone thinking her road to the top ran through my bed, so I want to protect her from the paparazzi circus my life can be when I’m out. It’s not for another two weeks, so there should be time to persuade her. She has friend zoned me so hard, I have no idea if the next few days will get me any closer to being . . . whatever I want to be to her. Boyfriend? Fuck, that sounds like I want to take her to the prom or something.

What would I call what I want us to be?

I just know I want to spend as much time with her as any day will allow. I want her slow-cooked molasses Southern drawl to roll over me and seep into all the cracks hard days leave behind. I want to fall asleep talking to her about music and wake up from dreaming about her naked to find her naked beside me. I want to teach her to play piano just so I can touch her fingers. I want to give her nice things because I know she’d never ask for them. Because I know she doesn’t need them. I want to taste her, to kiss her so deeply my tongue hits the back of her throat. I want those small, high breasts heavy in my hands. I want her nipples swollen when they brush the roof of my mouth. I want to hold her so close our heartbeats syncopate.

So what’s that called?