Текст книги "Crashed Out "
Автор книги: Tessa Bailey
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Текущая страница: 1 (всего у книги 13 страниц)
His inspiration. His torment. And his temptation…
Jasmine Taveras is the reason Sarge Purcell grabbed his six-string and bailed the hell out of New Jersey four years ago. She’s the fuel for every song he’s ever written—each one laced with bitter, hard-edged, hungry lust. Now, with his hugely successful band on temporary hiatus, Sarge is determined to prove to Jasmine that this “kid” turned into every inch the man she’s always needed…
Men are slim pickings for a single factory girl in Hook, New Jersey…until tall, broad-shouldered hotness walks—or rather storms—into Jasmine’s life. Sarge’s return shouldn’t affect her this way. He’s her best friend’s much younger kid brother, and the kind of rough, gritty, sexiness Jasmine has no right to taste for herself. Even if he lets her.
But lust is a blinding, insatiable force. And when it crashes, it will take both Sarge and Jasmine down with it…
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Tessa Bailey
Protecting What’s His
Protecting What’s Theirs
His Risk to Take
Officer Off Limits
Asking for Trouble
Staking His Claim
Unfixable
Baiting the Maid of Honor
Riskier Business
Risking it All
Up in Smoke
Owned by Fate
Exposed by Fate
Driven by Fate
If you love sexy romance, one-click these steamy Brazen releases…
Crash Into Me
Played
Say You’re Mine
One Night of Scandal
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Tessa Bailey. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
2614 South Timberline Road
Suite 109
Fort Collins, CO 80525
Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.
Brazen is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC. For more information on our titles, visit www.brazenbooks.com.
Edited by Heather Howland
Cover design by Heather Howland
Cover photo by Sara Eirew
ISBN 978-1-63375-446-1
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition December 2015
For Margarita
Chapter One
A series of knots tangled in Sarge Purcell’s stomach as his best friend and band manager, James, slowed his sixty-nine Mustang to a stop outside the familiar redbrick house. Damn, it looked smaller than the childhood home in his memory. Had his family really managed to fit inside those walls comfortably? Still, it was bigger than the impersonal motel and hotel rooms he’d been crashing in for the better part of four years. There might even be a home-cooked meal with his name on it, if he played his cards right.
Sarge put a hand out for James to shake. “I guess this is the end of the road, pal of mine. Try not to get emotional.”
The always-stoic James didn’t even glance in his direction. “I’m crying on the inside.”
“Right.” Sarge shook his head, well used to James’s dry sense of humor after touring twenty-nine countries with their band Old News. Neither he nor James had anticipated staying together quite so long, both of them the epitome of a loner, but they’d ridden the wave created by Sarge’s first single when he’d been fresh out of high school. James had discovered Sarge at an open-mic night, put him together with a drummer and bass player, then prayed for magic.
Crazy enough, it had worked.
An independent record label contract and five studio albums later, however, Old News was ready for a break. Not a breakup, just a much-needed breather. With an important upcoming decision to make concerning the band’s future, they were each taking some time to think. No better time than Christmas.
Which is what landed him on his sister’s doorstep unannounced with a patched-up duffel bag, his guitar, an amp, and four years’ worth of blown-off holidays, rushed phone calls, and all-out shitty brothering to explain.
James hit him with a long-suffering sigh from the driver’s seat. “You didn’t tell her you were coming, did you?”
“No, but it was strategic.” Sarge adjusted the rearview mirror to point in his direction. “She’s less likely to tell me to fuck off when she can see this face.”
“Your face has been on the cover of a hundred magazines. Everyone is sick of it, including me.”
“Yeah.” A weight pressed down on Sarge’s chest. “I’m kind of sick of it, too.”
The two men exchanged a rare, serious glance, but looked away just as fast.
“Get out of my car.” James revved the car’s engine. “I’m staying in Manhattan at the Standard hotel if you need anything. Try not to, please.”
Although Sarge was grateful to his manager for not pushing him to elaborate on his cryptic statement, he couldn’t resist giving him a hard time. “Funny, I don’t remember you saying the same thing to Lita,” Sarge said, referring to Old News’s female drummer and renowned troublemaker. “In fact, isn’t she staying at the Standard, too? What an odd coincidence.”
“Out.”
Laughing to himself, Sarge pushed open the door and climbed out before removing his gear from the trunk. When it was lined up on the curb, he leaned down into the passenger-side window and rapped his knuckles on the door. “Maybe if you stopped bailing Lita out, she’d stop wreaking havoc wherever she goes.”
A muscle ticked in James’s jaw. “If you make a decision about the contract over the holiday, you know where to reach me. Don’t wait too long. Record labels aren’t known for their patience.”
“Yeah. Neither are you,” Sarge said, straightening. “Believe me, the contract…and everything that comes with it will be on my mind, all right? In the meantime, don’t miss me too much, J.”
As soon as the Mustang turned the block’s corner, Sarge faced the house and let his grinning smoke screen drop. One good thing about being back in Hook, New Jersey? No one found it unusual if you looked miserable. Hell, the town’s unofficial motto was, “No one escapes the Hook…might as well give up now.” That sentiment had never felt truer than it did as he stared at the two-story colonial. At eighteen, he’d blown out of the godforsaken factory town not caring if he ever returned.
A broken heart and wounded pride could make a man do crazy things.
Even now, the woman responsible could be inside with his sister, drinking wine after a long day of work at their assembly-line jobs. She might be discussing her latest love interest, the way she’d done countless times while he listened from the next room. So. Many. Times. The hearing—the knowing—hadn’t even been the worst part, though. Oh no. That had come when he finally entered the room and she ruffled his hair. Completely unaware of the jealousy storming inside him like a hurricane bent on destruction. Without a clue that he thought about her every minute of the day, even when she wasn’t babysitting him.
Jasmine Taveras. His lifelong obsession and curse.
Did he want her to be inside? Hell yeah. Because four years away should have gotten Jasmine out of his system. That’s what he’d intended when he’d bought a one-way ticket to Los Angeles after graduating from Hook High. Forgetting her. Now, however, when faced with the prospect of meeting her face-to-face, the traitorous organ within his rib cage had already found a rapid baseline, which increased in pace the more he allowed her image to surface. Jesus H. Christ. As a teenager, whenever she was breathing in his vicinity, every fiber of his biology would stretch, begging to wrap around her and harden into cement so she could never escape. He’d been too young to cope with those rushes of hormones then, but that damn sure shouldn’t be the case now.
But it was. She was the reason he’d picked up a guitar freshman year of high school, wanting to be the background to that voice. Wanting to support it, enhance it, be a part of it any way he could.
Not that he’d ever told anyone. When asked by journalists, talk show hosts, or online music blogs, his answer was always the same patented mistruth. It seemed like an easy way to get girls. If he closed his eyes, he could see the way her lips had curled on each end the first time he’d played a string of notes on his busted Gibson. He’d played every day since, never failing to see her mouth during that first strum.
Enough. With a curse, Sarge snatched up his guitar case in one hand, the amp in the other, and climbed the creaking wooden stairs leading to his childhood home. His parents had transferred the deed to his sister, before retiring and moving to Florida, knowing she could use the space for raising her now-three-year-old daughter. The niece Sarge had never met in person, thanks to a demanding tour schedule.
Damn. Starting now, he had a shit-ton of making up to do, didn’t he? With a bracing breath, Sarge lifted his fist to knock on the door, but it swung open before he got the chance. The guitar case slipped from Sarge’s fingers, landing with a thud on the hollow porch. “River?”
Across the threshold, someone who resembled his sister gazed back at him, looking baffled. Baffled and exhausted, to be more accurate. And no—it was his sister. But she’d stopped dyeing her hair blond, bringing it back to woodsy brown, along with lopping off the long, bouncy ponytail that had always been her trademark. He could count on one hand the times he’d seen River without makeup since she’d hit middle school, but she didn’t have an ounce of it on now. Even worse, her eyes were puffy, as if she’d been crying.
Guilt smacked Sarge in the face like a metal mallet. This wasn’t a bad day she was dealing with. This was more. And he’d been completely absent. Four years’ worth of absent. “Riv,” he prompted. “Hey. You all right?”
A sharp, pained laugh stumbled past her lips. “Yeah. Yeah, I just—you’ve changed so much. I’ve seen you in magazines and on talk shows, but I thought it was just the cameras making you seem larger than life. I-I didn’t realize you could grow so much after eighteen—” When she noticed the luggage at his feet, she cut herself off. “Wait. What are you doing here?”
Pretty much feeling like a tool. Showing up without any forewarning had felt fine ten minutes ago. It was a house with five bedrooms; surely there was a spare corner to crash. Family is family and all that. Now? His unexpected arrival on his obviously harried sister’s doorstep seemed on par with puppy trafficking. “I…huh.” He scratched his stubbled chin. “The band is taking some time off. I wanted to see you and meet my niece. A plan that sounded way better in my head. Are you okay? You don’t seem okay.”
River’s eyes widened a little…and filled with tears. Without warning, she launched herself at Sarge, throwing her arms around his neck. He barely had a chance to fold her too-skinny form in a hug before she pushed away and stepped backward into the house. “Um.” She turned in a circle, as if looking for a tissue, before giving up and falling sideways against the doorjamb. “It’s good to see you. The band…I still have the SNL performance saved in my recordings. You were amazing…I knew you would be.”
The fact that she hadn’t answered his question of are you okay? alarmed him even more. “Yeah. Thanks—”
“And I know, I know you’ve been sending the money every month and I’m so grateful. You have no idea—”
“Come on, Riv. Don’t even mention it—”
“—but Marcy has been asking about her father.” She lifted stiff fingers to her temple and rubbed with a jerky motion. “She’s been asking why all the kids at school have a man at their house and she doesn’t. And I can’t let you stay. I can’t confuse her or see her feelings get hurt when you leave, okay? I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
A sharp object wedged just beneath his Adam’s apple, then dug in a little further. What the hell had happened while he was on the road? Why hadn’t his parents told him River needed more than the monthly check he’d been sending? “Of course. No…I’m an asshole for not thinking about how Marcy would react.” Sarge picked up his guitar case, but made no move to leave. In a flash, it became obvious that he wouldn’t be leaving Hook for a while. Not until whatever was broken with his sister was fixed. “Just tell me what you need. I’ll make sure you get it.”
River opened her mouth and closed it again before taking a long breath. “Look. I’m going to call Jasmine. She’s got an empty room at her place and I know she wouldn’t mind you using it.”
There were only so many shocks to the system a man could take—and that one nearly knocked him out of commission. Staying in the same house as Jasmine. Seeing her, smelling her, hearing her? Everything he’d shoved down into a duct-taped box in his gut would fight its way free. He’d never be able to wrestle it back in. “No. No, don’t bother. I’ll find the closest motel.”
River scoffed. “Yeah, I’m so not letting that happen. You think I’d let you stay in a motel this close to friends and family? No way.”
“Listen. I’ll figure something out,” Sarge said with finality, glimpsing a pair of tiny neon-pink tennis shoes behind his sister, where they’d been tossed haphazardly on the stairs. “Can I…meet Marcy, at least?”
“Yes. Of course.” Misery lurking in her expression, River reached out and squeezed his arm. “Come back Thursday night? Around dinnertime?”
“You know it.”
Sensing River wouldn’t like shutting the door in his face, Sarge threw her a reassuring wink and turned to head down the stairs. Laid out in front of him, the residential block where he’d spent his youth seemed unfamiliar—like a crude depiction of hazy memories penciled out by a sketch artist. The sidewalks were broken up by tree roots, the telephone lines sagging under the weight of tied-together sneakers. There was a basketball hoop in every driveway, but no kids made use of them. It was quiet, except for traffic passing on the avenue, the occasional honk or greeting being yelled through a car window.
It wasn’t the first time in his life he didn’t know where he was headed. But it was the first time he knew he couldn’t go back. To anything. To anywhere.
“What’s your next move, Purcell?” he muttered under his breath.
Two blocks down, he could just make out the neon beer sign in the window of Hook’s local dive bar, the Third Shift.
His feet were moving before a conscious decision had been made.
Yep. Times like these, a man went out and got shit-faced.
Chapter Two
When it came to men, it was slim-ass pickings in Hook, New Jersey.
Lack of selection had to be responsible for Jasmine wearing her best dress within the Third Shift’s decaying, smoke-stained walls. Seriously. The ramshackle joint was seconds from falling down around their ears—why didn’t anyone looked concerned? Probably because each and every patron was half past wasted, shouting to be heard over a played-out Bruce Springsteen CD that always skipped on “Born to Run.” Her date—if one could give him such a legitimate title—was the loudest of the local dimwits, sloshing beer over his meaty paw as he expounded on his theories concerning factory politics. She’d heard it all before. Many times. God knew she loved a working-class hero. After all, she happened to be one herself.
But…carajo! Sometimes she just wished they would stop complaining about life’s unfairness and shut the fuck up.
If forgetting about her sweaty daily grind on the assembly line wasn’t the point of going on a date with one of these dudes, what was? She’d put on a dress and lipstick to remind herself she was a woman, not just a cog in a machine. Or the outspoken coworker who was always nominated to speak on everyone’s behalf to the boss man. There had been a time when she’d wanted more. Much more. Life didn’t always work out the way you expected, though, and she’d learned to be content. Mostly. When she didn’t think too hard about what might have been. Lofty ambitions were no longer part of her psyche, but a decent date once in a while wasn’t a lot to ask.
The night had started off pretty standard. Her date, Carmine, had driven them in his pickup to an Italian restaurant in Montclair—white tablecloths, the whole nine yards. And okay, fine, he’d yapped for forty-five minutes about his idea for novelty bumper stickers that say Mechanics Have Big Tools, but she’d entertained herself with three glasses of red wine. This was her second date with Carmine, although the first had been months ago after which she’d told him, do better next time. It seemed as if he’d taken her directive to heart. She’d even considered kissing his sorry ass good-night. Then he’d gone and done it. He’d pulled up outside the Third Shift, “just for a nightcap.”
What was it about the men in this town and the Third Shift? They didn’t consider their day complete until they’d added their unique man scent to the mélange of questionable odors. Now he was doing this thing. This “reach over and massage her neck while yukking it up with his boys” thing. The kind of move you pull on a long-suffering girlfriend, and she was far from that to Carmine.
When Jasmine’s cell phone buzzed inside her clutch purse and she saw River’s name come up, concern replaced her irritation. It was just past bedtime for Marcy. If River was calling her, something was up.
Jasmine pressed the phone to her ear and edged away from the group of men. “Hey, Riv. Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Kind of? I don’t know.” A long pause. “My brother just showed up on my doorstep. Out of nowhere.”
“You’re kidding. Sarge?”
“The one and only.”
A smile sprang unbidden to Jasmine’s lips. She’d always had a soft spot for the kid. Forever pressed up in the corner of the Purcell family’s living room, hair across one eye, playing that beat-up guitar. So quiet and thoughtful all the damn time. His steady intensity would have unnerved her on a guy so young—seven years her junior, if she recalled correctly—if he hadn’t displayed on countless occasions what a massive heart was hiding underneath all those Judas Priest T-shirts. One afternoon, during the hottest summer she could remember, Jasmine had caught him leaving a plastic bag on his elderly neighbor’s porch. Having assumed he was doorbell-ditching like most boys his age, she’d started to read him the riot act, until she’d seen what was inside. About a dozen old VHS tapes.
“Mrs. Grant doesn’t have a DVD player, so I picked these up from the thrift store. Gunsmoke, The Andy Griffith Show…” he’d explained, before vanishing into his own house without giving her a chance to commend him. Yeah, she’d known Sarge would be successful at whatever career he decided on, but she’d never expected such a rapid rise to fame. For music, nonetheless. A dream she’d always harbored for herself that never came to fruition.
Her smile slipped away. When her younger self had encouraged Sarge to follow his dreams, she’d been so confident in her own abilities, positive she would ultimately be the one whose talent earned her a pass out of Hook. But it had been Sarge’s destiny the whole time. God, he would pity her now. The girl who’d once been almost smug in her mentoring was now nothing more than an assembly-line fixture.
Jasmine realized she’d been silent for too long and shook herself. “That’s great, right? You’ll have Sarge home for Christmas.” When River released a slow breath down the line, a realization began to creep in on Jasmine’s end. “Or maybe we’re not happy about this.” She hesitated. “Marcy?”
“Yeah. She’s been asking about her father again.”
Jasmine toed the ancient barroom floor, hating River’s dejected tone of voice. She’d heard way too much of it lately. “What can I do?”
“I know it’s a lot to ask, but can Sarge use your spare room? I can’t bear the thought of him staying with strangers.” River made an agonized sound. “Maybe I should have just let him stay here—”
“Of course he can use the room,” Jasmine broke in. “Don’t think any more about it. We’re only a few blocks apart—it’ll be just like he’s home, except you won’t have to pick up his socks.”
A meaty arm snaked across Jasmine’s shoulders, beer breath drifting along her neck. He murmured something about her dress fitting her perfectly, a sentiment that unfortunately made its way to River’s ears. “Oh, Jesus. Carmine took you back to the Third Shift, didn’t he?”
“A night wouldn’t be complete,” Jasmine answered, squirming away from her date, who instead of taking the hint, only tightened his hold. “Listen, I have to handle this. Send Sarge over with a fresh change of clothes and I’ll make sure he’s comfortable.”
“Oh, thank you. You’re a saint.” A brief pause. “Hey, Jas? I know this goes without saying, but you can do a thousand times better than Carmine.”
“Now you tell me.” Jasmine’s laugh was hollow as she disconnected the call and replaced the phone in her purse. Could she do better? She wasn’t so sure. Knowing her face was in full grimace mode, she patted Carmine on the chest in a placating manner, the universal signal for go home, you’re drunk. “’Kay, big guy. Thanks for the eats. I’m going to ask the bartender to call me a cab.”
“What? No way. I’ve only had two friggin’ beers.” Ignoring her reticence, he tried to turn her into the cradle of his body. “Maybe I’m drunk on the way you look in that short dress.”
“Yeah. I heard you the first time. Not for nothing, but compliments usually come at the beginning of a date.”
“Awww, I was working up to it.” He leaned in for a kiss, but she dodged him. “What’s this about someone staying at your place? Won’t they interrupt what we’ve got planned?”
“Perdón?” Jasmine’s spine snapped into a straight line. “Of which plans do you speak? I’d answer carefully.”
Her shock was obviously the opportunity Carmine needed to go in for the kill. His chapped lips stamped down onto hers, big, grabby hands tugging her closer. Without being given time to suck in a breath, she had exactly zero oxygen in her lungs to sustain her as he mashed their mouths together. Feeling the beginnings of panic when no one came to her aid, Jasmine’s hand flew up and connected—smack—with his cheek. Once, twice. A third time.
Even after she slapped him, it took a few seconds for him to pull away. “What the fuck, Jasmine?” After a glance over his shoulder that found his group of buddies busting their guts laughing, Carmine’s hand closed around her right biceps. Tight. Tighter. “You’ve been asking for that all night, so I finally give it to you—”
Poor Carmine never saw it coming. To be fair, neither did Jasmine. One second, she was gearing up to knee Carmine in the family jewels and the next? He was on the dingy floor with an even bigger man straddling his neck, taking a punch to the face that gave even a pissed-off Jasmine sympathy pains. She couldn’t see her rescuer’s face, but through her haze of shock, she had one simple yet dominant thought.
Hello Shoulders.
They were broad and flexing and badass. Shoulders that made her think of Tarzan swinging through the jungle with a tiny blond woman clinging to his toga-covered body. Soap commercial shoulders that usually had frothy suds coasting down them in delicious rivulets while the man with a big white-toothed smile on his face lathered. God. Her rescuer could barely keep them inside his white long-sleeved T-shirt.
In Jasmine’s periphery, she could see a crowd was beginning to form around the brawl—a far bigger crowd than a fight usually warranted in the Third Shift. Some of them even had cell phones out, filming the action. What gives?
In an almost unconscious movement, Jasmine sidled around the fighting twosome to get a better look at her savior, but Carmine—finally realizing his ass was being kicked—rolled the newcomer over to lay a right cross of his own. Jasmine cringed at the thud of flesh on bone. Her date’s victory was short-lived, however, because Shoulders had the edge again within a split second, pinning Carmine down with a forearm to the throat, leaning down to get in his face.
“Took her three slaps to make you stop? Are you serious?” He pressed harder on Carmine’s jugular. “When a woman hits you, that’s a pretty accurate signal that she’s not into it.” A left hook crunched the cartilage in her date’s nose. “You know who else isn’t into it? Me. Can you tell?”
Carmine’s eyes were wide as saucers as he struggled to breath. Or speak. It was hard to tell since Shoulders commanded Jasmine’s attention. There was a familiarity about the newcomer…but she couldn’t know him. A woman remembered raw, commanding men like him. Men who spoke with conviction. They were a rare breed, and if she’d made his acquaintance, it would have stuck.
Out of the corner of her eye, Jasmine saw Carmine’s buddies set down their brews and hasten toward the fight, obviously intending to intervene. Jasmine stepped into their path, holding up a staying hand while tapping Shoulders with the other one. “Look, I really appreciate this, but you better take off before it’s five on one.”
Jasmine swore his wide, muscled back shivered beneath her touch. “What?” His tone was amused. “You wouldn’t be in my corner?”
God, that voice. Comforting and thrilling. Smooth and gritty. “You’re right, it would be five on two. I’ll take the bald one. He has a bum knee.”
His head turned just slightly, enough that she could see the rugged stubble on his chin, the strength of his profile. “I appreciate the offer, but you’re done fighting off men for the night.” As if pissed at the reminder of Carmine’s treatment, he cursed under his breath, regarding his opponent like a slime-covered slug. “When I let you speak, your first words better be an apology. We clear?”
Carmine’s eyes shot irate sparks, but after a beat, he nodded. Her rescuer removed his hold and stood, yanking Carmine to his feet by the shirt collar. “Sorry,” Carmine spat in her direction just as his friends reached them. Jasmine automatically tried to insert herself between Shoulders and the drunk locals, but he seemed to anticipate her move, grabbing her wrist and holding her away.
The men squared off for a tense moment before Carmine’s bald friend tilted his head one way, then the other. “Hold up. Sarge Purcell?” He elbowed Carmine in the ribs, who grunted and doubled over. “Old News. It’s the guy from Old News. I fuckin’ love that band, man.”
While everyone in the bar seemed to swell closer, repositioning themselves to get a better look at Shoulders with cell phone cameras at the ready, Jasmine’s jaw hit the floor in utter astonishment. Nuh-uh. No way in Hook was this giant enforcer with Tarzan body parts the kid she used to babysit. When he’d left Jersey, he’d been eighteen. Tall, sure. Handsome, yeah, okay. But growth spurts the likes of this weren’t possible, were they? She’d seen him on TV, of course. But television-size and life-size were two very different things, apparently, because Sarge had been remodeled from a one-story colonial into a big brick mansion.
Jasmine slid her grip around his elbow, noticing his muscles go taut, but too curious to analyze that reaction. She turned him around to face her and couldn’t stop the words poised on her tongue from stage diving. “Hol-y, hol-y shit.”
Sarge Purcell had turned into a man while he’d been gone.
And when he stepped closer, forcing her head back, and ran intelligent blue eyes over her face, Jasmine realized she needed to block all further thoughts pertaining to shoulders or Tarzan or soap rivulets. Those thoughts made her a pervert, didn’t they? Claro que si. Of course they did. Worse than a woman who simply found a too-young man attractive in passing, because she’d known Sarge as a preteen for God’s sake. Ribbed him when he shaved for the first time and nicked his face in ten different places.
Oh, but there was nothing left of that preteen inside this man with the bleeding lip and a five o’clock shadow. Until he stopped drilling her with those baby blues and smiled, the edge of his mouth kicking up just a notch. There he was. Thank God. Deep breaths, girl.
“You still know how to pick ’em, huh, Jasmine?”
“Hmm—what?”
Sarge jerked his chin toward Carmine. “You shouldn’t be in this place, with that guy, looking so pretty.”
You babysat him. You babysat him. “Turned into quite a smooth operator on the road, didn’t you?”
A little bit of light left his eyes. “Something like that.”
Why did she feel guilty all of a sudden? Shaking herself out of the weird trancelike state she was encapsulated in, Jasmine forced a welcoming smile onto her face. The kind you gave to the sweet kid you were babysitting when you’d brought him cookies as a surprise. “Word on the street is you’re staying with me tonight.”
His headshake was unrushed. “No. I’m not.”
A little insulted, Jasmine poked him in the chest, declining to consciously acknowledge he was hard as granite. “What? You’re too much of a star now to stay in my tiny two-bedroom apartment?”
A rain cloud moved across his face. “It’s not like that.”
“What’s it like?” Jasmine didn’t take any pleasure from delivering the guilt trip, but she needed to come through for River. Her single-mother friend had been dealing with far too much lately without wondering if her brother was spending the holiday in an impersonal hotel room. Even though the thought of Sarge’s mile-wide frame squeezing through her front door gave her an uncomfortable case of nerves.
She needed to stick to a game plan. As of now, that game plan was to treat this hot rock-star ass like the twelve-year-old boy in her memory. And if she was worried he would look around at her meager possessions and throw sympathy in her direction, she had to put it aside for tonight. “You still like grilled cheese? Come over and I’ll make you one.”
He barked a laugh. “Jasmine, I just handed your date his ass. How’s about you start treating me like I’m twenty-two?”
Twenty-two. Jesus. She’d still had stars in her eyes at that age. Ready to take on all comers. Giving the finger to anyone who said you can’t do it. But Sarge? Sarge had done it. “You might be older now, but you’re still a kid compared to me. I’ll be thirty years old—”
