Love Song Read online

  “Fine. Then you sign nothing until it’s looked at by your lawyer,” Rafe said, his voice stern. I noticed that he refused to call Mike by his name. “Got it?”

  “Jeez, Rafe, my vagina doesn’t make me stupid,” I snapped back at him.

  Nikki snorted. “No shit. You got this, sis. Come on, we’re supposed to be celebrating. Could we stop arguing? Please?”

  I glanced at Rafe, his expression stormy. “Fine. We’ll stop arguing,” I said.

  He lifted his chin in agreement, but his eyes wandered to the busty broad again. I slumped down in my seat, appetite gone, and stared at her. Not only was she stunning, she probably didn’t argue either. She was exactly the kind of woman Rafe wanted. Silent and stacked.

  I closed my eyes, surprised that I was near tears. The pressure of the last few days was really getting to me. I needed to find my center. I had just been offered a deal that would get me out of Rafe’s life. Not to mention his bed.

  I’d finally depend on no one.

  12

  “Easy does it,” Rafe said, grabbing me before I stumbled off the curb in front of the restaurant. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder, and I leaned into him.

  “Whereisthecar?” I slurred.

  “Valet’s on it,” he said.

  I’d packed away three gin and tonics—a lot for me—while I argued with Rafe over dinner. Nikki and Dion had split as soon as we paid the check, leaving Rafe to deal with me, inebriated and slightly belligerent. In my defense, he’d goaded me on.

  But now I was silent as the valet pulled up in Rafe’s Range Rover.

  “Did you mean that stuff about Bobby?” I whispered as I climbed into the passenger seat, ignoring Rafe’s hand. “That he doesn’t think I’m talented? He just wants to fuck me?”

  He heaved a sigh and pulled away from me, closing the door. I slumped in my seat and watched him cross in front of the truck. Palming a tip to the valet, Rafe climbed into the driver’s seat.

  I stared through the windshield, keeping my eyes in front of me. My nose itched, and a single tear drew a wet path down my cheek.

  “Jett,” Rafe started.

  “I’m not Presley,” I said. I was trying to keep it together, but my voice cracked. I pressed my fingers against my cheek, smearing the wetness across my face. “I don’t have the great boobs and the high ass. I’m not built like fucking Barbie.” I risked a glance in Rafe’s direction. He looked like he was about to say something, so I just barreled through. “But I’m a talented songwriter. A damn talented songwriter. I make Presley look good when she’s on that stage. I make her more than a sex symbol. My lyrics… my words make her respected.”

  Rafe pulled out onto West Sixth and headed for Santa Monica Boulevard.

  “You’re right,” he said, glancing toward me as I shifted in my seat. “You’re not going to get sick in the car, right?”

  “I’m not drunk. I’m pissssssssssed.”

  Okay, I was a little drunk.

  “Jett—” he started.

  “You wouldn’t understand,” I snapped, leaning over the center console toward him. “I mean, geez, you just smile and women fall all over you. Like that bitchy waitress from the diner. All you have to do is show that sexy gap tooth, and it’s game fucking over. And when you’re playing guitar…” I sighed heavily. Watching him play was so beautiful it was almost criminal. God! I was exerting way too much energy. Rafe exhausted me. “Ugh, never mind.”

  “No, I’m not gonna never mind. What about my playing?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I said, shifting back into my seat.

  “You can’t start to say something about my playing and then not finish.” Rafe stopped at a traffic light and turned toward me. “Come on, what if I started to say something about your music and then didn’t finish? You’d be freaking right the fuck out. So tell me.”

  I bit my lip. Rafe leaned toward me, his hand releasing the steering wheel to cup my cheek.

  “Light’s green,” I said, crossing my arms across my flat chest.

  He stepped on the gas. “Finish what you were saying.”

  I stared into the side mirror, considering my words. “When you play, you’re like… well…” I hesitated, and then, emboldened by gin, plowed forward. “You’re like sex.”

  “I’m like sex? What does that even mean?” Rafe asked. Did he seriously not know what that meant?

  “You are sex,” I said. “Your movements, your expressions. It’s like when they’re watching you play, women just want to climb into bed with you.” I rubbed my hands along my thighs, nerves coating my palms with sweat. “Like they imagine you stroking their bodies the way you stroke your guitar, rubbing, plucking, pressing.”

  Jesus. I needed to shut up before I orgasmed in the passenger seat. Stupid, stupid gin.

  “And you know this how?” Rafe asked.

  I shrugged. “Just watch you play a lot, that’s all.”

  Shit.

  I glanced at Rafe, hoping he didn’t catch that. I should have said I watched the damn crowd when he played.

  Rafe slowed as we approached the driveway. My eyes tracked his hands loosely holding the steering wheel, his long, strong fingers on display…

  “Wait! Don’t turn,” I cried out.

  Rafe swung the truck out of the turn. The guy behind us leaned on his horn and chucked Rafe the finger as he crossed over the double yellow line to pass us.

  “What the fuck, Jett?” Rafe bit out.

  “Sorry, I just—” Now I was rooting around in my backpack, trying to hold on to the words that had formed in my brain. I pulled out a torn envelope and clicked open a pen. Using my thigh as a desk, I started jotting down the words that were playing in my head.

  “What are you—”

  I shushed him.

  “Got it,” he said.

  Then he responded by just driving. I felt the truck take turns and hit straightaways, felt the engine speed up and wind down. But I kept my head down, and Rafe remained silent, letting me work out the phrases that danced in my head. When they finally formed a passable stanza, I looked up and noticed that we were parked in the lot of the Griffith Observatory, the lights of Los Angeles glittering in front of us.

  “All good?” he asked.

  “Yeah, sorry,” I said. “Just had something in my head, wanted to get it down.”

  “I know,” he said, pushing a piece of my hair behind my ear. Our eyes locked.

  “I know you know,” I whispered. If anyone understood that part of me, it was Rafe. Dammit.

  “So, you get it down?” he asked, breaking the silence that stretched between us.

  I glanced down at the paper in my lap. “I think so.”

  “Can I see?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Not yet.”

  “Okay,” he said, and for the first time all night, he didn’t pick a fight with me.

  “We can go back now,” I said, cocking my head in the general direction of his West Hollywood apartment building.

  “Not yet,” he said, turning on the sound system. Gotye’s “Don’t Worry, We’ll Be Watching You” kicked in.

  “What are you doing?” I asked over the bass line.

  “Not ready to call it a night yet,” he said, reclining his seat.

  “Rafe, I have a busy day tomorrow,” I said. “Nikki called a Satan’s Sisters meeting at noon, and then I’m meeting with Bobby. I need my rest.”

  Rafe stretched over the console, and my breath caught in my throat. This song was sexy, and I was tired and still tipsy. Mixed with Rafe’s scent, all musk and leather with a little citrus thrown in, my inhibitions were dropping. Fast.

  “So rest,” he said as his arm reached over me and hit a button. I flew back as the seat reclined.

  “What the hell—” I protested, but Rafe pointed up. I followed his finger to the ceiling. The sunroof was open, and a nearly full moon hovered above us. The tension bled out of me as I stared at the moon, enveloped in the music around us. Each song that str
eamed through the speakers had a sexy-as-hell bass line. In the middle of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Down Boy,” Rafe lowered the volume. He shifted so he was on his side, looking at me.

  “Still pissed?” he asked.

  I turned my head to him, and he brushed a lock of hair out of my eyes. “Yes.”

  He chuckled. “You’re lying.”

  “Maybe a little,” I admitted, wrinkling my nose at him. “It’s just… I don’t know, Rafe. I’ve had a lot to process.”

  “I know,” he said. He stared at my mouth. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” I asked.

  “Being a dick.”

  “Which time?”

  “Can this cover all the times?”

  “It can cover you for the last forty-eight hours,” I said.

  “But I missed, like, thirty-six of those.”

  My heart ached at the reminder, but I ignored it. “Exactly.”

  “I’m still waiting on an apology for the slugs in my schoolbooks.”

  “You can keep waiting,” he said, adjusting onto his back again. “You ratted me out to Vince. You deserved the slugs.”

  “What are you talking about, ratted you out to Vince?”

  “You told him I was failing English,” he said.

  “How the hell would I even know you were failing English?” I asked.

  “Because we were in the same class,” he responded.

  Rafe was one year ahead of me in high school, but I had been in accelerated English with the seniors. “I didn’t even know you were failing. If I did, I would have offered to help.”

  “Yeah right,” he said with a smirk. “If it wasn’t you, who was it, then?”

  “Who knew you were flunking?”

  “Dion and Kyle,” he said. He turned his head to me. “And Vince was giving Kyle shit for taking home a D in history.”

  “Sounds like Kyle ratted you out to get Vince off his back,” I said. It was a total Kyle move. Not to speak ill of the dead, but Kyle would have thrown Mother Teresa under a bus if it took heat off of him.

  “That little shit,” Rafe said, rolling his head back to the sky. “Sorry about the slugs too.”

  “Yeah, I’m going to have to think hard about forgiving that one.”

  “How about you let me make it up to you?”

  “How will you do that? The trauma was already inflicted.”

  “Let me take you to dinner.”

  I stared at his profile, his angular face catching the moonlight, giving him a mysterious edge. God!

  “Letting me crash at your place? Hooking me up with En Fuego? I think we’re square, Rafe.”

  It was my turn to roll onto my back and watch the stars. If I stared at his face any longer, I was certain I’d say yes to more than dinner.

  “What if I want to take you out for dinner?” he pressed.

  “We’ve had takeout all week, and you’ve covered it,” I reminded him. “Trust me. We’re square.”

  “Come on, Jett. You are missing the point here.”

  Impatience edged his voice, making me snap my head up to look at him.

  “I’m asking you out,” he said.

  “Asking me out?” I repeated.

  “On a date.”

  I lifted my head. “On a date?”

  He crossed his arms. “You’re not exactly making this easy.”

  “But you were just in New York,” I said.

  “And?” he asked. “I figured we’d have the date here in LA, but if you’d prefer New York…”

  “I would not prefer New York,” I said.

  “Okay, so we’ll stick to LA.”

  “God! You are such a jerk,” I said. “You were literally just in New York with Reesie, and now you are asking me out on a date?”

  “Jett, New York was nothing,” he said.

  “Didn’t look that way on Broome Street. Based on the pictures that exploded the internet, it looked like Reesie was crying. I bet she doesn’t think it was nothing.”

  “You know what, forget I said anything,” he said. “I just felt bad. For the slugs.”

  The track changed, and now “Digital Bath” by the Deftones was playing. My thighs quivered while my heart ached.

  “You know, women have been known to want to date me,” he said.

  I looked up at the sky. “What about Reesie, Rafe?”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  Maybe it wasn’t exactly what I thought it was. But Reesie didn’t seem to know either. And that he’d treat both of us like this spoke volumes. He was not the man I wished him to be.

  “Rafe, what you do is not dating. You hook up.”

  “I take them out to eat after.”

  “You didn’t feed the waitress,” I said. At least he looked sheepish after I said that. “And you usually take them to Pink’s.”

  Rafe grinned. “But you don’t eat hot dogs.”

  Rafe cupped my cheek in his hand, his thumb brushing my cheek. I stared at his mouth as it angled closer. My chest tightened with a mix of anticipation and trepidation.

  “We should really go home,” I whispered, our lips just inches away from each other.

  Rafe heaved an audible sigh and pulled away from me. He righted his seat and turned on the ignition. The Range Rover roared to life, and we drove back towards Sunset Boulevard in silence.

  13

  “You look like shit,” Nikki said when I walked into the rehearsal studio the next day. She was already behind her drum kit and had the glow of a woman who had just gotten laid.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, removing the baseball cap that protected my pale skin from the California sun.

  “Three G&Ts? You were lit like a freaking Christmas tree last night,” she razzed me. I winced when she did a cymbal crash for good measure.

  “You’re an asshole, you know that, right?” I snapped back.

  I had woken up in Rafe’s bed again. Fully clothed, thank God. When we’d gotten back to his place, it was late. He’d holed himself up in his practice room while I went into his bathroom to do my nightly routine. When I saw his bed, I’d told myself I’d just lie down for a minute. The next thing I knew, it was morning and Rafe’s legs were tangled up with mine.

  Even though I’d felt like a Mac truck had run me over, backed up, then did it again, I’d twisted out of our pretzel, tossed on a pair of sweatpants and a baggy T-shirt, slathered on the sunscreen, and hoofed it to the rehearsal studio, a forty-five-minute speed walk to Melrose. At least it had been downhill. The return trip would suck.

  “Presley here yet?” I asked.

  “Nope,” she said.

  “Good,” I muttered. The aspirin I’d swallowed before I left was just starting to kick in. A few more minutes and I’d be able to power through this meeting. I took a bottle of water from the mini fridge and cracked it open.

  “Seriously, how late were you two out last night?” Nik asked. “The circles under your eyes are enormous.”

  “I love you too,” I snapped at her. She gave me an apologetic shrug. “We went to the observatory for a bit. I guess we got home around one?”

  “That’s not so bad,” she said.

  “You think you can hook me up with a ride to Rafe’s after?” I asked. “I want to shower before I go to my meeting at En Fuego.”

  Presley breezed in, sunglasses still over her eyes. “What meeting at En Fuego?”

  I shot a nervous glance at Nik, wondering how Presley was going to take this.

  “It has nothing to do with us,” Nikki said, eyeing our sister warily before turning back to me. “Yeah, I’ll drop you.”

  “If Jett has a meeting at En Fuego, it has everything to do with us,” Presley snapped.

  “It’s Jett’s meeting, Pres,” Nik said, her eyes narrowing. “Jett’s meeting.”

  Presley removed her sunglasses, and I saw that the bags under her eyes rivaled my own. She shrugged off her bulky hoodie. She was wearing Lululemon running tights, and the normally sk
in-hugging spandex bagged at her knees. Her voluptuous boobs looked deflated in the racerback tank.

  “Presley, are you okay?” I asked. She looked dangerously thin to me.

  “I’ll be better when you tell me why you have a meeting at En Fuego,” she said, taking a water out of the mini fridge. That was when I noticed her voice sounded a little scratchy.

  “Presley, forget about me. What’s going on with you?” I asked.

  She cracked the top open and took a drink. “Don’t change the subject,” she said after swallowing.

  “I’m not—” I started, but she was no longer paying attention to me. She was rooting around in her enormous bag. Nik tapped out a rhythm on her drums.

  “Fine, you two won’t tell me what’s up, I’ll ask Vince,” Presley said, pulling out a pill bottle.

  I snapped my neck around and looked at Nik, my eyes wide. Her shoulders hiked up, and her palms went skyward. Then she aimed her attention at Presley.

  “What’s the medication for?” Nikki asked.

  “It’s for my migraines,” Presley said.

  Nik put her drumsticks down. “Since when do you get migraines?”

  “They’re hormonal,” she said around the two pills she’d popped into her mouth.

  “You don’t say,” Nikki muttered, giving me a grimace.

  “Or I can ask Gary,” Presley said after chasing the pills down with water.

  I shot Nik a desperate look. She was shaking her head, but I ignored her silent advice. “I am going to write some songs for En Fuego’s artists.” It wasn’t the entire truth, but I didn’t think Presley was in the mood to hear the part about Bobby Gee grooming me for a solo career.

  “You can’t do that,” Presley said, screwing the cap back on the water bottle.

  “Um, I can. And I am,” I said.

  She blinked at me. “You write for Satan’s Sisters.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you can’t write for En Fuego’s artists.”

  “Satan’s Sisters is not signed with anyone. I am not signed with anyone,” I said. Presley crossed her arms, and her bony hip jutted out. “Yet,” I added.