“No clue,” she says with a Mona Lisa smile.
“There’s no way you lost a crutch. It’s impossible.”
She makes a little shrugging movement that brushes her breasts against my chest.
I bite back a groan.
“Well, it’s gone. Maybe Joan moved it. She was in yesterday.”
Did she smirk? I swear I see a smirk.
“The cleaner didn’t move it. Daisy, you’re driving me crazy.”
“I told you. You don’t need to carry me.”
“I know what you told me, but I need to. It’s my responsibility to make sure you’re okay.”
There’s that little shrug again. And there’s that half smirk and gleam in her eye.
She’s enjoying this, the brat.
I try to ignore the fact that I, too, am enjoying this.
In a painful way. In a blue-balls way.
When I get to the car, I loosen my hold, and she slides down my body. A sound emerges from my throat. It’s halfway between a groan and a whimper.
I’m going to be hard until next year at this rate, until the end of the decade. But that’s just my body’s involuntary response. I can control myself.
I need to remember that I’m ten times worse than any of the asshole guys I’m trying to protect her from. I travel eleven months out of the year. I have groupies. Maybe I don’t fuck them anymore. Haven’t for years. But they’re still there, at every concert, outside my hotel, sometimes even breaking into my room. And I don’t date. Or do relationships. I fuck. And leave.
Plus, every guy knows you can’t mess with your best friend’s sister—not unless you plan on getting serious. And I’m not looking to settle down. Ever.
My dad cared more about his work than his family. Every show-business marriage I’ve seen ends in divorce with bitter tears and a volley of destructive headlines.
If I were stupid enough to start something, I’d only end up hurting Daisy. And that’s the one thing I swore I’d never do again. I swore it to Chase. I swore it to myself. And, most importantly, I swore it to her when she was lying unconscious in a hospital bed.
I open the car door and help her into the black Porsche.
When she’s seated, she grins her thanks.
I lean down, my face inches from hers, and buckle her in, brushing against soft curves as I do.
This time, I think she’s the one who whimpers.
I shut the door and repeat my mantra.She’s my best friend’s little sister.
Ten minutes later, we pull up in front of a small cabin-like bar that’s in the heart of the small coastal village.
“This is Ed’s,” I say in surprise. “Ed does karaoke now?”
The little bar on Main Street next to the lobster shack has been a fixture in Rockhaven for years. When nothing elseis open, which is often, especially during the off-season, Ed’s always is. Not that I spent much time here.
During the summers, I avoided the spots where I’d be recognized by fans. Or non-fans. At the height of my boy-band fame, dudes loved to pick fights. They hated that their girlfriends had posters of me on their walls.
At least since I went solo, switched from pop to indie rock, and exchanged dancing for playing the guitar, my fans aren’t just girls anymore.
“Karaoke is on Wednesday nights,” Daisy explains.
