He didn’t close his eyes until the last guitar riff. That’s when he poured himself into the music as though he were playing a stadium of thirty thousand instead of a barroom filled with half a dozen.
When he opened his eyes, Becca hadn’t moved. It didn’t seem like she breathed much, either.
He mouthed, “For you.”
Her lips parted, and she swallowed visibly. Unfortunately, the gleam in her eyes seemed more on the terrified side than the thrilled. He’d have to figure that one out. He’d never written for a chick before. This was all unfamiliar territory. Fucking it up was not an option.
“Third chorus is jacked,” Mach said, pulling Linx from his Becca haze. “We need to rework that hold.”
Mach wasn’t wrong.
Linx handed him a bottle. Mach took a swig. He stilled. Then he spit the ginger ale back into the bottle. “What the hell am I drinking?”
Linx handed another bottle to Tanner. Tanner stared at the bottle in his hand and sniffed. “That’s not beer.”
“No, it is not.” Linx grabbed his own bottle and took a long slug. “This is how you stay sober and keep a decent level of rock star respect.”
“Can’t I just drink beer?” Mach asked. He eyed the bottle like it was ale made from snake oil, not ginger.
“You could.” Linx took another drink, making a show of smacking his lips and saying ahhh. “But this keeps you sharp when you’re on stage.”
Tanner took a little sip. “Can I have beer after?”
Linx nodded. “Yep.”
He searched the bar for Becca and caught her looking his way. He smiled. She smiled. There was a whole lot of smiling.
Then Becca stripped her gaze and got back to work. So did he, and it felt amazing.
Chapter 10
Becca
Becca dropped baskets filled with fried pickles and potato skins in the center of Linx’s table. Well, the band’s table. Linx, Mach, and Tanner were talking music in the far corner booth.
“Your car will be ready tomorrow.” Tanner was a touch sheepish for a guy with a decent stage presence. Like he wasn’t sure of himself. On stage, he was all confidence and drumsticks. But whenever Becca approached the table, he seemed to stumble over his words and his cheeks blushed red.
He had the sweet, cute, undercover charmer thing going on. Someday, that combination would prove the fatal one-two punch for a woman to fall ass-over-beer bottle for him.
Meanwhile, her body seemed to have a magnetic pull to Linx. Apparently, she liked cocky, charming men who bought their cats leather jackets, didn’t do more than kiss her when given the opportunity, and had excessively lavish taste in bedroom furniture.
“Tomorrow will be great,” she said. “Then I won’t have to call for a ride on the app.”
She did her best to make Tanner comfortable, but he just seemed to blush harder whenever she gave him any attention. She diverted her attention to Mach while she refilled his water glass.
“You don’t have to do that now,” Linx said, low and dark. Rumbly and gravel. “You shouldn’t be using an app when you have me.”
She cleared her throat. “I don’t want to bother anyone.”
“I’m not anyone,” he said. And wasn’t he just the Grumbly Gus tonight? Probably because neither of them had gotten their cookies that morning. Which was totally bologna because he was the one who hadn’t taken things further.
“You ever consider that it’s more of a bother wondering how you’re getting around?” Linx asked, the words soft as a caress.
Given that they weren’t more than friends with the very minimal benefit of that morning’s lip lock, he shouldn’t have been wondering about her transportation.
Becca opened her mouth to say something snarky about his lack of follow-through—his eyes, her lips—but pressed her tongue hard against her pallet. Wasn’t she always cautioning her patients to self-check intent?
“Dude.” Tanner shook his head. “Don’t make her feel bad.”
