Chapter Fourteen
DARLA
The paparazzi were like ants—itstarted with seeing just one or two but then they multiplied and kept coming. There were practically a dozen of them by the time Mach and Darla got back to the bike.
They weren’t in Denver, anymore, that was for sure.
Courtney had to wrangle some kind of publicity drama with another celebrity over on Rodeo Drive to distract the ants, er… paparazzi, away from Mach and Darla so they could get back to the apartment without being tailed. Mach and Darla had to get really boring, and she stopped offering them food so they could go take the other pictures instead.
So there were no cameras, paparazzi, or social media influencers waiting for them at the apartment building. But just in case anyone still showed, Darla promised Courtney and Mach that she wouldn’t feed them on her way inside.
Which was how they made it to the apartment building without issue.
Mach slid the key into the door to unlock the apartment they’d be sharing.
"Irina really lives across the hall?" Darla wasn’t able to keep the disbelief out of her words. She had a teeny tiny celebrity crush on Irina—especially after they’d had piña coladas and bonded over donuts.
She studied the outside of Irina’s apartment, but it was totally normal. Nothing out of the ordinary.
"That surprises you?" Mach asked, pushing the door open to their place. "She and Knox stay there when they are in town. They’ll be in later tonight. You can say hi."
"I mean… I figured she’d have a mansion in Beverly Hills." Darla followed him inside and holy wowza, this apartment they were staying in was all kinds of shades of white. Talk about tone on tone, and pattern on pattern—all of them white.
This must’ve been one of those fancy-people trends that made little sense for the rest of the world because everyone else used ketchup sometimes.
"What the place needs is a pop of burnt orange on the walls," Darla mumbled. "I miss decorating. That’s one thing I loved about having a home."
Mach strode to their bags and tossed his duffel bag over his shoulder as he said, "You don’t have a home?"
"Well, not to brag or anything, but I have a room I rent from my best friend right now." Darla made awhatchagonnadoface. "The ex got our place when we split."
"That sucks," Mach said. He didn’t say anything else, and he didn’t need to because it did suck.
The blank-white apartment where Mach and Darla would stay was Courtney’s old apartment from when she lived in L.A. From a time before she’d hooked up with Bax, Dimefront’s lead singer. She and Irina had been best friends then—and they still were. But in the pre-rocker days, Irina was an actress on the rise and Courtney was the band’s publicist. Courtney held onto her apartment for anyone who needed a California crash pad.
Aside from the lack of color in Courtney’s apartment, what surprised Darla the most was how ordinary the apartment building seemed. Well-kept with security doors and all that. But nothing that screamedrockers and movie stars live here!
"This is where I’m staying." He cocked his head to one of the rooms. "You get the primary bedroom, but we have to share the bath."
Mach grimaced as he headed to one door. He lifted his hand to his collarbone, rubbing the fleshy spot between the bones.
"What’s with the face?" Darla asked, leaving her suitcase and moving to him.
"Screwed up my neck," he said. "That’s all. At least when we were on the bike, it wasn’t driving me nuts."
"Can I look?" she asked, already poised to do just that.
"You won’t let me say no, will you?" he asked, eyeing her waiting fingers.
"Do you want to say no?" she asked, because she wouldn’t force him to let her check him out unless it was—
She caught a second grimace, and he gritted his teeth. The guy was hurting, and that was unacceptable.
"No. You’re right. I am going to insist, because I am a medical professional and there are lots of reasons your neck could be sore. Something as simple as a pinched nerve, or as complex as meningitis." She used her don’t-argue-just-do-what-I-say look on him.
It worked because he dropped the duffel and let her palpate his sub-occipital muscles. Damn, they were tight.
No fever by touch, so that was good. But his back was truly a mess—all kinds of muscled knots in there. She manipulated one of the pressure points at the front of his shoulder to help release the tension.
