Craving You

“For select customers.”

“Which begs the next question. You’re a Fenore select customer?” Why was she even surprised?

He shrugged a broad shoulder. “I have some ins around town.”

“Yeah. Clearly. ‘Cuz it took me seven weeks to get a table there, and that was considered the short-list because I mentioned Meg.”

“So next time mention me.”

“You’re too much.”

Tague kissed the tip of her nose. “Hardly. Now… You’ve been troubled all day and didn’t tell me.”

“He caught me off-guard. Though really, that shouldn’t have been the case. It was just a matter of time till we ran into each other in New York, even when he didn’t live here. I’m sure he’s visited often enough that it’s sheer luck we never crossed paths. Obviously, I’ve been in massive denial over skirting him. I’d hoped he’d stick to L.A. Or record his CDs somewhere else in the world.” L.L. stewed. Then ground out, “Like Antarctica.”

“Your ex is a musician?”

“Fucking lead guitarists,” she said with a shake of her head. “You can’t trust the lot of them.”

“Loralai. Who is the ex-ex?”

37

She stared Tague square in the eye and said, “Corey Crenshaw.”

Tague was speechless.

Big surprise.

“Still with me?” she teased, despite her irritation over the one man she’d prayed she’d never see again having dared to spring up before her on the street.

Tague came around. “You just love to blow my mind, don’t you?”

“Not intentionally this time,” she contended.

“You might as well have just said the ex was Bono. Or more apropos, Eddie Van Halen.”

She laughed softly, despite the unpleasant topic of conversation. “They’re both a bit too old for me, but I get your point. Corey makes every Best Guitarists of All Time list.”

“Huh.” Tague blew out a breath. “I can’t picture you with a musician.”

“We’d already been together for a year when he started playing. He was really good from the beginning, and totally dedicated. Corey was only interested in two things when we were in high school. Me and his garage band. We were pretty much inseparable, except when he had his axe in-hand.”

“That’s serious stuff.”

She nodded. “We agreed to go to UCLA together, but Corey really just went for me. He never felt he had a need for a degree, since he was convinced he’d make it big in the music industry. But there were classes geared toward fulfilling that dream, so he powered through lectures when he really wanted to be practicing.”

Tague draped an arm along the back of the sofa and she snuggled next to him. He said, “It sounds as though things were going well for you two. What happened?”

L.L. gazed at the fire for a few moments, not the least bit thrilled to be relaying this part of her past. But she understood how difficult, how excruciating, it had been for Tague to share his heartbreak. And knew it was only fair to own up to what had turned her against romance as much as his split from Renee had done the same to him.

“He became a much more intense person right around our high school graduation,” she told Tague. “Corey thought he’d be with a real band by then—so he was sort of just humoring me by enrolling in college. His parents had the money and he could still pursue his dream because he didn’t have to work. We rented a house close to campus, and when he wasn’t playing or in class, he was auditioning. Mostly for up-and-coming bands. He had tons of offers, but he couldn’t find the right groove, the right fit for his style and ambition. So he turned them all down.”

L.L. had been impressed with Corey’s talent and his commitment to making sure his gift was put to good use. Yet both of those traits had created a lot of conflict between them.

“The pressure mounted,” she continued. “Evidently, it didn’t help matters that I wouldn’t sleep with him. I wasn’t ready, not with worrying about how my mother had ended up pregnant and alone. And because I had no idea what our life was going to be like while I was in school and Corey was trying so damn hard to break into the business in a grand way. If he made it big one day and was suddenly on the road for large spans of time, I wanted to be prepared for it, be able to handle it. The house, school, his absence. Whatever else came along.”

“That’s understandable. Responsibl