The Girl's Got Secrets (Forbidden Men 7)

I wanted to argue. But I couldn’t stop remembering all the good times Remy and I’d had together...as both Sticks and Elisa.

“She isn’t—” I started to tell him she wasn’t the same person who’d befriended me. Sticks had been my friend. Except she was supposed to be Sticks now. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. But the irritation brewing inside me kind of took over.

I marched toward the stage.

Her eyes lit up with hope when she saw me approaching. But I didn’t smile back or give her anything to hang that hope on. I turned my gaze away and focused on the karaoke station. After I called up the song I wanted, I hopped on the stage, and tugged the microphone from her startled fingers.

She blinked at me, frowning slightly even as a smile lingered on her face. She thought I was going to sing something about forgiving her. But instead, Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” came on. And I sang it directly at her.

Her mouth came open as shock flooded her features.

About the fourth time I told her we had problems and couldn’t solve them, she puffed up her chest with an annoyed scowl and hurried off the stage. I watched, thinking that was that, but she only paused at the karaoke machine and picked something else from the list.

I didn’t want to be, but I was curious what she’d chosen.

So when Elton John’s “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word,” broke over Taylor’s voice and Remy stole the microphone right back from me to sing the lyrics, I shook my head. Stubborn-ass woman just didn’t know when to give up, did she?

So I chased her lyrics with “Better Things to Do” by Terri Clark.

For some reason, I expected more angry determination from her. I was kind of getting into the game, relishing the back and forth and impatient to hear what she’d come up with next.

But sadness crept into her gaze as she watched me sing and listened to the bitter phrases come from my mouth. Shoulders falling with defeat, she nodded her understanding and hurried off the stage. As about twenty women cheered, Remy fled. She bumped into Jodi after a few steps, then grabbed her friend’s arm and hurried from the club.

Strangely disappointed even though I didn’t want to forgive her, I shook my head and stepped away from the microphone, no longer in the mood to sing. Then I hopped off stage and stormed through swarms of people until I found myself back in the storage room, pacing until the door opened, and Pick slipped inside.

I ground my teeth and shook my head, in no way willing to talk about this. “Shouldn’t you be home with Eva and the kids?”

“Nope.” He leaned his hip against a nearby keg. “Tinker Bell wanted to be traditional so she kicked me out. Said I wasn’t allowed to see her again until the wedding.” He shrugged. “It seemed like a bad time to bug Mason and Reese and beg a night on their couch, so I’d planned on renting a motel room... unless you want to take your big brother in for a couple hours.”

I shrugged. “Sure. My couch isn’t anything to write home about, but...whatever.”

“Thank you.” Pick nodded and watched me pace and repeatedly run my hands through my hair before murmuring, “So...Remy.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I snapped, glaring at him.

He only grinned. “She pulled off a pretty good disguise. I had no idea she was really a woman. And wow, she looks...really different as a woman. There’s no reason for you to feel like an idiot and think you should’ve figured it out sooner. No one else caught on either.”

“I didn’t say I felt like an idiot,” I muttered.

But Pick lifted his eyebrows so I sighed, relenting. “Fine. I feel like a fucking idiot. But I’m also pissed. She lied to me, fucking betrayed me for weeks. It’s like she made a joke of everything I ever told her. I thought I was actually making a friend, and she was just playing dress-up so she could be in a goddamn band.” I couldn’t even go into the deception she’d played as Elisa because....I just couldn’t.

Pick opened his mouth, but I was sure he was going to say something in her defense, so I kept ranting, “And now...now she thinks she can just stroll in here, wiggle her hips and sing a few songs, and I’ll, what, just forget what she did to me? Fuck no. I’m not getting back together with her. I don’t even know her.”

Smiling slightly, Pick said, “But don’t you?”

I started to tell him, no, I didn’t. Except I just couldn’t. Maybe I had learned a couple things about her. I’m sure the female version of her was just as competitive as Sticks had been. She was definitely musically talented, had good taste in songs, liked to tease and get people’s goat about as much as I did. Hell, she might just be the perfect person...if she hadn’t hurt me so bad.

“I assume she gave you a reason for doing what she did,” Pick spoke up, making me blink because I’d forgotten he was there.

I sniffed and glanced away. “She gave me something.”

“But you don’t believe the reason she gave?”

“I don’t know.” I set my hands on my hips and gazed up at the ceiling, torn.

I kind of did believe her reasons for why she’d started this entire charade because honestly, why else would she have dressed up as a guy? It couldn’t have been to get close to me after learning she was Incubus shirt girl, since she would’ve had a lot more luck getting anything from me if she’d stayed female. But still, after a while of getting to know me, why hadn’t she figured out I didn’t care if she was a girl in the band; I would’ve fought Gally and Heath to keep her on board?

Even that lack of her faith in me hurt.