“Of course not.”
“Then what?” she pleaded, taking a step toward me.
“I’m just having a bit of a rough time.”
A frown pinched her pretty face, her tawny red hair swept up in a ponytail and her makeup done to perfection. The girl was all of five-foot nothin’, but her personality more than made up for her size.
She was a spitfire.
A powerhouse.
Managed to keep four creative spirits focused and on task.
She also loved like crazy.
She never hesitated to tell it exactly as she saw it, either.
Zero filter.
She brushed back a tangle of hair hanging in my face. “Is it that bastard, Nile? God, I was hopin’ you would’ve ended up being thankful that pencil dick finally showed his true colors. I always knew he was a slimy motherfucker. You deserve so much better than him,” she drawled.
I wished that was it. It was the rest of the rubble I was trapped under that was crushing me.
I forced a small smile to my mouth. “Oh, I saw his colors, all right. You don’t need to worry about that.”
I got an eyeful of plenty of other things I’d have preferred not to be subjected to, too.
“He stole enough of your time, Emily. Don’t let him go and steal your dreams.”
Her brown eyes filled with sincerity.
“I’m tryin’ not to. I promise, I’m tryin’.”
Only thing was, it wasn’t Nile who I was trying to outrun.
Her expression shifted into playful sympathy. “Well, just because you wanted more to deal with, a word to the wise—your brother is in rare form this morning. Prepare yourself. He’s pacing around like a caged beast.”
Nerves rattled through my senses. I knew the reason for that. The fight we’d had last night. He hated when we were angry with each other every bit as much as I did.
We were going to have to hash this out. I just didn’t know what I could give him. Promise him. What I could confide in him and he could confide in me. It felt like we were going round and round on opposite sides of a circle, and we were never going to meet.
“I got a text that he wants the whole band in his room at nine. Something about an important meeting that came up. You better get into the shower. You look like you went a round or two last night.”
She let her attention travel down my body. “Holy shit. What did you get up to last night? Or I guess the better question would be, what got into you?”
She was clearly only teasing considering she knew me a whole lot better than that. Which was precisely why embarrassment quivered in my belly.
“Nothin’,” I said far too quick, spreading my hand over the skirt of my dress in a futile attempt at ironing out the evidence.
“Nothin’?” she returned.
I shifted on my feet and took a fumbling sip of the steaming coffee to bury the guilt I knew was written all over my face. “I said, nothin’.”
“If that’s nothin’, then I sure would like to see somethin’.” She gestured at me like my state was the proof in the pudding, a taunt riding through her demeanor.
A blush went racing again.
Mel caught it, and she angled her head and lowered her voice when she realized something had really gone on. “Oh my God, Emily Iris Ramsey, did you actually have a one-night stand?” she demanded through the quietest whisper, her gaze darting around as if I still had the guy hiding in my bed.
God, was it wrong that I wished I’d woken up with that body wrapped around mine?
“I did not,” I whisper-shouted back, my gaze jumping around behind hers, as if I was going to get caught.
Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t you dare keep the good stuff from me. Here I was, up all night, worried you were in some dark corner crying your eyes out or maybe facedown in some ditch, and you were with a man, weren’t you?”
“Fine . . . I brought a man here, but we didn’t sleep together.”
Her eyes went round with glee. “Oh my God. I can’t believe it. This is the best news I’ve gotten all year. Forget the whole record deal possibility. Was he hot?”
His face flashed through my mind, that body and those hands and those eyes. A fever blistered across my flesh, scorching my legs as if I were still standing in the vestiges of his flames.
“He was unlike anyone I’ve ever met,” I admitted with a tremble in my voice.
Confusion pulled through her expression. “And you didn’t sleep with him? What in the world is wrong with you?”
It was all a joke, but it had me fidgeting with the lid on the cup, wondering that very thing. Why he’d touched me with all that passion, looked at me that way, and then walked out the door, disappearing in the night. “I guess he wasn’t that into me.”