Molly choked on her coffee, heard Maxwell laughing that deep, chesty laugh as she tried to catch her breath. She mimed scrubbing the image from her mind, which furthered the laughter on his end, then said, “Do you know what happened with David?”
Sudden remoteness, the smile wiped away as if it had never existed. “Figure you’d best ask Fox.”
Coloring, Molly looked down at her breakfast. “Sorry,” she said quietly after realizing what she’d done. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.”
The friendly man sighed and reached out to pat her hand where it lay on the table. “No, I’m sorry for snapping at you—we’ve all been bitten so many times that we don’t trust anyone until they’re blood. Takes time to become blood.”
Molly met his gaze so he’d know there were no hard feelings. “I understand.” It wasn’t as if she was any different in the trust department.
Male voices sounded in the doorway a couple of seconds later, Fox walking in with David and a slender man she didn’t know. Spotting her and Maxwell, they headed over, grabbing food along the way. Fox put his plate down on her left, while David took her other side, and the unfamiliar man slid into the chair beside Maxwell. In a few minutes, the table was covered with more food than Molly could eat in a week.
“Don’t even ask,” David muttered when she glanced at his black eye, the bruise vivid against the golden brown of his skin.
Molly poured him coffee from the fresh carafe the waiter had just placed on the table. The drummer clearly needed it—it was obvious he’d spent the night in the long-sleeved, formal white shirt and black pants he wore, his jaw darkly stubbled. “Did you put ice on that eye?”
“That’s what I told him to do, but he’s too pigheaded.” The stranger stuck his hand across the table, his skin a warm, deep teak against the blue-gray of his suit. “Justin Chan, attorney for these idiots while they’re in the region.”
“Molly,” Fox growled, “stop looking at David like you want to give him a hug and smack him upside the head instead. If we were in New York, I’d call his mother and have her do it.”
“Don’t worry,” Justin said cheerily, “his folks will hear about it soon enough, and then he’ll have to explain if this is the kind of example he intends to set for his brothers.” A glance at David. “Wouldn’t want to be you, dude.”
“Oh, f**k.” David banged his head against the table. “I should’ve stayed in jail.”
Uh-oh. “Did you do something Thea’s going to have to wrangle?” Her sister had flown in late last night to be on hand for media interviews the band was doing today.
Lifting his head, David groaned. “Yes. Mary, Joseph, and the saints combined, yes.”
“She’s been working since genius here called me.” Fox bit into a piece of toast. “He was too chickenshit to call Thea himself.”
“Shut the f**k up.” Strong words, but the drummer’s tone was morose. “God, could I have screwed up any worse?”
Molly thought about it, then leaned in to whisper in David’s ear. “You might as well tell me your side of the story so I can spin it for you when Thea calms down.”
Shooting her a considering look out of a bloodshot and blackened eye, he slugged back his coffee and blew out a breath. “I decided to walk around the city last night. It’s something I do night before a concert.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “On the way back, I ducked into a bar to have a drink. It never crossed my mind that I’d be recognized. I’m the drummer—nobody ever pays attention to the f**king drummer.”
Fox snorted. “Bullshit. I’ve seen the stacks of fan mail.” Thigh pressing against Molly’s, he reached for the pats of butter beside her plate. “Mind?”
“Of course not.” Feeling playful and happy to see him, she closed her hand over the muscled strength of his thigh under the table, close to the zipper of his jeans.
It earned her a warning look that told her he’d get his revenge. Stomach tight, she stroked her hand lower down, leaving it there in an intimacy that coiled around her heart, and returned her attention to David. “So, someone recognized you?”
“Yep. The f**kwits decided they didn’t want a ‘pussy rock star’ in their fine establishment.” The insult was rife in his voice. “Like I was an airbrushed pop star, not a real goddamned musician.” Snarling at his toast, he bit off a hunk. “I had to defend my honor, didn’t I? Not my f**king fault the f**king bartender decided to call the cops just ’cause we broke a cheap-ass f**king table.”
Molly had never heard David swear before this morning, not even in interviews or going up against pushy paparazzi. “Hold on,” she said, wondering how much of that was leftover anger, and how much frustration at what this would do to his chances with Thea. “You were on your own, and you only came out with a black eye?”
David shrugged. “I was consistently the shortest guy in my grade until I hit seventeen. Shrimps get picked on—and my dad, he’s old school. Decided to teach me how to kick ass. No one ever picked on me a second time.”
His physicality something she would’ve never guessed at, Molly might have followed the conversational thread, but David fell to his breakfast with the concentration of a man who was done talking. She looked across the table to Justin. “Are you on call all the time?”