Rock Kiss 01.5 Rock Courtship(45)

“David—”

“You want to do your job? Go, do it. I can’t take this shit.” He threw the phone at the wall so hard the screen splintered, then he just sat there, trembling.

All this time, everything they’d become to one another, and she chose to believe a random stranger’s accusations over him. She’d made a judgment and found him guilty without so much as a single question about his guilt or innocence. That was what hurt the worst—Thea hadn’t even given him a chance, as if she’d been waiting for him to screw up, waiting for him to prove that she’d been right about musicians all along.

Maybe… maybe it was time he accepted that he could never convince Thea he was a man in whom she could put her faith. The thought tore out his heart. He loved her, would lay the world at her feet if she asked, and she couldn’t give him this much?

A cursory knock before Abe popped his head through the door David hadn’t bothered to lock. “Hey, man, I heard a noise. You okay?”

“No.” He told the other man about Naomi’s claim but didn’t mention Thea. He couldn’t say her name right now, couldn’t even think about her if he was to function. She’d stomped on his heart as if it were a worthless token.

“Shit.” He shoved both hands through his hair. “I have to call my folks.” This would devastate them—they’d opened their home to Naomi, and now the girl was about to smear their name, turning them into pariahs in the neighborhood they loved.

Abe folded his arms, the new piercing in his eyebrow catching the light. David and Fox had gone with him when he’d had it done a couple of days back. He’d pretended to whimper at the sight of the piercing needle while the two of them laughed and asked him if he needed his blankie.

That day seemed a lifetime ago now, David’s life having shifted brutally on its axis in the past minutes. It felt as if he was looking down a narrow, dark tunnel with no end.

“This girl’s looking to shake you down.” Abe’s heavy scowl grew darker. “Don’t buckle under the pressure. You know the suits are going to tell you to settle if it looks to drag on. Don’t do it.”

“I fucking won’t. I told them to tell Naomi that until we have the results of a paternity test, she’s getting exactly zero dollars.” David didn’t care if Naomi decided to badmouth him all over the media, not as long as the people who knew him believed the truth.

Except it appeared he’d already lost one person he’d thought would stick. Thea had been loyal to her bastard of an ex to the end, but clearly she’d never given David that part of herself. He’d been a love-blind idiot, fooling himself that the sexy, talented, beautiful girl who held his heart wanted him for keeps.

Teeth clenched, he went to pick up his phone. It refused to turn on. “Broken.” He dropped it on the bed when he’d much rather have thrown it at the wall again. “Can I borrow yours?” He didn’t trust the hotel lines, not with something so sensitive.

“Sure, yeah.” Abe passed it over. “You want me to tell the others?”

“Yeah, thanks.” They had to know in case this blew up into a tabloid shitstorm.

Getting up as the door closed behind Abe, David splashed cold water on his face, wiped it off with rough motions, then called his parents.




Six hours after his world had imploded, David went onstage and played out his rage and his anger on the drums. Fox, Abe, and Noah had banded around him in unspoken support, altering the set so he could bang out the hard rock pieces until his arms quivered and he could handle the ballads that required a gentler touch.

Despite their adamant belief in him, he was in no mood to be with anyone. Leaving straight after the concert rather than sticking around to sign autographs or grab a drink, he went to his hotel room intending to strip off and get into workout gear so he could go for a run. He was sweaty from the concert, his muscles aching, but his body burned with rage-fueled energy.

When someone knocked on the door just after he’d peeled off his sweat-soaked T-shirt and kicked off his boots, he wrenched it open, intending to tell whoever it was to fuck off… and found himself face-to-face with the last person he’d expected to see.

Eyes glittering and body clad in a white sheath dress, her hair in the elegant twist that drove him crazy, and cherry-red stilettos on her feet, Thea shoved past him into the room. He slammed the door shut and locked it for good measure. If they were going to have this out, they’d have it out here and now.

“What?” he snarled, more angry, more hurt than he’d ever been in his life. “Come to get my side of it in case you need to put out a statement as part of your job?”