Rock Kiss 01.5 Rock Courtship(7)

But then Molly did speak, and her words were so startling that he could only stare at her.

“Write a memo,” she said, tone quiet but firm. “About all the reasons why you’d be perfect together, then e-mail it to her.”

Not sure where she was going with this, he held his silence.

“Thea is surgically attached to her e-mail,” Molly continued.

David couldn’t argue with that statement. A large majority of his memories of Thea involved her with her phone in hand, sending or receiving messages, connecting with media, making notes, probably taking over the world. He’d never met anyone who could multitask at Thea’s level. She was flat-out incredible.

“She’ll read the memo because she can’t help herself,” Molly said, the two of them still alone at the table, “and if I know my sister, she’ll send you back a point-by-point rebuttal”—an affectionate smile—“so you’d better have your arguments ready.”

“That is either the worst or the best advice ever.” And the fact he was considering it would’ve told him exactly how far gone he was if he hadn’t already been fully aware of his feelings for Thea.

“Trust me.” Molly sipped her coffee before adding, “Thea likes brains and she likes determination.”

David’s fingers clenched on his fork. He knew he had a brain—it was why he’d won that scholarship at thirteen. As for the determination, yeah, he had that, too. Without it, he’d never have made it past all the rejections and setbacks the band had suffered back at the start. Only reason he hadn’t turned that determination on Thea was that he didn’t want to have her because he’d worn her down.

He wanted her with him because she wanted to be with him.

Molly leaned in close when the others started back. “If you send her ‘I’m sorry I messed up’ flowers, steer clear of white roses.”

When he raised an eyebrow in question, she said, “Ex.”

Jaw tightening, he nodded. “Got it.”




David went up to his room after breakfast. The crew, headed by Maxwell, had gone on to the concert location to finish the setup, but the band didn’t have to be there until much closer to the time of the show. Technically, other than doing the quick interviews Thea had lined up—to give the charity the concert was supporting a little more visibility—the four of them were supposed to rest, but each member of Schoolboy Choir had his own routine for getting his head in the right space.

David usually spent the time working on new songs or hanging out with Abe. His bandmate had conquered the drugs that had threatened to drag him under, and it looked like he was finally recovering from his nightmare of a divorce, but David had been friends with the other man a long time. He knew Abe had a way of holding things inside until they exploded.

Today, however, David was in bad shape himself. The cot in the jail cell had hardly been comfortable, and he’d spent most of the night awake, his thoughts always circling back to one woman: Thea.

He wasn’t fit company for anyone.

Striding into the shower after stripping off his wrinkled clothes, he stood there and let the hot water pound over him. The cut on his lip stung, his eye watered, but that was nothing compared to some of the injuries he’d taken as a kid.

Once he’d stepped out and dried off, he wrapped the towel around his hips and checked out the spreading bruise on his ribs. It looked far worse than it felt. Yeah okay, that was a load of shit. He’d pay for his loss of control tonight when he played the skins. The vibrations would hurt like a bitch. As for his eye—“Ah, fuck.” He hadn’t put ice on it, even when the bar owner offered him an ice pack, because he’d figured it couldn’t get much worse. He’d been wrong.

Taking a handful of ice out of the bucket that had been sitting outside his door when he came up—probably courtesy of one of the hotel staff who’d either caught the reports of the bar fight or seen him in the breakfast room—he wrapped the cubes in one of his T-shirts and held it to his eye as he lay down naked in bed. He had to catch at least a couple of hours sleep or he’d be useless at the concert, and he wasn’t about to let the band or its fans down.

Or Thea.

Her name was the last thought he had before exhaustion pulled him under and the first thing on his mind when he opened his eyes five hours later. The makeshift ice pack had long ago slipped off his face and melted onto the bed, leaving a great big wet spot, but his eye was no longer swollen. It’d be black and blue and probably purple, but his vision was fine.

Pulling on a pair of jeans, he drank three glasses of water, then sat in the armchair that got the most sun through the huge sliding doors that opened out onto a private terrace. He’d rather be outside, but he’d bet his left nut that the terrace was the focus of multiple long-lens paparazzi cameras right now. At least with the angle of the sun, the vultures wouldn’t be able to get a clear shot through the glass, meaning he could sit here and drink in the sun, have it burn away the last of the cobwebs.