Since he’d sacked out for so long, he didn’t have much time before he had to head to a downstairs conference room for the interviews. He’d steeled himself for the inevitability of coming face-to-face with Thea, but the sight of her still threatened to gut him.
Scowling, she strode over on sky-high red heels worn with a sleeveless and tailored black dress that ended just above her knees. “Did you put ice on that eye?”
He made himself speak, act normal—he’d become pretty good at that after the length of time he’d loved her. “Yeah, past few hours.”
“What about last night?”
He shrugged.
Her glare could’ve cut steel.
Thankfully, the first reporter arrived a second later, and David spent the rest of the time making light of his new and hopefully short-lived notoriety. Interviews complete, he slipped away while Thea was talking to Abe, and once in his room, used his phone to do some research.
He had no idea how to write a memo, and if he was going to do this, he had to do it properly. The only question was, was he going to do this? Putting down the phone, he got up and, going to the living area of the suite, got down on the floor and began to do push-ups. It was an easy motion for him regardless of his bruised ribs. Like most working drummers, he had to stay highly fit or he’d never last an entire concert.
He usually put in gym time every day, often went running with Noah or Fox, or did weights with Abe. Today, the familiar, repetitive motion of the push-ups cleared his mind, helped him think.
He only wanted Thea with him if she wanted to be with him.
Thea had made it clear his interest wasn’t reciprocated.
But, as Molly had reminded him, Thea also had a first-class bastard of an ex. David didn’t know exactly what had gone on between Eric and Thea, but he could guess, given that Eric had publicly flaunted a new fiancée within two weeks of the breakup. A silicone-enhanced airhead who simpered and giggled on Eric’s arm and didn’t have an ounce of Thea’s feminine strength.
If fate had any sense of justice, the bimbo would divorce the fuckhead a year down the road and take Eric for every cent he was worth.
So, he thought, pumping down on his arms, then pushing back up, his body held in a punishingly straight line, it could have just been his timing that had led to her rejection. He’d waited six months after the breakup—until he’d thought Thea was okay, but what if she hadn’t been at that point? He knew exactly how good she was at putting on a professional, unruffled face.
Hell, he’d once seen her handle a press conference with panache when two hours earlier, she’d been throwing up from food poisoning. What if she’d still been pissed off with the entire male sex that day in her office? Was it possible she’d have rejected any man who walked in and asked her out?
He paused, body tensed to keep himself off the floor as hope uncurled inside him. Because Thea hadn’t dated anyone since the breakup. That wasn’t just wishful thinking: he’d accidentally overheard her business partner at the PR firm, Imani, talking to another mutual friend on the phone a week before the band left L.A.—he’d been in a conference room early for an interview, the door open to the corridor where Imani was on the phone.
He should’ve called out and let her know he was inside, but he hadn’t been listening at first; it was hearing Thea’s name that had caught his notice. And then he couldn’t not pay attention.
Imani, happily married to a surgeon, had apparently tried to set Thea up with a colleague of her husband’s, only to be stonewalled. “I know Thea’s over Eric,” the other woman had said, “but whatever el slimeball did, he might have put her off men permanently.” A sad sigh.
David wasn’t sad about Thea not dating. He was ecstatic. Because it made it easier to believe that it had been his timing at fault. Like Imani, he didn’t have any fears that Thea was still in love with the dickhead—no, she was too smart to put up with that kind of bullshit. That didn’t mean the bastard hadn’t hurt her; a woman as strong and as independent as Thea rarely allowed herself to be vulnerable, and David had a feeling her ex had used that rare, beautiful trust against her.
Fuck, but David wanted to kick the shit out of him. But more, he wanted to make Thea happy. Even if it meant taking a beating himself.
Getting up off the floor, he grabbed his phone and began to type out a memo on the tiny screen. It took him hours of drafting and redrafting to make sure it said exactly what he wanted it to say. He was still working on it when the band headed out to the concert location—where he saw the last person he’d expected.