“I think you messed up.” I look at the man beside me for the first time. I’m met with narrowed gray eyes and a smile that just won’t quit. His dimples are subtle but there, and everything in his expression makes my insides sag just a little.
Lyric Evermore.
Yes, that Lyric Evermore. Lead singer of Evermore. Notorious ladies’ man. And a guy currently with a furrow to his brow as he stares at me while running a hand through his hair so that the silver rings on his fingers glint against the dim light.
“I didn’t mess up. I know my lines.”
“Yes, you did.” I shrug and fight my full-on grin. “Face it. The always-perfect Lyric Evermore messed up.” His smile is dazzling. So are his dark gray eyes that take me in and dance with amusement. “You may be a rock star now who has women falling at his feet every second of every day, but you can still flub a line.”
“At least it’s a line with you instead of screwing up a lyric onstage,” he murmurs before giving a shake of his head and simply staring at me. For the briefest of moments, I wonder if he feels the same way I do about being here. About doing this for a fourth year in a row.
About me like I do him.
But then he emits a bark of a laugh before pulling me into one of his big bearhugs, and I know I’m just hoping for things that aren’t there. That I’m still holding on to hope that he might see me as anything more than a little sister.
This is Lyric after all, and why would he choose me when he can have anyone he wants?
Besides, if he was interested in me, wouldn’t he have already made a move?
I shove the thought away and the resolve I had to finally tell him how I feel fades as he pulls me against him and squeezes tight. He smells of sunshine and ocean, and I’m taken back to that first night we met.
* * *
4 years ago
“Whiskey on the rocks, huh?”
I jolt at the sound of the voice. There’s no use trying to hide my half full glass or the bottle of whiskey partially hidden by the leg of the table where I sit on the front porch outside my pretty crappy apartment.
And frankly, it’s been a rather shitty week so the last thing I want to do is talk to someone I don’t know. My misery is no one else’s business but my own.
“It’s been that kind of week.” It’s all I say as I take another sip and close my eyes as it burns its way down my throat. I fight back the urge to cough at its god-awful taste and make a fool of myself. But the whiskey was all my roommates had left behind before they left home for the holiday, and I’m too damn broke to buy something I actually like.
“Let me guess,” he murmurs while I try to place his familiar voice. And of course, he sits down in the chair beside me without an invitation to.
Can’t a girl just be left alone?
“Let’s not guess,” I mutter.
“Holiday blues got you down? Everyone left town to head home for Thanksgiving and you’ve got no one to go home to?”
His words make my throat burn more than the alcohol did. Tears threaten but I sniff them away.
I finally put two and two together. He’s the guy who lives across the way in Apartment 34C. The one who plays music all hours of the night and who sings loud enough for all to hear.
“Go away 34C,” I mutter.
“No.”
“No?” I cough out the word and then it falters when I turn to look at him for the first time. Holy shit. 34C is hotter than hell. I’m met with storm cloud gray eyes that are framed by thick lashes. One of his eyebrows is quirked up as he stares at me while his lips are curved at the corners. His shoulders are broad, and his dark brown hair is a little long where it curls at the base of his neck and over his ears. Tattoos mark his biceps but are hidden by the cuffs of his old school Nirvana T-shirt with a hole near the collar.
I’ve seen 34C from afar, heard his voice way more than I’ve actually laid eyes on him, and boy is that a travesty. Staring at him might have just made living in this shitty apartment tolerable.
“No,” he reiterates, that smile of his widening with the acknowledgment that I was checking him out. “You look sad and lonely. Left behind, actually. And—”
“You don’t know shit about me,” I argue, embarrassed to be caught feeling sorry for myself.
“You’re right. I don’t.” He shrugs. “But I know it’s Thanksgiving tomorrow, and everyone I know has left to go home, hang out with family, watch football games, and do who the fuck knows. They’re all going to be there while I’m stuck here feeling sorry for myself that I don’t have any family to go home to.”
“Oh.” I stutter, surprised by his candidness and selfishly feeling happy that I’m not the only one left alone. “I’m sorry.”
“No need to be. You’re in the same boat, right? Stuck here alone?”
“Um. Yeah. I guess.”
“You either are or you aren’t and by the way you’re sipping that drink and looking miserable out here, I’m thinking you are.”
My sigh fills the space between us as I pick up the bottle by the leg of the table—the one I put there so I didn’t look like a drunk stealing sips during the afternoon—and pass it over to him. “Do you want to share in my misery?”
The smile he flashes is so bright it’s blinding. “Lyric Evermore,” he says and holds his hand out to shake my free one.
I stare at it for a beat, almost as if I’m confused over how this man is suddenly in my space, and I’m perfectly okay with it. And then I burst out laughing.
“That can’t really be your name, can it? I mean, it’s a stage name, right?”
“What’s wrong with my name?” he asks, brows furrowed like a little boy, and I suddenly feel like an ass.
“Nothing is wrong with it. In fact, it’s pretty damn cool for a musician to have that name—”
“Ah, so you listen to me rehearsing then? You know I’m a musician.” His cocky smile does things to my insides I don’t want to admit to. “And you like it.”
I stare at him and give a little shake of my head. “You have a good voice. I’ll give you that.”
“Why so stingy with the compliments?” I just stare at him with a blank face, caught off guard by his comment before he barks out a laugh and says, “I’ll take good voice. It’s better than some of the rejections I’ve gotten. But let’s get back to the matter at hand—why are you making fun of my name?”
“I’m not. It’s just—” My cheeks flush. “How does a singer end up with a name like Lyric when no one could know he was going to have a voice good enough to sing to begin with?”
He purses his lips and nods, his eyes never leaving mine. “You have a point there, one I may have pondered before myself, but I assure you, it’s my real name. Ironically. Supposedly my parents were really into music. And drugs.” His expression falters for a beat before the smile returns full force to cover up the sudden slip of emotion. “But that’s a story for another day. So . . .” He sticks his hand out to me again. “Lyric Evermore. Hopeful rock star with a fitting name. Singer who you’re stuck listening to rehearse. Guy who’s stuck here this weekend without anywhere to go.”