“Then where will you—” I decided not to finish my question about where he’d nail his conquests. I didn’t want to know. Did I?
Rafe snorted. “No one has access to my bedroom.”
I let out a loud sigh. “Great. So I’m sleeping on the sex couch?”
“It’s sturdy,” he said, chuckling. He turned, and I scowled at his perfectly molded ass as he walked into his dark bedroom. “This is my inner sanctum,” he called back to me. “My private place.”
I took a tentative step toward his room and heard plastic bags rustling. I peeked into his chamber. The blackout blinds were closed, so it was dark, but the room was almost monastic in its simplicity. The enormous, comfortable-looking bed was made up with a thick duvet and piles of pillows. There was a dresser with a mirror against the nearest wall, and a chaise in the corner. Rafe’s guitar rested in a stand by the chaise, positioned in front of what I assumed was a wall of windows that, if my sense of direction was right, overlooked downtown Los Angeles. The view was probably spectacular at night. The difference between the hedonistic mess in the living room and this sanctuary was extraordinary.
I turned toward a doorway where light spilled out. It had to be a huge walk-in closet. Rafe was rustling around in there.
“Hey, Rafe?” I called out toward the light.
He popped his head out and looked down at my feet. “Remove the shoes, please.” Then he disappeared back into the closet.
I bit my lip and looked down at my dingy Converse, which stood out in sharp relief against the ecru carpeting. I tiptoed out of the room and stood in the doorway.
“What are you looking for?” I called to him, making sure my feet stayed on the hardwood side of the threshold.
He came out of the closet carrying a pile of something. With the light behind him and his torso bare, he looked every inch the rock star he was. He walked toward me, his hips loose and his body languid. My heart skipped, and I took a shallow breath. He stood in front of me, the flecks of gold in his eyes a contrast to their deep brown. His full lips opened slightly, and his tongue moved along his lower lip. I bit down on my own and stood ramrod straight, unable to move.
He shoved the pile into my arms. “Sheets, blankets, and pillows. Thought you might need them.”
I grasped the linens as he pushed past me and into the kitchen. My legs felt like jelly, and I urged them to move me toward the couch. I pushed some discarded clothes to the side and set the pile of bedding on the cushion. They were nice sheets. Soft. I tried not to think about how they’d feel against my skin. In Rafe’s enormous bed.
I felt his heat on my back and turned. He was close. Super close. Close enough that I tried to take a step back, but my calf hit the couch, so I had nowhere to move.
“So, uh, thanks for coming to my rescue,” I said, and immediately regretted it when his grin went lopsided. I rushed out the rest. “I’ll just crash here a few days, until I get myself sorted. Don’t want to cramp your style.”
His head cocked to the side. “You can stay as long as you need to. No rush there.”
“I’ll be in the way. Really don’t want to cramp your style,” I repeated. I waved my hand around the gross apartment. His style being wild parties and loads of babes.
“I don’t think you get my style,” he said.
I pushed my way around him. “Oh, I think I do.”
Rafe cocked his eyebrow. “You seem so sure of that.”
He plucked a probably not clean T-shirt from the couch and yanked it over his head in one swift move.
“Later,” he said. He grabbed his keys off the counter.
“Where are—” I bit back my words when I realized I was henpecking.
“Band practice,” he said. “I’ll be back around nine. Don’t eat. We’ll order in.”
He was out the door before I could argue.
5
It took the better part of the afternoon and evening to finish the deep clean of the apartment after the rank mess left behind by Rafe’s three-day bacchanalia.
But by 9:05 p.m., I was sprawled on Rafe’s sheet-covered couch, my bare feet tucked under me. My nose was in a book, notebook beside me, pen at the ready, knee-deep in my Renaissance Poetry course. I’d keep up with the syllabus even for no credit. I had plenty of time to fill. It wasn’t like I had anything else going on. As I yawned, my stomach rumbled. If I waited for Rafe, I’d die from starvation.
I grabbed my laptop, stretched out my legs, and made a beeline for the kitchen. Plopping the computer on the counter, I started my hunt. There was nothing resembling food in his booze-stuffed fridge—although his selection of craft beers was impressive—so I dug through his pantry and unearthed an unopened bag of chips. When I poked through his wine fridge, I found an impressive selection of whites. I opted for a Riesling, then rooted around in his drawers for a corkscrew and got busy opening the bottle.
Wine bottle in one hand, glass in the other, I padded to a stool at the breakfast bar and deposited myself in front of my laptop.
Without Rafe at home, the apartment was lovely. He was insufferable the five years or so I lived with him at Vince’s place in Bel Air, but there were plenty of spare rooms to disappear into at the mansion. A two-bedroom flat, one of those bedrooms overstuffed with musical instruments, didn’t give us a lot of alone space.
I topped off my wineglass and fired up my web browser. It was time to look for a job.
I took a sip of wine—oh, that goes down smooth—and proceeded to one-finger peck at the keyboard with my free hand. Administration jobs. Los Angeles area. I kept it to a three-mile radius, since I was carless at the moment. I clicked submit and waited for the results. Sipping at my wine, I scanned the slew of job listings that popped up on my screen.
It only took a few minutes of clicking to realize that I wasn’t qualified for any of them.
I heaved a tired sigh and took another slug from my wineglass. Opening up a new tab, I tried a new job site, giving myself a wider search radius. Same problem. I refilled my wineglass and shoved more chips in my mouth to tame my growling stomach. Where the hell was Rafe anyway?
Slumping against the back of the stool, I considered the list before me. I was woefully unprepared for any sort of work. In the real world, songwriting, guitar playing, and backup singing skills were not in tremendous demand. The car situation meant that I was geographically challenged, so that didn’t help. Plus, no four-year degree. So many jobs whose duties included nothing more than directing a phone call or creating a PDF required one. And for minimum wage, no less.
After seventy-six job postings, and a third refill of my wine, I concluded that I was unemployable.
The sound of Rafe’s key in the door turned my attention to the clock. Nine forty-five p.m. So much for dinner at nine.
“Hey,” he said, pushing the door open. He was juggling two brown paper bags as he angled the key out of the lock, then he kicked the door closed and his eyes made an appreciative sweep of the apartment. “Damn, babe, the place looks as good as when I moved in.”
“Yeah, I’m an old pro at cleaning up other people’s messes,” I said, watching him dump the paper bags onto the newly cleared counter. I was usually the one who’d cleaned up after Pamela’s epic parties. In some ways, Rafe’s apartment was a breeze. I wasn’t picking up around passed out people in various stages of undress.