“Hi! So here he comes, my illustrious roommate.”
I forced a smile and turned toward the living room where the greeting had come from. Jack was doing me a favor by letting me stay at his place. The least I could do was be polite to his guest. His one guest.
“Hi!” I waved.
The girl made me do a double-take. Wavy blond hair, bright blue eyes, tight sexy body. She was a replica of the girl who owned my heart. A completely soulless replica.
“Joshua MacBride!” She stood up from the sofa and, in a couple of strides, had wrapped her arms around me. I tripped forward awkwardly, pulled by her embrace. Her perfume—like half of a flower shop up my nose—triggered memories.
“Meg… Alistair.”
She jumped back, the wine in her glass threatening to spill over the edge. “So you do remember me.” She took a sip and her eyes gave me the once-over.
Megan Alistair had been my fuck-buddy during my first semester at Georgetown. Not my only fuck-buddy, but definitely my ‘favorite’ one. The memory made me wince. I’d chosen her because she’d looked so much like Cassie. I’d been truly screwed-up back then. A whore too. The only difference was that I didn’t charge for my services.
“I’ve been trying to catch up with Meg since we graduated.” Jack sat on the edge of his chair, all curly hair and round-rimmed glasses.
He hadn’t yet lost his childlike pudginess. He used to have a massive crush on Meg. Entirely unrequited, unfortunately for him. I didn’t think lovely Meg was here tonight because of Jack and I felt sorry for him.
“So… how’ve you been?” I asked.
She started wriggling her small body, bouncing a curve here, another one there. “I work here in D.C. Same kind of job as you actually.” She threw out the name of a very distinguished senator. Meg might act like a bimbo, but she wasn’t one. And her family had connections snaking back to the Founding Fathers.
“Awesome.” I passed my hand through my hair and gave them what I hoped looked like an exhausted smile. “I need to hit the sack. Second week at work and all that. Have fun guys.”
I waved at them and headed towards my bedroom.
“So I’ve heard on the grapevine that it’s over between you and Eleanor Carrington.” I froze. “Rumor has it that it ended up pretty ugly between the two of you.”
The look I shot Meg over my shoulder couldn’t have been friendly because she flinched, her wine almost spilling again. In my peripheral vision, I noticed Jack straighten up in his chair.
I’d been a gigantic ass to Lenor, but I wouldn’t let Megan Alistair bitch on a girl who’d been a true friend to me from start to finish. “You shouldn’t pay attention to idle gossip.” It sounded more like a warning than advice. “We split up, but it was amicable and we are still friends.”
Meg gave me a knowing look and went back to the sofa. She curled herself in it with her legs underneath her. She was working the feline angle, but it was lost on me.
“I’m sorry for Lenor. She seems to be the type who is always unlucky in love. After the way Zach Murdoch dumped her way back when…” She tsk-tsked and shook her head in fake commiseration.
I’d never heard the name Zach Murdoch before and I’d dated Lenor for four years. Maybe she had her own secrets after all. “As I said, you shouldn’t listen to gossip.” I swirled around. “Good night, Jack.”
I showered and crashed under my duvet five minutes later. Jack’s guest must have taken her leave quickly, because I couldn’t hear her fake laugh anymore. I took my cell from the bedside table, pushed a button and the display screen lit up. I didn’t want to call Cassie because she was either backstage or on the bus.
So that left texting as the only option. I loathed texting. The word-shortening, over-emotional punctuation and deliberate misspelling: not my thing. Give me a piece of paper, a proper pen, and I might be able to write something decent. If push came to shove, I could even put it into an email. But expressing myself on a tiny screen, telling Cassie how much I missed the scent of her skin, the softness of her hair, how much I needed to hold her in my arms again and hear her simply breathing.
Telling Cassie that every day without her left me vacant and void inside.
These things didn’t text well.
Still, there was no way I was letting her go to sleep—in a bus buzzing with testosterone—without her knowing she was mine and I was hers. I let out a frustrated groan.
I typed, “Going to sleep. Will find you in my dreams.”
Pathetically lame and corny.
I kept staring at the screen of my cell, even after the light had gone off. The cell beeped. Cassie’s name on it.
Cassie (23:28): Hiding in my bunk-bed. Writing a song about my love for you.
My heart did some weird dance-move in my chest. Damn, Cass was right; I could be such a chick sometimes. I put the cell back on my bedside table and curled my arm under my head. I could feel the stupid, satisfied smile curving my lips.
Modern technology wasn’t that bad after all.
CHAPTER 8
Cassie.
It was my first ever day apartment-hunting and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to recover.
My flight had landed at Ronald Reagan Airport after midnight following a three-hour delay. That had meant we’d crashed into bed at around two. But we were still up at eight a.m., racing out the door to find a place to live. It was a flash-visit anyway: Josh was flying to Europe early on Sunday morning. That meant we only had Saturday together.
After the three weeks I’d spent sleeping on a bunk-bed in a bus shared with guys and all their B.O., sex and bodily functions issues, I wasn’t at my freshest. Plus, I got car sick, so touring on a bus was like going sailing during a force ten hurricane. But the nights I spent on stage made it all worth it.
At the end of the day, the sore feet had paid off. We had our house. Or our portion of a house. And not any old house, but a Georgetown row house. I felt like I’d made it.
“This is just so freakin’ perfect.” I clasped my hands over my chest as I gave the apartment a final look. The realtor had left us on our own. The place wasn’t big, but had a second bedroom. That would be perfect for Lucas. The cherry on the cake was the small backyard. “This is really a dream.”
“Are you sure?” Josh was eyeing me, his forehead in a frown. “This isn’t what I had in mind. It’s not really modern or anything.”
“I’ll put on a new coat of paint—the realtor said we could do that—and I’ll clean up the garden.”
“You mean the ten square feet lying outside the back door?” Josh pointed at the glass door leading from the kitchen into the yard.
My shoulders drooped. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself. It would be Josh’s home too, our first home together. It had to work for both of us. “It’s different from what you wanted.”
We’d spent the morning in Arlington. Viewings had followed each other like chunks of beef on a skewer. Arlington fitted the bill for what he thought we should be looking for. Apartment complexes, safe, clean and modern, a walkable neighborhood, excellent schools. He’d even shown me the perfect school for Lucas and its official test scores.
But the truth was I’d been dreaming of something more homey. I’d said that out loud and the realtor mentioned Georgetown. The second building we visited proved to be just what I was looking for.