Ice Steam (Loving All Wrong #3) (2 page)

“D
avi, I’m…I’m pregnant.”

I paced back and forth. Sat down. Knees bouncing up and down. Got up again, looked at myself in the full-length mirror and practiced the delivery again in a more confident, robust voice. Undaunted, without a hint of nerves. “Davi, I’m pregnant.”

Much better
.

I could do this. I could totally just tell him. Spit it out the second he walked in and get it over with. Then, maintaining an insouciant demeanor, accept whatever decision he made about our unexpected predicament. To take responsibility or not.

Truth was, I couldn’t imagine his reaction to this news being cathartic or rhapsodic, considering our “relationship” had been sporadically on and off, hot and cold, I want you and I don’t.

Considering it was just four months ago he’d heatedly, wildly, ravenously, lost all restraint and pierced my innocence. A burst of passion. An explosion of pent-up need finally being unleashed. A year-old desire being quenched.

We made love. We shared. We explored. We gave up and gave in.

Now, I was nineteen and pregnant.

Let’s face it; he was going to freak out. Go ballistic. As much as I wasn’t ready for this, Davian was worse. Even though he was seven years older than me.

Davian Hamilton was the son of a legendary rock star, retired. One would think being the son of a legend would make things easier for him in the music industry. Far from it.

Head of his garage band, Ice Steam, he was struggling to get noticed. Doing a lot of free gigs. His washed-up dad hardly getting any strings pulled; probably didn’t even care to.

The band was crazy good, and I believed in them. I believed if they got a chance at some exposure, their rise would be meteoric.

This faith in the band had me busy for the past couple of months,
begging
my temporary guardian, Saskia Day, who w
as an esteemed British pop rock princess, to pull some strings or get her manager Lion to sign them.

See, Saskia Day was the ex-girlfriend of the lead singer of
the
biggest rock band in the world right now, Ninety Miles. Lead singer, Tex Laklin, was so disturbingly obsessed with her that he’d give her his balls if she asked him for them, anything to be with her again. However, he’d once tried to sabotage her engagement to her now husband, Jahleel Kingston aka JK—an outrageously famous professional dancer/choreographer, who was more famous for his good looks and being an asshole, than for his talent. Therefore, as much as I begged until I was blue in the face, Saskia flat-out refused to go there with her ex.

“JK would bloody well
kill
me!” she’d said.

Making a U-turn from that dead-end, I took it upon myself to take a secret trip to L.A. and spoke with Lion in person. If there was
anyone
in this world who could turn a crusty pebble into a star in 0.5 seconds flat, it was Lion T’mar. The man was a genius. A magician. Everyone knew that.

Which was the main reason I’d returned from L.A. crestfallen when he told me he couldn’t take on anymore artists at the moment. He did, however, tell me, in a perfunctory, not so promising tone, that he would see what he could do for Ice Steam, and if he
did
get them signed,
I
would have to sign a contract with him.

Ever since Lion first set eyes on me at age seventeen, he wanted to shove me head-first into the modeling world. I wasn’t interested, so I kept turning him down.

Nonetheless, this time around I agreed to it without a second thought; he gets Ice Steam signed, I’d sign with him.

All this was done behind Davian’s back. He had no idea I was soliciting favors on his band’s behalf.

Even though that visit to Lion T’mar was over three months ago and there was still no word from him, an opportunity could pop up at any moment. So this was how I knew Davian would go off the deep end when I told him the one single time we’d forgone a condom in the rain, in his backyard pool, one determined little sucker had head-butted its way through my egg.

There was no room for this BS in a rock star’s life—a struggling rock star at that.

And that’s the reason behind my anxiety right now. Not because I would have to drop out of college to be a mother, but because of
him
. This inconvenience wouldn’t bode well with
him
.

I got up and paced again, checking the time on his bedside clock.

I was at his house, in his bedroom, waiting. Earlier I’d phoned him and told him there was something I had to tell him. He’d chuckled mysteriously and said he had something to tell me, too. Said he was leaving a meeting, heading home, and I should wait for him in his room.

His house was just one fence partition away from Saskia Day’s, where I lived. Big and commodious. Housing just him, his little sister Kaydeen, and their once-upon-a-time rock star father, David Hamilton.

His bedroom smelled like him. The sheets, the walls, the curtains. Everything had his scent trapped inside its fibers and creases. His scent of orange peel and lime-grass. If I wasn’t so nerve-wrecked right now, I’d be wandering around sniffing everything, cocooning myself in his soft sheets and humming sweet lyrics, just like I had done so many times before I gave in to him. I would come over with the pretext of spending time with his sister, and then sneak into his room when he left, touching and smelling his stuff like a creep.

If only I hadn’t wasted so much time. For a whole year he’d pursued me. And for a whole year I’d played hard to get. From the very moment I first met him, I knew, just knew he was it.

But I was hardheaded and liked the thrill of the chase, so I tortured him by giving him only friendship, hanging out with the band 24/7, making sure I was always pretty, always well-dressed, always tempting. I loved the game.

By the time I was ready to give in to an official relationship, he had to leave. He left for six months with his father on a tour called Final Roll, where a host of old legendries got together and did one last hoorah.

I counted down the days to his return, and when he came back five months ago, I ambushed him in his garage and confessed how I truly felt about him. The six months of not seeing him had been a rude awakening of how I could lose him if I didn’t quit it with the games and claim him.

The night I fessed up was one of the most intense, unforgettable nights of my life. Bowled off his feet at my admission, he kissed me with a fierce hunger, went down on me right there in his garage with my back against the wall, then carried me up to his room, and with gentle care and tender passion, deflowered me, marked me, owned me.

“
You kept me waiting for damn near two years, Ally,
” he’d whispered as he pushed into me, breaking me. “This is
our beginning…
”

Now, I wasn’t so sure about that. Because when I broke this news to him, it could very well be our end.

The door handle twisted, and I jumped, nerves on edge.

As was usual whenever I saw him, my heartbeat sped up, and then it slowed, expanded, released, then went back to beating normal.

Davian wasn’t easy to look at. And that wasn’t because he was ugly. But because he was so hot he stung, burned, hurt worse than a heartbreak. Dark-brown bedroom hair, perpetual five o’ clock shadow on acute jaw, sapphire irises that showed me my entire future. Six feet one, ripped, olive-skinned.

“Hey,” he said, smiling.

That smile, it was different. And I knew right then that his news would be terribly good news, and my terribly bad news would slay his terribly good news. Big time.

Carelessly dumping his messenger bag on the floor, he walked over to me, tipped my chin up and kissed me, deep and long, then bumped his forehead to mine. “What did you do, Ally?”

“What?”

His blue eyes swept me up in them, wrapped around me like an ocean wave, whirled me around, dipped me and taught me how to surf, before spitting me out on the sandy shore. “I—we… my band just came out of the most baffling, out-of-the-blue meeting with our minds
blown. Even now I’m still wondering ‘
what the hell
’?”

“What was the meeting about?”

He gave me a ‘quit the act’ look. But I wasn’t acting. I had no idea what this was about. “Ally, it can’t be a coincidence that Lion T’mar, Saskia Day’s manager, got Benny Stucco, Ninety Miles’ manager and owner of Street Run Records, to sign
us
. Nobody garage band Ice Steam.”

Holy shit.
“Holy shit.”

“You did this?”

I took a step back. “I-I went to him…but I didn’t expect…holy wow, Davi.”

“Like I said, mind equals
blown,
” he whispered. “Apparently Stucco had a representative sitting in at a number of our gigs over the last few weeks, recording us on phone. Wanted to see if we were consistent in giving great performances. The label’s in love with us. They want us on tour with Ninety Miles…” He raked both hands through his hair and dropped his gaze. “Immediately.”

I took two steps back this time. “As…as immediately as?”

“We fly out tomorrow for Milan to get there in time to open for Ninety Miles.”

I couldn’t breathe. I felt like I was suffocating. “For how long?”

He winced as he answered, “Eight months.”

The walls were closing in. I slowly walked over to his bed and lowered my ass down so my weak knees didn’t fail me. “Where does that leave us, Davi?”

His answer to this question would help me decide whether or not to tell him he would be a father. This was his big break, and I wouldn’t be the one to take that away from him. Not when I was the one who kissed ass to make it happen for him in the first place.

I wasn’t worried about me. I could do well on my own. Only a few months ago, I found out I was wealthy enough to live through five lifetimes without ever having to lift a finger. Davian didn’t know this.

I didn’t even have a dream right now, beyond Davian, that is. I was still trying to recover from my parents’ death, still trying to grasp the concept of life.

But this was his dream. He needed to live it.

“That’s easy,” he said with a shrug. “You’re coming with me. I told Stucco. Voiced my concerns. He reminded me we’d be touring with
Ninety Miles
, so we won’t be squeezed in some tiny tour bus. We’re talking mansion on wheels, Ally. Girlfriends are definitely allowed.”

Not pregnant girlfriends
. “I can’t.”

“What?” He was looking at me like I’d just brutally snapped his puppy’s neck. “Why?”

“Because I’m nineteen and in college. I can’t just pick up and jump on a tour bus with you, Davi!”

I was angry. But it wasn’t at him. It was at myself for being stupid enough not to climb out of the pool that night and fetch a flipping condom. If it wasn’t for this stupid pregnancy, I could be packing right now to go ride out his dream with him, college be damned.

Davian moved to stand directly in front of me, glaring down, jabbing an accusatory finger in my face. “
No
, Ally. You’re not doing this again, you hear me? I was away from you for
six months
. I waited almost
two years
for you to admit you want me. We
just
got official. And now you expect me to just leave for another eight months
without
you?”

“This is your dream—”

“A dream I need
you
to be a part of!” he half-shouted. “You’re coming on that goddamn tour with me, Alina.”

I shot up and shouted back in his face, “I can’t go with you, okay?!”

“You better give me a damn good reason why, Ally, or I’m
not
getting on that plane tomorrow.”

Was he serious? He couldn’t do that! He couldn’t pass up on this opportunity.

Good reason. Good reason
. Breaking the knocked-up news was decidedly out of the question now. So I blurted, “I made a deal to get you signed.”

He eyed me distrustfully. “What kind of deal?”

“Lion said if he got you signed, I’d have to sign with him.”

“For what?”

“Modeling.”

Davian’s eyebrows shot to the ceiling. “You want to be a
model
? Since when?”

“Of course, I don’t,” I snapped. “I did it for Ice Steam.”

Scrubbing his hands down his face, he turned and began pacing the room, the same anxious circles I’d been making before he walked in.

After a few deafeningly silent minutes, he stopped and turned to me, face serious, decision made. “I’m not going.”

And that’s precisely why I wouldn’t tell him about the pregnancy. He would kill his dreams.

“I’ve always wanted this,” he said, voice hoarse, “and I’m glad you went out on a limb for me, but I want
you
more than I want this. I can do without it. My trust fund alone is more than I’ll ever be able to spend. I grew up in the lifestyle. Dad’s a legend, remember? I have the natural passion for music, but I guess I just wanted to walk in his footsteps, to make him proud, to carry on his name. But it doesn’t mean I have to. And he’s not expecting me to, either. I choose you over the fame, Ally. I choose you over the dream. I’m not going.”

Feeling a subtle burning sensation behind my eyes, I closed them, knowing what the burn meant. Davian Hamilton was the only person who could ever make me vulnerable enough to show any kind of emotion, who could ever make me feel that
burn
.

However, now wasn’t the time for tears, now was the time to be the strong one, the smarter one. Because weeks ago, neither of us had been smart enough to use protection, and this was where that left us.

I locked my arms around his neck. “I know you think that’s what you want right now, but I’d rather you go, try starting this dream without me, rather than starting a dreamless life with me and end up resenting me in the long run. I’d rather you choose me
after
you’ve tasted your dream, not before. You can’t know what you love the most of two things unless you have tried both.”

“Don’t tell me what I fee—”

I pressed a finger to his lips to keep him quiet. “In addition to that, it’s not just
your
dream, it’s also the band’s. What, you’ve dragged them this far only to pull the rug from under their feet because of some girl? They’ll resent you. They’ll resent me. They’ll never forgive you. It’ll be the end of Ice Steam.”