Seduction by Song (4 page)

She waits until we’ve kicked our shoes off and changed into something more comfortable—sweats and my favorite worn-out tank top for me—before sitting me down on the couch with her patented
we need to talk
expression on her face.

“Something’s wrong,” she says, without making it sound at all like a question.

I blink a few times as I fold my legs beneath myself. “What do you mean, hon?”

“Don’t
hon
me,
hon
,” she says, a playful grin coming to her lips to ease the mood. “Look, I know you weren’t exactly—
comfortable
back there. Did Romeo do something?”

I hesitate. Maddie was certainly the biggest fan of the Rocks out of all of us, and the last thing I wanted was to ruin Romeo Ortiz for her. That didn’t mean I was any happier about ruining him for April, either, but she did seem like she genuinely wanted to know.

And I didn’t want her to assume the worst, either. I especially didn’t want to lie to her.

“No, nothing—
bad
,” I say, even though that’s still somewhat of a lie. “He just—he’s kind of a jerk, you know? Not any worse than any rock star, I guess, but he just can’t take a
hint
. I just really wish one of you girls could have gone up there instead. You all like him loads more than I do.”

There. It was mostly the truth, at least.

April sighs and nods, relaxing noticeably. “People do strange things when they’re famous and in the public eye. I hope he hasn’t totally put you off the music?”

I cringe because, well, he kind of
has
. I’m sure April doesn’t
need
to hear that, though. “Well, maybe that
one
song,” I say, not wanting to answer the question directly. “Does he try to kiss
everyone
without permission?”

April laughs and pulls me in for a hug. “Let me make you some tea. Something warm. We’ll forget all about that hussy.”

I laugh, too, because
hussy
isn’t a word I would ever have thought of to describe Romeo—I’d have to make a note of that for future use. April always did know how to make a girl smile. I curl up with the remote on the couch and switch on the news while April gets the water boiling. We indulge in some specialty brew that she got from her last random, unannounced excursion to Asia and talk about anything
but
Romeo Ortiz while an old episode of some cop show plays after the news.

We’re both almost asleep when the phone rings. I furrow my brows and check the wall clock for the time, narrowing my eyes even more when it tells me very clearly that it’s nearly two in the morning.

“Who the hell would be calling
now
?” April grumbles as she rubs drowsiness out of her eyes.

“Dunno,” I say, yawning. “Leave it to the machine?”

She nods and lets our voicemail message play out, followed by a beep. It’s what follows
after
that that wakes me right up.

“
Hell
o, Erin,” Romeo’s voice says, flowing out of our answering machine like a melody. I share a look with April, myself stunned and her somewhat amused. Romeo continues, “I quite enjoyed our talk today. I hope you know I’m a man of my word—well, even if you don’t, you’ll see soon enough. Meet me for a coffee at noon at
The Daily Brew
next week. I’ll be expecting you.”

The answering machine beeps again, indicating the end of the message.

“Wow,” April says after a moment of silence stretches out between us. “So—he
is
a fucking asshole.”

I do cringe, then, and shake my head as I sigh. “No, no. Just—entitled, I think. Very,
very
confident. Someone probably gave him too much attention as a child.”

“Is that Erin my friend or Erin my future psychiatrist talking?” April asks, nudging me as she grins. “You know you can let yourself react naturally once in a while, right? You don’t have to justify everything for everyone—sometimes a dick is just a dick. Freud, right?”

I laugh and nudge her right back. “See, this is what happens when you only half-listen to me when I talk about my classes. And I’m not making excuses, I’m just—refusing to engage.”

April nods as she rises from the couch to stretch and set her cup down on the coffee table. She leans down to press a kiss to the top of my head, as motherly as she ever gets.

“Good. That’s probably for the best.”

We say our goodnights, then. She shuffles off into her own room while I snuggle into the couch to finish my tea before getting up as well. On my way to my room, I stop by the house phone and frown at it for a good solid minute before firmly, resolutely, deleting Romeo’s message.

Of course, nothing could be that easy.
The Daily Brew
happened to be the best coffee shop within walking distance from my apartment. They were far away from the university to be quiet in the mornings and I did my best studying there when April was busy in the kitchen—I didn’t mind her singing, usually, but it did get a bit distracting when I was fifty pages into my thesis and barely able to focus
without
distraction.

Knowing that Romeo knew of the place, my
favorite
place, I avoided it for as long as I could, not wanting to run into him in case he just happened to be frequenting the shop. I tried a
Starbucks
a little bit further down the road in the other direction, but it took me half an hour to claim a table and even longer to get any work done what with all the chatter filling the cramped space of the shop. I missed the plush armchairs and old tables of
The Daily Brew
, where I could spread out and work in peace.

Ultimately deciding that Romeo was probably only bluffing anyway—after all, why would he make any special effort to seek out a girl like me
—I packed up on my things on a Sunday morning, during which April had started on a mock-up of a huge cake project for a catering job (which meant she would be singing endless pop songs all day), and made my way to my usual table.

Lydia, my favorite barista and a friendly townie who always gave me some extra whipped cream on my iced coffee orders, waves as soon as she sees me. “The usual for you, babe?”

I nod and return the wave with a smile before going to settle down in my corner. My iced latte arrives lightning fast and I invite Lydia to sit for a while since I was one of the only customers in the shop so early in the morning.

“Where’ve you been? We missed your little intellectual babble the past few days,” she says as she brings over a mug of tea for herself.

I laugh and pull a face at myself as I pull my books out. “Really? I’m not
that
loud, am I?”

“Oh, no, of
course
not—but we do notice when our little corner isn’t mumbling under her breath about psychosis and whatnot,” she says teasingly.

I laugh again as I reach for my purse to grab s
ome cash to pay for the coffee. “I’ve just been—busy.”

Lydia quirks an eyebrow at me, clearly not believing my very vague answer. She doesn’t press the matter, though, and simply nods as she counts out my change. I’m grateful for the silence. It isn’t that I don’t consider her a friend—I do, really—but I didn’t exactly want to think about Romeo.
That
would just lead to a completely unproductive and frustrating day of distracting.

Once the early lunch guests start to come in, Lydia peels away to take care of the customers. Finally able to relax in peace, I open up my books and get down to work.

I’m nearly done with another sub-section of my thesis by Thursday, having spent nearly every morning of the past week hard at work. There was still a daunting amount of work to be done, but getting so close to the end of this step had my flying on cloud nine. (Well, maybe the two lattes I had earlier had something to do with that whole flying thing as well.) My conclusion was at the tip of my tongue—or my fingers, as it may be. I could probably wrap this up before lunch and reward myself with a trip to my favorite sushi place downtown.

As I type and retype the last lines of my current work, trying to find the perfect wording for my thoughts, I’m interrupted by the loud scraping of the chair in front of me being pulled back. Startled out of my focus on my work, I blink up at the tall intruder who’s taking a seat at my table when there are
clearly
many others open.

Before I can open my mouth to politely ask him if he could move, or if he’d like me to move, my eyes register the sight of Romeo Ortiz, grinning like he’s just won the lottery. I clench my jaw shut, then, and frown.

“I knew you wouldn’t disappoint me,” he says, crossing one leg loosely over the other as he leans back in his chair as though he belongs there. “Good morning, Erin.”

“Good morning, Romeo,” I say, icily. “Get out.”

He throws his head back and laughs, the deep baritone of his voice flooding my sacred,
quiet
space. “Changed your mind about meeting me so quickly? I never took you for
fickle
, Erin.”

The way he repeats my name, rolling the sound right off of his tongue, is annoyingly distracting for a moment before I shake my head to clear my mind.

“Who says I changed my mind? I never planned on meeting you here—it’s not
my
fault you chose my favorite coffee shop to harass me in, is it?”

“This guy bothering you, ‘rin?” Lydia calls out from the counter, her all-serious no-play voice in place. I’ve seen this girl kick the burliest men out of her shop before and knew that she wouldn’t stand for any disturbances.

I shake my head, though, wanting to take care of this myself—but before I can tell Romeo off properly, he’s reaching over and picking up my latte, taking a slow sip from my straw. I could feel my jaw drop.

The
nerve
!

“Hn. Not bad,” he says as he returns the drink to me. He turns to the counter without taking his eyes off of me and snaps his fingers. “I’ll have one of what she’s having.”

I could practically hear Lydia boiling over in the background—she was
pissed
and, honestly, so was I. There was charmingly commanding, and then there was Romeo: cocky and rude with an ego the size of the fucking moon.

“You can order
at
the counter,” I tell him, keeping my words clipped and curt. “Then you can
leave
.”

“Aw, but we’re just starting to have
fun
.” He grins as he settles back, looking as though this really was his idea of fun—knowing him, much more than I ever wanted to know him, it was
exactly
what he thought of as fun.

Frustrated beyond words, I begin to close my books and shove everything into the backpack I’d brought with me. I would have to apologize to Lydia for bringing this ignoramus into her shop, maybe bring her one of April’s cakes to make up for it.

“Leaving so soon?”

I slam my heaviest book shut with more force than is probably necessary, glaring up at him over the table as I stand once I’ve finished packing. “I will if you won’t.”

He holds out a hand, palm open, and lowers it slowly as though he thinks he can command me to sit with a simple hand motion—does this actually
work
on the girls he usually knows?

“Sit, Erin,” he says when he notices me standing firm. “
Give me one minute of your time, then I’ll leave you be.”

I frown, not trusting him for a second, but—I suppose one minute couldn’t hurt, and if he
did
leave afterwards, I could continue working in peace. I nod reluctantly and sit myself back down. “
What
.”

“I look forward to seeing if you’ve got a bite to go with that bark,” he says, that grin sneaking back onto his lips.

I roll my eyes and begin to stand again, only stopping when he reaches out and catches my arm, gently, yet firmly, guiding me back into my seat.

“Dinner,” he says simply. “Meet me back here ten days from now, around eight. I’ll pick you up for dinner. If you don’t change your mind about me after that, you’ll never see me again.”

I frown at his hand on mine, his touch not bothering me as much as it did the last time we met. I suppose it helps that he wasn’t forcing me to stay seated, but rather simply reassuring me of his patience and will to pursue me—though that was hardly what I’d call reassuring! Was dinner really what it would take to get this guy off my back?

“
Why
, though? Why are you so insistent on pursuing
me
?” I find myself asking before I can remind myself that I really don’t care, because—I suppose, in the end, I
do
want to know.

He releases my wrist after stroking his fingers down the back of my hand, sending a surprising shiver shooting up my spine.