Vintage Volume One (9 page)

seventeen

Media came and went. Police came and went. Eventually, all that was left was Barry and Tim and a few melted records, scorched books, and broken dreams where Vintage still stood strong.

The window had been boarded up, duct tape running along the expanse where the glass used to be. It looked miserable, and I felt sad. But I knew Barry would have repairmen out that day—the next day at the latest. It was just how he operated his business.

I was three glasses of wine in. I realized as I looked at the clock on my phone we’d been sitting in the same spot for a couple of hours.

“I’m ready to leave,” I announced. Parker and I hadn’t said much in the hours we’d been sitting. He’d been nursing his beer while I stared in disbelief at the crime scene across the street. Ever since he’d confessed that banging me had meant something to him and I hadn’t responded, he’d withdrawn from the conversation.

He was waiting for me to admit that it had meant something to me, too. It had, but I wasn’t ready to confess that just to appease him.

I wasn’t used to talking about my feelings. I thought back to my relationship with Damien. I thought I had loved him, but the I Love Yous had never been part of our vocabulary. Maybe it was because we hadn’t really loved each other. We’d depended on each other. We’d needed each other.

But I wasn’t entirely convinced that love was part of the equation for us.

I wasn’t sure why I was thinking about Damien. I wanted to be in the moment with Parker, to feel the way he’d made me feel the night before.

Despite feeling scared when he’d shoved his cock down my throat, being with him was comforting.

He made me feel different. Special. Unlike anything I’d experienced before.

I wanted more of it. I just had one thing standing in my way.

It was me. I was standing in the way, and I wasn’t sure how to move myself enough to get out of my own way.

Parker signaled to the waitress. “I’ll take you home.”

I shook my head.

Parker sighed dramatically. “No?” he asked.

“No. I want to go to the store.”

“Babe, media is probably still swarming. Let’s just get you home.” His voice was gentle and soothing, but I wasn’t about to budge. “Let Tim clean the mess.”

I shook my head. “I’ve worked there for four years. A piece of me is in that store, and I need to make sure that we’re going to be okay.”

“Fine,” he said, his voice flat. “I’m coming with you.”

He paid our bill without question, and I found that exceedingly chivalrous. I had enough money to buy the bar we were sitting in, yet he treated me to my wine and the nearly untouched spinach and artichoke dip I just had to order.

The gentlemanly action completely contradicted his attitude. He was essentially a caveman. He only wanted to come with me to keep an eye on me while I was with Tim. Part of me didn’t care, though. Extra hands could certainly help with the mess over at the store.

We walked across the street. Parker clutched my hand to his as he inspected the streets for anyone who might bother me. I knew I was safe with him.

The excitement had died down, and the media had cleared out.

“Sorry, we’re closed,” Barry called out from his position in one of the aisles when the chimes above the door jingled at our entrance. He must’ve been crouching on the floor, because I couldn’t see him.

“It’s just me,” I yelled back.

“Roxy?” he asked, standing.

“You need some help?” I asked. Parker hung back behind me, but he hadn’t let go of my hand.

“Tim got most of it. I told him to head home, so you should, too. I’ve got a window guy lined up for later. Alarm and cameras are lined up, too.”

“Can I help pay for anything?” I asked. I needed to do something.

He shook his head. “Thanks for asking. You’re a good kid.”

“Are you okay, Barry?” I asked.

I saw some emotion cloud his eyes, and then he nodded. “Yeah, kid. I’ll be all right. Now clear out of here. Be here on time tomorrow.”

He turned back to whatever task he was doing, and I followed his orders.

Parker and I walked toward my car, and I stumbled on a crack in the sidewalk. He caught me, steadying me. “You’re not okay to drive. I’ll take you home.” His phone made a noise, but he ignored it, his arm slipping around me as we walked toward the parking lot.

“I’m fine.” It was an automatic answer, although truthfully my ability to drive was probably a little iffy. I just hated the idea of being without my car. I didn’t want to have to figure out how to get back to work the next day.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said, as if reading my mind. “I’ll get you home, and then tomorrow I’ll get you back to work.”

“Fine.” I’d started to notice that arguing with him was pretty much futile. “Let’s just go.”

He helped me into his car. One of my dad’s songs was blaring through the speakers. He turned it down but left the volume on low in the background. I glanced at the stereo and saw that he had the radio on. It made me feel a little better that my dad’s band happened to be on the radio. He hadn’t been listening to Black Shadow.

If it would have been a CD playing the music, it would have been a completely different story. I was still scared that he was only into me because of who my dad was, but he’d made me feel like that wasn’t the case at all.

I glanced over at Parker’s handsome profile. “I have a question for you.”

He turned around to back out of his space, pausing for just a second to look at me. “What?”

“How did you know to be here today?”

He finished backing out and put the car into drive before answering my question. “What do you mean?”

“I mean how did you know to come to the store today? How did you know that there would be a fire and I’d need you?”

“I didn’t. I just missed you, so I came to visit. I’d actually planned to grab a coffee at the café, but a few afternoon drinks worked better.”

I felt my phone buzz with a text. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and checked the screen. It was my dad.
Are you alone right now?

I sighed. My dad tended to worry about me, but this was out of left field even for him.
No. I’m with this guy I’m seeing. Everything okay?

Fine. Just had a weird feeling. Always worried about you. Be safe.

It struck me as interesting that he had a weird feeling about me hours after someone had tried to burn down my store.
Always. You, too. Miss you.

Miss you CC.

Parker’s eyes narrowed in my direction. Apparently he wanted my undivided attention.

“What?” I asked.

He looked pointedly at my phone. “Everyone’s eyes are always glued to their screens.”

I didn’t have a reply, so we drove in silence back to my place.

I thought he was going to walk me in once we got there, but he didn’t. Instead, he sat in the driver’s seat, staring out the windshield with the car running as he waited for me to get out.

“What’s wrong?”

Parker let out a heavy sigh. He didn’t take his eyes from the windshield.

“I’ve been wrestling with telling you this all day.”

My heart leapt up into my throat in one of those weird moments that showed me how much he already meant to me.

He was quiet again.

I’d been too wrapped up in the drama that day. I’d chalked up his peace to comforting me, to not knowing what to say to me when my heart had been broken by the fire.

But clearly something was eating him, and he was about to reveal it.

“You’re scaring me.” My voice came out in a whisper.

He turned toward me. He took my hand in his, and I glanced up to meet his eyes while he played absently with my fingers. “Don’t be scared.” His eyes were warm, and it made me a little less scared.

“We’re writing.”

“Flashing Light?”

He nodded. “We’re working on new material.” He leaned forward to kiss me softly. “I’m not going to be around much the next few weeks.”

I nodded. “I understand.” If anyone got it, I did.

Just because I understood it didn’t mean I had to like it.

I already knew I didn’t like the idea of being with a musician.

But sometimes the heart makes decisions without consulting the brain.

eighteen

Nearly a month later, Parker and I were still together. He made me feel safe and protected. He made me feel cherished.

Loved?

I wasn’t exactly sure what being loved entailed. All I knew was that I felt different when I was around Parker.

My relationships for my entire life had been a series of interdependence. With Parker, I could be myself. I could be an individual. I had to be. He had things to do. He had a life—a busy life that included playing lead guitar for a band gaining in popularity. He’d even admitted their manager was negotiating another tour, but he didn’t want to jinx it by talking about it.

His career was taking off, and mine remained stagnant. I’d started to feel some aspirations to look beyond my retail career at Vintage when I’d first met Parker. For the first time in my life, I wondered what else I could be doing after he’d asked me why I was working there. But then someone had tried to burn the place down, and suddenly I felt connected to it like I’d never felt before.

After the fire, I’d spent a lot of time at Vintage.

Truthfully I didn’t know that much more about Parker than I had gotten to know in those first few days after he’d returned from his six weeks on tour with Flashing Light. He was good at dodging questions, and I was good at pretending like I didn’t have them.

So we plodded along, getting to know a little here and a little there when I wasn’t working and he wasn’t doing whatever it was he did with the band.

And he was almost always with the band.

Writing a new album meant Parker had essentially locked himself in the house he shared with the three other men in his band, escaping for only an hour or two at a time here and there. Long enough to sit at the café and eat dinner while I was working. Sometimes long enough for a phone call of apology that he wouldn’t be able to see me on whatever given night, but not always.

I understood all too well. Having grown up around it, I was well aware that every band had a different process. I could never be the one to stand in the way of Parker’s success.

It was unfortunate, but it was our relationship for the time being.

We hadn’t been alone in weeks—not even long enough to have sex. We hadn’t fucked since the first night at my house. Part of me wondered if he was avoiding me, but the other part of me knew I had to put faith in what we had. I was learning to trust him, even though I hardly saw him.

Four weeks later, I was nearly desperate for his touch. It was times like these that I hated emotions the most. I longed for the days when I hadn’t felt anything, because it was better than the ache between my legs that my own fingers did little to alleviate.

What we had was too new to categorize as something beyond lust, so I tried to look at it as a growing period. The time we spent away from each other only enhanced what I was feeling for him. Our stolen phone calls at ridiculous hours of the night when we were both beyond exhausted were enough to keep my interest—and his—and I looked ahead to the days when we’d have more time together.

He confessed to me that he was writing some of the best material of his life, that the desperation he felt in missing me, in longing for one woman, was pushing him to new heights, to words and creations that he’d never expected.

Maybe I wouldn’t have been so bothered by the time away from him if not for all of the strange things that kept happening to me.

I’d told my dad about the weirdness. He was the only one I’d told, in fact. I would have told Parker, but I hadn’t spent enough time with him to fill him in, and I didn’t want to ruin what little time we did share.

One day when I got home from work, I could have sworn that someone had been in my condo.

I was meticulous about where things were placed. I was fairly minimalist. I had only one picture on display, and it was of my dad and me.

That picture had been moved. I knew I hadn’t moved it, yet it was just slightly out of place. Slightly turned to the left when I’d specifically placed it to face me when I was sitting in my favorite reading chair.

Part of me wondered if I was going crazy. Maybe Parker had picked it up and set it down and I just hadn’t noticed.

But the other part of me was certain someone had been in my condo.

I decided to chalk it up to the same feeling that someone had been watching me my entire life.

It came with the territory of being a rock star’s daughter. At least that’s what I told myself.

Because the alternative was much too terrifying to even consider.

It was four weeks to the day after the first time Parker had fucked me when he walked into my store with a smile on his face thirty minutes before my shift ended.

“What’s with the smile?” I asked, finding it contagious.

He walked behind the cashier counter where I was ringing up a customer and grabbed me around the waist, pulling me into his arms and kissing me roughly.

“Parker!” I protested. I was working, for God’s sake.

“Sorry,” he muttered to the customer. I finished ringing him up, and then I turned my attention to the man who couldn’t seem to stop smiling.

“What’s going on?”

He paused for dramatic effect. “We finished writing.”

“You did?”

He nodded. “And I’m taking my girl out to celebrate tonight. When do you get off?”

My girl
.

I hadn’t been someone’s
girl
for a long time.

It felt pretty damn good.

I glanced over at the clock, trying not to blush at his comment. “Half hour,” I said. “How’s the new material? When do I get to hear it?”

“It’s fucking amazing. I really think this is going to mean huge things for Flashing Light.”

I was happy for him. Ecstatic.

Really, I was.

But a little thought nagged the back of my mind.

If he got big, if his band did, would he still want anything to do with me?

I was just the daughter of Gideon Price. If I’d been born to anyone else, there wouldn’t have been anything special about me. I was average without make-up, pretty with it. I was average height and scrawny. I didn’t have many talents and I didn’t have many ambitions.

So what was it about me that Parker was drawn to?

He sat in the café sipping coffee while I finished my shift. I went in back to clock out.

“Tim, I’m heading out,” I yelled. He was sitting in the office, staring at some paperwork.

“Can you come in here for a minute?” he called back.

I walked over to the doorway of the office. “What’s up?”

“Rox, I hate to do this to you. I don’t even know how to tell you.”

“Tell me what?” I asked, my heart suddenly beating a little faster with concern.

“I’m looking at these bills for the installation of the alarm system and the new window and the video cameras. They don’t jive with the budget. I’m going to have to cut everyone’s hours.”

“I’d rather have you cut my pay than my hours.”

Tim looked up at me. “What?”

“Cut my pay. I don’t need the money, but I do need this job.”

“I know you do. So do I. So does Virginia. But we’re not making enough to justify the number of people on staff. I’m going to talk to Barry. We might even need to cut back the store hours.”

“Fine,” I snapped. “I get it.”

Tim sighed. “I’m sorry, Rox.”

I walked away from him because I had nothing further to say.

“Ready?” I asked Parker. He was still sitting in the café sipping his coffee.

He nodded and stood, pushing in his chair and tossing his empty cup in the garbage can. We walked together toward our cars. “Where to?” I asked.

He leaned over and kissed my cheek. “How about we go to your place and get changed and I’ll take you to dinner?”

I nodded, a shiver rushing through my system at his simple, sweet kiss on my cheek. It held the promise of so much more.

We arrived at my place, and he grabbed some clothes out of his backseat before following me up.

He headed to my hallway bathroom while I went to my bedroom to get changed. I felt sudden nerves course through my veins. This was only our second real date even though we’d known each other for nearly three months.

I pulled my favorite black dress out of my closet and paired it with black heels. I ran a brush through my hair and touched up my make-up, and I was good to go in fifteen short minutes.

I found Parker standing in my living room, staring at the picture that I’d found misplaced only a week earlier.

“Where was this taken?” he asked without turning to look at me.

“London. I worked as my dad’s assistant on tour in Europe a couple of years ago. I fell in love with London.”

“I’ve never been there,” he said, finally turning around. He let out a low whistle. “Damn, Jimi. You clean up nice.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. I’d never seen Parker in anything but black jeans paired with a black t-shirt. He was wearing a black button-down shirt and black dress pants. The colors hadn’t changed, but he looked classy and handsome in dressier clothes.

“As do you.”

He took a step toward me. “How hungry are you?” he asked.

“I ate lunch about eight hours ago, so I’d say pretty hungry.”

“Dammit.”

I gave him a look of curiosity.

“If you weren’t that hungry, I was going to offer a quick fuck before we left.”

I laughed. “I sort of feel the need to be wined and dined before all that. Seeing as how it’s been a month since last time.”

“Don’t remind me,” he groaned, readjusting himself. “I’m desperate.”

I took a step toward him.

“You better not come any closer,” he said. “I can’t guarantee I’ll act like a gentleman when you look like that.”

I closed the final gap between us. “Who said I’m looking for a gentleman?” My voice was raspy as I leaned in toward his ear and took his lobe between my teeth.

A low growl emitted from deep in his chest. He hauled my body against his, and his lips were on mine—back where they belonged—before I knew what hit me.

His kiss was swift but packed some heat. He pushed back from me, turning away and heaving in a breath. “Let’s go,” he said, his voice hoarse.

I smiled despite wanting to rip off his clothes and followed him out my front door.

We pulled into the lot of South Steakhouse. It wasn’t far from Vintage. I’d been there a few times before with my dad, but I’d never had a date bring me there.

He guided me with his hand on the small of my back as I followed the hostess to our table. He pulled out the chair for me and then sat across from me, and I couldn’t help but drink him in for a moment before opening my menu.

A text came through on my phone just as I was deciding between the New York strip steak and the salmon.

Normally I wouldn’t have checked it on a date, but I’d forgotten to turn off my volume.

If I didn’t check it, the damn thing would keep alerting me until I did. I pulled my phone out of my purse to silence it when the message on the screen caught my attention.

It was from my dad.

Scheduled to be home late tonight. Free for breakfast?

I glanced up at Parker, who was studying his menu. I shot off a quick reply to my dad.
I work at noon. I’ll be at your house by ten.

I silenced my phone and figured I’d check his reply later. He tended to worry about his little girl, so I always tried to reply right away. But I was on a date with Parker. My date deserved my full attention.

“What was that about?” he asked, not looking up from his menu.

“Sorry,” I apologized guiltily. “It was my dad. No more interruptions.”

He raised an eyebrow but kept studying his menu. That was the end of our conversation. His silence struck me as a douchebag move, but I let it go. Maybe I was the douchebag. I had, after all, opened a text while we were on a date.

I thought back to his words about how everyone’s eyes were always glued to their screens and supposed that cell phones were sort of his pet peeve. I stored that in my mental file of things to remember about Parker.

The waiter took our orders. I sipped wine and watched as Parker tossed back his beer before calling the waiter over to order a quick second.

“So tell me about this new album,” I said.

I was curious about what he’d written. I wondered if it would give me some insight into who he was, this man who’d occupied my thoughts for the better part of the past three months.

He smiled sheepishly. “I wrote a lot of it while we were on the road. Some before I met you. But I have to be honest with you.” The waiter interrupted his thought by delivering his beer. Parker nodded to him before he chugged half of it down, and then he continued talking.

“Roxanna Cecilia Jimi Price, you’re my lucky charm.”

I paused with my wine glass halfway to my lips. “Excuse me?”