Roped In (Strings Book 2) Read online

  “I don’t like men. And he’s fucking nineteen,” Callum said through clenched teeth.

  “So?” Carver said. “I thought one of our interns this summer was hot and he was twenty.”

  Catrina and I laughed and Brody shook his head while Callum stayed silent.

  “Anyway, I think he cares about the class even if it’s only because he has a harmless crush,” Brody said.

  “Whatever,” Callum said right as Michael rejoined the table. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him put a hand on Carver’s thigh. I looked at Carver to see how he would react since the two were clearly still pissed off at each other, and I noticed the smallest shift in him. The acceptance of Michael’s olive branch. God, it enraged me seeing my friend settle for this guy when he could do so much better.

  “What about you, Talia?” Carver looked at me. “Any new groupies lately?”

  As if on cue, as if the universe was designed to be as cruel to me as possible, I looked at Carver, and over his shoulder, standing at the front entrance of the club, was Jack fucking Harding.

  Chapter 8

  Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

  Why was Jack here? And why did he look so damn good?

  He was lingering near the entrance, scanning the bar, and he looked downright edible. He looked like he’d come straight from work in a perfectly tailored gray suit that fit tightly over his arms and thighs making him look impossibly bigger. He’d taken off his tie and unbuttoned a few buttons, and the casual millionaire look was totally doing it for him. And for me.

  When his eyes landed on me he gave me this small, nervous smile that made my heart flutter in my chest.

  “Talia?”

  When I looked up, Catrina was giving me a worried look as she glanced between me and Jack.

  “I’m okay,” I said before scooting off my chair. “I’ll be right back.”

  I walked over to Jack, my eyes on him the entire time, and when I got close enough, he gave me another smile, this one more open.

  “If you want me to leave, I will,” was the first thing he said.

  God, he was so considerate. Even after what I’d done to him, he was still thinking of me. Part of me wanted to tell him to go. I didn’t trust myself around him, especially not when he looked this good. I didn’t trust myself to not throw myself all over him and beg him to take me home. Not only that, but being on stage, having him watch me with that intense green stare, was going to be a huge distraction.

  The bigger part of me, though, the one that still desperately wanted him and wanted him to want me, wanted nothing more than for him to stay and watch the rest of my set. I wanted him to see me with my band, to tell me I was talented, to look at me with that honest gaze and tell me he enjoyed seeing me in my element. And it was that part of me that replied to him.

  “No, I don’t want you to leave.”

  Jack’s features softened a bit, and then he took another step closer to me, which forced me to tilt my head back slightly to keep his gaze.

  “I’m sorry for what I said a few weeks ago,” Jack said. “I… you were right. I was the one who wanted to see you. You didn’t force me to do anything, and you’re right. You didn’t make me any promises. You never have.”

  “I shouldn’t have left like I did,” I replied, hands shaking. “I just…” I trailed off because I didn’t know what to say, and I shrugged like a dope.

  “I meant what I said. I missed our friendship, and, despite everything, I’d like to go back to that,” Jack said. “We shouldn’t have slept together, and we… we can’t again. I get that. I get that it’s what’s best for both of us. But I still want to know you, Talia. I’d like to be your friend if you’d let me.”

  His words made my stomach clench painfully. Because as much as he might have been right that we shouldn’t have slept together, it still hurt to hear the words come out of his mouth. I knew he was right, knew it was a mistake when we would never want the same things, but the last thing I wanted was for Jack to regret being with me. I was such an idiot.

  “I’d like that,” I said in spite of myself. Even if it hurt, I didn’t think I was ready to let Jack go again just yet. Being his friend may drive me to madness, but I wanted to be around him so much that I just didn’t care about the consequences. I’d take whatever scraps he was willing to give me. I just wanted to be near him.

  When I brought him over to where my friends were all sitting, Brody was the first one up and pulled Jack into an embrace. I knew Brody and Jack were still friends, but I didn’t know how much of our relationship he’d heard from either Jack or Catrina. If he knew anything, he never let on, but it still made me wonder. It still made me question if he somehow saw me in a different light knowing how things had gone down with his friend.

  “Jack, you remember Callum and Carver, right?” I asked. Jack nodded and reached out his hand to shake each of theirs.

  “Good to see you guys again.”

  “Likewise,” Carver said with a broad smile.

  “Good to see you,” Callum said.

  “This is Michael, Carver’s boyfriend,” I said gesturing to Michael who was sitting as far away from everyone as he could at a round table, not interacting with anyone. He nodded in Jack’s direction, and I withheld an eyeroll. “And you know Catrina of course.”

  Jack smiled brightly as Cat walked around the table.

  “It’s so good to see you, Cat,” Jack said as he and Catrina hugged. My stomach knotted painfully at seeing how happy they were to see each other, at how they embraced like old friends. Cat said something to Jack that I couldn’t hear that caused him to smile again when they pulled away from each other. Sudden and overwhelming jealousy came over me in that moment. Not because I thought Cat and Jack meant something romantically to each other, but at the realization that the two had probably been in some form of communication with each other over the years. I was jealous over the idea that Catrina had possibly gotten to experience all those years that I’d missed out on.

  It was crazy that I hadn’t thought it before. I knew Jack and Brody were good friends. Of course they’d probably had him over for dinner in the six years since college had ended. When the thought came over me that they may have had both Jack and his fiancée over, I almost doubled over in pain.

  “Talia?”

  I jumped at the sound of Catrina’s voice, and she shot me a small frown.

  “Carver wants to do a round of shots. You in?”

  “God yes,” I said, not looking at either her or Jack.

  A few minutes later, Carver brought back six shots—one for everyone except Catrina who was her and Brody’s designated driver for the evening—and I still didn’t look in Jack’s direction as I threw back the shot and immediately went to the bar for another.

  “What’ll it be, babycakes?” Eric asked when I slid onto a bar stool.

  “Tequila,” I replied.

  “You got it. Lime?”

  I nodded, and when I looked over my shoulder and saw Jack, Catrina, and Brody all talking, I turned back to the bar and called out, “Actually, make it a double.”

  ◆◆◆

  By the time we finished our set for the evening, I was so wired that I was practically bouncing on my toes.

  I had another shot of tequila before going on stage and a shot and two drinks while I was on. I was beyond buzzed, but the adrenaline from the show and from Jack’s presence was almost having a sobering effect on me.

  Which was why I was at the bar watching Eric pour me another shot of tequila.

  “You’re letting loose tonight, huh mama?” Eric said as he set the shot glass and the lime in front of me.

  I giggled a bit when he winked at me, unable to get rid of my stupid crush on him no matter how hard I tried. He looked good tonight like he did every damn time I saw him, so of course I took notice—I’d have to be blind not to—but that didn’t stop the thoughts of Jack from invading my mind.

  During the show, I tried with all my might to keep my eyes of
f Jack. But when we got to the ballads, especially “In All Things”—a song I had written just a few weeks after I’d seen him the last time right after college when I was trying to pretend like I wasn’t heartbroken even though I totally was—it was impossible for my eyes not to drift in his direction. I could feel his eyes on me the entire time, feel him watching me, studying me in that intent way he was so good at. The way that made it seem like I was the only person who existed in the entire world.

  His eyes had only strayed once, and it was right near the end of the set when we played our second to last song—a funky, bluesy tune that was up tempo and almost had some bluegrass vibes to it. It was always a crowd favorite, and when my eyes had wandered to Jack, for the first time in the five years since we’d formed Flora and Fauna, I almost lost the beat of the song.

  I’d seen Jack standing off to the side from the table where my friends were—all enjoying the heck out of my song and singing along—with a tall, beautiful woman with long black hair who basically looked like a gorgeous young version of Cher. She was stunning, and she kept looking at him and smiling, casually touching his arm as they talked. He gave her one of his smiles that made my heart stutter.

  In that moment I wanted to take my drink and hurl it across the room at both of them, but I forced myself to look away and sing my heart out for the last two songs. When I’d gone off stage, my friends had tried to congratulate me and tell me what a good job we did, but I made a beeline for the bar, where I was currently sitting, sucking on a lime after downing my fourth tequila shot of the evening.

  Five if you counted the double before I went back on stage.

  Eric was right. I was definitely letting loose.

  “Hey.”

  My heart lurched when I heard Jack’s voice right before he slid into the bar stool next to me.

  “Hey.”

  “You’re incredible up there, you know that?”

  They were the words I’d wanted to hear all night from him, but for some reason all they did was piss me off.

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you—”

  “What can I get for you?”

  Jack looked up at Eric. “Just a water. Thanks, man.”

  Eric nodded and looked at me. “You good, babe? Need anything else?”

  I blushed. Of course I blushed. And the bar area was lit enough for either Jack or Eric to see. Eric had to know how much he affected me, but he never let on, just smiling gamely when I went all school girl on him.

  “Tequila,” I told him.

  Eric shook his head. “Tal, I cannot give you anymore tequila. You weigh a hundred pounds and I’ve already given you more than I probably should.”

  I laughed. “A hundred pounds?” I grabbed my ass and lifted a little off my stool. “You’ve seen my ass, right?”

  I ignored Jack’s intake of breath next to me when Eric just shook his head again. “Obviously I’ve seen it. The point still stands.”

  “Oooh,” I slurred. “Checking me out? Aren’t you married?”

  Eric chuckled. “Babe, if I was checking you out, you’d know it.”

  When Eric set two waters in front of us and turned to go, I heard Jack laughing next to me.

  I glared at him. “What?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing. You just totally have a crush on that guy.”

  I opened my mouth and closed it a few times, caught unawares by Jack’s completely correct observation and stunned that he would say it so casually. Did he care at all that I found another man attractive? He apparently really was only interested in friendship with me because even seeing him talk to another woman made me see red.

  “No, I don’t.”

  Jack scoffed. “You blush every single time he looks at you. When he said that thing about you knowing it if he checked you out I thought you were going to faint.”

  “Whatever,” I murmured, taking a huge swig of the water Eric had left in front of me.

  “I get it,” Jack said. “He’s a good looking guy.”

  “Sounds like you’re the one with the crush.”

  Jack lifted one shoulder. “Maybe.”

  In spite of myself, I giggled.

  Jack opened his mouth to say something, but right then Catrina and Brody came over.

  “How you getting home, girl?” Brody asked.

  “Um, dad, I live six blocks away.”

  “Um, daughter, it’s midnight and you’re a little girl,” Brody replied.

  “Don’t tell her that,” Jack said. “When the bartender hinted at it, she grabbed her own ass.”

  I shrugged. “I’m not little.”

  Catrina raised her eyebrows in my direction and I shoved a hand at her shoulder. “Hello? You’re supposed to be on my side? Best friends? Hello?”

  “I am on your side in all things except this.”

  I huffed and took another drink of water.

  “I’ll walk her home.”

  I choked on my water when Jack spoke.

  “No, you won’t,” I said hoarsely.

  Jack ignored me. “It was great to see you, Cat.” Jack and Catrina hugged as I, again, tried to protest Jack walking me home and was, again, ignored.

  I’d had too much tequila to be trusted if Jack walked me home.

  “We’re still on for Xbox and chill this weekend, right?” Brody asked as he and Jack embraced in a manly hug.

  “Of course,” Jack said with a grin.

  “Bye,” Catrina said as she wrapped her arms around me. “I love you, and don’t do anything stupid.”

  When she pulled back, she gave me a pointed look, and I gave her one right back.

  “Bye, Tally girl,” Brody said as he hugged me.

  After Brody and Catrina left, I stood up. “I can walk myself, thank you.”

  “Whatever.”

  Before I could reach for my back pocket, Jack threw a one hundred dollar bill on the counter and turned to go. I gaped after him.

  When he made it a few feet away he turned back. “You coming, or what?”

  Damn, I wish.

  Chapter 9

  The walk to my apartment was excruciating. It was only six blocks, but it felt like six hundred miles because of how desperately I needed to get home and away from Jack before I let the tequila take over.

  We didn’t speak the entire walk. I didn’t know if I was the only one feeling the tension, but it was surrounding me like a fog.

  I still wanted him. We couldn’t be together. We wanted completely and utterly different things. Jack wanted a relationship and a future and love and commitment, and those were all things I had no interest in. Relationships ended in heartbreak, and who the hell would want to willingly subject themselves to pain? I wasn’t a masochist.

  Or maybe I was.

  Because walking next to Jack, feeling his arm occasionally brush mine felt like the most painful thing in the world, but I still craved it. Every jolt of awareness set my heart racing and my hands shaking, made me feel like I was coming out of my skin, like one more light touch was going to set me ablaze.

  When we got to my building, I stopped and Jack shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground. His face was shadowed by the light coming from one of the street lamps, but he looked much more relaxed than I felt.

  He didn’t say anything for a while, and I wasn’t really sure what I was supposed to do—hug him and thank him for coming to the show, for walking me home? Is that a thing that just friends would do? What I knew was that I wanted his arms around me, and that was a dangerous thing to want because if I felt his strong arms around me, I’d die from the want, from the need that had taken over my entire body.

  I was just about to turn to go without so much as a word or acknowledgement since he’d made no move to do either.

  “You’re really talented,” he said suddenly, still not looking at me.

  I gaped like a fish, opening and closing my mouth because I was so surprised and flattered and pleased by his words that I’d stopped functioning lik
e a normal human being who could just take a compliment and not think there was anything behind it other than that.

  “Thanks,” I finally managed.

  “I never really got to see you perform in college,” he said, studying his shoes. It was such a strange and insecure gesture from someone who was typically so sure of himself, from someone who just a half hour ago was teasing me about a crush I had on a bartender. “I mean, I knew you could sing,” he added. “You used to sing in the shower and… yeah, I knew you could sing.”

  The reminder of us, of a past that felt like a lifetime ago and yet so vivid and present in my mind that it could have been yesterday, made my stomach flip. There had been nights over the years that I would lay awake and remember our time together—his hands on me, his mouth on mine, the way he smelled, the way he laughed, the sounds he made when he came—and I would ache for him. I’d gone years missing him, craving him, sleeping with other men and closing my eyes and trying to imagine it was Jack, trying desperately to cling to memories that had never faded over time, not even a little.

  Sometimes it felt like a movie replaying in my mind incessantly, like a song I couldn’t get out of my head no matter how many songs I listened to in an effort to just get that song out that was driving me mad. Sometimes it felt like I remembered every single moment together, every night we spent in his bed or in mine, all the times he came over smelling like beer and sweat and slid under my sheets and into my heart and into my body while we were forced to be quiet since Catrina’s room and mine shared a wall. He’d put his hand over my mouth as he braced himself behind me, the sounds of his body slamming against mine louder than any sound I could have made even though neither of us cared even a little bit when we were lost to each other.

  I remembered those other moments, too. Hearing him on the phone with his sister, who it was obvious he adored, dancing with him at clubs, the day he asked me to his sister’s wedding and I lost it. And knowing that he might have remembered those different times, too—that he remembered me singing in the shower—made me feel an overwhelming affection for him.