Page 91 of Driving Beats

Happy with my purchase—though not the variety of stores I had to visit—I skip into the kitchen. This beer bread was fantastic at Coop’s, and I can’t wait to make it again. Here. At home. With people who love me.

Alexis rushes in. “Nese. You’ll never guess who’s here.”

“That guy from the bar?” I pull out a couple of mixing bowls.

“Nope.”

“Your fellow server at the diner?”

“Ewww. No way.”

Noah strolls in. “Did Alexis tell you we spent the afternoon with your boy, Coop?”

The bowls slip from my fingers and land with a clatter on the countertop. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah. Owen took him to your bedroom.”

“Coop’s in my bedroom with Owen?”

“Not with Owen.” Alexis scrunches up her nose at Noah. “More like Owen led him to your room to drop something off.”

I shake my head. “Owen led Coop into my room?”

“Exactly.”

This isn’t making any sense. There’s only one way to get to the bottom of it. “Excuse me.”

Bewildered, I march down the hallway toward my bedroom. Sure enough, the open door to my room reveals my roommate.

With Coop.

Seeing UC’s guitarist in my bedroom screws with my mind. On one hand, he looks as if he belongs here. On the other, this is wrong. So wrong.

In the hall, my hands settle on my hips. “What are you doing here?”

Owen glances between Coop and me. “I think I’ll leave you to sort this out.” He walks around Coop and joins me at the threshold. In my ear, he whispers, “He’s a good guy.”

I don’t acknowledge Owen’s comment, merely allow him to cross the hall into his own bedroom.

Coop brings himself to his full height. Something’s different about him, but I lack the patience to discover what it is. “Nese.”

“That’s my name.”

His head swivels, going to my full-size bed, then the drapes I bought at Walmart, to the closet that’s so jammed the door doesn’t close all the way. “I want to talk with you.”

I sigh. Still in the hall, I say, “Couldn’t this have waited until I got back to LA?” He knows I’ll be there to resume the tour next week.

His shoulders lower.

Noah yells, “Let him have it, Nese!”

Turning my head, I yell, “Don’t worry!” I focus my attention on the guitarist again. “I don’t know why you came all this way. I think we said everything that needed to be said in LA.”

He reaches to adjust his sunglasses, which are not on his face—I knew something was off—and ends up putting his hands into his back jeans pockets. “That’s not entirely true.”

I slam my eyelids closed. Opening them, I give him my version of the facts. “You told me it was time for me to return to Georgia, so I bought my ticket and you put me on the plane. All without asking me if it was what I wanted. You made some stupid declaration that you’re happy with your life as it is. This about sums up the past three weeks. Minus the shopping and sex, of course.”

From down the hall, I hear Alexis tell Noah she knew we had done it. He responds, “So what? Nese and I have had sex plenty of times and you never seemed to care.”