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Chapter 1
Lucy
Ring. Come on, you stupid phone. Ring. Or chime with a text. Do something other than just sitting there. Ugh! I hate you, you stupid piece of technological crap.
I sucked in a deep breath and tried to keep my eyes from straying to the still silent phone sitting on my desk. Shit, I was becoming that girl. The one who did nothing but looked at her phone in hopes that the boy she liked would call, text, email—for the love of all that was holy, something.
Why did I suddenly feel like a stalker? Like an obsessed stalker that had to get her daily fix of her victim? After spending the last three months talking to Harris at least twice a day in some shape or form, not hearing from him was painful and was messing with my damn mind.
I hated that this was what I was resorting to. Spacing out all day long in anticipation that Harris Cutter would reach out to me and let me know that he was thinking about me as much as I was thinking about him. I’d been like this since he’d kissed me almost two weeks ago.
He’d kissed the breath out of me and told me that he wanted to be my boyfriend. It was something I’d secretly wanted for months. I’d left his office and returned to my family and friend for our girls’ night feeling like I was walking on a cloud. My mom, sister and aunt had given me odd looks throughout the rest of that night. I knew I’d probably been overly flushed and had had a stupid grin on my face, but at least they hadn’t called me out on it. Lana had even refrained from teasing me about it.
That night it had taken forever for me to get to sleep. I had felt like I could have flown to the moon and back and still had energy to burn. When I’d gotten up the next morning, the first thing I’d wanted to do was text him, but I’d contained myself—just barely. Hoping that he was thinking of me just as much as I was thinking of him, I’d waited for him to call or text first.
He hadn’t.
That night I’d finally given in and texted him. He didn’t have to work since First Bass was closed on Sundays so I knew I wouldn’t be interrupting anything overly important. The text had been a simple ‘Miss you’ message. After I’d hit send, I’d covered my head with my comforter and buried my face in one of my pillows so that my embarrassed scream wouldn’t send my dad or brothers running into my room to see what was wrong with me.
Before that amazing kiss, I wouldn’t have thought twice about sending him a message telling him I was missing him. Hell, the Sunday before, we’d texted at least fifty times and called each other at least once. This Sunday? He didn’t respond to my one little text at all.
I’d fallen asleep disappointed, but still giddy from the memory of our kiss. He might have had something come up, or he’d misplaced his phone. Something. Anything. It wasn’t like Harris to just ignore me like that.
Unless he regretted it and was trying to let me down…
Monday he hadn’t texted me back and I hadn’t tried to send another message. By Tuesday my heart had been heavy and Kin had started demanding to know why I was moping around. I hadn’t planned on telling anyone about what had gone on in Harris’s office Saturday night. The less people who knew, the less of a chance my dad would find out about me and Harris before we were ready. But I’d needed to talk to someone.
My friend hadn’t been surprised that Harris had kissed me and even less surprised that he hadn’t contacted me yet. “That’s how guys are, Lucy. They get nervous sometimes. He’ll call you when he’s ready.”
I’d felt better after that and hadn’t looked at my phone again until Wednesday night. That Harris hadn’t shown up to take me to dinner Tuesday evening like he always did didn’t sting nearly as badly after her prediction. Since Kin wanted to go to the open mike night, I dressed up and Marcus took us to First Bass. I doubted I’d ever been more nervous in my life than I had been that night as I’d sat with Kin waiting for the open mike to begin.
Jace had stopped by to say hi and to let his eyes run over Kin a few times while she’d sat there sipping her soda and going over her music sheets, completely ignoring him as usual. After a few minutes of tense silence between the two of them I’d finally gotten fed up with it and broken it.
“Is Harris busy?” I’d asked. If anyone would know if Harris Cutter was busy it would be Jace. He was here more often than I was and more often than not with Harris.
The sexy rocker’s face had tightened for a moment before he’d given me a smile that was more than a little forced. “Harris isn’t here tonight, Lucy. Didn’t he call you?”
My heart had dropped and I’d had to swallow hard a few times before shaking my head. “I haven’t spoken to him in a few days. Is he okay?” It wasn’t like Harris to not be at First Bass. He took Mondays off because they were his slow days and he left his assistant manager in charge. Sometimes he even took Tuesdays off. But Wednesday through Saturday he was always in the club.
Jace shrugged his massive shoulders, his blue eyes hooded so I couldn’t read what he was thinking. “No idea. His manager is going to be filling in for the rest of the week.”
What the hell was going on? I couldn’t figure out why he wouldn’t be at First Bass and not letting me know if something was wrong. I knew it couldn’t have been something wrong with his dad, stepmother, or even his sister. My parents would have been one of the first people to know if there was something wrong with one of them and they would have told me.
I sucked my bottom lip between my teeth as I pulled up his name in my text messages and sent him another text. Everything okay?
The ‘delivered’ notification under my message appeared, letting me know that he had gotten it, quickly followed by ‘read’. I held my breath for a moment as I waited for him to text me back.
He didn’t.
My heart turned to lead and I sat there in silence for the rest of the night. What the hell was going on? Before that stupid kiss, Harris had told me everything, no matter what it was. Even the things that I knew he would never tell another living soul he confided in me. Had that one kiss changed everything?
My heart ached the rest of the night and I couldn’t have told you what song Kin sang, barely remembered anything else except for the heaviness in my chest as I’d
sat there staring at my phone that night.
And every night since.
I hadn’t tried to text him again. Didn’t attempt to call him. My bruised heart was starting to harden and I was getting pissed at him. Kin and I didn’t go back to First Bass that week and now that it was Wednesday again, I was trying to find any excuse not to go back for another open mike night. I didn’t want to go in and Harris not be there, or worse, have him completely ignore me like he had been doing for the last eleven days. I knew what was going on, after all.
Harris regretted kissing me. Regretted saying he wanted us to be together. He didn’t really want us to start dating. A small, humorless laugh escaped me. He wasn’t exactly boyfriend material after all.
“What do you want me to do with this?”
