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Now she looked at me with dismissive pity. “Oh. Good luck with that.”
I kept my smile to myself. This was the beauty of being the drummer in a band that did no press—I never got recognized. Just how I liked it.
It took fifteen minutes for me to walk back through town to the beach house. I hadn’t been here in a few years—I came a couple of times after rehab to clear my head. The beach house had been owned by my parents, and after they died, my grandparents hadn’t sold it. They’d thought that it would be a good investment for my siblings and I to have when we grew up. Considering the price of California real estate now compared to when I was a kid, my grandparents were financial geniuses.
My siblings and I didn’t use the house much. Elle was too busy working, and River was too busy traveling. I’d barely come here in the years I was on tour, and since then, it had been lonely to come and stay here alone.
That was changing, starting now.
I took the path from the road that led down toward the beach. This wasn’t a sexy, sanitized kind of beach, especially in January. It was rocky, the sand dark, the ocean cold and wild, the wind sweeping harshly along the beach day and night. It was the kind of beach that smelled like seaweed and doused you with salt spray, not the kind where you sunbathed and waded into the calm water.
And yet being here was relaxing in a way that was hard to describe. The wildness of nature, the quiet except for the howl of the wind, the few people you saw walking the beach this time of year—it was soothing to the soul. Brit and I had awoken with the sunrise every day so far, and I’d already done a yoga session while she worked on her laptop. We could get on the Pacific Coast Highway and take a trip up toward Oceanside or down toward San Diego, but we didn’t want to. We were happy right here.
The house was on a rocky rise overlooking the ocean, clinging to the shore with a handful of other houses. It was small—just two snug bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room and two bathrooms on a single floor—but the perfect size for two people. I’d done my yoga on the back patio. Now I came through the front door and said, “I have coffee.”
“In here,” Brit called from the bedroom.
My girlfriend was sitting on the bed, her back on pillows propped against the headboard, her laptop on her lap. She was wearing a fluffy white bathrobe and her hair was damp from the shower. She looked up at me and her expression lit up, but I was pretty sure it was because of the coffee and the muffins I carried.
“You gonna get up anytime?” I teased her.
“I’m working,” she teased back. “And I showered. Unlike you.”
I put the breakfast down on the dresser, then sat on the bed and took off my shoes. “Breakfast in bed is pretty sweet.”
“It is.” She folded her laptop and put it to the side. “Bring it here.”
Instead of delivering her food, I crawled onto the bed, tugging her legs down and making her squeal. Then I climbed on top of her, kissing her neck, rubbing the scruff of my beard over her skin. She smelled like shower soap, and she felt like warm, soft woman wrapped in terry cloth. I pinned her gently and nuzzled her some more as she squirmed.
Finally we stopped and I stayed flopped where I was. Brit sighed. “I’d like to drink my coffee, but there’s a boy on top of me.”
“You love it,” I said against her shoulder.
“Maybe a little.” Her hands moved over the back of my neck, her fingers sliding up into my hair. “You’re salty.”
“And sweaty,” I added.
“Salty, sweaty boy.” She pulled me down to her. “Come here.”
I kissed her mouth as she cupped my jaw. Before long, the kiss got serious. We’d been like this for days, Brit and me, ever since we got here. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. It felt a little like a honeymoon.
Since L.A., we’d been busy in the best way. The Road Kings had made a deal with Will Hale, bought the building Denver had found, and our studio was under construction. While that went on, we wrote new music. We rehearsed in Roy’s studio downtown. We’d played in local venues, billed under our band pseudonym, Ned Zeppelin, trying out the new songs to see how the fans received them.
I still ran The Corner with Grant. Brit had gone back to her job there, because she claimed she actually liked it. But lately, her schedule was so packed that she had to quit, so we’d replaced her.
Brit was cutting hair again. She’d taken the money she won from her ex—it wasn’t millions, especially after lawyers’ fees, but it was enough—and started a new salon. This time, though, she was doing something different than she had done in L.A.
I broke our kiss and tugged the belt of her bathrobe. I discovered that she was naked under it, and it was like unwrapping a present. I made a noise that sounded a little like a growl.
“I need to work,” Brit said, but she was breathless and not very convincing.
“You have all day to work.” I kissed a line down her sternum and over her soft, warm belly. I made a detour to her hip and sank my teeth gently into her skin.
She groaned when I did that, but then she teased me again. “Okay, then, make it fast.”
“Do not speak such sacrilege, woman.” I trailed a hand over her calf, tickling the back of her knee. “Fast is not how I operate, ever. You know this.”
“My coffee will get cold.” The hand on the back of her knee slid up between her thighs. “Oh, mygod. How do you do that?”
