Book Boyfriends Wanted 15: His Curvy Muse

Trey

I tossed my pen on the notebook and flopped back on the couch. Fuck. When I started out, writing was easy. The words came out like they were divine inspiration. Like they would always be there.

Over the years it got harder, but I always found the words eventually. Then one day it was all gone. The words stopped magically appearing anytime I picked up a pen. The last writing session… It couldn’t be like that again. Not if I wanted a new contract. Not if I wanted to keep singing my own songs and not have to go to the market to find songs.

I prided myself on never having to do that. Collaboration? Sure. Bring it on. But buying a song from someone else? Their emotions and words?

I’d rather not record. Which was what was going to happen if I didn’t get my shit together.

More than a week had passed, and all I’d managed to do was make Sofia think I was a creep. I promised Piper that wasn’t the case when she called the morning after I called Sofia for a bogus maintenance call. I felt like such a dick that I’d been avoiding Sofia. But I had to get to know her. My career depended on it.

A sound outside my apartment drew my attention. Maybe it was Sofia. Maybe I could have a chance to talk to her again.

I opened my door and found an older woman struggling with her keys and two paper bags of groceries. One bag tipped sideways, nearly spilling on the ground before she dropped her weight and caught it.

“Well, shoot,” she whispered.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

She looked up at me with distrust in her dark brown eyes. “Why? So you can force your way into my apartment?”

I nearly laughed. She was half my size but twice as feisty if the cocked hip and jutted jaw were anything to go on. She reminded me of my mom’s best friend from my childhood. Ms. Emily was as quick with her wit as she was with a wooden spoon. She’d make a joke one second and whack me on the backside the next, then go right back to what she was doing as though nothing happened.

“Not at all,” I said, backing toward my apartment. “I was just trying to be friendly.”

The woman narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re the new guy? The one who’s here for the summer?”

I nodded, pausing my retreat. “I am. Trying to get some R-and-R and decide my next steps. I’m Daniel.”

“You a drug dealer, Daniel?”

I coughed a laugh, but she was not joking. “Uh, no, ma’am. I don’t do drugs and don’t sell them.”

“How can you afford to pay rent for the whole summer without a job?”

“I have a job. Had a job. I saved money.”

She raised one dark brow. Her brown skin was wrinkled around her eyes and drooped below her chin. She wore a long dress that fell below her knees and sneakers that were not made for fashion. She had a black purse slung across her body, partially hidden by the grocery bags she still held in a tight grip. “But you’re not a drug dealer?”

I shook my head and pressed my lips together. “No. I am not.”

“Are you trying to get into my apartment?”

“Only to help you carry your groceries.”

She narrowed her eyes at me once more, then nodded and shoved the bags at me.

I barely caught them before she was turning to her door and unlocking it. She led the way inside, not acknowledging me until she made it to the kitchen and slid some mail aside for me to set the bags down.

I stepped back and looked around her apartment. It was a mirror image of mine. Her furniture wasn’t as nice as the stuff in my apartment, which made me think not everyone rented furnished apartments.

“I hope you don’t expect a tip. These apartments are affordable, but I live here because I know Piper takes care of the place.”

I nodded. “I’d never expect a tip. I haven’t been in any other apartments besides my own. Just taking in the flip. It’s a nice building.”

“Usually it is. Sofia makes sure everything is handled. You met Sofia yet?”

I nodded. “When I moved in.”

“You better be good to her.”

“I wouldn’t dream of anything else.”

“Good. Now, you need to go. I have groceries to unpack and I didn’t buy enough to feed you.”

I chuckled and nodded, heading toward the door. “It was nice to meet you. Feel free to knock on my door if you need anything.”

“What do you think I’m going to need?”

I shook my head. “I guess nothing. I’ll see you around.”

She nodded once to me, then went back to unloading her groceries while I let myself out.

I went back to my apartment and ignored the notebook taunting me on the table. I had to get the hell out of there. Do something different. Maybe meet a woman. Hell, the one I was talking to on that app was interesting, but there was only so much I could handle without real live human contact.

As the thought crossed my mind, I knew I wouldn’t do it. Where was the line? When I went from hot rockstar to creepy old man? Had I already crossed it?

I was definitely feeling like I’d crossed it. When teenagers threw their panties on stage and promised they could do things I’d never seen before, and I did the math and realized they could be my daughters, creepy was the dominating feeling.

TalkNerdyToMe hadn’t replied to my last message, so I grabbed my keys and headed out.

The water was beautiful. I walked toward it, letting it draw me in. Gavin said one of the guys made boats. Ian, maybe? I didn’t go to their guys’ night again after making Sofia uncomfortable, but maybe I could go into O’Kelley’s and find out where Ian’s shop was.

I found myself in the town square, watching the water and caught unaware until I was in the middle of a crowd. Food trucks lined the streets, and a band warmed up under the gazebo at the top of the hill.

“Daniel!” someone shouted from a few feet away.

Ian. The guy I was just thinking about. He was with a pretty brunette, the server from the breakfast place I went to the other day, if I remembered correctly. He was holding a squirming toddler.

I approached them, reaching out to shake his hand when I got closer. “Ian, right?”

“Good memory. This is my wife, Blake, and our terror, Maddox.”

I laughed at his obvious joke. “He’s adorable. Do you work at Cracked?”

Blake nodded. “I do. I didn’t want to introduce myself the other day because I figured that would be weird.”

“You knew who I was?”

“Small town. Everyone knows everything,” Ian answered for her.

Blake nodded.

I panicked. Did that mean they knew why I was there? Or that they knew who I was?

“We get a lot of people here for the summer, but they come and go. When Ian said you came to guys’ night last week, I was looking for you. Even though you’re not here forever, you didn’t have the same rushed look of the tourists,” Blake explained.

“Tourists look rushed?” I asked, trying to play off my panic.

Blake chuckled and nodded. “Oh, yeah. Trying to catch a ferry or get to a tour or see something before it closes for the day. We have a pretty laidback kind of attitude around here, but the people who are here for a week act like they have to see it all right now.”

“Life moves fast,” I said.

Maddox gurgled something, drawing the attention of Blake and Ian.

“It definitely does. We’re going to grab some food. Are you here for the band?” Ian asked.

“I was just getting a break from sitting around my apartment all day. I was actually going to see if I could find out where your shop was. I was wondering if you rent boats or anything,” I told him.

“No, I don’t do rentals. But I have a few you can borrow,” Ian said. He bounced with the baby to calm the fussiness brewing.

“I couldn’t do that. I’d have to pay you.”

“Why? If it’s just sitting there, it’s good for someone to take them out on the water. You’re welcome to whatever I have. I’m down Ontario Street. Can’t miss it. Come by Monday.”

I nodded as they walked away, talking to the baby and trading him between them to keep him entertained. Ian laughed at something Blake said, and that pang hit me square in the chest again.

That’s not what I want.

I turned away from the happy family and continued on my way.

People waved as I walked past them, heading toward the activity I’d just walked away from. Families and couples all flocked toward the center of town.

It was like something out of a movie. I’d never lived in a small town, and being there made me feel trapped. Especially after Blake said she knew who I was.

That left me wondering why no one had outed me yet. If they all recognized me, was this small town so lost on the planet they’d never heard of Broken Record?

The first beats of our first hit filled the air as the thought drifted through my mind. The kids on stage. They were playing our song. My song. The one I wrote when I was barely old enough to know what it meant to want to be a rockstar. The song I scribbled on the back of a napkin one night. When writing songs used to be easy.

I stopped and sat on a bench in the middle of the sidewalk. I closed my eyes and let the familiar music fill me.

I couldn’t remember the last time I enjoyed music. When it wasn’t a job. When I could feel it inside me like a physical piece. Like it was an organ that only some people had. Like a musical appendix that a person could live without, but that some people got to keep forever.

It felt like mine had been cut out. Like I was missing that part of me, a part that once felt like the biggest part of me.

But listening to those kids play my song, sing it with their entire souls and belt out the lyrics that once upon a time flowed from my subconscious like they weren’t meant for me to contain any longer, I knew I hadn’t completely lost that part of me. It was still there. My music organ was fiddling with its instruments. Trying to find its way back to the surface.

The song ended, and the kids rolled into another cover by another band. I opened my eyes and centered myself. I wasn’t on stage. I hadn’t been the one singing. I was just a guy on a bench.

I kept walking away from the concert, finding my way through the small town streets to where Ian said his shop was. It was a huge metal building right on the water, and yeah, there was no way to miss it.

I turned back toward the center of town, knowing I had to pass through the activity in order to get back to my apartment. I wasn’t really excited about that, but it was necessary.

I ended up a block away from the water and kept walking, figuring there was no way to get lost in a town the size of most of the venues we played in. I made it back to my building without running into too much traffic and found myself back on my couch with the pen in my hand.

I closed my eyes and tried to tune back in to the feeling I had listening to my song being played, but everything was once again quiet inside. The moment was gone. Opportunity passed.

Shit.

* * *

Sunday afternoon, I went out to grab something to eat. I wasn’t used to cooking my meals, but I was going to work on it. Eventually. Until I learned how to not burn water, I was going to try the restaurants in town.

I was almost through them all.

So far, Just Tacos was my favorite, but Will Work For Burgers was a close second. Cracked was excellent for breakfast, but I wasn’t a breakfast anytime kind of person and usually grabbed a premade smoothie for breakfast. When I was up before noon.

I’d just picked up some Italian from Gino’s and was on my way back inside when the door was yanked from my grip and I was knocked on my ass.

The container of food popped open, spilling my food for the next two days all over the sidewalk and me.

“Oh, my God. I am so sorry. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going. I didn’t see you. I didn’t… Let me replace your food and pay for your dry cleaning. Or whatever I can do. I really am so sorry.”

I looked up at Sofia, the words rushing out of her so fast they were tripping over each other. Her eyes were red, and her cheeks were streaked with tears. Her hands twisted in front of her, even as she reached to help me off the concrete.

“Are you okay?” I asked. I’d learned long ago a woman in tears was a dangerous thing. Ignore it and it could mean disaster. Bring attention to it and it could mean disaster.

Sofia pulled me to my feet and nodded. “I… I should have been paying attention to where I was going.”

“Are you safe? You were in a pretty big hurry to get out of the building. Is someone after you?”

She laughed mirthlessly. “Not unless you count a father who’s trying to make up for a lifetime of absence all in one summer.”

My brows shot up. “Your father’s here? I didn’t realize.”

She looked at me like I was insane. Probably because I sounded like it.

“I just meant I didn’t know you lived with him.”

“I don’t. Not usually. He came to visit. He was supposed to get here today, but he showed up Friday, and nothing I do is good enough for him. It never was, so that’s not really a surprise, but I haven’t had to deal with that in twenty years.” She let out a full breath, then sucked another one back in and let it out.

“Parents can be a challenge. Mine never had much time for me growing up. Treated me more like a burden than a blessing like people say kids are.”

“I’m sorry.”

I shrugged. “I guess I’m used to it.”

“It still sucks, though.”

I nodded, knowing she needed a response.

“Anyway, I’m really sorry for running into you. It looks like you were picking up dinner for a date, too. I ruined your whole night.”

I looked at the carnage of pasta and sauce on the ground and chuckled. “No date. Just stocking up for a few days. I don’t really cook, so I’ve been trying all the takeout places in town.”

“Gino’s is so good. I can call them and have them remake your food right now.” She was already pulling out her phone.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“It was my fault.”

“It sounds to me it was your dad’s fault.”

She snorted. “The number of therapists who’d have a field day with that statement.”

I laughed with her. She was beautiful when she laughed. And when she cried. And when she was determined.

Fuck, she was just beautiful.

Full, pouty lips and a thick figure. I wish I’d known she was the one who plowed me over. I’d have taken a minute to enjoy the feel of her body against mine.

Instead, I was left wishing I’d get another chance to lean into her curves.

“Hey, hun, this is Sofia. You guys just made up some food for Daniel?”

She paused her side of the conversation and smiled at me. I was so lost in my thoughts I hadn’t realized she’d placed a call.

“Yeah, I ruined it all for him. It’s on the sidewalk. Can you remake it? Put it on my tab. One of us will be there in twenty minutes.”

She raised her brows at me. I nodded, although I wasn’t sure what I was agreeing to.

“Thanks.” She paused again. “Hey, can you add an order of ravioli in a separate bag for me? Actually, never mind. I think I’m going to eat there. If you have a table for one.” She laughed at something. “Thanks. I’ll be there soon.”

She hung up the phone and stuck it back in her pocket.

“I’ll bring your food back whenever you’re ready. That way you don’t have to go out again.”

“Or I could just join you for dinner,” I suggested.

I held my breath while she considered her options. When she nodded, I felt like I’d won something.

“Can you give me five minutes to change?”

She smiled. “Of course. I’ll wait here.”

“You’re not going to ditch me?”

She chuckled. “The thought might have crossed my mind, but you know where I live and you know where I’m going, so I’m thinking that would be a waste.”

“But you don’t really want to go to dinner with me.”

She looked up at me. Her blue eyes were bluer than I’d realized before. They had a hint of sadness, maybe loneliness, in them. Something that told me she had secrets. Lots of them.

Ones I wanted to learn more about.

And not just because I wanted to get to her father. There was something about Sofia I was finding hard to resist.

“I don’t date a lot. And I know this isn’t a date, but—”

“Why isn’t it a date?”

She snorted again. “I don’t know why you’re here, Daniel, but I know it’s not because you’re thinking about relocating to MacKellar Cove. As for me? I’m not leaving. I’ve been all over, and I like it here. I like the quiet. I like being able to think. I like a simple life. But I’m willing to be friends.”

I smiled at her, letting my smile do what it did.

She sighed heavily, like she was having trouble resisting the charm I was laying on thick.

“We can start with friends,” I said, letting my tone drop, letting her hear my desire, letting her know I wasn’t interested in being just friends.

And when she shivered, I knew I had her.

But for the first time, it didn’t give me a rush to know I’d changed the mind of a woman. It didn’t make me feel powerful. It made me feel like an asshole. Because I wasn’t being honest with her.

And Sofia… Something told me she wasn’t going to be okay with that.

But like she said, relocation wasn’t in the plans for me. Three months. That was it. Then I would be gone, and hopefully, I’d be taking a few new hit songs with me.