Color Me Crazy
Authors: Carol Pavliska
Never fall for a rockstar...
Julian Wheaton views the world through a kaleidoscope of synesthesia, seeing the colors of every sound he hears. His life as an iconic rock guitarist was a stressful psychedelic trip that nearly destroyed him. Now he’s abandoned the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle for the peaceful sanctity of his recording studio, but when fiery Cleo Compton comes to work for him, she brings chaos with her.
Cleo Compton has had her flings with rockstars—and it’s left her wary and bruised. Julian may have those sexy bedroom eyes and drool-worthy tattoos, but Cleo is determined to keep things strictly professional—until Julian turns out to be every dream she’s ever chased. When he risks it all to hit the road with a band again, Cleo fears he’ll return as the one thing she can no longer abide—a rockstar.
Table of Contents
Check out more from Entangled Select Contemporary…
Rules of Protection
Far Too Tempting
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Carol Pavliska. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
2614 South Timberline Road
Suite 109
Fort Collins, CO 80525
Visit our website at
www.entangledpublishing.com
.
Select Contemporary is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.
Edited by Karen Grove and Jessica Snyder
Cover design by Dana Lamothe at Designs by Dana
Cover art by Shutterstock
ISBN 978-1-63375-178-1
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition May 2015
To my sister, Janet, the queen of romance novels. Look what I did!
And to the men in my life: Jeff, who still melts my heart with a strum on his old Martin acoustic or the black Les Paul, and my father, who would like the world to know he raised me better than this.
Chapter One
“I’m not interested in shagging your friends, Addie, so don’t worry,” Julian said, pretending not to notice his sister’s nervous tics. He also pretended not to notice the clouds of green and blue mist floating in the air around them. It wasn’t cool to look at things other people couldn’t see. For one thing, it made them uncomfortable. For another, it labeled him a freak. Though he had to admit, “freak” was easier to say than “synesthete.”
They walked down the cracked and uneven sidewalk. It was dusk, a humid San Antonio evening, and the sounds Julian saw as swirling colors took on the shimmering quality he associated with a sweltering Texas summer. His long-sleeved shirt was already soaked through. He unbuttoned the cuffs and rolled them above his wrists, exposing the beginnings of the dark tattoos that snaked up the lengths of his forearms. He should have worn a T-shirt, especially with Addie’s insistence on walking in this heat, but a night at Slammers warranted a vintage sixties Van Heusen dress shirt—green and gold stripes—untucked to look casual.
Glancing across the street, he spotted the first dealer of the evening. And the dealer spotted him. The twitchy kid raised his eyebrows.
Interested?
Julian lowered his gaze to his black Tony Lama boots and focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Addie marched along at his side, seemingly unaware of the young men on the corners slapping palms and hanging out. She didn’t notice the cars slowing to let passengers off, only to cruise the block and pick them up farther down the street. Julian’s nerves, however, sizzled with electrical currents from all the activity. He reached in his pocket for the comfort of his guitar picks.
“I’m not worried about you shagging my friends,” Addie said. “They’re hardly your type.”
“Of course,” he agreed, suppressing a grin.
They’re probably pretentious, stuffy snobs.
“Don’t take that the wrong way. It’s the truth,” she added.
Unlike Julian’s, Addie’s clipped British accent hadn’t been softened by her years in the States. While Julian was a natural chameleon and could adopt a convincing Texas drawl whenever he wanted, Addie’s accent was sharp and pronounced. The southern men she encountered thought they were being scolded by her attempts at light conversation. Texas women, however, were another story. Julian’s accent charmed the pants right off them.
A kid with his jeans halfway to his knees slunk out of an alley and squinted in their direction. He started to retreat, but then his eyes met Julian’s, and he hesitated for a second.
Keep walking, brother—I’m not buying.
Julian breathed a sigh of relief as the kid disappeared back into the shadows.
It sucked that Addie walked this old neighborhood alone. Her dye studio, which also served as her flat, was in a revitalized area. But the line separating upscale and renovated from rough and unsafe was blurry. You had to be careful where you stepped, and Addie didn’t always pay attention. He needed to have a talk with her about it, but she didn’t accept helpful suggestions very well. She sure as hell could dole them out, though.
He looked one block ahead. That’s all it would take before the grimy windows of the pawnshops and taquerias, with their advertisements of musical instruments, jewelry, and
barbacoa
, gave way to the restaurants, bars, and live music venues of Southtown. Already, the blues and greens of the perky rhythm of the
conjunto
squeeze-boxes, accented by the chest-rattling bass beats from cruising lowriders, were morphing into the reds and maroons of the bustling strip nearby.
“So,” Julian said as he grabbed Addie’s arm to steer her clear of a wino. “Tell me about these friends of yours and why I won’t be interested in shagging them.”
“Real breasts,” she replied.
“Come again?”
“Real breasts. They’ve got them.”
“Hey, I’ve got nothing against natural breasts. They’re just usually not attached to women I’m attracted to, is all.” That wasn’t true, but getting Addie worked up was a habit.
“Real breasts are not
attached
to women, Juli,” Addie said.
Julian cringed. “Please stop calling me that.”
He hadn’t been mistaken for a girl in thirty years, but Addie clung stubbornly to the nickname she’d used when he was a rosy-cheeked baby with dark curls and long eyelashes.
“And in addition to unaltered bodies,” Addie continued, as if he hadn’t spoken, “they’re intelligent, so that’s another deterrent for you. Sherry’s a curator at a museum downtown, and Cleo is about to resume teaching at a local college.”
“The smart ones are troublesome. Thank God they tend to avoid me.”
Addie rolled her eyes. “There you go, then. No worries.”
What were these new friends of his sister like? Addie was hard on friends in the same ways she was hard on brothers: overbearing and judgmental with a tendency to hover. One needed a high tolerance for henpecking and meddling to go the distance with Addie.
Soon they were jockeying for position among the throng of sweaty people milling about Slammers’s outdoor patio. More people than usual were crammed into the small space due to the lure of a popular local band. Julian scanned the crowd with Addie, though he didn’t know who they were looking for.
The band was fucking tight, which was a relief. Bad music was painful. Sloppy riffs and out-of-tune instruments produced a visceral mess in his mind—colors that blended together into a sludge that settled in the pit of his stomach.
“Oh!” Addie said, pointing at the tiny space a few drunks had turned into an impromptu dance floor. “There they are.”
Expecting to see a couple of awkward librarian types bouncing around, Julian’s eyes almost popped out of his head at the sight of a tall, striking brunette doing a bump and grind with two guys. She looked up and waved at Addie, who waved back with enthusiasm.
The definitely not a librarian continued shaking it like the rent was due, and a sensual maroon pulse tugged at Julian’s abdomen…and lower. Maybe shagging wasn’t out of the question this evening, after all. “Is that the birthday girl?”
“No, that’s Sherry. Cleo is right there behind her. See?”
The tall brunette moved over to reveal a commotion, the center of which was a redheaded whirling dervish in a pair of ridiculous gangbanger jeans at least four sizes too large.
Birthday Girl
was written across the front of her black T-shirt in rhinestones. She was either having a horrible fit or suffering from an inexplicable lack of rhythm. Her dance partners were laughing at her expense. Under the circumstances, he had no choice but to hit the sorry excuse for a dance floor and offer his assistance. He wasn’t the kind of man to ignore a damsel in distress, even if she did seem to be enjoying herself.
...
Cleo forced one eye open and looked around. Thanks to the blackout curtains, there wasn’t much to see except a rogue ray of sunshine streaking through the room. She opened the other eye and considered sitting up. Her bladder was full, no doubt the reason she was awake in the first place. With a huge exhalation that could peel paint off walls, she kicked the covers aside and went for it.