Lost Angeles (43 page)

“Yeah, okay,” I agree, raising one brow in question.

In return, Jax tilts up the Aviators and gives me a twice-over, like he can actually discern the general state of my underwear drawer just by staring at me.

“Don’t give me that look,” I tell him. “You’re the last person who should be judging.”

He snorts. “Actually, I’m the first.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Never mind, kid,” he says, waving me off. “So, Mr. Rock Star is now Mr. Hero. I’m sure he’s been complete hell to deal with lately.”

“Not really,” I say. “He struts a little more, talks it to death, but he kinda deserves to reap the rewards, don’t you think?”

Jax Trace gives me the most peculiar look then. “So, it doesn’t bother you at all?”

“Doesn’t
what
bother me?”

“The growling, the pushiness, the impulsivity, the barking commands, the sexual demands.” Jax rattles through Xaine’s more eccentric traits like it’s the disclaimer at the end of a pharmaceutical commercial. I open my mouth to protest, but click it shut when he holds up one forbidding finger and continues, “The
not
-sexual demands. The order-everything, give-me-one-of-each, make-it-rain-on-these-hoes, I-want-the-world mentality. That doesn’t disturb you?”

“Uh, no?” I say, eyes narrowed, because seriously, who died and made Jax the Grand Poobah of Hypercritical Condemnation? “Besides, he doesn’t do it as often anymore. Xaine is a reasonable human being.”

“No, he’s not.”

“Reasonable? Or human?”

“Yes!” Jax blurts out, then thinks it through and says, “Both.”

I gape at him, because seriously,
what the fuck
. “You are so weird.”

“
You
are so weird.” Jax shakes his head at me. “He would have driven anyone else on the planet stark raving mad by now, but not you. Never you.”

“What can I say?” I say. “I like Xaine’s idiosyncrasies. I like
Xaine
. A lot.”

Jax opens his mouth like he’s going to argue, but instead runs his hand over a day’s worth of chin stubble before he comes up with a different plan of attack. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to stay here. He’s a terrible influence.”

I shake my head at his audacity. “Sorry, but you’re not my real dad. You can’t tell me what to do.”

“Please?” he asks.

“No.”

“Pretty please?”

“No.”

“Pretty please with a cherry—”

“Jax!” I bark out, cutting him off. “
You
are disturbing me. Why are you even here?”

“Uh,” he says, buying himself a few seconds to come back with, “because I’m worried about you?”

Eyes narrowing, I glare at him, wishing he would stop hedging and spit it out. There have been a lot of half-truths and shoddy attempts to lure me out of the only place where I feel safe. I don’t kid myself into thinking that Jax Trace doesn’t have an agenda, because everyone has an agenda, but since he’s not willing to share his with me, he’s not getting any piece of me that I can keep to myself.

“Hookay, it’s time for you to go now.” Gripping him by the arm, I shove him toward the front door. “Look, I don’t know the entire story, and I sure as hell don’t know how you fit into it. So thanks for your concern, but unless you’re going to give me some idea as to why you keep popping up in my life, then maybe you should mind your own business.”

Jax lets me bundle him toward the foyer, but at the end of my speech, he puts on the brakes, his newspaper-print Oxfords skidding a little as he comes to a halt. Momentum carries me forward until I bump against his back. To his credit, Jax reaches out to steady me because someone at some point taught him some manners.

Or at least enough manners that he balks at the idea of letting me fall on my ass.

“You’re right,” he says at last. “You don’t know the entire story, and if I have any say… any say at all… you won’t. Ever.”

“Why? If you tell me, will you have to kill me?”

A smile kicks up the corner of his lips, and I’ve gotten so used to being around Xaine that the blunt, white squares of Jax’s teeth actually seem strange.

“I believe people should be allowed to live their lives, Lore. I don’t believe anyone should be treated differently because of an accident of birth.”

I decide to jerk his chain. “Are you telling me I’m secretly a princess? ’Cause I’m not sure I’d really complain.”

“Royalty of a sort.” Jax peels off the glasses, hooking one earpiece into his vest. He fixes me with a stupid grin, eyes glinting with humor when he quips, “Princess Pain in my Ass.”

“Everyone in this town is
so funny.
” I give him a wry look.

“Present company included,” he says, offering up more of that stupid eye-twinkle. “Well, my job here is done. I’ll see myself out.” Jax turns himself toward the door, raising his voice to yell, “Rosa! Have my horse and buggy brought ’round!”

She materializes out of nowhere, rushing in to deliver an incomprehensible string of Spanish. For his part, the man of the hour lets himself be shooed toward the door, interjecting smart-assed remarks at intervals.

“No, Rosa, I do not have time to hear about your lord and savior, Jesus Christ,” he says. “Alas, I can’t stay for a bite of your
taco pescado—
” He takes her heavy slap to the back of his skull and ekes out, “Ow! Okay,
fine,
I’ll pick you up at eight. Wear the dominatrix costume,” just before she slams the door in his face.

Chuckling, I shake my head. “What a weirdo.”

I reach for my pick, the one Jax dropped on the foyer table. Except a familiar gold coin’s sitting in its place, glinting in the overhead lighting, warm to the touch when I pick it up. My eyes flash immediately to the door, and I wonder if Jax is still outside. Tamping down on the impulse to check, I flip the coin over in my palm, staring at the blank golden surface, but when I turn it over once more, a picture appears—

“Lore! Where the hell are you?”

I startle when Xaine’s shout emerges from the general direction of the garage. There’s a momentary surge of guilt, like he's caught me doing something illicit. The coin gets tucked into a back pocket, and I take a few steps in the direction of his voice. “I’m in the front hall. Why are we yelling?”

Xaine swings around the corner, walking with the swagger I’ve come to know so well. He looks damn pleased with himself until he hits the foyer and takes a deeper sniff at the air. “Why was Jax Trace in my house? Was that
his
car at the gate?”

“You can smell that?” It pops out before I can stop it. “And if it’s a gray Audi, then yes, it’s his.”

“Jeezus. It reeks like a metrosexual’s wet dream in here.” Xaine reaches up to pinch at his nose with a scowl. “Like fresh skunk spray right up your nostrils, then multiply that by a hundred and douche.”

“He does not smell that bad,” I say. “In fact, he smells kinda nice. Like cologne and those little flavor crystals you put in your laundry to boost the scent.”

“Try turning your olfactory senses up to vamp level and tell me that again with a straight face,” Xaine grumbles. “What the hell was he doing here, anyway?”

“Honestly, I have no idea.” Not a lie. I don’t know, and the way these boys like to keep their secrets, I never will. “Probably came by to make sure you haven’t killed me or something.”

Xaine’s eyes narrow, his lean body curving toward mine. He’s sniffing me now, like a bloodhound. “You sure that was it?”

“Seriously! Ask Rosa, she had her face pressed to the door the entire time.”

He turns his head toward the kitchen door and bellows for the housekeeper. When the wooden panel immediately swings open, I know she was standing on the other side, awaiting her inevitable summons.

“Is it true?” Xaine asks, like he doesn’t even have to explain what he means.

“It’s true,” Rosa says with a nod. “She didn’t touch. He didn’t touch.” Then, as if Xaine had personally solicited her opinion, she adds, “I think he’s gay, anyway.”

With the wave of a hand, Xaine shoos her back into the other room and the housekeeper disappears from sight. In the meantime, I stand there smirking as Xaine glares down into my face.

“So what were you up to before he turned up?”

Digging into my pocket, I pull out the thumb drive. “New song.”

He cracks a grin. “Oh, really?”

When he reaches for it, I pull it just out of range. “You forgot to say the magic word.”

In return, he gives me the full-fang smile. “Las Vegas.”

“That’s two words,” I say, but then my brain sputters to a halt. “Wait, what?”

Taking advantage of my utter bewilderment, he plucks the thumb drive out of my hand and nudges me toward the stairs. “We’re going to Vegas. I’ll listen to this on the plane. We need to pack, because we’ve only got like an hour.”

“I am not going to Vegas.”

“Yes, you are. We’re piggybacking the release of the new single on top of the PR I have going for playing Batman. Big red carpet event, the whole nine yards. It’s going to be huge, Lore.” He jabs playfully at my ribs. “You and me? We’re the hottest thing in this town right now, and you’re not even out there to see it. You need to see it.”

“I can’t go to Vegas, Xaine.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Everything I’ve been chasing after is right here. Jess is here, too. I need to stay close in case—”

“Fuck Jess, and fuck Asher.” Xaine scowls, his glee replaced by frustration. “Fuck Cas Declan and Jax Trace, too, while we’re at it, because none of those assholes matter right now. This is
your
chance, Lore. Your golden opportunity to do something with your life that doesn’t have anything to do with what happened in the past
.
Stop looking
back
.” His hand slips across my shoulder, fingers skimming up my neck until he’s cradling my jaw in his palm. Pissed and indignant on my behalf, he adds, “There’s nothing left behind you, Lore. It’s time to look ahead.”

It tears me up a little, breaks my heart a bit more, and leaves me feeling the tiniest bit hollow inside. “I don’t think a trip to Vegas is the answer.”

“Why not?” he demands. “Are you afraid I’m going to knock you over the head and drag you off to a twenty-four-seven wedding chapel?”

I can actually feel my eyes go wide with horror. “Well, I wasn’t, but I am
now
!”

An expression flashes across Xaine’s face that looks an awful lot like hurt
,
but it’s gone as quickly as it appeared, leaving that all-too-familiar arrogant smirk in its wake. I can feel the tension building between us, palpable and thick. He’s standing so close to me that my heart begins to skip, thudding hard in my chest as my anxiety builds.

“Do you trust me?”

Now there’s a question for the ages, and I teeter on the edge of something that threatens to undo the balance we’ve achieved this last week. Somehow, it feels like everything…
everything
… hinges on my answer. Xaine looks at me, those crazy-blue eyes of his latched on my face. I didn’t come to Los Angeles with the expectation that I’d end up with him, but one crazy random happenstance after another and here I am, standing so close to my rock star fantasy that it steals my breath.

It’s weird, being this close. Different, because I know him now.

Different, because I care.

“Yes,” I whisper. “I do.”

Xaine’s pleased expression morphs into something wholly wicked. “Then come to Vegas, sweetheart. I promise you won’t regret it.”

I draw in a breath and hold it, eying him with suspicion. It’s now or never. Time to jump without a net or spend the rest of my life wondering what the fall would have been like.

“Okay.” When Xaine grins, fangy and altogether pleased with himself, I stick a finger up between us and poke him in the chest. “No funny business in Vegas. I mean it. I won’t marry you.”

“Don’t recall asking,” he says. “But would it really be so bad?”

I can’t help the squeeze of pain in my chest that rises into my throat. I don’t want to talk about this with him. Don’t want to talk about it ever again. I can only live one day at a time. When it comes right down to it, Xaine’s lifespan is forever. And mine?

Considerably less than forever.

“Never mind, don’t answer that,” he says. “The Apocalypse jet will be ready in an hour, so you need to pack your shit before I mount you on my dick like a hood ornament and carry you to the airport.”

“Charming,” I say, following him up the stairs. “You’re a prince among men.”

“Damn straight.” He pauses at the door to the master bedroom. “And don’t you forget it.”

“Somehow, I doubt you’d let me.”

He turns, eying the messy, dark cavern that is the master suite. The shades are drawn, and there are clothes, sheets, pillows and the like strewn everywhere. The odd-man-out in the tableau is the set of pink luggage in the corner, and Xaine stares at those bags now like they’re some sort of blight on the junk skyline.

“You know,” he grumbles. “You
can
unpack your stuff.”

“You just told me to pack it,” I point out. “Why would I unpack it?”

“No, I mean, you could have unpacked it before now.”

“I know.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t.” I give him a sidelong glance, but Xaine’s eyes are fixed on the pink suitcases in the corner. He broods, considering those bags like he wants to kick one for the pure joy of breaking a toe on it. Not that he’d actually break a toe, but I get the feeling punting one of them would help ease the furrows in his forehead.

“Doesn’t matter,” he says eventually. “That just means we have time for a quickie.”

Xaine reels me in, tugging my arm until I fold against him. Graceful as a dance, he slides one hand along my arm, the other around my waist until we’re cheek-to-cheek. I laugh out loud when he bends me backward, dipping me low. There’s a pause then, a moment when he just watches me, his eyes alight with affection.

“You don’t laugh as much as you should,” he observes. “You smile. Lopsided ones, crooked like your twisted, crazy brain… but you don’t laugh as much.”

“Word on the street is that rock stars are a
very
serious bunch,” I tell him.

“Serious as a heart attack,” he says. “And seriously? You smell good enough to eat. Pun intended, everywhere.”