The Ghost and The Hacker (Dark Fire Book 3) (13 page)

"I like it.  It's all yours, buddy.  Cy won't care, but I'll have to pad poor Griffin's ego," he jokes.

"He does know that he can't sing, right?  And you no one can make a drum solo last three minutes..."

"I think he's in denial.  But if logic doesn't work, I'll remind him that he's married to my cousin, so my limit for his bitching is now a lot lower."

I turn off the keyboard and follow Justin out of the room.

"That's last in the rotation, okay?  We'll take one less request and then you can drop that on them," he says as I grab my jacket off the back of the couch.

"Justin," Andy calls from the rocker.

"Yeah?"

I'm headed to the front door when I hear Andy say, "I'm worried that when my tummy's all ginormous, I won't be able to get out of this chair.  You win.  Let's get that glider you saw..."

"YES!"

I don't stay.  Justin just won some sort of decisive battle and I don't need to be here while they divide the spoils of war.

Counting down the hours until Sarah comes home becomes a lesson in willpower.  What I want to do is call her.  I want to hear her voice until I see her face come through my door.  I chide myself on wanting her to behave the same way countless clingy fans have.  That kind of clinging was obnoxious and completely ridiculous.  Seriously?  Was I going to fuck a girl and suddenly find myself head over heels with her when the only thing we had in common so far was some saliva?  Being famous means people think they know you.  They hear the music and think you're playing it just for them because it struck something deep inside them and they just know
that if you could get to know them, you'd fall as deeply in love with them as they are with you.

What they love is the person they've imagined you to be.  Never once did I meet a girl who took one look at me and offered to grab some Taco Bell, followed by slow dancing together on the dirt lot by the lake and a kiss on the cheek when I drop her off at home.  Well, except for Sarah, because she actually knew me.  And it's not like she knew those things about me when we first met.

No, it's, "
I've loved you forever.  Let me suck you off and I swear you'll feel the same way
."

I shake my head at my own stupidity.  I was more than willing to show those girls how wrong they were.  I didn't fall in love with a single one after they got through trying to prove their claims.

I feel a bit like a douche now in retrospect, but the sad fact is, there wasn't any way to get the one girl I
did
love, so why not let those girls have their say, so to speak?  I never treated them poorly and when it was over, their infatuations were cured.

I still feel like a dick.  I wish I could back take all those easy lays now, wish I had stayed true to Sarah.  I don't even care if she saw other guys since me, but I wish I could take back that first year of fame because of how cheap it makes my love look.

I'm annihilating my enemies in one-on-one, tearing through the pre-dinner crowd with my sniper rifle and a Walther PPK when there's a thump at the door.  I look up at the clock and note that it's only just five, which is much too early for Sarah to be getting in.  At the very least, I expected her to pack a bag when she got home, and
then
come up.

I open the door and it's Cy.

"Thanks man," he says, pushing through with his arms loaded with groceries.  In one hand, he's gripping a six-pack of my rootbeer.  I help him out, prying his fingers from the handle before he even puts down the bags.

"Here," he says, putting the bags down and lifting the other hand, which has another six-pack in it.  I help him out with that one too.

"Thanks, man.  What do I owe you for the groceries?"  I pull out my wallet.

"You got the last load.  No worries."  He's not even paying attention, so I stick a couple of twenties in his wallet where he set it down on the counter.

"I saw that," he says, not turning around.

"Saw what?"

"Dude, you don't have to pay me. We split rent and groceries.  I'm not going to be an ass about forty bucks..."

He's putting the groceries away now and I note that the oven is on.

"Making dinner?" I ask casually.  I never got the chance to tell him that Sarah was coming over.  I mentally smack my forehead.  I meant to call him, but kept forgetting, trying to keep my mind off the wait for Sarah.

"Yeah.  Thought I might do my part to make you look good for your girl."

I'm quiet and staring at him in confusion so he leans back against the counter and pulls a cold root beer from the fridge, opening it and handing it to me.  He does the same for himself.

"You were just going to get takeout, weren't you?" he asks, his tone accusing.

"I was, and how did you know Sarah's coming over tonight?"

"Funny story actually," he begins, smiling.  "Did you know our security desk guy is seeing her roommate?"

"Teddy, right?"  He nods.  "Yeah, I remember her saying something like that."

"So, I'm downstairs, about to head to the store, and Teddy's on his phone talking to Lucy, the roommate.  She's asking him if he wants to hang out at her place because her roommate has a date and they can be alone."

"He had it on speakerphone?"  I'm incredulous.  Booty calls might be a bit short of classy, but that's no reason to advertise them.

"No, man.  I just caught his side of the conversation, and then he hangs up and turns to me.  'I guess you'll be somewhere else tonight too, then,' he says."

I put my hand up.  "I should have called and asked.  I'm really sorry.  If you don't want us here, just tell me.  We can go to Nicki's.  But I'm not going kick you out of your own place."

He gives me this look that I can't read.  "You know this is your apartment too, right?  You don't have to ask if you can bring a girl over.  Not that you've ever brought a girl here before..."

He's right.  I never have.  I kept the year of douchery to hotels and maybe a quickie in the tour bus or wherever the girl was staying.  In the years since then, my
discreet
liaisons all happened in high-end hotels.  It's how the Service works.

But I digress.

"Dude...  You're on the lease.  This is
your
apartment."  I pull a bag of pita chips from a grocery bag and put them away.

He points to where I just put them.

"You put groceries away in Justin's apartment?  Griffin's?"

I blink.

"Of course not.  But I'm not staying in their guest room."

"It's not a guest room, moron.  It's one of two suites in a two-bedroom apartment that I got because you needed a place to live.  I share this apartment with my best friend.  Not a
guest
."

I blink again and watch silently while he puts the rest of my rootbeer away into the cabinet he declared specifically for them back when I first brought them home.

He's right.

"I'm not on the lease," I point out.

"So?"

"So, legally, it's yours."

He crosses his arms over his chest.  "Seriously?  We can go fix that tomorrow morning if it makes you realize you
live here
."

"I have a house," I say, pointing out the window.  I'm bad with directions, so if I'm pointing in a northwesterly direction, I have no idea.

"You have a vacation home where you throw pool parties for the band.  Sometimes our friends get engaged there, apparently."

"A vacation home?"

"Yeah, man.  Are you stupid?  Why do you think I got a place with two full bedroom suites?  I always knew you were going to move in."

Apparently, I am stupid, because I had no idea that was my plan.

"Wow," he says cynically.  "Did not peg you for a moron."

I shoot him the finger and take a pull of my rootbeer.

"You seriously didn't know?  I mean, I always just assumed.  Maybe you never meant to stay..."  Concern pulls his brows tight.

"I never really thought about it, dude."

"So, what are you going to do about your girl?"

I smile.  "We're going to eat your lasagna and then I'm gonna spend the rest of the night not worried at all that you can hear what's going on because you're gonna be gone."

He sticks his hand in a drawer and pulls out the spare set of keys for Nicki's place.  "I don't want to hear the details," he says, spinning them around his finger.  "Enjoy the lasagna.  The bread goes in around ten minutes to the end.  Read the package."

I give him a bro hug he's not expecting.

"Thanks, Dad.  You're pretty awesome."

He cracks up.  "You know I hate that you call me that, right?  I'm, like, four months older than you."

"I know.  But you're my best friend, and better than any dad I ever had, so take the honor as it's intended."

He smirks and pulls his coat back on, pocketing Nicki's keys.  I know he won't suffer tonight- Nicki's got the nicest place out of all of us.  She tried to get Justin a nicer place, but he said it was too weird asking his cousin to vet his offer.

"Alright then,
Son
.  Don't do anything I wouldn't do. Be safe."

I must be turning a million shades of red because his jaw drops.

"Dude!  You bag that shit!  Seriously?"  He twists around the kitchen as if in pain.

"ONCE, man!  Just once and..."  I guess my quiet is odd because he just stares at me from the floor.

"And?"

"I'm really hoping I knocked her up.  It's dumb, but I'm kind of hoping," I admit, shrugging.

He scrapes himself off the floor.

"I see it.  Probably the only way a smart, beautiful woman would ever stay with you," he says, nodding all straight-faced.

I happen to agree with him, but he gets a fist to the shoulder for saying it out loud.

"Ooph!"  He rubs his shoulder.  I didn't hit him hard.  He's playing it up.

"What time is she going to get here?" he asks, looking at the clock.

I look, too.  I've blown nearly thirty minutes goofing off with him.

"Any minute now."  I start tidying up anything I see out in the kitchen as I answer.  Cy hands me two plates and two sets of silverware.  I put them on the table next to each other.

"Chicks sit across from their dates, man.  Has it really been that long for you?  This girl's gonna think you're trying to cop a feel all through dinner."  He gestures for me to move the second plate.

"The girl's got a name, you know," I say, moving the place setting.  I never did this when we dated in high school.  We never ate out at restaurants and when we got food out, it was fast food and we ate it side by side on the hood of whichever vehicle we drove to the lake.  I was broke and she liked to respect my need to provide for her in whatever way I could.  I worked the bar for my dad from age fifteen - which was illegal, but no one ever said anything - until the night I left, so I had
some
cash to spend on her.

"Yeah, Sarah, right?"

"Yeah."  I put two glasses of ice water on the table.

"Zach and Sarah..."

I wait for it.

"Like the song?"

There it is.  I wince.  "Nope, that's Zak without a C and Sara with no H.  Not us."

"Oh shit man!  The Zach in the song is a musician, too!"

The song came out a few years after I left Lakemont and was the bane of my existence for too long.  Every time I turned on the radio, it seemed to be on, reminding me of who I left behind.  For the longest time, I couldn't listen to it, going so far as to switch stations when it came on.  Now I wonder what my reaction will be to hearing it.

I mean, it's a really weird song if you listen to the lyrics...

And I was such a huge Ben Folds fan before that song, too, which explains my latest endeavor with Justin.

My phone buzzes in my pocket.

I'm here.  Headed to my apt first.  C u in 5.