The Rider List: An Erotic Romance (14 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Audrey

This is how it happened.

I was on the porch, about to knock on the door, when I heard Evan playing guitar. For a second or two, I thought it was a radio, but the more I listened the more I realized it wasn’t. He was strumming, and I could make out the sounds clearly, so I knew he must have been in the front room.

Do I feel a little guilty for standing here and listening? Yes. But I couldn’t help myself. I’d wanted him to play for me, but he hadn’t. I figured maybe he was practicing.

I tried to remain as quiet as possible, not letting the boards under my feet creek in any way. So I was standing still, just inches from the door, leaning a little with my ear closer.

And he started to sing.

He was great. He sounded like he could do this professionally.

He was halfway through the song he was playing when I realized I recognized it from somewhere. I knew I’d heard it, but I wasn’t sure if it was one of the songs I’ve downloaded.

As I listened to him, I tried to place the song but couldn’t. I picked out a few of the words he was singing and typed them into Google on my phone. Results popped up, and it turned out he was singing a song by the band Tuesday’s Fault. I’m somewhat familiar with their music, but I don’t know much about them.

I was about to close the browser when a picture caught my eye, a shot of the band. My eyes were drawn to one face. A familiar face, even though that face had a short beard and the guy’s hair was long enough to stick out from underneath the baseball cap he was wearing.

I zoomed in, thinking:
It can’t be
. I clicked on the image search and saw more pictures of the band, including some that showed the familiar looking guy up close.

That’s when I found out he’s the guitarist, and his name is Evan Crawford.

Adam Lewis is Evan Crawford.

My mind couldn’t process it fast enough. It was like the blood had rushed out of my head and my brain was struggling for oxygen so it couldn’t work efficiently and make sense out of what was happening right then.

Looking at the photos again, I made sure there was no mistaking that it was him. I wasn’t imagining this.

I knocked on the door, and my hand balled up into a fist as I banged on it. I could hear him inside, coming toward the door, but it was taking him longer than usual.

Finally, he opened the door. There was a look of surprise on his face. “What’s wrong?” He reached a hand out to me.

He was standing a little to the side, giving me enough room to squeeze past him and go into the house, dodging his hand. I immediately turned, crossing my arms over my chest. “You lied to me. You’re not Adam Lewis. I know who you are.”

And that’s how I came to be standing here now, listening to my heart pounding in my ears from anger. My blood pressure must be ridiculously high right now.

His head rolls back like he’s looking up at the ceiling. He lets out a heavy sigh as he closes the door. “You’re right.”

“I know I’m right, Evan.
Evan Crawford
.” God, the tone in my voice when I say his first and last name is vicious. I didn’t know I had that in me. “I can’t believe you lied to me.” I’m so mad my throat starts to tighten up and I can feel the tears welling up in my eyes.

“Let’s sit down,” he says, and there’s calmness in his voice, almost like that of an adult trying to calm a child.

It pisses me off even more. “No.”

“Audrey, come on—”

I cut him off right there. “You know what? I don’t even want to hear what you have to say.” The tears are flowing now, and I can feel my nose start to run. I’m a heavy crier, and this is one of the worst episodes. I try to take a deep breath, but it happens in short, quick gasps. “It’s one thing to lie to me, but to find out the way I found out. Thank God I heard you playing that song and looked it up.”

His eyes widen. “Just now.”

I nod.

He closes his eyes.

My vision is getting blurrier from the tears. I want to hit him or kick him in the balls or something equally awful, like that would make me feel better somehow.

“I’m leaving,” I say, walking toward the door.

“Audrey.” His voice is stern but soft. It’s like he wants to say please but won’t stoop to begging.

That’s fine. I don’t want him to beg. I just want to get out of here.

He steps in my path.

“Move,” I say, but he doesn’t. I push him and he backs up.

Reaching for the door handle, I open it and without turning around I say, “Don’t call or text me.”

I wait a couple of seconds. He says nothing.

Without closing the door, I make my way quickly down the steps and the sidewalk, to the driveway. I get in my car, back out, and drive twice the posted speed limit on this street.

I can’t go back to work like this, so I start to head for home. I call the office and Jim answers.

The crying has subsided, but it’s probably obvious in my voice and the sniffling. “I’ve had a family emergency. I need to go home.”

“Oh no, everyone okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” I say, and then realize that wasn’t what he was asking. “Everyone will be.”

He doesn’t pick up on the awkward answer, or he does and decides to let it go. “We’ll cover for you. Let me know how things are and if you’ll be here tomorrow.”

“I will.”

Halfway home, I realize I can’t go there, either. My mom and Sophie will wonder why I’m home early even if I’m able to get myself straight and stop crying and fuming and doing whatever else shows on my face from all the emotions I’m feeling right now. So I call Stacy.

She answers with: “I was just about to call and see if you wanted to do lunch.”

I can’t catch my breath.

“What’s wrong?”

“I need to talk, but I don’t want to go anywhere.”

“Are you okay? What happened?”

“Can we just meet at your place? Please?”

“Go there.” I can hear her standing up and her keys jingling. “Give me fifteen minutes.”

. . . . .

Parked outside Stacy’s building, I only have to wait a few minutes. She pulls in a few minutes after I do and parks next to me.

We get out of our cars and when she sees me, she says, “What the hell happened? Is it Wyatt?”

God, that’s the last name I want to hear right now. “No.”

She reaches out and hugs me. “Sorry, I said his name. Dammit. Let’s go inside.”

Once inside, I go right to her couch and collapse on it, a huge exhale coming out of me as if I’ve been punched in the back.

“God, I can’t fucking believe this.”

She sits down next to me and hands me a box of tissues. “Talk to me.”

I sit up and wipe my eyes and nose. “Remember that guy from the rooftop bar a few weeks ago?”

“Remember? How could I forget?”

Shaking my head, I reach and grab another handful of tissues. “I’ve been seeing him.”

Stacy’s eyes are huge when I look over at her. She doesn’t say anything.

“More than seeing,” I add.

“Oh, my God. The delivery guy.”

Shit. I forgot that I had not only kept this whole thing from her, I had lied to her about who Adam was. Who
Evan
was. Jesus, it’s going to take a lot for me to get used to that name. Or maybe I won’t have to after all.

“He wasn’t a delivery guy,” I say. “He’s staying at the resort all summer.”

Her mouth falls open. “All summer. What is he, some kind of millionaire?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. There’s a lot I don’t know.”

The whole story pours out of me—going to his bungalow during the day, sometimes at night, and I finally cap off the story with the fact that he’s been lying to me the whole time about who he is.

“Holy shit, Audrey. All this time and I had no idea.”

Somehow, I manage a little bit of a laugh. “I think you had some idea.”

“No, no, I really didn’t. I was just teasing you. Obviously urging you to hook up with him was bad advice. Not that you did any of this because of me.” She pauses for a few seconds. “Right?”

“Of course not.”

She stands. “Want something to drink? I have wine.”

“Wine is the last thing I need at lunchtime.”

“Well, I’m having a glass. If I didn’t have to go back to work, I’d drink something harder and I’d force you to drink with me.” She bends down and kisses the top of my head before she goes to the kitchen. “Tea?”

“Yeah, lots of ice.”

She comes back with my sweet tea and her wine.

“So what does he do?”

I tell her about standing on the porch and hearing the song, then putting it all together with a Google search. This is the part where I have to do something I’d rather not. Evan asked about my discretion that first morning we met, and I assured him that I was discrete. I made him that promise. Do I break it now? Maybe I shouldn’t feel this way, but I suddenly feel justified in doing so because he’s been lying to me for weeks.

She puts her glass down on the table. “Tuesday’s Fault? I know their music. I’ve played some of it in the car before and you’ve heard it.”

That must be where I recognized it from.

She says, “If you listened to anything other than all that pop crap, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”

She’s trying to make me laugh, and it works. A little, anyway.

“But he looked so different when I saw him at the bar,” she continues. “I guess that was part of his way of remaining anonymous. Why is he doing that, anyway?”

I shrug. “He wouldn’t tell me.”

“So what did he say when you confronted him just now?”

Sipping some of the tea gives me a few seconds to stall before giving her answer I know she doesn’t want to hear. “I didn’t let him say anything.”

The expression on her face gives away what she’s thinking. If I had any expectation of her backing my decision to walk out without listening to Evan’s explanation, I was sorely mistaken. But I didn’t come here for reinforcement. I came here because she’s the only person I could tell, and the person who knows me best.

“You know I love you, and I can see why you stormed out of there, but you should listen to what he has to say. Don’t think of it as doing him a favor, think of it as something you’re doing for yourself. He owes you an explanation.”

We’re both silent as I think about what she’s telling me.

Stacy says, “You know I’m right. Give it some time. Think about it.”

“I will.”

“Promise—”

“Yes,” I say, cutting her off. “I promise I’ll think about it.”

“No, I was going to make you promise not to keep things from me and to tell me everything.”

Chapter Twenty

Evan

I don’t chase Audrey outside and down the steps as she flees from me. I’m not going to be that guy—the one who doesn’t let a girl have the space she needs to deal with something hurtful that’s just happened to her.

And I’m sure as hell not going to physically prevent her from leaving.

There’s another reason I don’t chase her. A more practical one. She works here. She’ll be back. She won’t be able to avoid me forever. Hell, she won’t be able to avoid me for more than a day or so, and that’ll give me time to think about all of this as well.

So giving her space isn’t entirely thoughtful and unselfish.

The look on her face when I opened the door was heart-wrenching. My mind didn’t immediately go to the idea that she had figured out who I was. Maybe that was a defense mechanism, my brain telling me:
It’s fine, there’s no way she figured it out.

But my brain was wrong and a second later, I knew that she’d heard me playing that song as she stood on the other side of the door. It must have all clicked in her head and my altered appearance was no longer any good for hiding my true identity.

Fuck, all those times I was about to tell her, I just should have done it. I’d convinced myself that she was being up front with me when she mentioned a few times that she didn’t want anything but a summer fling. I’m paraphrasing but that’s basically what she said.

And while I felt the same way at the start, that had changed pretty early on. I didn’t want to scare her off, though, so I maintained that position. Like it was somehow stronger to come across as the detached guy who just wants to fuck.

I should have taken my chances and told her one of those times. Now I’m stuck with this current situation, one that I think I can resolve, but it isn’t going to be fun at all.

A few hours have passed since she left my bungalow. I spent a good bit of that time playing guitar, trying to maintain the momentum I’ve had for the last several days.

I decide a run will do me some good and it will also give me a chance to move around the resort grounds, maybe run into her or at least see her and discover that she’s doing okay. After one trip around the bungalows, down the beach and back, I don’t see her.

By sundown, I’ve grown impatient. I don’t want to wait for her to come to me. I know where she lives now, but showing up there would make me feel like I was a stalker. Especially if I ended up having to explain to her mother who I am.
I’ll now be showing up unexpectedly at your door until your daughter speaks to me about how I’ve lied to for several weeks. Nice to meet you, by the way.

. . . . .

Headache. Stiff joints. Sore muscles. Dry mouth.

That’s the mental checklist I run through when I wake the next morning from what was possibly the worst night’s sleep I’ve had in my life.

I’ve slept better on a moving bus with a bunch of loud drunk people singing songs and smoking weed and later a couple of them ending up in the bunk above mine, fucking. I’ve slept better in a van packed with instruments, the four of us jammed into the remaining space, loud music coming out of the speakers.

Sitting up, legs swinging off the bed, I sit on the edge for a moment and stretch. I feel like I’m recovering from some kind of horrible car accident that left me battered and bruised. But there’s no physical damage from what happened yesterday with Audrey. It’s all psychological, emotional.

My phone rings and I snatch it off the bedside table, thinking it’s Audrey.

It’s not. It’s Bruce. The last thing I want to deal with today is band issues, and the last voice I want to hear this early in the morning and feeling like shit, is that of our band’s manager. I let his call go to voicemail, but the chime never happens. He must have hung up. Fine with me.

A smoothie and a piece of cheese toast go along way toward waking me up. After a few minutes stretching, I feel the need to get on the beach and keep moving. It’ll loosen me up and burn off some of this anxiety.

Audrey should be at work. I’ll see her at some point today and this time I’m not going to let her go as easily without listing to me at least a little.

Showered after my run, I go out into the den and pick up my guitar. I play some random stuff for a while before moving on to one of the new songs I’d managed to start writing. It’s taking an angry tone, both in terms of the music and the lyrics.

It’s not me. It’s not the type of stuff I write. Ever.

My anger and frustration is seeping into the writing, and I don’t like it. The only good thing is the fact that I’m writing something—something real, coming from actual feeling and emotion. I think it’s a pretty good song, actually, but it’s so far removed from my usual work, it’s hard to grasp the idea that this is what I’m coming up with now.

A knock at the door breaks my rhythm. This is it. Audrey’s here, and I’m about to find out just how difficult it’s going to be to get her to listen to me.

But when I open the door, it’s not Audrey. It’s the other concierge, Jeanette. Or Jeanine. Or whatever her name is.

She stands there with a cheery smile on her face. Her blonde hair is pulled into a tight bun, but a strand waves around in the ocean breeze and in the two seconds we’ve been standing here, she’s already tried to hook it behind her ear twice. I look at her nametag: Jeanine.

“Good morning, Mr. Lewis. Just stopping by to see if there’s anything I can get you today.”

My chest and stomach tighten. “I must have my days mixed up. I thought—”

“Oh,” she says, cutting me off. “I’m covering Audrey’s shift today.”

Has Audrey called in sick? Did she quit? Was she fired? These are all questions I want to ask, but I know better than to do that. What could be taken as simple questions, or even a bit nosey, could also be taken as a little too interested in Audrey’s current whereabouts.

Luckily, Jeanine saves me from having to ask. “She’ll be working tonight, though. We just switched shifts today.” Jeanine does this awkward thing with her hands extended, forefingers pointing out, then one crossing over as the other crosses under. She’s giving me a visual of her and Audrey switching places. I don’t know why I notice it and fixate on it. Maybe I should go back to bed.

“I’m good for today, thanks.”

She claps her hands together and holds them there. “Great. If you change your mind, just give me a call. Oh, one more thing. I’m sure you’ve seen the tent and the stage out on the beach. We’re having music and free food tomorrow for all of our guests. It runs all day with fireworks starting about nine o’clock.”

“Sounds good,” I say, even though it doesn’t sound good right now.

She smiles and makes her way to down the stairs.

I close the door, leaning against it, wondering why Audrey is taking the night shift.

. . . . .

My phone rings a little after three that afternoon. Bruce’s name is on the screen. I debate whether to pick it up. Is it smart, considering the mood I’m in, to have this conversation with him?

Fuck it. I answer.

“Evan,” he starts out. “You’re alive.”

“You already used that one, Bruce. Yes, I’m alive and well.”

“How well?”

“Not very.”

He laughs. “Well, you sound good.” I don’t think I do. In fact, I know I don’t. He’s just being manipulative. “Listen, I’ve got all the guys here.”

I hear a muffled chorus of greetings from the band.

“What’s up?” I say, for lack of anything better.

Bruce says, “You know we have the benefit concert in about two weeks.”

Shit. I forgot all about that. It’s something we’ve been doing every year, usually in late July, to help the local schools with supplies they need. Things that you’d think would be funded by the school district, but aren’t.

So we hold a concert, and the price of admission is school supplies: notebooks, pens, backpacks, you name it. It has worked out well for everyone. The students get what they need and we give back to the community.

“Evan?” Bruce says.

“Yeah.”

He makes a sound like he’s already exasperated after talking to me for less than a minute. “Why don’t you come back for it? No pressure on the studio time. We’ve got that covered. We can all talk in person, sort this out, whatever needs to be done.”

Stepping out onto the deck, I slide my sunglasses on. It’s a perfectly cloudless day, the ocean glares from the mid-afternoon sunshine. I’m not wearing a shirt and the rays beat down on my shoulders. A mild breeze tempers the blazing heat.

“I don’t know why I need to be there,” I say. “Jay sings, Marcus plays drums, Scott on bass, you’ve got Rob filling in for me on guitar. That’s all you need.”

“It’s not about needing you.” Jay’s voice is a good distance from the speaker, but I make out what he’s saying. “We want you there, dude.”

The other guys follow with a round of “yeah” and “come on.” Not forceful, more like pleading without crossing over into whining.

Leaning on the railing overlooking the dunes, I say, “I’ll think about it.”

“What is there to think about?” Bruce says. “It’s two weeks away. Just give us a yes or no so we can plan.” The guys in the band aren’t saying anything. They’ve clearly let Bruce assume a leadership role in this latest attempt to get me back to Denver. He can be the pushy asshole, and they’ll avoid me getting mad at them.

“I’ll let you know,” I say, a bit more sternly this time.

“When?”

“Go ahead and plan what you need to. I’ll let you know when I let you know.”

I’m in no mood for this. I shouldn’t have picked up the phone. I’m not ready to go back just yet, and there’s no way I’m committing to going back to Denver for a few days without knowing the full effect of the fallout from Audrey finding out who I am. Explaining myself to her and finding out where we stand isn’t just a top priority right now, it’s my only priority.

Going back inside to get my notebook, I tell them I have two new songs for them.

There’s a minor celebration on the other end of the line. Good. I can give them these two songs and at least feel like I haven’t totally abandoned them.

“I’ll send them over today to everyone’s emails.”

“Good to hear,” Marcus says. “I knew you hadn’t given up.”

“Fuck no, he hasn’t given up.” Jay has moved closer to the speaker now. “I can’t wait to see them. Lyrics, too?”

I open my laptop to start copying my scribbled notes over into the email. “Yep, it’s all there. Talk to you later.”

I hang up and put everyone’s name in the “To” field. Well, not everyone’s. I leave Bruce out just to fuck with him a little for the phony friendly manager act he put on at the beginning of the call. Part of the reason we took him on as manager was his shrewd business sense, which of course involves a certain amount of bullshitting and schmoozing. But he’s known for a long time not to try that shit with me.

It takes me about an hour to put the two songs into the sheet music software, save it, and attach copies to the email. I send it off as is, no note attached, though I did consider adding “No writing credit needed” in case they want to record these and release them. Writing them was good therapy, a good step in my writer’s block breakthrough, but I don’t want them.

It’s a little before five o’clock when I finish. I decide what to have for dinner, and then move on to planning the most important thing I’ll do all day today, maybe the most important thing I’ll do in my entire stay here this summer.