Chapter 8

Evan liked to shower every day. He wasn’t sure why, only that he thrived on routine, and that included a shower every morning when he got up. Fine, sometimes he woke up in the afternoon, depending on how late he’d been up the night before.

Sweet Breeze Resort and Spa had plenty to do after the sun went down, and he’d enjoyed a concert on the beach after dropping Riley off that took him past midnight. And if there was a better time to eat sliders and drink ice cold cola, he didn’t want to know about it.

The next morning, he woke after only five hours of sleep, because he needed time to get ready and get over to Your Tidal Forever to pick up Riley.

Giddiness pranced through him as he lay in bed, and that same feeling propelled him out from under the blankets and into the shower. He sang while he washed, and when he stepped out, his brother knocked on his door.

“Just getting out of the shower,” he called, tucking his towel around his waist. “Come in.” He liked dealing with Carl in the morning too, as his brother was usually a little less surly after coffee and before interacting with too many people.

The house Evan had rented was huge, and he heard Carl’s footsteps several seconds before he arrived in the cavernous bathroom. It was all done in white and gray tiles, marble on the countertops, and sleek, modern glass for the mirrors and shower. But it echoed like a cave, and Evan thought an entire troop of Boy Scouts could live in the bathroom for days and no one would find them.

“A reporter out of LA wants a quote,” he said, appearing with a clipboard in his hand. “You have a ten-thirty brunch with the billionaire group tomorrow.” He glanced up as Evan opened the drawer in the vanity to pull out his toothbrush. “And Brett called to say Mom wants us home for Thanksgiving.”

Evan squeezed toothpaste onto his brush and got it wet. He said, “I can do Thanksgiving,” to which Carl groaned. Evan smiled anyway. “The brunch is fine. I’ll have to get to bed early tonight.” Which totally wasn’t happening. He had a date with Riley, and he wanted every second he could get from her. “And what’s the quote for?”

He started brushing his teeth as Carl started rambling about some article someone was doing on the rise of male vocalists. “You’ve got that interview you did about eight months ago,” he said. “I could pull from that.”

“Great,” Evan said with a mouth full of foam. He spat and rinsed and grinned at Carl. “You don’t want to go home for Thanksgiving?”

“Not particularly.”

“Why not?” Evan watched his brother, because he knew Carl’s tells better than anyone. Sometimes even better than Carl himself.

“I just don’t.” He turned around and walked away. “But I’ll tell Brett we can make it.”

Evan chuckled to himself, thinking he knew exactly why Carl didn’t want to go back to Green Grove, Georgia: a woman. One specific woman, who’d broken his brother’s heart. When Carl’s relationship with Shay had ended, Evan had brought him on full-time as the band’s manager. Brett was already working with Georgia Panic on songwriting and doing a few bookings.

Carl had taken things to a new level. Nothing the man did was finished halfway, something Evan appreciated. Plus, his new job got Carl out of Green Grove and away from Shay. It had been a win for everyone.

Twenty minutes later, Evan emerged from the master suite and headed across the lobby of the house into the kitchen. Carl worked at the counter there, though he sometimes took his papers out to the pool if it wasn’t too windy.

“I’m headed out,” Evan said, plucking the keys to the car they’d rented from the hook beside the garage door.

“I’ll catch a ride down to wherever you buy your bike,” he said without looking up. Evan simply smiled at him, though he wanted to tell him he wasn’t buying a bike. He was purchasing a motorcycle, and there was a big difference between the two.

But Carl had most likely said that on purpose, and Evan didn’t feel like arguing, at least not right now. He’d usually go toe-to-toe with his brother, and with Brett not here to break things up, the argument could be epic.

Instead he said, “Don’t wait up for me,” and opened the door.

“You have a brunch at ten-thirty!” Carl yelled after him. Evan let the door slam behind him, a very final punctuation mark on the sentence.

He could attend a brunch a little tired. Heck, he was tired now, and he was going on a date with a woman he cared about a whole lot more than a bunch of stuffy billionaires.

He pulled up to Your Tidal Forever twenty minutes early and got out of the car though the air was stifling and hot. There wasn’t much of a breeze behind the buildings, and he walked down the quaint boardwalk to the other side. The sand stretched before him, with the beautiful water extending beyond that. A sense of wonder filled him, and he was glad he’d ended the tour here.

Glad he’d stayed. Even if he hadn’t met Riley, this was the perfect place for him right now. Everything was so…slow. And slow was exactly what Evan needed.

His phone rang, and he swiped on the call from Riley eagerly. “Hey, babe,” he said.

“Babe?” She didn’t sound like she appreciated that. “Okay, since you’re a world-famous rockstar, I’m going to let that slide. Just. Once.”

He chuckled, but her point had been driven home quite nicely. “Second, you don’t have to lurk out on the boardwalk. You can come inside. I’m not done for a few more minutes.”

“I wasn’t lurking,” he said. “I just got here, and it was too hot behind the building.”

“It’s too hot everywhere,” she said. “And you totally look like a creeper. Come inside.” Someone said her name on the other end of the line, and she said, “Gotta go,” and hung up.

Lurking. Creeper. He wasn’t doing either of those things, but he sure did like hearing Riley’s voice. Their texting string went on for miles, too, and she’d included a picture or two, usually of some colored folders and her explanation for how she did her job.

Evan found everything about her fascinating, right down to the fact that she’d once had three holes in her ears and then let two of them grow in. A lot of rockstars had piercings, but Evan hadn’t seen the allure. No, for him, it was all about the ink. He had half a dozen tattoos, most of them small and meaningful to him.

He rubbed his right fingers along the edge of his left hand, where he had a series of stars to signify his dreaming spirit. He loved to look at the stars, and he loved to wish on them, even now as a grown man.

Turning toward the building where Your Tidal Forever was housed, he tilted his head back and looked into the sky. “No stars visible right now,” he murmured, though he knew they were still out there.

So he wished that he and Riley could have an amazing afternoon together and walked over to the entrance. She looked up from her desk and grinned at him, jumping out of her seat a moment later.

“Hey, rockstar,” she said.

“Hey, gorgeous.” He received her into his arms, and she didn’t reprimand him for the endearment this time. She giggled and he chuckled, and it was as if lightning had struck right there in the lobby of her workplace.

Everything inside him sizzled and snapped, and Evan really, really liked this woman. She stepped back, those straight, white teeth framed by daring, red lips. “So babe is bad,” he said. “But gorgeous is okay.”

“Babe is a pig in a children’s movie,” she said. “All uses of how amazing and stunning I am are acceptable.” She flipped her dark hair over her shoulder with a flirtatious look in her eye and headed back to her desk. “I have maybe fifteen more things to do before we can go.”

“Oh, only fifteen, huh?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be ready on time.” She pointed to a posh white couch, which clearly only supermodels and Persian cats had sat on. “You can wait right there.”

Yeah, if he wanted to have a kinked back by the time they left. Still, there wasn’t anywhere else to wait, and he didn’t think hovering over her was a good idea. Riley was smart and competent, as well as the best flirter he’d been out with in a long time.

The couch had a glass coffee table in front of it, holding various magazines and even a couple of newspapers. He picked up the Getaway Bay Gazette, startled to see his picture on the front page. The other members of Georgia Panic stood behind him, the five of them making a V-shape with him as the lead goose.

He looked fierce with his arms folded and his face so stony. Did this man ever smile? That was surely what people thought when they looked at him.

The headline read Georgia Panic sweeps nation, ends tour in Getaway Bay. So far, so good. Evan had learned long ago not to read articles about himself or the band. Only about half of it was true, and even that half depended on who someone asked.

Southern gentlemen in black leather caught his eye, and he thought that was a decent way to describe the band. As was they are rock, pop, and soul all in one, with a front man who’s as charismatic as he is talented.

Okay, so maybe he could read more articles about himself and the band.

It was always interesting to see how others perceived him, and he glanced over to where Riley worked. She had her phone at her ear, talking while she tapped out something on her computer. She typed, she shuffled, she filed.

And five minutes later, she turned everything off and rose from her chair. “Ready?”

Evan was mesmerized by this woman, so he could only nod as he stood up.

“Great, so we’re buying a motorcycle, and then we’re going to dinner.”

“Right.” He lifted his arm around her. “But we’ll probably ride the motorcycle to dinner. You can get on a machine in that?” He let his gaze slide down her body to the tapering pencil skirt that brushed the tops of her knees.

“I guess we’ll find out,” she said with a smile. “And you can drop me off here after.”

He didn’t really like the sound of that. He wanted to walk her to the door, the hum of the motorcycle’s engine still in his blood, and kiss her goodnight. Would she let him?

He put the question out of his mind for now. All of them, from how she could climb on a motorcycle in that skirt to where they’d eat dinner to how their night would end.

He’d find out soon enough.

They chatted easily on the way to the motorcycle dealership, whom he’d already called and asked them to be ready for him. Sure, maybe it was a diva thing to do, but he wanted to buy a motorcycle in less than an hour. He had cash. He just needed to find one he liked.

“Here we are,” he said, opening the door for her. Riley entered first, and she looked like someone straight out of a magazine. He followed, and he was definitely the rocker with the devil-may-care attitude.

He wore jeans and black boots and a T-shirt with his band’s name on the front. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d worn anything but something very similar to what he had on now.

“Hello,” a man said. “You must be Evan Garfield.”

“Guilty,” Evan said, shaking the man’s hand.

“I’m Juan, and I’ll be helping you today.”

“This is Riley,” Evan said. “Her opinion matters a whole lot.” He grinned at her as she shook her head and smiled. He felt like he’d swallowed sparkles, and she definitely wore stars in her eyes.

“Great.” Juan shook her hand too. “I think I know you…”

“Have you or someone you know been married recently?” She cocked her head slightly, as if trying to see inside Juan’s mind.

“Yes, my cousin.”

“She probably used Your Tidal Forever,” Riley said. “I work there.”

“She did.” Juan smiled. “She had a great wedding planner…Shannon, I think?”

“Shannon is fantastic,” Riley said, oh-so-diplomatically. Evan could watch her in this role forever, but he really wanted to find out what she was like on the back of a bike.

A motorcycle, he corrected himself mentally.

“Okay,” Juan said, moving on. “I have here that you want something with power. I’ve got a few things for you to look at.” He started across the showroom floor, and Evan caught Riley’s hand in his.

“He has notes on you already?” Riley asked.

“I may have called ahead,” Evan said.

“You may have called ahead,” she repeated dryly. “Wow, the life of the rich and famous.”

Evan wasn’t sure if he should be offended by that or simply laugh. Riley wasn’t giving him any clues with her facial expression, so he just nodded. “That’s right, babe. And you get to see it firsthand.”

“Oh, you didn’t,” she said.

“Oh, I did.” He paused next to a motorcycle on the showroom floor, only a couple of paces from Juan.

“This is our newest arrival,” Juan said. “It’s an X-Diavel from Ducati. It’s part cruiser, as you can see. But it’s got great power and style.”

Oh, this motorcycle had style all right. A whole lot of style.

“It seats two,” Juan said.

Very important.

“And you won’t feel like you’re weighed down with this bike.”

Evan circled it and nodded. “I want to drive it.”

“Right now? Or would you like to see what else we have?”

“Let’s see what else you have,” Evan said. “But I definitely want to try this one.” He shot a smile at Riley, who looked at the motorcycle like it was a monster from the great deep. Working with everything he had, he managed not to laugh.

This night was going to be so much fun.