My Rock #5 (The Rock Star Romance Series - Book #5) (6 page)

“Gee, thanks, I feel so much better,” I told him.

“You lived, I’m sober now; I’ll drive like your
fucking grandmother. Come on, let’s go. I really need to get out of here. We’ll
go down to Venice Beach.”

I rolled my eyes again then went and put on my
jacket and shoes. My grandmother was dead, but I’d be willing to bet he wasn’t
going to be driving like her, sober or not. I tapped on Susie’s door and said, “We’re
going out for a bit.”

“You kids be good!” She yelled back.

When we got out to the parking lot, he handed me the
helmet and swung himself onto the bike. I got on the back and was getting
settled as he said, “Hang on for your life,” with an evil laugh. I started to
climb back off and he laughed again and said, “I’m just kidding, you big
sissy.”

If I was a praying woman, I would have prayed. As it
were, I got on with my fingers crossed.

We drove down the street I lived on and he got onto
the freeway. Before too long, miles of the beautiful Pacific Ocean stretched
out along either side of us. He exited the freeway when we got to Venice Beach.
We drove down Abbot Kinney Boulevard, a really cozy little place in L.A. with
mom and pop stores that lined either side of the street as well as specialty
boutiques, casual bars, and top-rated restaurants. It was known as the place
where the rich hippies went to party and shop.

It was one of the few places in L.A. where you saw
only a handful of chain stores or restaurants. Instead, it was a proud mix of
writers, local artists, and young
dot.commers
. On the
first Friday of every month, you could buy just about anything out of the
market they did on the street. They would have food and drink vendors and live
music. Susie and I came down sometimes just to hang out and shop. It surprised
me that Tristan brought me there, especially when everything seemed so quiet.

He drove past the shops and nightclubs and
restaurants and bars until we came to a narrow little street at about a
forty-five degree angle towards the beach. He followed it down until we came to
a small parking lot where he parked and turned off the bike. I slipped off,
pulled off my helmet, and looked around.

“It’s so peaceful,” I said.

He got off the bike and said, “Ahem! I think you owe
me a thank you.”

“For what?”

“Driving so nicely and getting you here in one
piece,” he said.

I had to admit, he hadn’t scared me once on the way there.
Maybe I was just getting used to him; that was a scary thought.

“Yeah, this is where I come sometimes to clear my
head. This time of night, you have the beach to yourself. You want to go down
by the water?”

“Sure.” I watched him sit down and pull off his
boots and then his socks. He sat them next to his bike and then bent down to
roll up the legs of his jeans. He looked at me then and said,

“You’re not going to take off your shoes?”

“What if I step on something?” He rolled his eyes
and shook his head.

“Live a little, Elly,” was all he said. He started
walking down the steps that led to the sand that stretched out towards the
ocean.

“Wait for me,” I told him as I slipped off my shoes
and bent down to take off my socks. I rolled my socks together and then sat my
shoes next to his boots. He was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs with
an amused expression on his face. I made my way down towards him and he started
walking again. He was definitely in no danger of ever being called a gentleman.

The beach was deserted and the moon, almost full,
hung down low in the sky. If you looked right out into the ocean, the moon seemed
to be dipping down in it. The beams shot silver up towards the clouds and made
them look like they’d been dusted with something shiny. The tide had rolled in
and the sand underneath my feet was wet. It felt good as the skin of my feet
and toes molded to it with every step. Tristan was walking next to me, but he
seemed to be in his own little world as he looked out onto the ocean. He seemed
to know where he was going.

After a bit, he stopped abruptly and said, “Tide
pool.”

“What?”

“Look down.”

I looked down at my feet and sure enough, there was
a little tide pool with water swirling around the rough skin of one gray and
one purple sea urchin. There were a few tiny little shells and when I reached
down to pick one up, I felt Tristan’s hand on my arm.

“Look,” he said, taking one between his thumb and
finger and pulling it up out of the sand. As he brought it up towards me, tiny
little legs dangled out. Within seconds the sand crab had pulled himself back
up into the shell.

“Cool,” I said. Where I grew up, we didn’t have
beaches close by. We went on a trip to the beach only every other year or so.
I’d never seen a crab that wasn’t in a tank waiting to be eaten. “Can you eat
those?”

Tristan looked at my face like he was trying to
figure out if I was being serious or not. When he realized that I was he busted
up laughing. He was laughing so hard that he had tears in his eyes as I waited
him out with my arms folded. Finally he stopped and I said, “What is so funny?”

“Give me your hand,” he said. I didn’t put one out
right away and in a mock wounded voice he said, “You don’t trust me?”

“What do you want my hand for?”

“You really don’t trust me,” he said. Annoyed with
him, I put out my hand. He sat the shell on my palm and said, “Hold still for a
sec.” I held it still for quite a few seconds before something tickled my hand
and I saw the shell start moving slowly towards my fingers. “Look at those tiny
little legs,” he said. “When you asked if people ate them I just had this image
of someone using a cracker and trying to get meat out of them.” I just gave him
a look. I had the same image now and it was so ridiculous it was funny, but I
wasn’t going to admit that to him. All of a sudden I felt a sharp pain.

“
Ow
! It bit me!” I said as
I tossed the little crab back down into the sand and watched it scurry away.

He laughed again and said, “It pinched you.”

“Same difference,” I said, trying to see if he’d
drawn blood on my hand.

Tristan reached over and pinched my shoulder.

“
Ow
! Now you pinched me.”

“Exactly,” he said, “That was a pinch.” He leaned forward
then and lowered his head to my shoulder. I felt the gentle pressure of his
teeth on my skin and then he bit down. “That is a bite.” I shivered and, with a
gleam in his eye, he said, “Are you cold?”

“No, it was just…never mind.”

“That bite turned you on, didn’t it? We could go use
your bed and I could bite you more…all over….”

“Let’s keep walking.” I told him. I was becoming
fond of having sex in strange places since I met Tristan, but sand in all of my
crevices was not an appealing thought at all. Besides, I’d never done it out in
the open before when anyone could walk up and see us in all of our glory. He
hadn’t made me quite that twisted…yet.

I took off walking further down the beach, and he
followed me. The water kept coming out further each time and after we’d walked
a few feet it was up to our ankles. It was cold and my feet were getting numb. I
looked down and saw something pink. As I bent down to get it, Tristan held onto
my waist with his hands. It wasn’t sexual at all, it was to steady me. It was
nice. He’d never actually touched me for the sake of being protective before. I
liked it. I was thinking about how much I liked it and then I chastised myself
for it. He wasn’t my boyfriend, he was barely my friend…I had to stop thinking
about him like that. It was only going to lead me to getting hurt.

The shell I picked up was coral in color. It was
perfectly shaped and intact with its condyle’s and spirals twisting around its
outer surface.

“Look,” I told him, “a perfect seashell.”

Tristan stepped closer and I held it up towards the
moonlight so that he could look at it. I could see the reflection of it in his
eyes and feel his warm breath on my hand. I felt my stomach flutter, and for
the second time that night, I wondered what we were becoming to each
other.
 

“Nice,” he said. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” I said, putting that wondering what we were
to each other stuff out of my head for now. We got back on the bike and just
when I thought we were headed back home, he turned onto Sunset Blvd. and then
parked in front of a bowling alley. I got off the bike and said, “Bowling?”

“Nope, karaoke,” he said.

I laughed, I thought he was kidding. He took me by
the hand—that was another first, and it didn’t do anything for me being able to
tell myself that we were nothing but fuck-buddies to each other. He led me into
a dark little bar that was attached to the end of the bowling alley. There were
only about ten people there, four of them were belly up to the bar and the
other six were spread out across three tables. There was a tiny little stage in
front of the tables and a big sound system.

Tristan led me up to the bar and said, “Two club
sodas.” I had to smile at that. It was something I was sure I’d never hear—Tristan
ordering soda in a bar. The bartender poured our drinks and we carried over to
a little table next to the stage.

Once we sat down I said, “You’re kidding about the
karaoke, right?”

He laughed and said, “Why? Are you a virgin?”

“What?”

“A karaoke virgin. You’ve never done it before?”

“No,” I told him, “I have stage fright.”

He laughed again and said, “A week ago you sang in
front of nine million people and now you’re nervous about singing in front of
ten? Besides, look at them. They all look about half dead anyways.”

I shook my head. “It’s worse this way, I can see
them looking at me.”

“Picture them in their underwear,” he said. He was
still teasing me.

“You too?” I asked him.

He grinned and said, “You can picture me in mine any
time you want. I picture you in yours all the time.” He was always one ahead of
me. “You’ll do fine,” he said.

 
I started to
protest again when loud music suddenly blared out of the speakers and a man
came out of the door at the back of the stage.

“Hello all and welcome to Kyle’s Karaoke night! How
are
ya’ll
doing this fine evening?”

There was a low rumble of response across the
bored
audience. Kyle, if that was who he was, would not be
deterred,

“I said how is everyone doing tonight?” That time he
yelled it and people clapped just to keep him from asking again. “Great!” he said,
once again overly enthusiastic. “We have some great prizes tonight for those of
you who are brave enough to come up on the stage. The audience will vote after
each performance, and the end, the person with the highest number of votes
wins. He hit a button and there was a drumroll—it was all very cheesy. I looked
over at Tristan. He was looking up at Kyle, but he didn’t seem to be watching
or listening to him. I couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking.

“What I need now, are guinea pigs…ah…I mean volunteers…”

Tristan must have been listening. He put his hand in
the air and looked over at me. I shook my head at him. He reached over and
picked up my arm.

“Tristan!”

“Elly!” he grinned again. He loved to antagonize me.

“Perfect, I have two fine volunteers; anyone else?”
Kyle ended up with two more. He handed the song choices out to us and wished us
good luck.

After he walked away I said, “It will be good luck
if I don’t puke or faint. What if I faint?”

“I wouldn’t just leave you lying there,” he said. “What
kind of person do you think I am? I’d move you over far enough so the next guy
could sing without stepping on you.”

“You’re so good to me,” I told him, sarcastically.
“I have no clue what I would do without you.”

“I know,” he said, “I’m glad you have me to look out
for you too. I can’t imagine all the trouble you might get yourself into if you
didn’t.”

He was talking to me while looking at the song list.
He looked like he was concentrating on choosing a song as if it were for
Fresh Voices
. I looked down at mine. The
song choices were all cheesy wedding songs and I didn’t know all of the lyrics
to any of them. I’d have to stare at the monitor. It was going to be terrible.

When Kyle got back on stage and he asked who wanted
to go first, a large, drunk man who had taken a list of songs volunteered. He
looked a little wobbly as he climbed up the steps to the stage. He was
definitely buzzed, if not drunk. He cleared his throat and the music for
Staying Alive
came on. He cleared his
throat again and then he started singing. He wasn’t terrible, and the music was
so loud you could hardly hear him. But what I found the most entertaining was
that he started disco dancing. He even ripped off his jacket and did a John
Travolta thing over his head with it.