Playing Autumn (Breathe Rockstar Romance Book 1) (6 page)

“It's that bad?” Oh man. She tried not to look sorry for him. She forced herself to think of mean people, of baseball, of mushrooms, of superhot green chili, any mundane thing that would keep her heart from reacting like it saw a kicked puppy. But a sliver of looking sorry might have slipped through.

Oliver picked up the bowl and turned it over, the remaining chip fragments falling into his mouth. “It's bad because I let it get bad. I already had my rock star rock-bottom crisis moment, so don't worry.”

“I’m sorry. Should I…?” Was she supposed to keep him from alcohol then? Was there a rehab stint at some point, a drug problem? She couldn’t remember all of a sudden. “Is this all right? Anything…we should be avoiding?”

“Chairs,” Oliver deadpanned. “If you want to know. The worst of the breakdown involved a chair.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Yes. I was writing a song, very badly I must say, and I lost it. I took it out on a chair that had been annoying me for some time.”

“Holy shit.”

“That’s an improvement from drunkenly hitting people, of course.”

Which he did, Haley remembered
that
. “I’m glad you didn’t do that then.”

“Don’t worry. What you're seeing is me on my way back up. Or back to the middle. And please, don't try to fix my fuckups, in case you feel the urge to. It'll take longer than a weekend, and we have kids to scare.”

“Mentor,” Haley corrected him. “And fine. I'll exempt you from my mentoring urges, as much as I can.”

The fajitas arrived. Two individual servings of the same thing, steak fajitas, and soon their table was overwhelmed with sizzling meat, onion, peppers, and tortillas. Oliver pounced on his. Haley would like to think that she was more civilized at it, but she missed this too and was soon wiping steak juice that dribbled down her chin.

Yeah, she liked home too. Mostly.

“So what else is in Tampa?” Oliver asked.

Haley sighed. “Just my job.”
If I still have one.

“Are you uploading more videos?”

“No, I stopped doing that.”

“You should have kept going. Did you see how many views
Your Life
got? It's insane.”

How insanely popular could it have been, if no one was beating down her door with offers? “I got my job now because of it. I'm paid well. Maybe this is the best it's going to get.”

He looked up at her, interrupting a moment with his steak. “That sounds sad.”

“It's realistic. I was Internet-famous for a second and got a job because of it, and that's all it's going to be.”

“This is what you tell yourself?”

It was what was keeping her from completely giving up. Believing for a second that it could be more was dangerous. That path led to broken dreams and being kicked out of your apartment at twenty-four.

She did not say that.

“Can you keep your mentor urges away from me, too?” she told him. “I know you've been in the business and will have all sorts of advice, but I kind of want to be outside of it for now. I don't mind helping out some kids every year, maybe teach someone who ends up playing at Carnegie Hall. That's still worth doing, right?”

Oliver was about to disagree but changed his mind. “It's admirable, yes. Not at all a waste of time.”

She wanted to pick on that last thing he said, but her phone rang. It was someone she was
not
ready to talk to yet.

“Logan?” Haley said. “Yeah, I'm back in town—sorry I forgot to call you right away—”

“You're in El Cantina, yeah, I asked Victoria,” Logan said. “I'm here right now, just parked.”

“Oh, okay.” Haley shook her head as she ended the call.
Shit.

“Shit what?” Oliver asked.

Oh, so she had said that aloud. “Um, there's this guy. My ex-boyfriend. I was sort of psyching myself for when I was going to see him, but he's here
now.
Shit.”

“Is he going to be a problem?”

He wasn't, really. Haley had a feeling that the female population of greater Houston would have no problem at all if Logan Richards called often, and went to their homes, and made nice with their parents, and insisted on meeting for a cryptic “special dinner” this particular weekend. She used to think that was what she wanted.

In less than a minute Logan himself found her, and Oliver, and their table full of fajita paraphernalia. He was surprised to see that she had company, because Victoria obviously didn't share that with him.

Oliver stood up when he realized that the guy was joining them. “Hey. I'm Oliver.”

“Logan,” Logan said, shaking the rock star's hand. “I'm Haley's boyfriend.”

Haley really, really wanted to drop her head down to the table, but she didn't want to get steak juice on her face.

Chapter 8

Boyfriend? The fuck you are,
Oliver thought, and he immediately caught himself. This person now in front of him reminded him of a suit, the kind that talked big during the introduction and slinked away without a word weeks later. They had the same slicked hair, the same slightly crooked smile, and this guy was actually wearing a suit. But he hadn’t done anything to Oliver. There was absolutely no reason to get in this guy's face, no reason at all.

Haley had said ex-boyfriend, right?

“I'm sorry,” Oliver said, putting more into the handshake. “Were you going to explain this, honey?”

When Oliver took his hand back and returned to his seat, both Logan and Haley looked like they had walked into the wrong room. He didn't care about Logan getting it, so he let the back of his hand lightly brush over Haley's wrist then enclosed her slender fingers in his. It floored him how warm and familiar it felt to him. Maybe from when they had slightly touched on the plane. That could have been it.

“
Ex-
boyfriend,” Haley said, releasing the frown on her brow. Her fingers tensed up but instead of pulling away, she leaned slightly toward him. Her eyes didn't change, but Oliver felt a gentle tap on his shoe. And another, and another. “But Logan and I have been in touch, still.”

Though it took him a little longer, Logan shook his head and recovered from the confusion, and Oliver took slight satisfaction in seeing that face contort as if from a punch. “I'm sorry, I didn't realize Haley was with anybody. Hope you don't mind if I join you, catch up with her a bit.”

Haley was avoiding this person why again?

No one responded, but Logan pulled up a chair and started asking Haley about her flight. Oliver watched them for a few seconds, hand still wrapped around hers. He noticed that she didn’t mention that they had met only on the flight over, one where they weren’t even supposed to be sitting together.

Logan looked like he was a sports star in high school, exactly the kind of boy that her parents must have liked. Dark hair all in place, sculpted facial hair, and Oliver wouldn't be surprised if he was a banker or something. He had no doubt that Haley's parents loved this guy. But did she? Something about her body language was off, from when she discovered he was coming, and even now as they talked. He didn't have to be an expert to see that.

The way she was responding to his hand practically spooning hers? He knew what that meant. She darted a look at him from the corner of her eye, and he grinned at her as he released her hand to prep another tortilla.

“I recognize you,” Logan said to him.

“He's Oliver Cabrera,” Haley said hesitantly.

“The singer? Like from the songs on your videos?”

Her face flushed. Interesting.

“He's here for Breathe Music, too,” she said quickly.

“And I've been wanting you to meet the family, remember,” Oliver said, eyebrow slightly raised. “My grandma's so stoked about this trip, too.”

Logan's eyes went from him to her, a tennis match that eventually ended with his eyes settling on Haley. “You two are together? That’s a surprise. You never mentioned it.”

“I don't…”

“She asked me to keep it private,” Oliver said between bites, a little too cheerfully. “She didn't want the press hounding her.”

“Right,” Logan said.

Oliver could tell he wasn't buying it yet. All that their the little charade was accomplishing was throwing Logan off, keeping him from saying what he really wanted to say in Haley's presence because there was a stranger around. But that meant Haley had to get into it more, and if this guy was really an annoyance, then he'd be out of her hair.

Did she want Logan out of her hair? He could help with that.

“What do you do, Logan?” Oliver said, suddenly okay with being friendlier to the sad dude.

“I got a job out of college doing stocks,” Logan said. “Nothing as exciting as rock and roll.”

“Rock and roll isn't as big with Haley's parents, though.”

“So when did you two meet?” Logan's guard went up a tad higher. “I would think Haley would have mentioned it, if she finally—”

“Recently,” Haley said, breathless. “This summer. It was a whirlwind thing. I didn't have the time to tell anyone.”

“You're staying at the hotel again?” Logan asked. “We're still on for Saturday, right? When I called you before your flight, you said yes.”

“Right, of course,” Haley said, like she had forgotten. “Saturday. I haven't forgotten.”

What Saturday was, it seemed like a big deal. A grin returned to Logan's face. They were not explaining to him what it was, and Oliver shouldn't have been curious. If he were smart, and some independent testers actually told him that when he was younger, he would let this go. Haley was a person, not a prize.

At least he had his fajitas.

***

Oliver had other minor victories that night: Making Logan wait twenty minutes while he signed autographs and posed for photos with El Cantina patrons and staff. Sitting in the backseat of Logan's Prius, asking inane questions as he drove them back to the hotel. And then at the Lake Star lobby, when he graciously told Logan that he'd leave them alone together so they could catch up, but not leaving before saying “See you upstairs” and leaving a light kiss on Haley's cheek. When he bent down to do this, she grabbed his arm and looked slightly panicked, not sure how far he would go, and then she relaxed when all his lips did was graze her skin. And then he went further into the hotel.

The Lake Star, now that he had actually paused to take it in, did not look like most hotels and motels booked for him throughout his career. There were bookshelves everywhere: at the lobby, behind the check-in counter, and now that he noticed it, he remembered the one above his room's window that spanned the entire wall.

“Hey,” Haley said, catching up to him. “What was that about?”

“I apologize. You sounded like you wanted to avoid him, so I did what came naturally.”

“Create a relationship out of thin air and rub it in his face?”

He wouldn't have used those words. But yes, all his previous relationships had been quick to start, created seemingly out of thin air. This didn't feel out of place. “I thought I was helping. But I don't know, he doesn't seem like someone you want to call the cops on.”

Haley bit her lip. “Logan's not a
bad
guy, really.”

“Then this is all harmless fun. If he's really threatened by me, then he'll do something. You might actually like what he does.”

She was still looking in the direction Logan had taken. “Logan's great, mostly, but he and I broke up because he’s cheated on me before. I don’t think he stopped when he said he did. My parents don't know that. I think even he forgets it, and he starts thinking that I'll be perfect as the mother of his kids. I don't want him to do anything.”

“What's on Saturday?” he asked.

Haley let out a deep, nervous breath. “Big date. I think he's going to want to get back together.”

She said that with certainty but without any kind of excitement. He felt sad for her, realizing that even though he'd been writing songs about people's lives for years, he hadn't bothered with anyone else's except his own.

She wanted away from this, hence Tampa.

Oliver nodded. He wasn't from here, wasn't part of their lives, and shouldn't be interfering with what looked like the natural course of things. He was just passing through.