CHAPTER SIX
Tyler turns from me and takes a long pull on his beer, coughing slightly. “So, uh, I’m going to show you the practice space now. OK?”
I swivel my stool back to the bar in disappointment, feeling cold without his presence. I down another vodka shot and it helps numb my throbbing feet. I’m growing to hate these shoes.
I grab my notebook and pen, trying to shake off the awkwardness and get on with the interview. Even if this isn’t going where I thought it might, it’s still an amazing opportunity to have this kind of access. I’m going to make the most of it.
Tyler puts plenty of distance between us and I follow him around for the tour. The loft is about twice as long as it is wide, and Tyler explains that the hundred-year-old warehouse is basically cut in half, with two tenants on each floor.
“How long have you lived here?” I ask.
“A couple of years.” He shrugs. “The band needed a space to practice, somewhere neighbors wouldn’t complain about noise. Most of the other tenants don’t live in the building; they’re artists or fashion designers who want lots of space and light.”
“It’s really nice.” I mean it. On the long wall with windows, three slouchy couches cluster around a big-screen TV. There’s a distressed boardroom-style table past that with ten mismatched chairs.
We pass an elaborate setup of weightlifting equipment and move toward the largest area, which overflows with musical instruments. Cords snake across the floor between monitors, a soundboard, a drum set, and other expensive equipment. That probably explains all the locks.
“The loft didn’t always look like this. It was full of pigeon droppings and trash when I found it. Some of the windows were broken when I moved in,” Tyler said. “But once I cleaned that shit up and put in a bathroom, I started liking it here more than the band’s old place in Brooklyn. Plus, it’s quicker to get home after a gig in the city.”
“What’s up there?” I point to the loft along the back wall.
“Just my bed and my clothes. I built it when Jayce lived here for a couple of months. I was upstairs and he was downstairs.” Tyler points to the storage area beneath the loft. “Let me tell you about the practice space.”
I follow him, feeling the shots work their magic in my body, unraveling the tension from our awkward moment. I’m a little pissed that Tyler didn’t follow through with his teasing finger’s promise, but I try to focus on building a story.
Tyler points to various instruments and describes who plays what, but I know all of this. I take notes half-heartedly, pressing him for details, looking for something juicy that I can use. It’s got to drive fans wild without undermining Tattoo Thief, but I’m at a loss for how to do that.
“Tell me about your songwriting process.” That starts Tyler on a more productive path. He acknowledges the influence of Lulu Stirling, Gavin’s late muse, but now that Gavin’s given an interview about her death it’s no longer news. The fans want something fresh—they want a taste of what’s next.
I sit on the stool for the drum set and take page after page of notes while Tyler talks about how he found Gavin busking on a street corner and convinced him to join the band, and how they signed their first record deal after four years of playing together.
Now the band’s been together more than seven years and Tyler says they’re like brothers.
“Brothers fight sometimes. Do you guys ever fight?”
“All the time.” Tyler laughs.
“About what?”
“You know—band stuff. The direction of a song. Set lists. What shows we’re playing. But that’s cool. We handle it with majority rule.”
“What if you’re deadlocked two to two?”
“Eh, flip a coin.” Tyler shrugs, unwilling to dish me drama.
I frown. Another dead end.
Tyler picks up his electric bass, plucks a few bluesy chords, and explains that a lot of his solo practice involves anchoring his hand behind the fretboard and making his fingers stretch for the right chords.
“If your hand’s not sliding around, you make fewer mistakes,” he says. He lays several tricky chords down on top of each other and they’re glorious.
“It’s not a song yet.” Tyler shrugs. “But I have an idea for where it might go.”
This is cool. I’m learning. I ask him about the future.
That’s where Tyler balks.
“I can’t predict that. Who knows where we’ll go next? But what I do know is that we’re more solid and healthier that we’ve been in a long time. Lulu’s death was a tragedy, but it was also a gift. It brought back our perspective, which has gone pretty haywire in the past year.”
“How has your perspective changed?”
“I think we’re different people now that we’ve been through all of that. Gavin especially, but all of us. It made us wake up and realize what’s important.”
“And what’s important to you?”
Tyler thinks, really thinks, before he answers. “My family—my mom and my bandmates. I like that the band’s had success, and making it was always really important to me…”
He trails off, so I supply the “But?”
“But the price is really high. There’s not much privacy, and no margin for error.” Tyler looks haunted, like some unknown demon is pecking at his flesh. It makes part of me want to hold and comfort him, but the reporter in me pushes that girl out of the way and presses the issue.
“Error? Like what?”
Tyler sighs heavily and sets his guitar back on its stand. “It’s hard to know who to trust. When you get success, it paints a giant target on your chest. Everyone wants something.”
I stop taking notes. Does Tyler trust me? After what I’ve done to Beryl, I doubt it, so I change the subject.
“Why do you have all the tattoos? Are you just cultivating a bad-boy image or do they mean something?”
Tyler grins. This is something he wants to talk about. He squats close to the drum set stool to give me a closer look at his long, muscled arms.
“They all mean something,” he says. “They’re not about being a rebel, they’re about my history.”
I shudder. My history is not something I want to remember, much less ink into my skin. On one of his forearms I see a raven, a fingerprint, twined bass and treble clefs, and a handful of snowflakes. Tyler shows me his other arm and explains a stylized compass rose—he and two friends got lost on a hike and spent an unexpected night in the woods.
“It’s like wearing your heart on your sleeve,” he says. “This one’s my favorite.” He pulls his T-shirt to the top of his shoulder and points to a retro sailor tattoo, complete with an anchor, a heart, and a scroll that says Mom.
The vodka makes me brave and I run my finger over the anchor. His skin is hot and electricity zips up my arm. His coffee-brown eyes darken and I swear he felt that current, too.
“How—how many do you have?” I stutter.
“Nine.”
“Can I see more?”
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” His grin is rakish and tempting.
“I don’t have any.”
“Yet?” Tyler cocks his brow.
“I don’t want to wear my mistakes. When I get a tattoo, I want it to be about the future.”
“See? You said when, not if. You’ll get one. Then you can show me yours and I’ll show you the rest of mine.”
Unnnh. My mouth goes dry. Is he flirting?
“In one interview, Gavin said you copied someone’s tattoo.”
Tyler frowns. “It’s the only tattoo I regret. I was trying to be tough, you know, when I started the band. Gavin and Dave and Jayce were cool. They had game. They had girlfriends, even when we weren’t famous. I could barely talk to girls.”
My heart warms to the idea of this deliciously muscled man in front of me squirming and striking out with the ladies. “So you decided to get a tattoo?”
“Yeah. There was this guy—he was a senior and I was a freshman in college—and he had this gun on his arm. I thought it looked edgy. So I got one, too, but when he saw mine, he got all pissed that I copied him. A few nights later he spray-painted TATTOO THIEF across my mom’s garage door.”
My eyes widen. This isn’t a story I’ve heard before. I scramble to jot down details in the notebook I’d forgotten in my lap, but Tyler touches my wrist lightly. “Can we keep that part off the record?”
I know this bargain: either he’ll tell me more and I can’t write about it, or he won’t tell me at all. My insides are at war—I love this detail, but I have plenty of other stuff for my story. My curiosity wins.
“OK. So what did you do?”
“My mom came home, and I was freaking out she’d be angry. But she said, ‘Tattoo Thief? That’s a cool name for a band.’ And it stuck.”
I hoot with laughter. “What? Your mom wasn’t pissed about the spray paint?”
“She was at first, but she told me later she wanted me to repaint the garage doors anyway. Gavin begged her to let it stay, like advertising, so she did.”
“Your mom is cool.”
“Seriously.”
***
I want to ask Tyler more questions but my bladder won’t allow it, so I excuse myself to the bathroom. My jaw drops when I enter—twin basin sinks rest above a poured-concrete counter and the glass-walled shower enclosure is bigger than Neil’s whole bathroom. There’s even a heated towel bar. This is sweet.
I finish in the bathroom and do another quick shot in the kitchen. I cross what feels like miles of wood floor to join Tyler on the couches. It only takes me a moment to decide to sit on the same couch he’s on.
“What’s with the bathroom?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s, um, ridiculously nice.”
Tyler chuckles. “I know I went overboard. We’d just got our first big royalties and I really had no business spending that kind of money.”
“What pushed you over the edge?”
“I got sick of short showers. Seriously. I grew up in a house where the showerhead barely reached my shoulder blades and I had to duck my head every time I washed my hair. And the apartment in Brooklyn was worse, because it had practically no water pressure.”
I giggle and stretch out my feet, wincing because I can still feel the abuse I put them through today. “How tall are you?”
Tyler sees my grimace and grabs my feet before I can stop him, pulling them into his lap and easing off my shoes. This is horrifying. My feet probably reek and most of my bright orange toenail polish has chipped off.
Tyler’s looking too closely at my toes and I want to recoil. “Six-three-ish,” he says absently. “You?”
“Me what?”
“How tall are you?”
“That doesn’t matter. I’m not famous.”
“It’s still a question. How tall are you without these shoes?” Tyler presses his thumb against the ball of my foot and I’m in ecstasy.
“Five-two-ish.”
“That sounds like it’s maybe not quite the whole truth.”
I duck my head. “I’m allowed an ish if you are. Does that mean you’re a little taller than six-three?”
“Maybe. Maybe closer to six-four. But I’ll never admit it. It sounds too freakish. In high school, I looked like a flagpole, because I grew really fast but I was only a hundred and twenty pounds. I was scrawny.”
“I find that hard to imagine.” My eyes travel over his lean, muscular body as I relax into the arm of the couch.
Tyler’s long, magical fingers stroke my gross feet. I can’t believe I’m letting him do this. I should straighten up and grill him about something else important for my story, but the motivation has left me.
“It’s true. My body only caught up to my frame in the last year or so.”
“Is that why you have all the weights?” I watch his tattoos dance on strong arms as he kneads my feet.
“Dave makes us work out after band practice to blow off steam. Most bands just drink or get high.”
“Working out doesn’t hurt your record sales, either. All that muscle on display.”
“Mmmn, no. I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t a motivator.” Tyler pushes back the dark brown hair that’s flopped forward on his face. “So why orange?”
“Huh?” The non sequitur snaps me out of the drowsy place I was sinking into, courtesy of the squishy couch and the vodka. I need more vodka.
“Why orange? On your toes?”
I shake my head to clear the cobwebs from my mind. “It’s my favorite color.” Also, that’s the only color of polish I can find in my stuff right now and I can’t afford a new pedicure. I hope the rest of my nail polish ended up in one of the boxes Blayde packed when he threw me out of his place last month. Sooner or later, I’m going to get them out of storage and into a real apartment.
Tyler hits a sensitive spot on my instep and I moan involuntarily. Oops. His expression sharpens and his hands still, but they don’t release my feet in his lap. His hand caresses my calf and I don’t know what to make of it—is he interested? Is he exploring?
I can’t tell whether we’re in the Friend Zone or if it’s something else. He keeps touching me, but it isn’t the lusty grope I’m expecting. He’s just … touching, and with each touch I find myself more and more attuned to his frequency.
I want him. I want to feel his hands on me beyond my knees and my feet—oh, God, does he have a foot fetish? But then, would that mean he’s into me?
My resolve to keep this journalist-to-musician interview platonic has drowned in vodka and I’m sure I have enough notes to form a cohesive story tomorrow. I pull my feet from Tyler’s hands and scoot on my knees over to where Tyler sits on the couch.
“That felt fantastic,” I purr, and I throw one knee across his lap to straddle him. My dress stretches higher on my thighs and I plant my hands on his shoulders. Tyler stills and I try to read his expression. “I don’t want you to stop.”
I don’t just mean the foot rub. I stretch my neck forward to bring my face close to his and I hear his breathing shallow. I know I have an effect on him and I move even more slowly, savoring it.
But why isn’t he responding? Instead of running his hands up the back of my thighs or grabbing my ass, his hands are still on the couch, motionless on either side of my legs.
I ignore Tyler’s hesitation and bring my lips closer to his, smelling a little beer and maybe basil from our dinner. The tip of my nose touches his cheek and I pivot my mouth, reaching for his lips.
They’re soft and yielding. I press deeper into him, my tongue teasing the corners of his mouth, my breasts pressed to his chest. I hear a noise from his throat, maybe a groan, but he hesitates.
I buck my hips and that’s the last straw—his hands are suddenly on me, sliding across my back and around my waist as he pulls me into a breathless kiss. His lips are hot and hard on mine and I want to drink him in, devour him. But in the next moment, his hands have changed course and he’s pulling me away from his mouth.
Wait—what?
“Stella. Hang on here.” I can see Tyler fighting for control and I’m struggling to breathe normally too. I’m in his lap, his arms were around me and I can feel his erection pressing against my very damp panties.
He shouldn’t be pushing PAUSE right now when every sign points to PLAY. Or FAST FORWARD. Even slow-mo, if that’s his style. But PAUSE?
“Stop,” he commands. My hips are still moving against him of their own free will. Oh, God. Stop. That’s the kiss of death.
“Seriously? Stop?” My face is flaming with humiliation and I climb off Tyler’s lap and grab my shoes, trying to shove them on my feet as fast as possible. “Whatever you say, Tyler. At least you made up your mind. You’ve been sending mixed signals all night.”
My voice says I’m angry with him, but I’m really just mad at myself. First I decided to keep it professional, just do the story after he’d offered me access. Then his touch—it was the kneecap that did it—lights me on fire and I throw that very sane plan out the window.
Then I have two or three more shots to further fuck with my resolve. And then, the foot rub. Tyler has a secret weapon.
I’m angry because Tyler pushed me past my limits, even though I was the one who climbed into his lap. I started that kiss and he ended it. That should tell you everything you need to know, and it should tell me to leave him the hell alone.
Tyler’s face darkens and he’s mad that I’m mad.
“Mixed signals? I was giving you what you wanted, your story, so that you wouldn’t try to dig into Beryl and Gavin’s life and get something else on them. Something ugly.”
Tyler’s statement hits me like a slap in the face. “Is that what you think I’m about?” My voice rises. “That I’m going to throw my best friend under the bus again?”
Tyler’s voice drops to a dangerous whisper. “You said it yourself: again. I did what I thought I should do to protect Gavin.”
My jaw goes slack, realizing Tyler was playing me to give me the story he wanted me to write, rather than the truth. His stupid little comments about facts being real and stories being true actually revealed his motives.
I stalk to the kitchen to grab my purse as my heels echo on the wood floor. Angry tears slide down my face and I shove aside the bar stool I sat on when Tyler touched my knee with one finger.
That asshole really had me going.
I stuff my notebook in my purse and turn to look at Tyler, who’s still seated on the couch, his hands buried in his hair.
“Have a nice life, Tyler,” I say, and I wish I could say something more cutting to make up for how embarrassed I feel. “I’d say it’s been fun, but I’d be lying.”
I stalk to the heavy industrial front door, twist the deadbolts and pull the wide handle. I can’t turn around and look back at Tyler, afraid of what I’ll see.
My trip down five flights of stairs is slow and painful as I limp in my stupid shoes and cling to the handrail to keep from falling. I snort up the snot in my nose from crying. I’m looking super attractive right now with a night’s worth of black mascara sliding down my cheeks.
Damn him. I’ve been in plenty of compromising situations after getting frisky with a bad boy, but I can’t remember one quite so humiliating. I can’t remember a time when a bad boy turned me down.
He played me. That’s the thought that sticks in my brain. I always say, “a bad boy can’t break your heart,” because with them, you’ve got no expectations. You don’t expect roses. You don’t expect to be wooed or complimented or spooned. You don’t expect to be called the next day or taken home to Mother.
And that’s what kills me about Tyler. I assumed he was a bad boy, with his tattoos and devil-may-care rocker attitude. But then, somewhere along the line, I started to think he was good.
And it bit me in the ass.
I’m shaking by the time I reach the bottom landing, and I struggle to turn the locks on the ground-floor door. The top lock is stuck and I curse, breaking a fingernail on the stubborn metal.
More curses as I pant and push. I hear pounding behind me and Tyler descends the stairs two at a time. His eyes are red and tight and he has his phone in his hand.
“Stella. I’m sorry.” He turns his palms up and I’m not sure what he’s apologizing for. Pushing me away? If he regrets it, he makes no move to show me he wants me physically. I feel trapped but there’s nowhere to run from him.
He reaches over me and presses one hand hard against the slightly warped metal door, releasing the highest deadbolt. I want to escape into the humid night that feels heavy on my skin, but Tyler grabs my arm before I can flee.
“Hey! What are you doing?” Everything about his body electrifies mine and yet I’m fighting to get out of his grasp. My brain is still soaked in vodka and I can’t make sense of this night.
“I called you a cab.” Tyler points to the yellow cab idling at the corner. “I wanted to make sure you get home safely.”
I know I should thank him but I shake out of his grasp instead, clutching my purse as I hobble to the cab. I can handle bad boys. I can handle liars and users and cheats. But Tyler’s small, gentle gesture wrecks me. All I want to do is get away, get back to the home that is not my home, burrow under my pillow and cry.
I slam the cab door shut and give the driver my temporary address. My tears are done but the damage they wrought is still smeared across my face, so I can’t hit a bar for a nightcap to smooth the jagged feelings that cut me open.
Instead, I rummage around in my purse for tissues—none, not even a fast-food napkin—and then paw for loose change to top off the fourteen dollars I have in cash for cab fare. I’m teetering on the edge of my credit limit and I’m afraid my card might be declined.
When the cab pulls up to Neil’s apartment I tap on the glass. The meter wasn’t running and I’m nervous the cabbie’s going to try to overcharge me.
“How much?” I ask as I glance at his taxi license and try to memorize the numbers.
“It’s paid,” the driver says. “It was paid when he ordered the cab.”
Shit. Tyler’s just rubbing it in now, or trying to make it up to me so I won’t write something horrible about Tattoo Thief.
I feel like such an idiot. He played me and I fell for it.
Pssst … if you love sizzle, this book gets a lot sexier than Tattoo Thief!