“Okay, now do it again.”

Jazz sighed. She’d been playing guitar for years, but he took it to another level. He was crazy good. Almost Kirk Hammett-in-Metallica good. “My fingers are tired.”

“Aww, poor baby.” Gray grinned. “I thought you wanted to be in a band.”

She snorted. “Like that’s ever actually going to happen.”

They’d been practicing for hours in his parents’ basement rec room, which was fancier than the house she’d lived in with her sister and her mama in Glenview. Expensive artwork decorated the navy walls and leather furniture filled the space. The huge TV and high-end stereo were fascinating enough, but the row of antique pinball machines always drew the bulk of her attention. Ms. Pac-Man was starting to look really appealing.

She wasn’t a gamer and normally she loved playing her music more than anything, but Gray had been teaching her some complicated finger combinations on his spare Stratocaster since they’d gotten home from school. Between his endless instruction and the reverberation from the amp, she was starting to get a headache.

And she still had three hours of algebra homework to do. Three hours of pretending she didn’t hear the feminine laughter coming from Gray’s end of the hall as he “tutored” his latest student in French. Literally.

She’d almost walked in on him and the last one. They’d gotten so quiet in there that she’d thought Shelly or Sally or whatever her name was had gone home, so Jazz had stopped outside his door, prepared to knock. The moan had taken her by surprise. As had the red lace bra on the floor when she’d given in to curiosity and quietly nudged the cracked-open door.

Yeah, Gray knew his French, all right.

“You’re right, it won’t happen if you don’t start practicing more. You think Krystal Sword will take on just anyone? We have qualifications.”

“I’m sure you do.” Like tongue-testing all the female applicants. If they even had female applicants. Krystal Sword was a band of six loud, smelly boys.

He went on, oblivious to her sarcasm. “Jimmy’s already told me he’s not going to replace Stevie unless we can find exactly the right fit. You’re good, but not better than Stevie. He doesn’t just play, he writes music—”

“I write music.” She set aside the guitar and dug through her backpack, prying out two brightly colored notebooks. The first she tucked under her bent leg. Nope, he wasn’t getting to see that one. “Here.”

Eyebrow raised, he flipped open the peace sign-covered notebook she’d handed him. He read the pages of lyrics quietly, his face devoid of any reaction.

She toyed with the slouchy top of her DayGlo yellow socks then blew out a breath and folded her hands in her lap. So what if he didn’t like her lyrics? That wasn’t her best work. The best work was in her other notebook, the one with way too much personal information.

Like songs about a boy she’d once been in love with. Once because it was safer. Because she’d never tell anyone the truth.

He continued to flip pages with his agile fingers, reading silently, his expression blank. The other guys in the band all wore guyliner. He refused. The one time he’d put on makeup for a show at open mic night at a local club he’d looked almost too pretty. With that lush mouth, super-long eyelashes and thick, wavy hair, he’d been prime rocker material. The chicks had gone nuts for him, but he’d immediately gone back to his own personal style—jeans and concert tees mixed with the occasional leather vest. Hair gel was about as far as he went toward the whole musician look.

Not that it mattered. He already had groupies, both male and female. Guys wanted to be his friend. Girls wanted to do him. When any of her classmates bothered to talk to her, they always asked the same things.

“What’s it like living with that hottie?”

“What does he wear to bed?”

“Have you ever seen him naked?”

Her mental answers were always the same. Amazing, when it’s not hell. Nothing. Absolutely not.

She’d die if she saw Gray naked. She’d seen him shirtless and that was bad enough. The dude was ripped. Not that she’d seen tons of male bodies to compare him to, but his torso alone could cause serious drooling. Since he’d told her he slept totally nude—who did that?—she made sure to avoid his bedroom on weekends until early afternoon. Just in case. Not because she didn’t want to see, but because she did. Really fucking bad.

“Well?” she demanded when she couldn’t take another second.

He held up a finger and continued to read.

“Oh God. Forget it. I’m going to watch TV.” She started to stand up.

“Sit.” Gray grabbed her thigh and yanked her back down. He continued to read. “By the way, Mom told me you have math homework to do. TV’s for later.”

Yeah, she’d known the parental nets would drop down on her after her first midterm report had revealed her D in math. And biology. Her C in Government wasn’t much better. “Jeepers, are you my guardian or what?”

“Or what. Shh.”

There was one sure way to break his concentration. “So is Shelly your girlfriend?”

His lips twitched. “No.”

She smoothed her palm over her other notebook. The one he would never see unless she dropped dead. If he didn’t tell her what he thought of her music soon, that could be anytime now. “So you just have sex with her to pass the time?”

He tilted his head to look up at her from under the curve of dark hair that fell over one moody gray eye. “You been spying on me, squirt?”

Squirt. The most hated of all nicknames he could give her. “No. Of course not.” She tried not to blush. “She just moaned a lot.”

A satisfied smile drifted across his lips before he looked back down at her notebook. “Doesn’t mean we had sex.”

Curiosity ate at her while she gnawed on her nail. Yeah, she definitely wasn’t going to show him her other notebook. She’d taken some guesses at what the “not sex” stuff was and her songs weren’t exactly fit for church. They made her squirm a bit but she’d had to get the words down. “So she’s not your girlfriend?”

“I just said she wasn’t.” He closed her notebook and returned it to her, along with the Stratocaster. “Do you have a melody for ‘Captured’ yet?”

“No.”

“Let’s figure one out.”

“Does that mean you liked the lyrics?”

He fingered his own guitar, plucking the strings with a deftness she both envied and admired. “I liked them,” he said simply. He lifted his head and caught her gaze with his. “Let’s get to work.”