Chapter 1

Mason

“I pronounce you husband and wife,” the minister announced as the warm fall breeze tugged at the guests sitting in front of the wooden gazebo. “You may now kiss the bride.”

He didn’t have to tell Jared twice. Our guitarist’s lips were on his new bride’s mouth faster than you could say I want to fuck you now. And, knowing Jared, that was exactly what he wanted to do. Pushing Limits had been on the road for almost five months—the halfway mark of our tour opening for Endless Motion. With the exception of a brief visit two months earlier, when Callie and their son, Logan, joined us for a few days, Jared hadn’t fucked her in a long time. How he was surviving without a bad case of blue balls at this point was beyond me. I couldn’t do it.

Nor did I want to. That was one of the perks of being a rock star. I could get laid anytime I wanted. I glanced around at the prospects, sitting on the chairs in front of the gazebo. Unfortunately, the wedding was small, with about forty guests, and only a handful of the females were of legal age. When you factored in how many were here without a boyfriend, that left me with one. Not a bad option either. Pretty, petite, with long black hair. Beckie something. Callie used to work with her at the diner. I’d have gone after her…if Kirk, the band’s bassist, hadn’t already been eyeing her.

So that left me with no possibilities. Which sucked. Royally.

The happy couple unglued their lips from each other and stepped down from the gazebo, where I was standing with the other groomsmen (aka the members of the band). Nolan pulled his girlfriend, Hailey, into his arms and whispered in her ear. She laughed. If I’d been a betting man, I would’ve wagered those two would be married (or at least engaged) before the band hit the studio again.

At the thought of making a bet, a shiver of excitement rolled through me. I pushed it away. I couldn’t go there. Not again. I had destroyed enough people with my past gambling addiction. I was a new man. A new man who wouldn’t fall down that rabbit hole again.

My fingers unconsciously went to the tattoo on the inside of my forearm, hidden under the tuxedo: LIVE. LOVE. LAUGH. The words were in Sanskrit. Along with several other tattoos, I’d gotten that one after my stint in rehab several years ago. This one in particular was a motto I lived by every day. I lived and loved the music. And the laugh? Well…

I checked out the guests now milling around the backyard and spotted Tomas York, the drummer for the up-and-coming band Burning Wire. Perfect. I grabbed a napkin from the refreshment table. Jared and Callie’s names were printed in gold on the cream-colored paper.

“Do you have a pen I can borrow for a second?” I asked the woman next to me. Her short white hair was puffy, and she had one of those oversized purses that contained everything, including two kitchen sinks.

She smiled at me. “I’m sure I have one.” She rummaged through her purse and removed a silver pen. Classy. I took it and wrote, Hi, sexy. Your place or mine? I handed the pen back to her, thanked her, then made my way over to Tomas.

“Hey, a woman asked me to give you this.” I passed him the folded napkin.

He opened it and read the note. His head shot up and his gaze searched the backyard for the note writer. I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing out loud.

His gaze settled on Beckie, who was talking to Jared and Callie. Tomas’s eyes lit up with a lusting fire.

“Not her. Her.” I pointed at the woman who had loaned me the pen.

The heat in his gaze was instantly extinguished, and his eyes practically popped out of his head. I snickered. I couldn’t help it.

Tomas’s head swiveled to me and he backhanded my chest. “You jackass.”

I burst out laughing. “I might be a jackass, but it was so worth it.”

“For you, maybe.” He looked back at Beckie. “Do you know who she is?”

I shrugged. “Not really. She used to work with Callie.” I didn’t get a chance to warn him that Kirk might also be interested in her. Just then Kirk sidled up to her, and it was clear she was as taken by the tall, brooding former hockey player as he was with her. At least one of us would get lucky tonight. Which left Aaron and me as the only members of Pushing Limits who weren’t going to have a good fuck tonight.

Maybe he, Tomas, and I should bail on the wedding sooner rather than later and find some action elsewhere, I thought.

And I would have if Jared hadn’t been like a brother to me. All the guys in the band were like brothers to me. The only brothers I had left. No, bailing so I could get laid wasn’t the cool thing to do.

At the tug on my pant leg, I glanced down to find Logan grinning up at me. Inwardly I chuckled, knowing what the hopeful expression was for. He was hoping that I’d cuss and contribute to his swear-word jar. With the band touring, he had no one to donate regularly to it. I was the only idiot unable to control his cussing around the four-year-old. It was an expensive habit when the fine was a dollar per swear word. “Hey, buddy.”

“Play with me, Uncle Mason.” He signed the words as he spoke. Logan was deaf, but his cochlear implant allowed him to hear most things, except for music.

I crouched to his level. “Logan, do you remember my friend Tomas? He’s almost as good a drummer as I am.” And with the way Tomas’s band was gaining interest within the L.A. music scene, maybe one day they would be opening for us.

Tomas laughed. “Actually, I’m even better than your uncle Mason.”

He wished.

“You must be good,” Logan said, “because Uncle Mason is amazing.” What he meant was that the vibrations through the floor when I played the drums were amazing. Logan didn’t listen to the band’s music. He felt it.

“What do you want to play?” I asked him.

“Soccer!” That came as no big surprise.

“Do you think your parents would mind?” I surveyed the backyard. It wasn’t huge, and while under normal circumstances it would be fine, it might be problematic with so many guests milling around.

Logan tugged on my hand. “It’s all good.”

I somehow doubted it. I scanned the area for Jared and Callie, but they were nowhere to be found. Guess they couldn’t wait until nighttime to consummate their marriage. Lucky bastard!

“Why don’t we ask your grandmother first, okay?” I signed the “okay” part. “Don’t go anywhere,” I told Tomas. “You might get drafted into the soccer match.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for anything,” said Tomas, who was part Latino and had grown up on soccer.

Logan and I walked over to his grandmother, who was talking to a few guests near the refreshment table. “That should be fine,” she said after I asked her if it would be okay to play a low-key game of soccer. “Just keep the ball away from the patio, okay?” She said the last part to Logan, then to me she added, “And no kicking it hard. We don’t need it landing in the food.”

Good point.

Logan hurried off to fetch his soccer ball. A few minutes later he and I, along with the other guys in the band, Tomas, and the cute little flower girl, were kicking the ball around the lawn. Callie cheered on her boys, who were on my team, while Hailey cheered on Nolan, who played on the opposite team.

Kirk kicked the ball past Aaron. I high-fived him. “Nice job, puck boy.”

“As if you ever doubted me, drummer boy,” he said with a smirk.

The phone in my tux pant pocket vibrated. I ignored it. Everyone who was likely to contact me was at the wedding. So unless my estranged family had a sudden longing to forgive me for the mess I’d dragged them into a few years ago—and I doubted they had forgiven me, or ever would—the call could wait.

Logan kicked the ball past Tomas, who was positioned between two wedding chairs, and scored a goal. He squealed with joy and jumped up and down, as did Emma, the toddler flower girl, who was on the other team. We laughed at their reaction.

Jared hugged Logan, and the memory of my father once doing the same when I was a kid almost knocked me onto my ass. I’d just scored a touchdown. It had been only flag football, but that hadn’t mattered to him. He had been proud of me no matter what—as long as I gave it my all and worked hard. As long as I played fair.

I shoved away the memory and the hurt. I had moved on. No point picking at the scab again.

I high-fived Logan and got back into position. Callie tossed the ball onto the grass and the game resumed. Giggling, Emma kicked the ball, and kept on kicking it away from the rigged-up soccer field. Logan chased after her. The rest of us stood on the grass, laughing.

A bird tweeted near the tree house. Without warning, Emma stopped and pointed at where the sound had come from, the soccer game instantly forgotten. Not expecting her to stop, Logan almost careened into her. He took advantage of the distraction and kicked the ball away from her. Emma didn’t even notice.

He dribbled the ball back to us but then forgot about the no-kicking rule. And wow, could the kid ever kick. The ball smacked the ass of the woman who had loaned me her pen. We all cringed as it made impact, and cringed even more at the dirty ball print it left on her beige skirt.

She turned around to find Logan staring at her backside, his mouth a perfect circle. She smiled sweetly at him. “Your daddy said you were a good player. He just failed to mention how great a player you are.” She ruffled his hair and returned her attention to the elderly couple she had been talking to.

The phone vibrated in my pocket again.

I don’t know what compelled me to check it, but a weird feeling warned me it was important. I removed my phone and looked to see who had texted me.

Call me ASAP! Important.

The last I’d heard, Zack was off who-knew-where on a mission for the navy. He’d been gone for a few weeks now.

Striding to the side of the house, away from the noise, I speed-dialed his number. He answered moments later.

“Hey, McCormick, what’s so important?” I asked.

“You remember my sister, Nicole?”

“Yes.” She was two years younger than Zack and me, and had gone to a different high school. Whenever I had hung out with Zack at his house, she was usually there. Most fifteen-year-old little sisters loved tormenting their older brother. Not so with Nicole. You could tell she worshipped him. He was her world—and it was obvious he adored her just as much, despite how much he teased her.

But who could blame him? She did make the best chocolate chip cookies known to man.

“I’ve been trying to contact her for the past two days. She isn’t returning my texts or messages.”

“You think something’s happened to her?”

“Who knows? She’s a workaholic. Sometimes she gets so focused on what’s she doing, she ignores the rest of the world. But if something has happened to her…” He couldn’t say the final words.

“You want me to go to her place and check if she’s okay?”

“Yes, if you can.”

“What’s her address?”

He told me. “It’s in Desert Springs. About two and a half hours southeast of L.A.”

“I’m at a wedding, but I can leave in about an hour.”

“Thanks, Dell. I owe you big.”

Not as much as I owed him. If it hadn’t been for Zack, I would have died the night my gambling addiction caused me to hit rock bottom and I attempted suicide.

I owed him my life…and so much more.