Page 13 of Her Rock Star's Dark Secret

Chase hadn’t noticed that himself. But he stopped a moment to think about it, to see if Alexis’s assessment was correct. Maybe she was right. He was highly attracted to Lauren. She had this confidence about her that he found himself highly drawn to. And the fact that she wasn’t immediately fawning over him caught him off guard and set her apart from the rest. Because he’d seen plenty of pretty faces in the crowd, but Lauren was more than that. She was the entire package. Smart, beautiful, mature, hardworking, and a good mother. He could see all of that from the time he’d spent with her so far.

Normally he would have thought Lauren was a difficult person to get along with, but she was something unexpected. In a good way. He found himself wondering what was really going on inside her head, and the longer he spent with her, the more he wanted to know what was going on in the inner workings of her mind.

“You just went all quiet on me,” Alexis said.

“I’m digesting what you just said.”

“Explain.”

“She’s not what I expected. Not that I was expecting anything.”

“How did you feel about her in high school?”

“I always looked up to her. She seemed like she was the girl who would go out and conquer the world. But she was untouchable.”

“Do you still think she’s untouchable?”

“More now than ever.”

Alexis frowned. “I don’t know why Lauren gets like that.”

“Like what?”

“She pushes people away. She thinks she’s superwoman. Like she doesn’t need any help.”

“Hey, that sounds like someone I know.” Chase nudged Alexis with his elbow.

She gave him a wry smile. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, no. Of course, not,” Chase teased.

“All joking aside, Lauren would do well to let other people into her little bubble.”

“And by ‘people’ you mean me.”

“Yes.”

“You do know I live on the other side of the country, right?”

“Yes, I also know that you can record music from anywhere in the country.”

“I know. I’ve thought about that. But I’d have to have a reason to do that. And right now, I don’t have one.” He didn’t see anything more than a blind date and maybe another outing or two coming out of his friendship with Lauren. If you could even call what they had a friendship. She was a bit cold to be considered a friend.

Chase finished his breakfast and then helped Alexis clean up the kitchen.

“I think I’m going to go out for a run,” Chase told Alexis. He needed to get out and burn off some of the anxiety he felt whenever he thought about Lauren. The woman tied him up in knots, and he was determined to keep that feeling from controlling him. He’d never had one woman affect him this much.

And he wasn’t sure he knew what to do about that now.

Chapter 5

Lauren put her tired feet up on her ottoman and tried to ignore the way the leather was worn in the center of the footstool. She was so tired of everything around her looking like it was from another decade. She longed to redecorate, especially her salon. She opened her phone and scrolled through her Pinterest account. Her feed was full of redecorating ideas. She pinned a few of the cutest designs and then continued scrolling until her brain felt like it was going to explode from information overload.

Penny sat on the floor next to her, absorbed in the cartoon she’d been watching for much too long. Lauren knew she shouldn’t let Penny watch so much tv, but when she came home from work, she was often so exhausted she didn’t have the energy for anything other than putting on the tv and vegging out on her phone while Penny was distracted with cartoons.

Lauren set down her phone and grabbed her laptop from the side table next to her. She opened her checklist for the class reunion and began scanning the document to see what she needed to still accomplish before Saturday arrived. She still needed to follow up with the photographer and Aubrey Wheaton, Mrs. Wheaton’s daughter, who was catering. She took a few notes before dozing off in exhaustion on the couch.

She woke to knocking on the door. Lauren rubbed her eyes and stood, stretching her arms out wide. How long had she been asleep? She checked her watch. She’d only been out for thirty minutes.

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