Page 15 of Her Rock Star's Dark Secret

“So, what have you been up to today other than working?” Alexis asked Lauren.

“I was hoping to go over my checklist for the reunion, but I ended up falling asleep instead.”

“What do you still have left?” Chase asked.

“Let me get my laptop,” Lauren said. She retrieved it from where she’d left it on the couch and brought it over to the table.

“So, the reunion is on Saturday, and the memorial is on Sunday,” Chase said, scooting his chair closer to Lauren so he could see the laptop screen. His arm brushed against hers, and her breath caught. How was she supposed to focus on anything with him sitting this close to her? And why did he suddenly seem to care about her reunion plans? She would have thought something so mundane would be too boring for Mr. Party-It-Up.

“That’s right,” Lauren said, forcing her voice to sound normal. But the truth was, Chase made her palms sweat and her heart race. There was something about the fact that he was so famous that it was hard to wrap her head around. What was a guy whose face appeared on the cover of magazines doing in her tiny, ugly kitchen? And why did he seem to care about her so much?

Lauren didn’t feel special tonight. She felt like a worn-out, frumpy mom who lived in yoga pants. Wasn’t Chase used to girls decked out with makeup, tiny dresses, and six-inch heels?

Lauren was a trained makeup artist and a hairstylist. She knew how to clean up well. She knew she could dress the part just as well as any of those girls, but she didn’t usually feel like it. She was too busy worrying about her daughter and her salon to bother with her own appearance. Unless she was going on another one of Alexis’s blind dates, it was the only time she put in the effort to get dressed up. She knew she should probably dress better at the salon, but she usually just wore her yoga pants there too. They were just so comfortable, and if you didn’t look too closely, you couldn’t even tell they weren’t dress pants.

“What can I do to help?” Chase asked.

His question caught her off guard. He’d offered to help before, but she hadn’t taken him seriously. She’d thought he was just being polite. And even if he were serious, she wasn’t sure she could trust him to actually help her out. Especially if he was anything like Brandon had been when they were married. Her ex-husband was awful about making promises to help around the house and instead got distracted by video games or videos on his phone.

Most of the time, Lauren quietly went behind him and cleaned up the messes that had resulted from Brandon’s negligence. After a while, she stopped asking him to help because there wasn’t a point. Why ask him for help when he wouldn’t do what she’d asked? Sometimes his negligence created messes, like the times he’d forget to switch over the laundry, and it would have to be rewashed, or he didn’t get the lasagna from the oven, and it ended up burning to a crisp while she was at the grocery store.

Brandon lived for himself. And she had no reason to expect that Chase was any different. Sure, he was putting on his helpful nice-guy face now. Brandon had done that too, and she’d been stupid enough to fall for it. Her trust in men these days was gone. Especially partying men like Chase, who had everything handed to him. Did he even have a clue how hard real people worked?

She had to give Chase an answer, though. She sighed. “Um, let me think about that.” She scrolled through her tasks. Was there anything here she could trust him to do that wouldn’t cause a disaster if he didn’t follow through with it? “You could help us set up the high school on Saturday morning before the event.”

“What about the memorial?” Chase asked.

Why did he sound so eager about it? He hadn’t even been friends with Maisy. If anything, it seemed like he was a big jerk to her. She remembered an incident where he’d butted heads with her in the hallway when Maisy was rallying to protect the bats. What kind of thoughtless jerk didn’t care about those innocent bats?

“Why do you care, Chase?”

He didn’t answer her. He just stared back at her, and a muscle twitched in his jaw. “Does it matter? I’m offering to help. You can accept my help or tell me to get out of your life. It’s up to you, Lauren. But I’m telling you, I’m here, and I want to help you.”

Lauren sat back in her chair, eyes wide at Chase’s unexpected outburst. Was it possible that he actually meant to be useful? Her eyes met his, and a thrill shot through her. She hated the emotions that flowed through her body. They were a betrayal to the walls she’d so carefully built over the years. She’d had her heart broken before, and she wasn’t about to let that happen again.

Working with Chase wouldn’t be easy if he kept having this effect on her. But she was so exhausted she couldn’t keep her house clean, let alone plan two big events. She owed it to Maisy to have a good memorial for her, and to be honest, she was disgracefully behind on her plans for Maisy’s memorial. She’d wanted something fantastic, but her creative well was dry. All her creativity had been sucked from her after months on end of loneliness and monotonous hard work.

Who was she kidding? Did she even have a choice at this point? She desperately needed Chase’s help.

“Okay, Chase. You can help with the memorial. I hope you have some good ideas about what to do because I’ve got nothing. I know it’s awful, and Maisy deserves better from her best friend, but I’m already so overwhelmed with the reunion that I haven’t had much time to plan Maisy’s memorial too.” Not to mention the stress of her crumbling financial situation, but she didn’t mention that to Chase.

“You didn’t tell me how stressed out you were,” Alexis said. “Let me help you.”

“It’s not even your class reunion this year,” Lauren said. Alexis had been a sophomore when they’d graduated.

“But I can still help. And I can most definitely help with Maisy’s memorial. I was friends with her too.”

Lauren hadn’t even considered asking Alexis for help with Maisy’s memorial. “Thank you.”

“Don’t you worry about a thing. Between Chase and me, we’ll make sure everything gets taken care of.”

Lauren felt a huge burden lifting from her shoulder at Alexis’s words. A burden she hadn’t even realized she’d been carrying around.

“You know what we need?” Alexis said.

“What?” Lauren asked.

“Ice cream,” Alexis said.

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