Page 26 of Her Rock Star's Dark Secret

Did Alexis really just offer a free breakfast to his uber-rich best friend? That was so like her.

“That’s so kind of you,” Owen said. “I’ll have to take advantage of that. So Alexis started a bakery, which is no surprise since she was always baking something when we were growing up. What do you do, Lauren?”

“I own the hair salon next to Alexis’s bakery.”

“Oh! I saw that place next door when I was driving by.”

“Lauren actually lives across the hall from me,” Alexis said. “Just over her salon.”

“I love how these apartments are just over the shops. It’s so old school. How were you able to manage that?” Owen asked.

“The apartments were part of the rent on the stores. So we moved in.”

“Did you guys set up your shops at the same time?” Chase asked.

“Pretty much,” Lauren said. “I inherited the salon from my grandmother, and when she passed, I moved into her old apartment. Just then, the bakery became available, and I convinced Alexis it was time to make her lifelong dream of owning a bakery a reality.”

“I’d been saving up for a long time, so it just seemed to make sense. Then I was able to get the loan I needed to open my doors, and the rest is history,” Alexis said.

Chase hadn’t even heard all of this, and it hit him how absent he’d been from his sister’s life. It saddened him. He would never get those missing years back.

“I really admire that,” Owen said. “I have this dream of opening my own restaurant one day.”

“Really?” Alexis seemed caught off guard by his admission. “I would have thought you’d be too focused on your film career to do something like open a restaurant.”

“I have no plans to give up my film career. Obviously, I’d have other people running the place so I could keep acting, but I still want to make the dream a reality. I don’t know if it will ever happen. It’s just something cool I’d like to do one day.”

“That’s awesome, Owen. I didn’t realize you wanted to do that,” Chase said.

The group squished onto the couch while Penny settled on the floor. Lauren ended up sitting next to Chase, and she was so close he could smell the floral scent of her shampoo. She smelled amazing. Every now and then, their elbows would brush, sending chills down his spine and goosebumps to rise on his skin.

They watched tv and talked for the next couple hours, until Alexis had to get to bed.

“I should probably get going,” Owen said. “My mom just texted and wants to spend the rest of the evening with me. With my busy filming schedule, I haven’t been able to return home very often, and she’s really missed me.”

“I need to get Penny to bed too.”

The night was young, and Chase had nothing left to do. It was a strange feeling. He’d been so used to packing his days so full he hardly had a moment to breathe. Boredom was a foreign emotion for him.

“Chase, you can come hang out at my place if you want,” Lauren offered. “I don’t have anything going on.” Her cheeks reddened. “Er, maybe we can plan the memorial some more.”

Interesting. There wasn’t too much more to plan on the memorial since his team was covering it. Was Lauren using that as an excuse to spend time alone with him?

“Give me about thirty minutes to get Penny to bed and then come on over,” Lauren said.

Why did Chase suddenly feel nervous about going over to Lauren’s place? It was like he was in high school all over again, crushing on her, feeling like she was going to reject him. Because that was exactly what had happened. Only she didn’t know.

He was going to ask her to homecoming one year, but he saw this jerk named Brandon asking her with a single rose. He knew Brandon was toxic. But Lauren hadn’t noticed. She’d been obsessed with him. That year, she became homecoming queen, and Brandon was crowned king alongside her.

Chase shook off the negative image of Lauren in the arms of another man. So much of the poise and confidence she’d had back then was missing. She seemed burdened and beat down. Exhausted from caring for her daughter by herself.

At the appropriate time, Chase left Alexis’s apartment and crossed the hall to Lauren’s front door. He wiped his sweaty hands on his pants and knocked. Why was he so nervous about this? It wasn’t like they were going on a date, but it had felt so intimate for her to ask him to come over.

Lauren opened the door. She’d changed into a black tank top and blue yoga pants.

“Come on in,” Lauren said. She turned away from him, and he saw a tattoo across her shoulder.

“Cool tattoo. What’s it of?”

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