Page 12 of Reverb
Then came a photo of the lock of hair that had been cut from her head.
“Fuck!” She jerked away. The phone tumbled out of her hand, bounced off the coffee table and clattered to the floor. Shit. Great, just what she needed. Breaking his phone.
She bent to retrieve it, and so did David. Both their heads and hands touched—and that moment, when she jerked her head up and looked into David’s eyes, left her breathless. His fingertips on the back of her hand were pleasantly rough.
He was also fucking handsome from this close up, the bastard.
“Sorry,” she said. Since she’d gotten to the phone first, she sat up and handed it back to David. Looked like the case had saved it from damage. “It was the fucking hair.”
Because those scissors had been sharp, and the phantom sting of her pulled hair and the sheer primal instant of fear before she’d lashed out at her attacker in the heaving crowd flooded right back into her.
“Fucking damn it.” She reached for the bourbon, glad now that she’d poured it. Her hands were shaking and goddamn it, she didn’t need David to see that.
“I understand. It’s hard.” There wasn’t pity in his voice, only the sadness of understanding.
“You’ve been attacked?”
His huff was mirthless. “Yeah. Also, I was in the army. Deployed.”
Oh shit. Mish let out a long breath. “It’s been a couple of weeks.” She should’ve been over it by now, though.
“I know. I should have warned you about those.”
Maybe. Maybe not. She took another sip of her drink, letting the alcohol warm her throat. “My therapist says it’ll linger. And who knows what’ll set the memory off?” She hated that.
He met her gaze and nodded, far too knowingly.
“Please don’t tell the boys.” It came out unbidden. The guys would flip if they knew she was carrying around that moment, especially Ray, who had enough moments of his own strapped to his back.
“I’ll keep your secrets, rock queen.” Lovely eyes. Understanding spirit. “But I think they’d understand, and not think less of you.”
“It’s not that.” She leaned back and changed the subject. “I have absolutely no clue who that dude could be.”
“No former lovers taking an issue with your life?”
She laughed at that. “No. I don’t put up with that controlling shit, and my lovers all knew that from the get-go.”
She’d watched her mom put up with men who expected to be obeyed without so much as lifting a finger. All the money, all the love.
Another sip of bourbon eased the memory away. That had been a lifetime ago, and Mish Sullivan didn’t even have the same name as the girl who’d witnessed all that.
“It’s not anyone I ever dated. Positive.”
David seemed to chew on that. “I’ll trust your instincts.”
“I suspect you’ve already looked into a few of my exes?”
He laughed, and it was another honest one, as if she’d shocked him. “No, I haven’t.” He sobered. “I might, unless you object.”
She waved the question away. “I don’t have an issue with it.Theymight.”
“It’ll be on the up and up.”
She expected nothing less. “It’s the thought of someone picking around other people’s lives, even if the stuff is public.”
A flicker of awareness there, and a hint of sadness. “Yeah, I know. I’ll be respectful, Mish. But I do want to cover all the bases.”
Notprincess, orrock queen, ordarling.Mish. Hearing it in his bell-like voice made her shiver. She didn’t try to hide it this time. Yeah, she liked David, and that was a big fucking problem on the eve of a tour with him guarding her from a creepy-ass stalker.
