Finding the Dream (For the Love of Music #1.5) (2 page)

Donovan jumped, pinning his eyes on the guy who was more like his dad than anyone had ever bothered to be. Clark grabbed Donovan in a hug, and the two men slapped each other’s backs a few times.

“How the hell are you?” Clark asked. “It’s been forever since you made it back home.” He stood at an imposing six foot four, and his voice was bigger than he was.

Sierra’s mother waved from the door and set down a box before the two girls jogged down the stairs for another load.

“I don’t…” Donovan shrugged, wishing that the well of emotion in his chest would stop pressing in on his lungs. He didn’t go back to Riverside unless he had to.

Clark nodded once, grasping Donovan by the shoulder. “I don’t blame you, son.”

Son. Something Clark probably said to everyone, and something Donovan would never get tired of hearing. “Yeah…” He glanced around his bare-bones apartment, needing to talk about anything but his hometown. “The place isn’t much. You know it’s just me and Hanson, whose room is a bit of a mess, but I’m sure I can help with that. The store is making record profits this summer, I’m just trying to save.”

“I’m amazed at what you two have built with that place.” And then Clark leaned in closer to Donovan. “Before the women come back, I wanna talk with you.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Donovan rested against the counter. “What’s up?”

Clark glanced over his shoulder and let out a sigh, his dark hair brushed neatly off his face. “I’m not blind. I know Sierra is… She’s someone guys watch now.”

‘Watch’ would be one way to say it. Yeah, Donovan had seen pictures, but they just hadn’t prepared him for… He hadn’t been prepared for the reality of her.

“She wasn’t the most popular girl in school, and I know she came home from dances or parties in tears more than once. When those same guys started noticing her after high school, when they were home on breaks, she bent over backwards for them, and…” he trailed off with a frown.

“And it didn’t end well,” Donovan finished for him.

Clark sighed. “I know she’s twenty, and I know I shouldn't worry like she’s fifteen, but I still worry like she’s fifteen. I’m just asking you to pull out all the big brother cards while she’s here. Watch over her a little bit.”

“Yeah…” Donovan swallowed wondering who Sierra even was anymore, and how the hell he was going to keep guys from noticing her. “Of course. Yeah.”

“And you’re still using Hanson’s income from the store to pay his portion of the rent, is that right?” Clark asked.

“Yep,” Donovan said. It was stupid in a way. Hanson had been saving for a second trip to Africa since his first as a college sophomore. He’d finally made it, and it was bringing some good publicity to the store because he was helping get clean water to villages in Ethiopia and…somewhere else.

“Don’t be afraid to ask Sierra to help out in the store. She’s using Hanson’s rent money for herself; don’t feel the need to pay her. If you see her getting too involved with someone, you could…” Clark trailed off again, but the intent was pretty clear.

If my daughter starts dating someone, or someone you don’t approve of, keep her busy.

This was not going to end well, but it’s not like he could tell Clark no. The simple steps Chuck had laid out to cope with his new living arrangement had just gotten infinitely more complicated.

“Of course, yeah.”

“You heard from Hanson?” Clark asked just as the girls stepped into the living room with a couple of bags.

“Hey, Van.” Lani, Sierra’s mom, pecked his cheek and he very carefully kept his eyes off Sierra.

“I got an email from Hanson yesterday. A check-in on the store,” Donovan said. He turned his gaze to Lani and gave her a smile and nod.

“Good.” Sierra let out a huff. “At least he’s answering
somebody
. I still can’t believe he talked you into that place and then ditched you.”

What? “It’s our store,” Donovan said. “It’s fine.”

And for the most part, it was okay. Donovan kept fewer employees and worked longer hours just to lower the overhead a bit more than Hanson would bother doing. Besides, he owed Hanson more than he’d ever be able to repay. The whole family really. They’d opened up their home to him when his parents died, just before his junior year of high school, and he’d expected that they’d fade away after that, but they’d been to every big event and graduation and even helped front money for the Great Outdoors start up.

“How long has it been since you two have been in the same room even?” Lani asked pointing between him and Sierra who was smiling a wide smile that echoed a bit of her younger teen years.

“Two years?” Donovan asked, glancing at Sierra, who was like the supermodel version of her former self.

“Yep,” Sierra agreed. “I think that’s about right.”

Donovan began to wonder if he’d
ever
get used to her looking this way.

“Can I see my room, or should we get my stuff, or…?” She shifted her weight, sliding out one hip and then the other, just like she’d done since she was eight. She bit her lip, waiting for Donovan to give them some direction. As the little sister, she was used to following along with whatever Hanson and Donovan had going on. Donovan didn’t know if he was glad or sad that the trait of waiting had stuck around.

Oh, and the room hadn’t gotten cleared out. At all.
The last thing he needed was her parents seeing how little he’d done.

He’d wanted to put off facing that disaster until later. “Let’s go eat before your parents have to make the drive back.”

“Great idea!” Clark tucked his wife under his arm. “We’ll grab a bite, and then leave Sierra to move in,”—he gave his daughter a pointed look—“as promised.”

“Thank you.” Sierra waited on the landing outside the apartment while her parents walked down the stairs.

Donovan locked the door, really wondering what he’d gotten himself into when he agreed to let Sierra stay at his place.

“My mom rode with me for the first half of the three-hour drive, and then they switched,” Sierra whispered. “It’s ridiculous.”

Donovan thought bringing two cars down just so her parents could see her off here rather than at home was a little extreme, but he wasn’t going to get in the middle of that argument.

“Your mom said we’re supposed to pick up some cabinet or something. For all your stuff?”
he asked as they walked down the stairs.

This was going to be like sharing his apartment with a stranger. A hot stranger. Who he was supposed to keep “safe.” Whatever that meant.

“They’ll deliver it tomorrow.” She swung around and looked at him as she hit the bottom step, her mane of light brown hair flying behind her. “It’s really big.”

Donovan paused. “How big?”

“You measured for me.” She laughed.

“Right.” Another thing he’d only
sort of
done.

“It’s for all my craft stuff.” She grinned again. “It’s how I make money.”

Right. Internet. The blog. “That’s still going well?”

“Of
course
.” Her voice was full and sweet. Sierra’d had a nice voice for as long as he could remember. “I try out all that stuff that people put on Pinterest, and I try to re-create crafts I find on Etsy, and I go to thrift stores and turn ugly stuff into cool stuff. That kind of thing.”

“I think I understood like five words of that.” Donovan watched her for a reaction. “But at least I might understand a little more than your brother.”

“Well, he’s not on my happy list right now, so whatever.”
She rolled her eyes.

“Sounds serious,” Donovan teased and lowered his voice. “
Not on the happy list
.” This, he knew how to do with Sierra. The teasing and back-and-forth.
So, not a stranger. Just a new version of the girl he already knew.

He slipped into the backseat of her parents’ Lincoln, having flashbacks to high school. So weird.

“And Sierra’s finished her book.” Her mom beamed from the front seat.

Sierra frowned as she took the other side of the backseat. “Well, no one’s been interested in it yet, so…”

“Still a very cool accomplishment,” Donovan said. He turned to stare at her profile—small chin and nose, huge lashes and a perma-dimple from smiling. Definitely the kind of girl he’d notice.

Sierra and her mom went back and forth a few times about Sierra’s book, and Donovan watched Sierra, still sort of amazed that she’d grown up. People grew up. They changed. Logically he knew this, but in practice, it felt different.

They stopped in front of the Chinese restaurant Clark always took him and Hanson to when he came to town, and Donovan rocketed out of the car realizing that he’d stared at Sierra almost the whole way there.

As soon as he shut his car door, Clark put his arm over Donovan’s shoulders. “I can’t thank you enough. Twenty years at Planned Parenthood and ten years with my own home practice has warped my perception of how many girls find trouble with the wrong guy.”

Donovan watched the women walk in front of him, Sierra’s toned legs looking miles long. Her rear hugged perfectly by snug shorts. “Yeah,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll watch out for her.”

He just had no idea how.

Two

Sierra watched her parents drive away from the parking lot of the apartment complex. Finally. Grant City was nothing but a college town, it’s not even like they’d dropped her off in the middle of Portland. But her father acted like she was in a different country.

She really thought that after not seeing Donovan for nearly two years, it would be easier to be around him, but it wasn’t. Her ridiculous crush made her act like an idiot like always, and this time instead of teasing her back, he seemed a little detached and quiet. Major suck.

He was fairly quiet through dinner, and she could only
imagine
the embarrassing things her father might have told him. It’s not like she couldn’t tell that he and Donovan had taken time to have some sort of “discussion” about her. Her dad ranked about a fifteen on a one to ten paranoia scale. Ten being insanely paranoid. It was probably better that she didn’t know, because the last thing she wanted was to be annoyed at both her father
and
brother.

“Why don’t we get the rest of your stuff upstairs,” Donovan said.

“Thanks again for talking my parents into heading home.” Sierra opened her car door and handed Donovan a box.

He gave her an odd smile. “No problem. I know how your dad is.”

Sierra rolled her eyes before pulling another box out of the backseat of her old Ford Escort. “Off the scale,” she said. Her stomach skittered around at being so close to the guy she’d fallen asleep thinking about for far more nights than she’d ever admit.

She watched Donovan’s ass as they headed up the steps to his apartment. No,
their
apartment. And then her eyes floated to his red hair, and then back to his ass…

She really needed a new obsession. As she’d gotten older, she started to realize she had probably been a pain more often than not to her older brother and his best friend, and she wished she could take some of it back. Okay. A
lot
of it back. Donovan had lived with her family when she was in middle school, putting her solidly in the position of “little sister.”

It was okay though. She had steps of getting him to see her for who she really was, and then, with any luck, he might start to see her as a possibility. It felt silly, even in her mind, but the thought of being with Donovan in a very real way wasn’t funny at all. It would be…amazing.

Instead of focusing on Donovan, she had to focus on moving into her first apartment. That was monumental.

Donovan unlocked the door, and pushed it open. This time she was stepping into her first place
without
her parents.

She set down her box and pulled out her phone, heading straight for twitter.

New Digs! I’m twenty and just barely moved out on my own! #Lame? #OrStillOK? Either way #HAPPEE

Donovan’s brows twitched in some kind of confused look as he watched her hit “Tweet” and she finally slowed her brain down enough to really look at him. A Great Outdoors t-shirt from the store, jeans, the motorcycle boots that only someone like him could pull off.
The barbell in his eyebrow that she wanted to press her lips to.

Gah! She was doing it again. Obsessing. Like she had all through dinner instead of eating. She forced herself to turn toward the small living room. Brown blah couch and massive TV, and...that’s it. “Where’s your guitars? Music posters?”

“Oh.” He scratched his head. Folded his arms. Unfolded his arms. Leaned against the counter.

Was Donovan fidgeting?

She opened to twitter again, real quick.

What does it mean when guys fidget? #Help

She was about to hit “Tweet” when she realized that she already had twenty responses to moving in, and she had a lot of work to do that night. Maybe no tweeting for guy advice…right now…

“Guitars?”
she prompted.

“I think they’re in Hanson’s room, and with him gone, it’s sort of turned into storage…” He cringed. “I promise I’ll help you get some of the stuff out of there, okay?”

She dismissed him with a wave, already well acquainted with her brother’s sloppiness. “Totally fine.”

But wait. Why weren’t his guitars in the living room? He was always playing. Having them in a room that didn’t even belong to him felt so...inconvenient. Donovan shoved his hands in his pockets and Sierra’s hands followed the movement right toward his crotch. How his jeans seemed to be slightly displaced from his…

“You look so…” edible, manly, sexy, older, mature, lickable… She forced her eyes back up to his face. “Good.”

“Thanks.” He cocked his head to the side, his perfect, red hair curving around his ears and over his forehead. “What?”

“You have such great hair.” She grasped her phone harder before she was tempted to touch his hair like an idiot.

Van chuckled, the freckles on his face crinkling, but even then… Even with the tiny wrinkles, he still looked her age instead of twenty-four. “Yeah. I need a cut. And the curse of red hair is that I seem to look about five years younger.”

She fought for something to say to make him know she’d grown up, but came up with nothing.

“How’s music going?” she asked, desperate to change the subject. And also because she was still curious about the missing guitars. She’d posted one of his songs on her blog a couple months ago, and it had gone totally viral—well, viral on the “Sierra scale” with just into the five figures for hits. It felt beyond incredible that something
she’d
done had helped him, even though it was short-lived.

Donovan shrugged. “Not really enough time, Sierra. I mean… I’m out of college and running a business, and… And I just don’t have time to do everything.”

She’d spent millions of nights listening to him play in her backyard. More than she could count. Donovan not playing all the time felt...inconceivable. “I don’t get it.”

He walked past her, back toward the car, and she followed. “Life happens, See.”

“And what about the store my brother dumped you with?” Sierra hated that Hanson had talked Donovan into running the outdoor store with him after college. It’s not what Donovan should be doing. He should be on a stage somewhere singing to the masses—even though it would put him even further out of her reach. On top of that, she always sort of knew the store was her brother’s dream and not Donovan’s. Sort of ironic considering Hanson wasn’t around all that often. “I mean music is your big dream, not running some store, right?”

Donovan chuckled, looking a little more like himself, but his all-too-perfect shoulders were still a little more tense than normal… At least more tense than he used to be. “He didn’t
dump
me with it. Both your brother and I like all the outdoor stuff around here, and it pays the bills. Oregon. You know? Not a bad way to make a living. A really good way if you’re willing to put in the hours.”

“But you still have the same crap furniture you did when you started college.”

She hadn’t been out to visit her brother in over two years because once he’d graduated from college, and even before then, he was busy with the store or traveling.
Sierra was a homebody, and one of very few people she knew who actually got along with their parents. She’d been ready to leave home for a while, but she’d never been in a hurry to get out.

Donovan tossed a duffel over his shoulder. “You’re right, but that’s because I don’t really care, not because I can’t afford it. I’m saving. A lot. And when I get to a point that I’m ready to move in with someone or get married or have kids, I’ll have that cushion, you know?”

“Fair enough. I’ve lived with my parents since I graduated just to save, so I get that.” Wait. “Do guys actually think about stuff like getting ready for
families
?”

“Depends drastically on the guy.”

Donovan headed back up the stairs, Sierra once again following. Donovan’s ass once again at eye level.

“And your blog keeps you busy?”

“Very.” Sierra nodded. “Maybe you can be my man-taster.”

Donovan coughed before pausing at the apartment door and facing her with a wide-eyed look. “Your
what
?”

“When I try recipes and stuff. You can be ‘man who tastes things’. That’s cool, right? All my food is tax-deductible. Awesome, huh?” She’d learned fast how to turn her blog into a business and how to manage her money.

“Oh. I get it. I thought…” He shook his head with a laugh and stepped back into the small place. “I don’t know what I thought.”

Sierra dropped the box, laughing to herself. “That I was going to ask you to taste another man?”

He rubbed his face before pushing the hair off his forehead. “I don’t know. It just sounded funny.”

“You’re so…” She couldn’t put her finger on it exactly. “More reserved, or something, than I remember.”

Donovan shrugged. “Maybe I did grow up.”

Her chest caved a little because she felt that, once again, she was the pesky little sister. Whatever. She’d spent too much of her life letting people make her feel bad. That part of her life was over—at least, as she tried to ignore the hollowness in her chest, she wanted it to be.

“Well, I guess I should finish moving in.” And maybe sometime in the next day or so she’d start to act normal around him.

“Why don’t you survey the disaster of your brother’s room. I’ll finish emptying out your car. And then I’ll help because I was supposed to clean up your brother’s shit…” He winced. “…
stuff
, and I didn’t. So yeah. I’ll be right back.”

She nodded once and once again watched him walk away, desperation and frustration clinging to her harder than ever. So close, but still just as out of reach as he had been when she was three hours away.
Or…almost as far out of reach.

Her eyes took in the small apartment. Plain walls. Worn couch. New TV. Decrepit little table. Yes… She definitely had her work cut out for her. Not just for the apartment, but for Donovan.

Time to put her plan into action.