Not About Love (This Love Book 2) (2 page)

“It always does, brother. It always does,” he replied in a gruff voice.

I rolled my eyes. The man was incorrigible—or maybe he was just playing his part better than I was playing mine. He put on a leather jacket and followed Lou outside. I felt a drift of cold air penetrate the bus when the guys opened the door.

“That was quite the mini TED talk you gave up there on that stage tonight,” I told Ella before she could even open her mouth, trying to distract her.

“What do you mean?” Her brows pulled together, and she pouted in a childish way. She didn’t act like that around Lou, but she enjoyed being particularly silly around me. That was what BFFs were for.

“I mean that whole speech about not letting go of that special someone,” I said with my chin tipping up in her direction. Ella was a minimalist on stage and never got too personal, but that night she had gone into a speech about holding on to that special person once you found them. “I think the exact words were ‘If you find that one person that believes in you, the one that believes you can accomplish great things, that sees beyond your flaws, your insecurities, hold on to them for dear life.’”

“That is not a speech, my dear friend, and you know words very well. I think you’re just talking nonsense so I don’t start asking
you
questions—”

The playful look in her eyes made me realize she was up to no good. She wanted me to spill
all
the beans.
Get your game face ready, Ally
.

“For example,” she said, pressing her palms together. “I couldn’t help but notice the looks you and Boyd were exchanging over there…”

“Really? You noticed
us?
How? It looked like you guys were on your own planet!”

“I did notice you, and not just now. Earlier on, too. You guys were all over each other.”

“When?” I asked, hoping my poker face was convincing enough.

“When I was up on stage.”

“Really? I thought musicians couldn’t really see the audience with those bright lights shining in their eyes.” Boyd and I had been in the back, in the middle of the crowd. Was she bluffing? How had she seen us?

“You guys were grinding. It was so fucking distracting, you have no idea. So, what’s up with you two?” she asked, her expression serious. She wasn’t letting me off the hook. She wanted some real answers, that much I could tell.

“Nothing,” I exhaled.

She rolled her eyes, and then groaned. “Come on, Ally! You can’t do this to me. There’s obviously something going on between the two of you. There’s this…
tension
. You guys were making out in Amsterdam last summer and probably tonight, too. You keep insisting nothing else happened, but I don’t believe you. You have that electric look in your eyes when you stare at each other, and by the way you act around other people, it looks like you two have…history. You two have history, and you’re trying to hide it
—from me!
” she yelled, sounding exasperated. I rolled my eyes.

“I know what I saw!” she exclaimed, the tone of her voice changing from playful to annoyed. “You’re a good liar, but you can’t fool me, Alberta Ferris.” She looked outside the bus, checking on Lou and Boyd.

I lifted myself from my seat to look outside, too, and saw them chatting with the girls outside. The girls were flirting shamelessly, not just with Lou, but with Boyd, too. I felt a pinch of jealousy in my chest, and I wanted to kick myself. I had no business being jealous of anyone flirting with Boyd Rivers, no matter how many times he grinded against me, no matter how many times we ended up in bed together.

Usually, I stayed away from guys like him.

But I still liked to have fun, so every once in a while, I’d make an exception.

Guys like Boyd Rivers were fickle, and although he had shown me attention more than a few times, I knew his type. He was the one who’d get easily distracted—like he just had. He probably already had their numbers; I wouldn’t put it past him.

One of the girls handed Boyd a phone, and he proceeded to take several pictures of the two girls with Lou. Both Ella and I kept staring at the scene outside the tour bus. I glanced at her and noticed that there wasn’t an ounce of worry on her face. She was actually smiling. Ella wasn’t worried in the least—she trusted Lou that much. I knew they both had to trust each other if they wanted to make their relationship work.

It was sickening how in love they were, how much they trusted each other, but maybe it was because they had both been so close to losing it all. They had been apart for so long, too. It was a miracle it had all worked out in the end. Someone who wasn’t as cynical as I was would say it was a testament to the strength of their love. Someone like me would say it was just sheer luck.

I didn’t believe in love. Not any more.

I used to, once upon a time.

But I knew all too well that love fucked up everything.

It fucked up your life, it fucked up your mind. It turned you upside down and inside out. It made you lose sight of yourself.

It made you lose your grip on reality.

I wanted nothing to do with it.

Ever again.

I saw Boyd move back toward us, and a moment later he came up, his heavy footsteps echoing through the bus.

“Turns out, your fans out there would actually like to meet you,” he said to Ella with a half-smirk.

“They want to talk to me?” she asked, a huge smile stretching out across her face.

“Yes,” he replied, and the smirk turned into a bigger, brighter smile.

Fuck
. He was so damn handsome, I could have stared at him all day.

“Come on…go out there, silly girl,” he said in a reassuring tone. Boyd seemed to like playing the part of the protective brother-in-law.

Finally, she stopped hesitating and got up. She put her jacket on and moved past Boyd, leaving the bus.

The slam of the door made me realize we were completely alone for the first time that night. He sat next to me and I exhaled a breath, waiting for his next move.

He didn’t waste time. As soon as I turned my head toward him, his lips crashed onto mine. My weak willpower was no match for his hungry kiss. His tongue searched for mine as his beard teased and tickled my face. It reminded me of when it caressed other parts of my body…

Ella hadn’t been wrong. Jackson Boyd and I had history.

A history of hooking up.

One year earlier, December 2013

I NEEDED TO GET OUT
of there.

It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate Lou’s invitation. I did. He was trying to be nice and had invited me to tag along with his group of friends on New Year’s Eve. The problem was, his group of friends was no better than mine.

Everyone I knew in Nashville was married or in a relationship, which made me the Bridget Jones of every social gathering.

Ugh. Good thing I didn’t go home that often. I loved visiting my parents, but every time I came back, it was a reminder of how much I didn’t belong there any more. It was a place that should have still felt like home, but in all honesty, it didn’t. I felt like a foreigner in my hometown.

Nights like New Year’s Eve sucked, unless you had a good group of single gals who had your back. Like I said, Lou’s friends were no different. They were all paired up, except for me, Lou, and his brother Boyd. On any other night, I would have been okay with it, but that night I was dreading it. I was dreading the countdown to midnight.

I wasn’t going to get kissed, and it was going to be awkward with all these couples.

Kissing Lou was out of the question. First of all, he was just a friend. Second, I was pretty sure he was truly, madly, deeply in love with my best friend Ella. Third, he was up on stage playing with some local musicians, so that left me and Boyd.

Based on the number of words we had exchanged the whole night, I could tell that wasn’t going to happen either.

One of the musicians on stage announced the countdown coming up soon and it made me jittery and anxious. It was fucking ridiculous. It was just New Year’s Eve. Why was I making such a big fucking deal out of it?

Part of me thought I wouldn’t have been so pathetic had I not felt like a fish out of water. This wasn’t my scene any more. Since Lou was on stage, I wasn’t even going to get a friendly hug at midnight. I would have felt more at ease if Boyd had been friendlier throughout the night, but we hadn’t really talked much. It might have been because he smelled of pompous ass. As much as I loved and enjoyed Lou’s company, I couldn’t believe how different and down to earth he was compared to his hipster brother. It didn’t make any sense, because Lou Rivers was the “famous” one of the two: Lou was a Grammy-nominated artist, and although hardly anyone recognized him in Amsterdam, he was quite famous stateside.

Boyd, whose real name was Jackson, only went by his middle name. Apparently, he was a model—sort of. Lou had told me he was getting paid for endorsements on social media, on top of his other entrepreneurial activities.

While Lou was famous for some tangible accomplishments, his brother gained fame mainly as an Instagram “it” boy.

That wasn’t all he was famous for. Jackson Boyd Rivers was also a businessman. He owned three CrossFit gyms in New York, and his social media presence had helped his business boom.

It was clear Lou was proud of his brother, but he wasn’t one to stroke his ego. Unfortunately, everyone else was. Lou’s friends had done nothing but praise him all night. Sure, he was accomplished, but there was no need to fawn over him like that. I might have rolled my eyes once or twice.

To make things worse, he was damn fine—like
impossibly
good-looking.

Jackson Boyd was a fine specimen of a man. He was
built
. He had a handsome face and a sculpted body—it looked like he worked really hard on it, I had to give him that. He looked as if Michelangelo’s David and The Rock had a kid together and then that kid had grown up to be a bearded hipster with magnificent hair and bedroom eyes.

I was trying
, really
trying to be indifferent to him. He honestly didn’t sound like that much of a jerk—a little vain, maybe, but I didn’t know him at all. How could I judge him? I didn’t doubt he was accomplished, but I had always been skeptical of people who were the recipients of constant flattery. Copious amounts of compliments could not be good for anyone’s ego. I could see how easily you would lose perception of reality.

It happened to celebrities all the time.

The people we were out with were not even his close friends, but they were
all over him
—especially the women in the group, which made the whole situation even more uncomfortable. Maybe I was being too judgmental of Boyd. Maybe he wasn’t a pompous ass at all. Maybe he was a nice guy, but I had nothing to base my opinion on. We had only exchanged monosyllables. I glanced his way one more time as he politely turned down a brunette who asked him to dance.

Hmm. Strange. She was a beautiful girl and looked like she could have been his type: long, wavy, chestnut brown hair, perfect face, perfect makeup, pouty lips, perky breasts, small waist, and an ass that looked like a replica of a certain reality TV star. Her lips turned into a frown as she said goodbye. I saw him stare at her ass as she left. He turned around and caught me staring at him. I looked down, embarrassed, and searched for my phone. I looked at the screen to see what time it was.

Five minutes until midnight.
Time to go, Cinderella.
It was time for my subtle exit. I was going to excuse myself and just leave the place. With the mayhem that was about to happen, no one would even realize I was gone.

“Where are you going?” Boyd asked, startling me with the deep timbre of his voice. Okay, maybe I wasn’t being so subtle.

“Um, I’m going to the ladies’ room. I’ll be right back.”

His eyes met mine, dark and serious, and he gave me a nod.

He was so intense. I wondered why. Was that a hipster thing?

For a second, I thought he was going to call my bluff. I needed to move fast. I excused myself and walked away. With the exception of Boyd and a couple sitting next to me, no one else heard me or even glanced my way. I adjusted the strap of my purse across my neck and made my way through the crowd.