Owned (Rockstar Romance) (Lost in Oblivion Book 5)

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O
WNED – Lost
in Oblivion Book 5

© 2016 Cari Quinn & Taryn Elliott

Cover photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

All Rights Are Reserved.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

F
irst ebook edition
: May 2016

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N
ick Crandall rolled
his eyes and tossed his pencil across the dining room table in Lila’s apartment. His apartment now, since he’d started sort of unofficially officially living there four months ago. They’d had the big talk about him moving in, but he’d still kept the lease on the band house for appearance’s sake. Seeing as her boss didn’t even know they were still dating, never mind shacking up. Etc.

Heavy on the etc., morning, noon and night.

Right around then, he’d had a couple of major epiphanies. One, sex felt fucking incredible without a condom.

Two, falling in love often meant commitment. Commitment often led to shedding things like rubbers and separate addresses. If he’d needed any help reaching that point, his father’s death over the summer had definitely driven home the importance of not wasting time. Along with that had come the idea of marriage. Not in the abstract either.

Him, getting married to Lila. Preferably soon, before he chickened out on the whole idea and decided to bask in condomless sex. Because holy shit, amazing.

Focus, moron.

Forever and ever, I do. Until the end of time. No escape hatches. No way out. And especially no divorce. He wasn’t built that way. If he made a vow, he wouldn’t break it while there was breath still in his body.

Then again, if he got hit by a bus, he wouldn’t be held responsible for any vow-keeping.

Nick rubbed his aching forehead. Yeah, he was losing his mind over this proposal. No wonder he couldn’t write a decent song to save his sanity.

They were in love. No question there. He didn’t know when exactly he’d fallen in love with her. Looking back, it had been like a wave cresting then rolling into shore until he was submerged. He couldn’t remember knowing her and not loving her. Somehow the times since had obliterated any of the argumentative times that had come before. Turned them into a kind of verbal foreplay, rather than oh, say, the sparring between a post-adolescent male and a gorgeous, intelligent, savvy woman he’d truly never believed he had any kind of chance with, in this lifetime or any other.

Yet he did. She loved him, and she’d asked him to move in. Somewhat under duress, granted, but she certainly didn’t seem to mind his proximity when it came to getting naked.

Or when she had another thing to add to his agenda, though that was a separate issue altogether.

He rose and walked to the kitchen counter, snagging an apple from the basket as he passed. He went straight to the bedroom—
their
bedroom—and dug around in his sock drawer until he found the little black box.

His fingers shook as he pried it open. Of course, there was a likely chance he wouldn’t be able to speak long enough to croak more than, “marry, wed, please,” and if so, then she’d probably sigh and pat him on the head. She did that sometimes, and he normally tolerated it because then he’d pat her ass. If spanking counted as patting.

Their dynamic worked for them. Oh, did it work.

He’d bought the ring a week ago, near Thanksgiving. They’d been together eleven months, which wasn’t a ton of time in the scheme but basically six lifetimes when compared to how long it had taken any of his bandmates in Oblivion to move in for the kill. Deacon and Gray had been married so fast their rings had spun. With babies on the way too. And Simon—

Nick swallowed. Yep, not going there. No Simon thoughts. Not tonight. Bad enough he’d already sniped at his best friend—former best friend, judging from the past year other than a brief detente when Nick’s father died—on Twitter earlier that day. His media darling bandmate had just had to flash pictures of his latest shoot all over. He was just
so thrilled
to be jet-setting all over God’s green earth. Just
so excited
to be meeting so many amazing fashion industry professionals.

Woohoo, look at my pink Prada boots.

Okay, so he hadn’t said the last part, but he might as well have. Simon was a goddamn singer. Not a model. The modeling thing was supposed to be something temporary for him to do to eat up some time and earn some cash while he’d been on hiatus due to vocal surgery. Instead, he’d ended up walking away from Oblivion for the past year so he could strut down catwalks and function as a human hanger for any number of demanding photographers and designers. It didn’t make sense. None of what had happened to send Oblivion into the skids did.

They’d had it all. Professional acceptance, fame, money. So much money. Sold-out shows. Songs that flew off iTunes as fast as they could get them up there. Groupies who’d been willing to let them sign anything they wanted, and not with a pen or pencil. Not that any of them had really partaken anymore at that point. The rest of the band had already been settled down and married a year ago, other than Nick. Even Simon, former manwhore extraordinaire, was the next closest thing to married after having a commitment ceremony with Margo. But still, they’d been riding high.

Until Simon kept melting down at shows following his vocal surgery. His voice had sounded mostly okay, though he’d come back from his scheduled med leave sooner than he was supposed to. Even so, he hadn’t seemed too worse for wear, except when he got on stage. Oblivion had racked up an impressive string of back-to-back concert fails until Simon finally said he didn’t want to do it anymore. He was done with Oblivion.

Done with his best friend too, even if that had been implied rather than stated.

So Nick had stopped pushing Simon. Stopped trying to make contact where clearly none was wanted. Stopped showing up at his and Margo’s place in the hopes that Simon would just
talk
to him. If Simon wanted distance, distance he would get.

Other than the night of Nick’s father’s passing, Nick hadn’t really spoken to Simon for more than a moment or two for the past year. At least until the Twitter wars begun.

They’d started insidiously. One day about a month ago, Nick had caught a tweet from Simon. Something about being back in Paris and living out of a suitcase, but at least it was a Louis Vuitton. Nick had typed a reply before he’d thought better of it. Or thought at all.

@
N
ickTheGreat Makes
it easy for u to ditch and run. Your specialty.

S
imon hadn’t replied right away
. It had taken a couple days. But when he had, he’d cut Nick to the quick.

@
K
aganForU Nah
, I actually like where I am now.

N
ick hadn’t responded
. He’d had to hide his phone between their mattress and box spring and bang the holy hell out of Lila all night long that night, but hey, a guy did what he had to do.

Problem was, the next morning Lila went back to work, bright and early, and he’d been alone with his phone. And his thumbs had been ready to annihilate some Kagan leather-wearing ass.

@
N
ickTheGreat Yeah
? Does any1 call u by your actual name, or is it c’mere, model boy?

A
gain
, Simon had taken his sweet time replying. Again, he’d knocked Nick out with one punch.

@
K
aganForU Better
than listening to your whiny voice nitpick all day.

N
ick hadn’t responded
, but by then, it didn’t matter. The internet had gotten wind of their shenanigans, and it had become a huge thing. Fans were tweeting him all the time about his “Omg, no!” rift with Simon, and his inbox had been flooded with forwarded mail from Ripper Records. Most of it contained notes from miserable Oblivionites, asking why he would fight with their beautiful, perfect lead singer Simon. Worse, was it
his
fault their beloved band hadn’t been touring or releasing material for the last year?

No, it was not his fault. In fact, he’d had no say in the band’s supposed hiatus. Nick had stalked out of the meeting before he’d gotten to hear Simon, the guy who’d been picking guitar by his side since their high school days, say he was over being in Oblivion. Over their material.

Over being around Nick, his supposed best friend. Once upon a fucking time.

Not that he’d heard the exact words used, but he’d gotten enough of the drift from Lila. She hadn’t wanted to tell him specifics, on account of her having a frigging heart and not wanting to twist the knife.

Well, that was then. She’d be wanting to twist the knife now, since Nick had inadvertently caused Oblivion more bad press with his burgeoning Twitter war with his bandmate. Since Lila had to go to bat for them with the record label, she put up with absolutely zero shit.

Correction—she put up with zero shit from his bandmates, and even less than zero shit from Nick.

She hadn’t sprung on him yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time. He’d get a lecture, and probably a demand he make nicey-nice to Simon on Twitter. He’d do it, even if he didn’t particularly want to. Because, you know, Oblivion still meant something to
him
.

Meanwhile, he’d stab a voodoo doll crafted in Simon’s likeness relentlessly in the junk until the bastard was writhing like a football player with jock itch.

Whatever. He didn’t care about Simon. He had other friends, like the one he was calling now to talk him off a very narrow ledge.

“Okay, so tell me a no-fail method to do it.” Nick paced around the bed. Up one side, back down, across the middle, up the other side. Repeat as necessary. “I need to get this shit locked up tonight.”

“You do realize a marriage proposal is not like nailing down a chord progression, right?” Gray Duffy, Oblivion’s rhythm guitarist, was an old hat at marriage proposals, having been married a year and a half already, with no impending divorce suits looming.

At least not that Nick knew about anyway.

“What I realize is once Lila finds out that I’ve been blowing up Twitter with snark aimed at Simon, I’ll probably be looking for a new place to live. So unless you and Jazz intend to send the fucking welcome wagon ‘round this way to pick me up and take me back to your pad, help me out already.”

“When you put it in those terms, yes, we must figure this out.”

Nick smiled triumphantly. If he knew anything, it was how to motivate people to do his bidding. “Now we’re talking.”

“Though I have to point out a flaw in your logic.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “Shocker.”

“What do you mean ‘once Lila finds out’? You know that woman. She already knows. She probably knew what you wanted to tweet before your fast fingers hit the keyboard. If she hasn’t spoken to you about it, that’s because she’s picking her moment. And guaranteed—you won’t like what she picks.”

“Do you think I don’t know that? I sleep with the woman every night. I know how she works. So this is why I need to up my game and dazzle her with my wit and charm and large diamond ring before she strikes.” The ring actually had a circle of diamonds rather than one big center stone, but it didn’t feel right to discuss the particulars with Gray before Lila got to see the thing.

“If that’s the case, you’re even more screwed than I originally thought.”

“Ha ha, wise ass. So what worked with Jazz?”

“Well, first, it helped that she loved me.”

“That’s all sewn up.” Smiling confidently, Nick sat on the edge of the bed. “She fucking adores me.”

“You forgot to add your skills as a magician to your list of traits, dude.”

“Why do I like you again?”

“Hmm. Because I fucking blaze your ass every time we play? You maintain eternal hope you can match your game to mine someday.”

“Right. That’s exactly it. Keep dreaming, pal. So if I—”

“By the way, Jazz’s pregnant.”

Nick gripped the ring box. He was supposed to say something nice about this. It wasn’t all about him. An exchange of heartfelt pleasantries was how a person made and kept new friends.

At least that’s what that book he’d bought said. Perhaps not in those exact words, but close.

He hadn’t known how to do that for the longest time, because he’d had Simon and then Jazz, and he hadn’t really had to worry about any other people. Deacon was his friend too, but their relationship wasn’t exactly one that Oprah would call healthy. It wasn’t unhealthy either, just more static. They didn’t punch each other in the face on sight and didn’t bother arguing most of the time.

Still, he wouldn’t ask Deak for engagement advice. Or advice about anything except maybe—maybe—band stuff. He had his shit together there. Truth was, he had his shit together everywhere, which was precisely why Nick steered far clear of Saint Deacon.

He had enough complexes on his own.

Eventually Nick had also grown closer to Gray, which should’ve been weird considering their past. Yet it never was. Gray and Jazz were actually his best friends now, other than Lila, of course.

That space had opened up in his life because of Simon, the dick.

Who he missed every damn day.

And Simon was irrelevant to this conversation, which had detoured into Baby World when he’d blinked. As usual.

“Congratulations,” Nick managed, snapping the box closed. “That’s awesome. When’s she due?”

He tried not to think about what Jazz’s second pregnancy might do to their upcoming tour. They were going back into the studio to cut an album first, and that could take three months or three years, depending on who brought their A-game to the table. Hell, even B- or C-game would be acceptable after this last year of no game at all.

Still, Nick would’ve hoped Gray and Jazz might’ve been more careful to get knocked up earlier in the year so Jazz could shove the kid out sooner rather than later. But friends didn’t say that stuff, unless they tacked on a “hey, man, you know I’m kidding, right?” which he’d found only worked half the time anyway. Jazz just threw pillows at his head, so he could be more honest with her.