The Rocker That Savors Me (The Rocker...) (2 page)

Taking my meager meal outside, I sat on the patio and watched as the waves crashed against the beach. It was soothing, and the rest of my unease from my nightmare began to settle down.
I sat there for a few hours, loving the house that was now home.

It might be odd to some people, four rockers in one house
, but we were more than just band mates. We were brothers, all of us. Besides, when Shane had suggested that we all needed to get our own places Emmie had lost it…

“Maybe we should get a house in the Hills. You know
, me, Drake, and Jesse,” Shane had said over dinner. She had told us about the beach house the real estate agent had shown her and that she wanted our opinion on the place before making an offer.

We were all in the hotel dining room, and I was trying to enjoy my steak
, but I had gotten use to home cooked meals all summer and nothing else seemed to set well these days. So I saw the change in Emmie as soon as the words came out of Shane’s mouth. The way she went all pale and the fear and tears that had made those pretty green eyes stick out of that gorgeous face of hers.

“Is that what you want?” She whispered.

Shane frowned. “I don’t care, Emmie. I just think that since the baby will be here in a few months you and Nik would want your own place. Having us around all the time isn’t going to be easy.”

Her chin trembled and I felt my heart crack open. I hated those tears! She was the only person in the world who could break me with a single tear drop. “Please don’t leave me!”
she whispered, but she might as well have screamed it at him from the impact it had on us all. “I…I don’t want you to leave me.” Her words came out on a broken sob, and I couldn’t stay in my seat a second longer without holding her.

Nik’s fork made a loud clattering noise as it hit his plate
, and he had her in his arms rocking her before I could reach her, but I still crouched down beside of her. She buried her face in Nik’s neck, sobbing brokenly while I rubbed her back. I shot Shane a glare, but when I saw his face, I looked away. He was just as broken as I was by her tears.

“Emmie, I’m sorry. I don’t want to leave you. I won’t
, sweetheart. I swear. Please don’t cry, honey.” He scooted back his chair and came to crouch down beside of Nik too. He grasped her hand and tugged until she raised her head to look at him. Tears poured down her cheeks and I wanted to punch something.

“I don’t want things to change,
” she sobbed. “I don’t want you to leave. You guys are all I have.”

Shane groaned and pulled her into his arms.
Everyone around us was shooting us curious looks, but none of us cared. Shane dropped back into the chair beside of Nik with Emmie now on his lap. He held her tight, whispering over and over again that he was sorry. That no matter what we weren’t going to leave her…

It wasn’t just pregnancy hormones that had caused her breakdown. The four of us were her family.
All that she had ever really known. For the last six years, we had all been right there, every day. I wasn’t about to leave her now.

Nik dropped down beside of me sometime later. Dressed in jeans and a
smoky gray Demon’s Wings shirt he looked rested and carefree. The break from the constant touring that had been our lives for longer than I could remember had been good for all of us. His carefree attitude was because of Emmie. There was only one man that I would ever trust with Emmie’s heart, and that was Nik.

“Gods, I love it here.” Nik sighed.
It seemed that like me he had gotten in the habit of saying ‘Gods’. Emmie’s little knacks rubbed off on all of us. It was something that I didn’t even notice anymore.

I nodded.
“Me too.”

We sat there in a comfortable silence. Nik and I didn’t need to speak to communicate. We have been best friends since second grade. We knew each other’s darkest secrets. I was close to Drake and Shane, but Nik and
me were different… Of course that hadn’t stopped me from beating his ass when I found out he had gotten Emmie pregnant. Hey, what was I to do? He had respected me more for it when I was finished stomping him.

Not that Emmie knew that.

“Nik!” Emmie yelled from inside the house. The door leading out to the patio opened, and she came out with a fierce glare on her face and a phone in her hand. “You told me you weren’t going into the studio until next week!”

He raised a brow at her
, calm in the face of her fury. “That’s right. Rich scheduled it for next Tuesday.”

She waved the phone at him. “
Then what the fuck is your producer doing calling wondering why your ass isn’t already there?”

“What?” He jumped up and took the phone from her. “Look, I don’t know what is going on. Rich said next week.” He put the phone to his ear and walked off, speaking rapidly to whoever was on the other end of the phone.

Emmie glared after him, dropping carefully down onto the lounger beside of me. I scooted over to make room. Her belly seemed to get bigger every day now. Seven months pregnant and she was nothing but stomach. It was crazy, because from behind you would never know that she was carrying a load up front.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Fucking Rich either told Nik wrong or Nik wrote it down wrong. You guys were supposed to be at the studio an hour ago. And I know that you guys will end up going in. Which means that I will be stuck here, dealing with the movers. Plus I have three housekeepers coming over from Perfectly Clean for interviews.” She gave me a cute little pout as she wrapped her arm around my waist.

I grimaced, knowing that she was right. Studio time was a precious commodity these days. If we wanted to get to work on our new material then we would have to go in today. I hated to leave her to deal with all of that on her own
, but I also knew that she had handled worse. Fuck she has been managing our lives for years now. Movers and a few interviews should be a piece of cake compared to that shit.

“Emmie, can you wake up Drake and Shane?” Nik
came back outside. He stood as far away from my lounger as possible out of safety for himself. Emmie was bound to beat his ass if he didn’t. “Jess, can you be ready in twenty minutes?”

Emmie got slo
wly to her feet. We had learned over the summer that standing too fast could make her dizzy. Once she was on her feet, she stormed back into the house, shooting Nik murderous glares. “I’ll make it up to you, baby,” he called after her. “Please don’t be mad!”

“Fuck off, Nik!”
she yelled over her shoulder.

I couldn’t hide my snicker as I went into the house to put my coffee mug in the sink. From upstairs I heard her yelling at Shane, then shouting at Drake to get his ass in the shower. I shook my head as I climbed the stairs to get dressed.

Layla

I was up before the alarm went off. I already had my shower and was in the process of putting on my lipstick when it started
beeping. I glared at my reflection and moved into the bedroom to turn it off.

On the bed Lana and Lucy moaned and cuddled closer to each other. Both needed to get up so that I could drop them off at school, Lana at the high school and Lucy at the Elementary. School ha
d started last week, but both seemed to still be on their summer time schedule. I pulled the covers off of my sisters and clapped my hands together.

“Get up
, you lazy heads.” I smacked Lucy lightly on the rump. “Times a-wasting! Lana, shower. Lucy, breakfast.” I left them to get up, confident that they would follow through with my commands. Ever since they came to live with me two years ago, after the death of our mother, they hadn’t given me one second of trouble.

Back in the bathroom I finished putting on my makeup and then dressed in my usual uniform of black dress pants and a white button down. Slipping my feet into a pair of flats
, and I was done. With one last glance in the mirror to make sure that I was presentable, and then I was walking into the kitchen where Lucy was eating a pop-tart.

“Good luck today, Layla
,” she told me around a mouthful of pastry.

I dropped a kiss on top of her curly dark head. “Thanks, sweetpea.” I had an interview today. If all went well I would have a permanent job as a housekeeper instead of just as a temporary replacement here and there. We needed this, because a job here and there wasn’t covering the bills. If this didn’t work out I would have to go back to my old job…

Lana walked into the kitchen with a backpack over her shoulder. It weighed her slight frame down with all the heavy AP books in there, but that was the price she had to pay, and one I was willing to make her keep paying. I was determined that she was going to make something of her life. She was going to have all the chances that I never had. If I was a hard ass when it came to making her study and keeping her nose clean, then that was just too bad.

“I’m ready.” Lana s
ighed as she took a pack of pop-tarts from the cabinet and pulled a bottle of water from the fridge.

I dropped Lana off first then Lucy because it was on my way. My cellphone chirped
, giving me the directions that my boss, Stan, had promised me last night when he had called to tell me he had put me on the list for an interview as a permanent housekeeper. The woman had asked for his three best housekeepers without a permanent position. I wasn’t sure that I was one of his best, but Stan knew that I needed the money.

When I got to the gate, I began to wonder who the hell these people were. When the guard asked for my driver
’s license and then took a moment to consult his list before making a phone call, I was really starting to worry who they might be. Who needed this kind of protection from unwanted guests? Sure this was Los Angeles County, but there were celebrities everywhere here. Whoever it was had to be someone ridiculously famous, important, or dangerous to need this kind of protection from the outside world.

After a few minutes
, the burly looking guard waved me through. I followed the directions he gave me all the way to the end of the beach. When I pulled into the driveway right beside of some sports car that I knew cost more than I could ever make in ten lifetimes, I nearly passed out. I was home in bed, still dreaming… Right?

Behind the sports car was a little coupe that was a few years older. I figured it belonged to one of the other housekeepers interviewing. My stomach filled with butterflies and anxiety. This was too good to be true. It had to be. Whoever lived here wasn’t going to hire me. They would want someone older, with more experience
, someone respectable.

I was only twenty five
and had only been working as a temporary housekeeper for Perfectly Clean for less than two years. I wasn’t respectable. I tended to run my mouth, and I had more tattoos and piercings than was conventional. Most of the people I temped for made me wear long sleeves and wanted my hair kept down to cover up my tattoos. The woman who had called Stan wasn’t going to want me…

Even as I thought those words a middle aged woman with her graying hair in a sever bun came storming out of the house. She was muttering to herself and shaking her head in agitation. She got into the coupe, put it in reverse
, and practically burned rubber pulling out of the driveway. I watched in horror as she nearly hit the moving van that was pulling up at the curb. The driver blew his horn at the woman, but she didn’t even stop as she shifted into drive and sped off down the road.

I blinked a few times, my heart racing at the near miss that I had just witnessed. What had made her so upset?

Finally collecting myself, I stepped out of my beat-up old Corolla and started up the driveway to the front door. Behind me the driver and his crew were getting out of the van. They were laughing and cursing. I shot them a frown as I reached the door and pushed the doorbell. Moments later it opened to a woman with a full blown temper flashing in her eyes.

“What?”
she snapped.

I took in the fire in her green eyes, the flare of her nostrils making the stud in her nose rise up and down with each breath she sucked in. Her auburn hair was pulled back in a ponytail and the Demon’s Wings shirt she had on stretched over a noticeable baby bump. I knew who she was, of course I did. You didn’t listen to the music I
did and not know who Ember Jameson was. And even if you didn’t listen to rock, you would know who she was if you had picked up a tabloid anytime in the last three months. The fact that she was pregnant with Nik Armstrong’s baby had been big news.

Th
is blew my mind.

“I’m Layla Daniels
,” I told her. “I work for Perfectly Clean and was scheduled for an interview.”

She raked her gaze over me from head
to toe. My long dress pants hid the tattoo on my right leg, but my shirt didn’t cover the Celtic knots at my wrists, and I was sure that my shirt and bra didn’t disguise the fact that both my nipples were pierced. Ember took her time on the return trip up to my face, and her head cocked to the side as if she was seeing something that was particularly curious to her.

“Layla?”
she questioned. “Your mother must like Eric Clapton?” I shrugged and a hint of a grin teased her lips. “Well then,
let’s make the best of the situation
.”