Privacy Policy

Playing with The Drummer
by Robin Covington

Copyright © 2014 by Robin Covington. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Chapter One

Move over, Oprah. Get in line, Ellen.

This week was going to make her career.

Lita Matthews waved at the crowd of paparazzi confined by the police at the end of the long driveway of the Holmes Estate. She pulled her rental car in front of the entrance and came to a halt right in front of the valet parking attendant. There were probably two dozen more of them now, a testament to just how close the wedding date actually was and in direct proportion to the rising media frenzy. Her few days of prep in L.A. had demonstrated that every tabloid, legitimate entertainment news outlet, and blogger was talking about the nuptials, many of them only dishing the dirt and stirring the scandal pot.

To walk the fine line between her journalistic integrity and her loyalty toward a friend was going to be precarious in her high heels. That balance wasn’t always her strongest asset, and it would take every ounce of her training to get it right. This was the most important assignment of her life, and she couldn’t afford to mess it up. She didn’t report stories to hurt people, even though that was sometimes a by-product. She reported the truth. But it was her goal to always temper that truth with compassion and fair reporting. She’d screwed up very early in her career, had let her emotions guide the story, and it was the one time in her life when she was ashamed of her job. And now that her dream job was hanging in the balance, the risk was even more personal.

She grabbed her purse and Italian handmade briefcase and emerged from the controlled environment of the car and into the wilds of Montana. All around her, the mountains dwarfed the man-made structure—not that the mansion wasn’t stunning with its wood beams and gleaming windows—but Mother Nature was hard to beat when it was this pristine.

It didn’t surprise her that Lori and Callie had been raised under the watch of the clear blue sky. Both women were fierce in their own way, sparkling like the sunlight that glinted off the huge lake just beyond the lodge. California hadn’t taken their freshness, and that was the secret behind the success of Calliope Shoe Designs.

There was nothing fresh about her. Deftly hidden behind a mask of clothes and makeup, she’d grown up in the shadow of the Hollywood letters on the hill and cut her teeth on the Rodeo Drive sign. Raised by a former supermodel and an Oscar-winning film director, there was nothing fresh about Lita. The entertainment business was cutthroat, and you had to dodge a lot of stilettos in your back to make it to the top.

She was almost there. So close she could practically feel the glare of the studio lights of her own show on her face. This assignment was the thing that would push her over the top.

Lita leaned down and checked her makeup, smoothing down the tight pencil skirt she’d picked up in Milan a couple of weeks ago. If you wanted to be the next big thing in television, you needed to dress the part, even if you were out in the middle-of-nowhere Montana where they likely didn’t know a Gucci from a Gap.

Handing off her keys to the young man in staff uniform, she retraced his steps and entered the mansion. It was as gorgeous inside as it was outside—the perfect place for sweet Callie to marry her bad boy rock star, Jake Mitchell, the lead singer for The Rift. It would make for great TV; the “every girl” from the Heartland who captured the Rock God would play to so many demographics. She was looking at a ratings sweep when it aired. The only thing bigger would be an invasion from Mars.

“Lita!” Lori Hanover, her best friend and sister of the bride, two-stepped it across the slate floor of the foyer before engulfing her in a hug that almost knocked her off her platform pumps. This entire opportunity had fallen into her lap because of her friendship with Lori. Calliope Shoes had taken a nosedive when Callie had broken up Jake’s prior engagement, and Lori had asked Lita to do this exclusive, behind-the-scenes, no-holds-barred video special on their destination wedding. The goal was to attempt a rehabilitation of Callie’s reputation and put her shoes back on the red carpets in Hollywood.

“Hey you.” She hugged her back, laughing as she noticed the tall, gorgeous man hovering behind her friend. Dash Mills—the love of Lori’s life—and former member of The Rift. It was rumored that he might be re-joining the band, but so far, no one from the inner circle was talking. “Does he follow you everywhere?”

Lori pulled out of the embrace and launched herself at Dash, snuggling in when he pulled her close. “He loves me. What can I say?”

“Dash, my offer to get you that psych eval still stands,” she said as the man-of-questionable-sanity drew her into a one-armed squeeze. “She’s a freight train, and you can still get out alive.”

“Hey!” Lori protested.

“People have been calling me crazy for years, now I have a legit reason,” Dash said, pressing a kiss on Lori’s nose when she pouted. “She’s my freight train. I love her.”

“Uh huh.” Lita placed her sunglasses on top of her head, peering down the hallway and ready to get down to business. “You guys. Laz and Syd—”

“How do you know about Laz and Syd?” Dash asked. She’d been back in L.A. when that love connection had happened, and while bad news traveled fast, good news made decent time as well.

“Honey, it’s my job to know stuff like that.” She patted his face, giving it a little pinch as he laughed and shook his head. “Anyway, I hope this love thing isn’t catching. I’ve got too much work to do.”

“You hardened cynic. Whatever happened to make you such a man hater?” Lori asked.

“I don’t hate men. I love them. I just love them to leave in the morning.”

“Oh, that’s harsh. You sound like Rocky,” Dash said and then waved a frantic hand in her face when she raised an eyebrow. He looked alarmed. “Not about the men in the bed. Women. Women only. He likes them to leave, too.”

“Yeah, I heard that about him.” It was more like she knew first-hand just how quickly Rocky Cardano could kick a woman out of his bed without a backward glance. His position as the drummer of the world’s most loved rock band meant that his sexual escapades were legendary, and she was glad that her inclusion on his list of conquests was the best-kept secret in Hollywood. Probably the only secret.

She’d thought he was different from all the other guys in Hollywood who’d used her for their own careers and public image. It never hurt to have a daughter of two A-listers on your arm or in your bed. Rocky had been the final straw on the already broken back of her belief in love.

He’d gone from attentive lover to accusatory jackass in the span of three short days, confirming her opinion that love was just a plotline in a movie. She’d made the mistake of thinking that maybe she was the heroine in their love story, but it ended up that she was the punch line.

And then, in her anger, she’d gone way too far and published a story that told the world where he was hiding. She’d known that he was working through his pain, needing the space to get his head together, and she’d led the hounds of hell to his door. Not her best moment, and even though she’d apologized many times, their tentative trust had been broken.

His presence was the only thing that could potentially spoil the absolute best gig of her life. They’d seen each other over the past four years. She covered stories about him and the band, attended the awards shows, and partied at the same clubs. And even though their social circles looked like the center of a Venn diagram, they’d proven that you could ignore someone for prolonged periods of time without raising too many questions. This week, stuck together at this estate, would be challenging, but they’d manage. No biggie.

It was her heart that would take the beating. She’d fallen hard for him those three days in Mexico, and the knowledge that they could not be together made her stomach tighten in a way years of crunches had never achieved. But the worst was knowing they might as well live on different planets, with her on the one that embraced the glare of the camera flash and his spent on the dark side of the moon, avoiding any spotlight. They were the definition of “opposites attract”, and while she might be willing to bend, Rocky had made it clear that he was not budging one little inch. But this was one week. She could make nice with him for seven days and the front row seat at the wedding of the year.

“So, where is the blushing bride?” Lita looked around, her brain quickly shifting into reporter mode. She could already picture conducting her exclusive interviews in this room, the mountains and lake in the background. It would look awesome in HD on millions of flat screens across the world. She turned her attention back to Lori and Dash just in time to see a glance pass between them. “What’s that look?”

“Callie is, ” Lori didn’t finish the sentence, looking back at Dash with a “help me” expression on her face.

Dash put his arm around both of their waists as he led them down the hallway, his tone calm and soothing. “Callie is losing her fucking mind.”

“What?” Lita asked.

“I’m sure it’s just wedding jitters and all that jazz,” he said, only to be cut off by Lori.

“The paparazzi is driving her nuts, and she can’t figure out what shoe to wear.”

Screw the press. This shoe thing was serious.

“No shoe?”

“No shoe.” Lori sighed, her hand rubbing the back of her neck with stress. She was a great big sister, if Callie was freaking out, then Lori was overcompensating to remain calm. As Lita knew, it could be exhausting to be the yin to someone’s yang. And if Callie, world famous shoe designer to the stars, couldn’t figure out what she would wear on the big day, the yin was seriously out of whack. “As the day gets closer, the more the press coverage ramps up, and the more stressed she becomes.”

“Why not impose a blackout on the coverage? Just keep her from seeing it.”

Lori sighed as they rounded the corner that led to the mansion’s Main Hall, the place Callie and Jake had made into an impromptu living room. It was in the back of the mansion and safe from the prying of unwanted eyes. “I’ve tried, but she can’t stand it. She cheats. I finally caught her in the staff office using their computer, and we gave her back her electronics.”

Callie and Jake, providing onsite accommodations for the wedding party and the guests in the various guesthouses on the property, booked the whole estate. The Main Hall boasted a living room, a mini-bar, and a huge private terrace that overlooked the lake and the mountains. With an entire back wall of glass panels, the space could have total access to the outdoors with the push of a button, but even with the doors shut, the view was breathtaking.

Blue sky. Green grass. Lake as clear as crystal.

A perfect place to get married. Out under the heavens with everything in the universe a witness to your vows. With a start like that, maybe marriage could work. She’d only seen it happen a handful of times, but there was always a first. Like comfy clogs making an appearance on the red carpet— it could happen.

“Lita!” Callie turned from the table full of food on the terrace and rushed over to hug her. She was thinner, not alarmingly so, but she wasn’t eating all the yummy food Sydney was surely pushing in front of her at her current weight. Pulling back from the embrace, Lita checked out her friend and wasn’t crazy about what she saw. No bags under the eyes, but definite signs of fatigue and strain around the mouth and on her forehead. Not exactly the coveted bridal glow.

“How are you holding up, kiddo?”

“Holy crap. I’m ready for all the wedding stuff to be over.”

“Hey.” Jake came up behind her, his voice teasing as he kissed Lita on the cheek. “Marrying me is the highlight of your life.”

“It is, baby. It is.” She turned to hug him tight, gazing up at him with eyes full of the love that had landed her in this mess. “I want to be married, but the wedding…”

“We can take off for Vegas with an hour’s notice. You tell me, and I’m on it.” Jake looked back down at her, his depth of feeling for his fiancé the clearest thing in his expression.

It was that love that had compelled him to break off his engagement with the country-singer-diva-from-hell-who-shall-not-be-named and pursue Callie. The ex was stirring up trouble every chance she got, and that was why Lita was here—to add their side of the story to all the noise.

But the ex had jump-started the latest frenzy, giving a tell-all interview on primetime TV two days ago, and the pendulum of public opinion had swung back to her side. If Callie had seen even a fraction of what was being said, then no wonder she was stressed. Your head told you that you shouldn’t care, but the heart and soul had a hard time avoiding the punches. Lita had watched her parents, their friends, her friends in the business, take the hits, and no one emerged without a little soul scarring.

This was going to be harder than she thought.

“I’m not going to Vegas. We’ve planned the most beautiful ceremony.” Callie snuggled in closer, her smile not quite reaching her eyes as she gazed around the room at her friends. “Laz is going to be your best man, and Sydney is going to serve the best food anyone ever tasted. My sister will stand up with me, and I think we can persuade Dash to play the gorgeous song Rocky wrote for us if I ask nicely.”

Lita glanced around the room; Rocky wasn’t there. The tension in her belly that was always present when he was nearby loosened ever so slightly, and she took a deeper breath. She was always on edge, a little bit on the defensive, and a whole lot ashamed of the one petty thing she’d done in her career, exposing him to the press when he’d needed solitude. She’d apologized, but it was always between them, making sure the chasm never got any smaller.

What she couldn’t figure out was why their three days together still haunted her. Lovers had come and gone, and yet, the only one she could remember with perfect clarity was Rocky. It was probably the way it had ended that drove her nuts, nobody liked being kicked to the curb.

“Only if you ask very nicely,” Dash answered with a smile.

“And Lita is going to make sure we have the best wedding video ever.” She smiled wider, her spirits lifting visibly. “I can’t wait.”

“Okay then, can we talk business for a little bit? I want to make sure everyone has the ground rules going in,” Lita said.

“I think that calls for drinks all around,” Jake said and headed to the outside bar. They all followed him onto the terrace as he played bartender.

“I’m here in a dual capacity this week, as a guest and as a journalist, so I think we need to be clear on how this goes. I’ll be conducting interviews with you, people in town, and chronicling the festivities up to, and including, the wedding.” She smiled at Callie, accepted her drink, and took a sip of the cool wine. “My cameraman, Eddie, will be around at certain times, and when he’s here, you should presume that he’s filming unless we say otherwise. But, unlike most interview sessions, you are off the record with me until I tell you we’re on. Any questions?”

“Yeah. I’ve got one.”

Everyone spun toward the voice. Low. Deep. So sexy it made her stupid.

She was the last to turn, knowing what she was going to find. Rocky. He was huge, a mountain of a man well over six feet and pushing two hundred twenty pounds of muscle. His dark hair was shoulder length with thick waves, a thick beard covering the strong line of his jaw, his eyes the sexiest color of dark coffee she’d ever seen. He was leaning in the door opening, arms crossed like a firmly muscled barrier to any part of him, eyes dark with distrust and anger. He looked at everyone but her.

And in spite of his obvious disdain, her stomach did the typical little tumble. Her heart sputtered, forcing her to take a deep breath to steady her nerves. She stomped it all down, getting control over her physical reaction in order to be able to fight the inevitable battle ahead.

“What’s your question, Rocky?” she asked, keeping her tone neutral.

He looked at her then, his eyes going even darker. “Does anyone else think this is a big fucking mistake?”

Chapter Two

Lita looked like she wanted to kill him.

Tough shit. He wasn’t joining the crazy train that allowed a journalist into their midst as a trusted agent. Trust and reporters, hell, trust and Lita, were words that did not belong together. She’d proven that much to him four years ago when she’d betrayed him when he was lower than low.

He was here to watch one of his best friends in the world, a brother, marry the woman he loved. He wanted them to be happy, to have their fairy-tale moment, and that is what had kept his mouth shut during this whole scene, but now it was time to speak up. Now was the time for him to get them all to see how crazy this idea really was.

“Why don’t you tell them what kind of story you’re really going to shoot for the millions in TV-land? What clever variation of ‘the other woman’ are you going to go with? You’re going to have to get creative to beat the crap your fellow journalists have been spewing.”

“I’m going to report the truth.”

“And what is your version of the truth going to be?”

“That these two crazy kids love each other, and nothing could get in the way of that.”

“And what about the other stuff? The ugly side to this fairy tale? The story that every other reporter is falling over themselves to tell? You can’t be the only one in your mob who realizes that rucking up a bunch of drama and lies gets better ratings.”

He stood almost nose-to-nose with her, Lita’s five feet nine inches augmented by her three-inch heels. The women he usually dated were sweet, tiny, blond, and blue-eyed, and rarely inclined to get in his face about something. Not Lita. With her dark hair, golden bronze skin, and dark eyes, inherited from her Brazilian supermodel mother, she was anything but sweet.

A spitfire was what his mother would have called her, and she’d have been right. Lita would bust his balls every chance she got. And truth be told, it was the part he liked the best. Liked? Hell, let’s just call it what it was and get it over with: Lita was the one woman who’d gotten to him, and she’d never let him go. But she was the one woman who viewed the world so differently from him that he knew it could never work between them.

She loved living in the public eye, glowing like a thousand suns whenever a camera was around. He sought out the shadows like a vampire. When you were that different, no one could be happy living in the ill-fitting half-life of twilight.

He ignored the way his temperature spiked around her, the way her scent of spice enticed him, tamped down the arousal that was inevitable when he thought too long about her. He might still want her, might be crazy about her, but as close as they were right now was as far as that was ever going to happen again.

“You’re right. I can’t ignore the facts of how they got together, as that would reduce the credibility of the whole piece,” she answered, taking two steps closer to him. She was near enough for him to feel her breath on his lips, the moist heat bringing the memory of what she tasted like racing to the forefront of his mind. She’d been so damn sweet, so sexy, so open, or so he’d thought until he’d figured out what was really going on those three days in Mexico.

He wouldn’t be fooled again. He guessed he had her to thank for a valuable lesson learned. He didn’t mind doing occasional publicity stuff for The Rift, because Jake and Laz usually jockeyed for the spotlight while he was content to blend in with his drum kit.

“Rocky, I trust Lita to do right by me. By Jake,” Callie said as she walked over to the two of them, her presence causing them to back down from the standoff. He looked down at her and eased off the glare. Callie was good people, and once Jake had decided that she was his world, she became family to Rocky. And where he was raised, you protected your family. That was what he was trying to do.

He made an effort to soften his delivery and try to explain this better. “I’m sorry if I’m coming off as a jerk, but I really don’t understand why you think letting the press inside is such a good idea. No matter how much Lita cares about you, she’s serving two masters, you and her employer. Who do you think will win when it comes down to a hard choice?”

“My employer has given me the leeway to do this story the way I see fit. If I didn’t think I could portray the situation honestly, I wouldn’t have taken the assignment.”

“Uh huh.” Okay, now he sounded childish, but he had no response to that. He just didn’t believe her.

“I don’t know how I need to apologize to get you to drop this. It was a stupid thing, ”

“Save it. We don’t need to rehash anything from before.”

“Wait. Before? What the hell are you talking about?” Dash’s voice brought him back to the present. Oh shit. He’d forgotten that they had an audience, an audience that didn’t know about their past, and he wanted to keep it that way.

“What happened?” Lori added her inquiry to a situation that was quickly getting out of control, and knowing her, she’d never let it drop. She was, tenacious. Dash had his work cut out for him with her. Rocky had only intended to be the last voice of reason, and now he’d given Lori a puzzle to solve, a problem to fix. He was so screwed.

“Nothing.” He locked eyes with Lita, daring her to disagree with him. He was not going to engage in a group Dr. Phil moment with these people. They were so slaphappy with love they’d hear wedding bells when really it was just the gong signaling the beginning of the next fight round between the two of them. “Nothing you need to know about.”

“Wait. You just said more in five minutes than I hear you utter in a month, and you expect us to drop it when you let that nugget slip past the Fort Knox, also known as Rocky Cardano?” Laz asked, his nodding increasing as the others joined in.

“That sounds great,” Rocky answered. “Do that. Forget it.”

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” Lita reached out and grabbed his arm, the warm touch of her skin on his making him jump. An electrical shock would be a gentle massage compared to what she did to him—still. How many times had he taken a woman to bed just to get rid of her memory? Booze didn’t do it, and pills weren’t his thing. Brutal workouts and long sessions behind his drum kit helped a little. In the end, Lita was still under his skin, which added a stubborn wrinkle to the current situation.

Lita wasn’t immune to him, either. He’d witnessed her aroused, responding to him and his touch for three solid days, and it was something he’d never forget and recognized when he saw it again, like now. Her hand trembled, breathing faster than what was normal, pupils enlarged. She was still attracted to him, wanted him just like he wanted her, but an unspoken understanding between them knew that even enemies with benefits was a place they could never go.

Thrown by the impact of her touch, he let himself be led away to the other side of the space. The others stared, but he blocked them out; it wasn’t hard with Lita so close, her perfume invading his senses, her touch lighting him up. Jesus. What was the shelf life on this kind of connection? At this rate, he believed it would survive the apocalypse.

Lita got to the point. “We need to call a truce. Let go of the personal stuff for one week.”

“I can’t.” She rolled her eyes, and he cut her off before she could lecture him. “I’m not doing it to be a dick. I don’t think this is a good idea. This is not going to end well.”

“I just don’t understand you.” Her grip on his arm tightened, and she tugged him closer, the movement bringing their bodies into whisper-light contact at breast and thighs. Rocky found his own hand reaching out to grasp her waist and pull her in, but he curled his fingers inward, fist so tight his skin strained and paled at the knuckles. “This is a great opportunity for Callie and Jake to turn the tide of public opinion, to win over a huge group of people. They have the power of the press, all dying for a chance to share their story. This way, they get to write it, give it the spin they want.”

Spin. Public opinion. Sharing their story. Those words made him shudder a little.

“You believe that they have some power to control the beast once they unleash it, but that’s all a lie. The press is going to print whatever they want, whatever will sell magazines or rack up website hits.”

“Exactly. So why not use that to your advantage? Everybody has to play the game in this business, and you’ve got one chance to make sure you’re the player and not the played.”

“But they don’t have to play at all,” he countered.

“They live in the public eye, ”

“They have high-profile jobs.” H stepped closer, his proximity creating a low current between them. “It doesn’t mean they have to let everyone know their personal business.”

“You give up some of that choice when you become a celebrity.”

“It’s a job. Not an abandonment of any privacy.”

“True. But they would be crazy if they didn’t use the system to their advantage.”

“It’s not worth it.”

“You’re being short-sighted and stubborn.”

“Right back at ya.”

And that was it. The same old argument. The same old chasm between them. There was no bridge to cross this divide, and they both knew it.

Rocky grew up protecting himself and his family. He knew first-hand that if you didn’t let people in, they couldn’t hurt you. Lita was raised in the Hollywood glare, and she believed that parsing out the nuggets of yourself to strangers with press badges was the way to protect yourself and what you didn’t want to share. They only agreed on one thing: secrets and knowledge—whether taken or given—was power.

He withdrew his arm from her grasp, ignoring the way he immediately missed her touch. He stalked back over to the others, ready to exit this little scene.

“I’ve said my piece.” He looked specifically at Jake and Callie. “I hope I didn’t make you mad, but I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I kept my mouth shut.”

“Rocky, we all know your aversion to the press, the limelight, and that’s cool. We respect that, but Lita is one of us,” Jake said.

Callie looked between the two of them, her consideration of his comment playing like a movie on her face. In the end, she reached a hand out to Lita and then turned back to him as she wrapped her tiny fingers around his. “Lita is a friend. She’s a journalist, and I know it will be a challenge for you to have her around, but I need you to try. For me.”

Oh shit. Her smile said that she knew he wouldn’t refuse. Callie was a good kid, good people, and she made Jake happier than Rocky had ever seen him. If she wanted him to play nice with Lita while she was here, then he could do it. It wasn’t like he was going to be with her that much anyway. They’d avoided each other very well for two people who called L.A. their home, and they could certainly do it here, too.

“Sure, Callie. Whatever you want.”

She was nodding happily, and Rocky turned to split and be anywhere but within the same room with Lita, when Callie tightened her grip on him, snuggling in close and stopping him in his tracks. He gazed down, and one look at her “I’m the little sister you never had, and I can get you to do whatever I want” expression didn’t bode well for his plan to stay clear of Lita Matthews.

“Since you and Lita are going to the wedding, ”

“What? No one from your stable of tiny blondes could come to the wedding?” Lita interrupted, her raised eyebrow and smug expression matching the snarky tone in her voice.

He ignored her.

“Anyway,” Callie continued, “I’ve paired the two of you up for all of the remaining events for the wedding, the houseboat cruise, the rehearsal dinner, so it won’t be any trouble at all for you to help her with her filming. Right?”

Fuck no. He met Lita’s shocked gaze across the space, and she’d gone pale under her golden skin, her head shaking an emphatic no. At least they agreed on this.

“Callie, I don’t need his help. I’ve got Eddie. I’m fine,” she said.

“An extra pair of hands won’t hurt, especially with all the additional paparazzi around. You might need some muscle, and Rocky scares off even the most persistent of them.”

“Man, they give you a wide berth whenever they see you. And since you have reservations about the whole video thing, you can see first-hand what a professional Lita is.” Jake’s eyes lit up like he’d just discovered fire. Rocky knew when he’d been boxed in; there was no way he was going to talk them down from this. “It’s perfect.”

A perfect nightmare. The seventh layer of hell.

“It’s really not necessary,” Lita said, refusing to see that they had no choice in the matter.

“I insist. Maybe you guys can work it out and be friends, now that we’re all practically family.” Callie reached out and grabbed one of Lita’s hands as well as one of his own. Rocky took a step back. All of this sounded suspiciously like bridal matchmaking. “You can only guess how hard all this press stuff is on me. I know I shouldn’t care, but I do. This way, I know that the two people who care as much as I do about it will be looking out for me.”

She started blinking rapidly, her big eyes growing shiny. Oh shit, were those tears? Yep. He was fucked now. No way could he say no to a crying bride, even if she did have the worst idea in the universe. He might be an asshole, but a heartless asshole he was not.

“Of course we’ll do it,” Lita said, dragging her into a hug.

They both started sniffling, and he inched away, preparing to make his escape, to hit the gym and figure out how to get out of this mess.

“So, are you going to give me a clue about what your real deal is with Lita?”

He turned to find Dash right next to him, his expression filled more with concern than prurient curiosity. The urge to spill it all was strong in his gut. He and Dash had been tighter than brothers, but when Dash had walked away from The Rift and shut Rocky out of his life, he’d learned to keep his own counsel.

Sure, Jake and Laz were trusted, but he’d never felt the close connection he’d had with Dash. He was the one guy who knew almost the whole story about Rocky and his dad, and he’d never told anyone else. But those days were long gone. He’d work this out by himself.

“There’s nothing to tell. I just don’t like reporters.”

Dash observed him closely, and Rocky felt him trying to peel back the layers of his shield. All those years of living like a hermit had fine-tuned Dash’s observation skills, but he was in no mood to have his demons let loose.

“Stop giving me the eyeball, Dash. It’s nothing more than what I said. I think its crazy to have a reporter here.”

“Especially Lita.”

“Yes, especially Lita.”

“And that’s what— ”

“Man, you’ve got to let it go.”

“Fine, but news flash. I don’t believe that nothing happened between the two of you. Not for a minute.” Dash moved in closer, his mouth turning up in a slight grin. “And whatever it was, it isn’t over. Not by a long shot.”

“Uh huh.” Rocky turned to head to the bar. He needed a drink. A big drink. “Give it up Dash, there’s no story here.”