Dirty Like Dylan: A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty, Book 4) Page 17

  “As opposed to you,” Liv said, “making up some shit about being wasted-drunk and suffering a momentary lapse of, I don’t know, eyesight? Sense of direction? Sanity? And me pretending to believe you.” I followed her into the kitchen, letting her rant. “Just tell me you were totally fucking lost and/or blackout drunk, or something, when you ended up naked with him. I want to believe you, Amber.”

  “Nope,” I said. “Not drunk. And I don’t think I’ve ever been so lost that I accidentally ended up on top of a penis.”

  “Because otherwise,” she went on, like I hadn’t even spoken, “there is no good reason to have sex with Ashley Player.”

  “You mean other than feeling his dick in my pussy? Feeling his hands all over my body? Feeling—”

  “Please. Don’t describe it.” She yanked her fridge open and frowned at the contents like they’d disappointed her, though they were probably just taking the brunt of her current feelings toward me. “Laura!” she bellowed. “Did you drink all the IPA?” She swiped a couple of beers from the depths of the fridge, scowled at them, and cracked them open, handing one to me. “Sorry.”

  “Cheers.” We clinked bottles irritably and I took a deep swig of the honey ale.

  My sister took a sip and grimaced. “Laura’s beer,” she complained.

  “So can I stay here or what?” I flopped into a seat in her breakfast nook and kicked up my feet. “You know I hate to ask. You know I won’t stay long. I just need to finish processing the images from the shoot at Dylan’s, and then I’m off to Thailand.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What? You owe me, after sending me off to the Island of the Gorgeous Rock Stars without warning me, then ignoring my calls.”

  My sister sat on the edge of the table, looking down at me. “I’ve been busy.” She had the gall to say it straight-faced while she was wearing sweatpants.

  My sister sometimes worked on set, sometimes worked from home, and sometimes drank beers in her sweats on a Tuesday. As for Laura, she handled online sales for a local cosmetics company from home, part-time, which meant she did her abs-and-butt workout to Lady Gaga whenever she felt like it.

  The two of them were living the dream.

  “You look busy,” I remarked.

  “You want to take care of yourself, right?” Liv shot back. “How much money are you making shooting Dylan’s house?”

  I glared at her. “A lot.” But that was hardly the point. Just because I’d ended up making a bunch of money and getting laid while I was there, I wasn’t about to thank my sister for it.

  She frowned. “And they kicked you out?”

  “What? No. I’m just not staying there anymore.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Incidentally, why didn’t you return my calls?”

  She crossed her arms. “I needed a cooling period.”

  Right. Liv and her fucking cooling periods.

  “You were pissed at me?”

  “I was a little pissed. You made me look pretty bad at the Underlayer shoot, Amber. You were there on my recommendation. It took a little elbow grease to unruffle all those feathers.”

  “Sorry.” I rolled my eyes a bit, embarrassed. “I really am sorry. And for what it’s worth, I apologized to Dylan too. Sincerely.”

  She sat there, just kind of glowering down at me.

  “And you would be thinking…?” I asked, glaring back up at her.

  “I’m thinking, where the hell does Ash get off fucking my little sister.”

  “Um, hello? You shipped me off to an island to live in his house. You’ve seen his abs and that angsty thing he does with his eyebrows. You knew this would happen.”

  “Fuck that. I shipped you off to Dylan for a job. He said he’d throw you some work.”

  I groaned. “You did what?”

  “I tell you, every time. You bring this shit on—”

  “Yourself,” I finished for her.

  “You won’t take help. You’ll work for it, but you won’t let me loan you money. You needed a place to stay and a paycheck. Dylan offered both. And I trust him.”

  I blinked at her. “What does that mean? You trust him not to fuck me?”

  She gave me a sidelong glance as she sipped her beer. “At least he’d have the decency to provide a bed,” she muttered, no doubt referring to the dining room table Ashley had provided.

  Really glad now that I’d shared that particular detail.

  “Right. Perfect.” Dylan offered me a job as a favor to my sister? Could this get more humiliating? “And what did Ashley offer?”

  “Nothing. Dylan said you could stay in Ash’s house because no one was using it anyway. I didn’t know he was gonna creep up your skirt.”

  “He didn’t creep.”

  Liv made a disgusted sound and drank her beer.

  I sighed. “There was nothing creepy about it. I wasn’t lost or confused. And we were both stone-cold sober.” Though maybe a little drunk on the sight of half-naked Dylan Cope. “We had, like, one drink with Dylan, hours before that, and that was it.”

  “And you have a crush on Dylan,” my sister accused, her voice flat with disappointment. As if that was somehow worse than screwing Ashley.

  “Says you.”

  “I surmised,” she said, as the music downstairs shut off.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You keep angling your shoulders like you can’t remember how to sit properly, and getting all twirly when his name comes up.”

  Liv’s girlfriend, Laura, had walked in while she was talking, blonde ponytail bouncing, and now looked over at me for evidence of this angling and twirling.

  “Hey, Amber. When did you get here?”

  I raised my eyebrows at Liv. “Twirly?”

  “You twirl your hair around your finger. Like this.” Liv pantomimed me fluttering my eyelashes and twirling my finger in my hair, though she did it in thin air because her hair was too short to twirl.

  “Good thing I don’t really do that,” I said firmly, as Laura swung a box of beer onto the table between us, “because it’s really fucking pathetic.”

  “Oh, but you do.”

  “You do,” Laura agreed. She swept in for a hug, squeezed, then released me. “IPA,” she announced, patting the box of beer and giving my sister a loud kiss on the cheek before strutting over to the fridge.

  “Warm IPA,” Liv grumbled. “A couple of rock stars dropped her off a few minutes ago.” She answered Laura’s question distractedly, and Laura threw me a pretend-scandalized look, then winked at me. She was all perfect-Vancouver-blonde in her skintight Lululemon pants, her naturally exuberant boobs squishing out the top of her sports bra, an attractive sheen of sweat shimmering on her skin. Laura sometimes reminded me of a news anchor, but with less-stiff hair.

  “Good for you, sweetie,” she said.

  I managed a brief, “Thanks,” since the comment was genuine. “And I don’t have a ‘crush’ on anyone,” I informed my sister. Okay, so I was lying to her face, but was it really her business?

  “Really.”

  “A crush?” Laura perked up. “On whom?”

  “Dylan Cope,” Liv said.

  “Oh.” Laura grabbed herself a honey ale and studied me, like she was looking for evidence that I’d somehow changed since she last saw me.

  It had taken a long, long time for me to warm up to Laura. When I first met her, I didn’t buy her whole “lesbian act”—my term. To my utter disdain, Liv was her first female lover and I was pretty fucking sure she was just some curious tourist in the gay “lifestyle.” I figured within a month she’d move on, bounce right back to men and leave my sister a broken wreck. Or drag home some random dude for her and Liv to make out in front of.

  It never happened. Not once in nine years.

  So as it turned out, I was wrong about Laura. Liv wasn’t some sexual experiment to her. She really did love my sister. Which meant I’d eventually come to love her—and find her about as annoying as my sister, though in different ways.
/>
  She dropped into the booth across from me and leaned toward me over the table, blue eyes sparkling; the look on her face said deliciously intrigued. “Do tell.”

  “There is absolutely not one thing to tell. Dylan is just, you know…” I caught my right shoulder dropping, and quickly straightened before Liv could open her mouth. “He’s too… perfect,” I finished, like that was the worst thing in the world for someone to be. “And Ashley is just… pfft.”

  “Right,” my sister said, sliding into the booth next to Laura. “And when you talk about Ash, you chew on your hair.”

  “You do,” Laura agreed.

  I spit the lock of hair out of my mouth. “Gross.” It felt kind of satisfying, crunching the ends lightly between my teeth, but I’d barely noticed I was doing it.

  “Super fucking gross,” Liv corrected me. “I haven’t seen you chew on your hair since Robbie Masterson, by the way.”

  “You’re an asshole,” I informed her and drank my beer.

  “Who’s Robbie Masterson?” Laura inquired.

  “Eighth grade,” Liv said.

  “He knocked my books out of my hands in the hallway when we changed classes. Every fucking day. I hated that guy.”

  “And you’re full of shit,” my sister said. “You’re totally crushing on Dylan, just like you crushed on Robbie.” To Laura, she said, “I can always tell when she’s hot for a guy.”

  “You know nothing about being hot for a guy,” I pointed out.

  “I’d accuse you of crushing on Ash, too,” Liv informed me, “but if that were true, you probably wouldn’t have had sex with him already.”

  “Hmm. Suck it.” I took another swig of my beer and looked to Laura for help.

  “I know,” Laura said. “Where does she get off knowing you so damn well, right?”

  “Am I really that fucked up?”

  “When it comes to men,” Laura said, “yes.”

  I threw up my hands. “Who the fuck cares if I have a crush on Dylan Cope? I’m three-quarters sure he’s into dick, ladies.”

  My sister frowned at me. “Since when?”

  “How should I know? Since around the time he decided he wasn’t into pussy?”

  My sister glanced at her girlfriend, then threw me a look like I was the world’s worst idiot. “Dylan Cope isn’t gay.”

  “So everyone says,” I said, unconvinced.

  “He’s not gay, Amber,” Laura put in, glancing at Liv for backup. “He’s just, you know…” She shrugged. “Laid-back.”

  I scoffed. “Gay men can’t be laid-back?”

  “What I mean is, he’s used to women pursuing him.”

  “Yup,” my sister said. “I’ve actually seen the man shrug when a woman approached him at a party, like five seconds before he started making out with her. He doesn’t even have to lift a finger. The pussy just magically materializes in his presence.”

  Now there was a visual I didn’t need.

  “Don’t be jealous,” Laura teased my sister.

  Liv narrowed her eyes at me as she studied me across the table. “But be warned. If he decides he actually wants you, before you’ve offered up the pussy, he’ll be cunning about it.”

  “That’s probably true,” Laura concurred.

  “Like a fucking leopard,” my sister said. “I’ve seen the man in action when he’s actually interested. It’s gnarly, National-Geographic-level shit.”

  Laura nodded right along, making Mm-hmm noises.

  I frowned, skeptical. “A leopard?”

  “You ever see a leopard on the hunt?” Liv asked me.

  “Maybe?”

  “They stealth in, all camo’d up, just waiting for the perfect moment, then BAM!” She slammed her fist down on the table, making me and everything on the tabletop jump. “They strike.”

  Laura tipped her blonde head back, peals of laughter pouring from her mouth.

  Right about now, I was really glad I’d come over. You know, so I could provide so much amusement for them.

  “Well, he’s not interested,” I said, slamming back some more honey beer. “This is great beer, by the way,” I told Laura, ignoring my sister’s look. I wanted to believe them, desperately. I wanted to believe Dylan might be into me.

  But…

  “He hasn’t even made a move, okay? Ashley came right up to me and licked my neck and stuck his hand between my legs and asked me if I wanted his cock.”

  “Oh, my,” Laura said. “And I suppose the answer was yes?”

  “And Dylan has done no such thing,” I finished.

  My sister studied me for a moment longer, her eyes narrowing to slits. “Oh, shit,” she finally concluded. “You’re serious.”

  “Um, yeah?”

  “I figured you were shitting me. Like you’d already screwed them both in some dirty hetero three-way and didn’t want to admit it to me.”

  “’Fraid not.”

  Liv glanced at Laura. Laura glanced back at Liv and shrugged, sympathy contorting her face, as they communicated telepathically.

  Liv sighed. “They like you,” she informed me, like she was breaking the news that I’d contracted some infectious yet benevolent disease.

  “Sorry, Amber,” Laura added.

  “Huh?” I looked from one to the other. “You lost me there.”

  Liv leaned toward me over the table. “It’s like this, Amber. Usually, Dylan and Ash just toss a girl into bed with the both of them, have at her, and move on. I’ve seen it, many times.”

  “True,” Laura said.

  Then my sister reached across the table and took my hand, giving it a little squeeze. And it was deeply disturbing. It was a kindly-mom gesture, and although Liv had often stepped in to parent me—for better or worse—after Dad left and Mom fell apart, she’d never done that.

  “They’re taking their time with you,” she said.

  “Okay. Why are you taking that gentle-mommy tone with me? I’m not sick.”

  “Because,” Liv said, “I’m trying be gentle here. I know how much you suck at it when boys you like actually like you back, Amber.”

  I made an exasperated sound, somewhere between a groan and an adolescent protest, complete with eye roll. “How old do you think I am, again?”

  “She’s right,” Laura said, all sympathy. “Remember Robbie Whatshisname?”

  “Masterson,” I squeezed out.

  “Right.” Now it was Laura’s turn to reach over and squeeze my hand. “I think those two rock stars just sent your books flying all over the hallway, sweetie.”

  “Yup,” my sister said.

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes again. Just barely. But the fucked up thing was, they were right. At least, the part about the books and Robbie Masterson.

  I did like Robbie. I liked him in ways that made me feel things that, until then, I didn’t even know I could feel. And I had no fucking clue what to do about it.

  Now, I liked both Dylan and Ashley, and I was just about as clueless.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Amber

  As it turned out, I didn’t have much time to get a clue. Because about an hour later, Dylan showed up at my sister’s front door and asked if he could take me to dinner.

  No sign of Ashley.

  Laura, who’d answered the door, gave me an incredibly pointed and salacious look behind his back.

  Liv conspicuously shut her mouth and narrowed her eyes at me.

  For about an hour, they’d both been doing their best to dole out sound relationship advice. However, as shitty as I was, historically, with the whole relationship thing, I wasn’t about to put a whole hell of a lot of stock in the heterosexual dating advice of two lesbians.

  Kinda felt like the blind leading the blind.

  “I’ll… um… just get cleaned up,” I told him, backing away as the three of them stood staring at me, Dylan looking me over, slowly, in that way of his, a crooked smile on his lips. Then I gathered up my ratty travel backpack and left him there. He looked perfectly
at ease in my sister’s foyer, chatting with her about the Underlayer shoot as I hightailed it upstairs.

  Did Dylan Cope just ask me on a date? Again, I totally wasn’t sure.

  Liv and Laura kept insisting he was straight. They also seemed to think he was interested in me. If he really was straight, the fact that he’d A) hired me to photograph his house, B) taken me to an exclusive, swanky party at his lead singer’s house, and now C) invited me out to dinner—alone—definitely suggested he might be interested.

  But then, of course, there was that whole thing where I’d slept in his bed with him—oh, and his best friend—and he’d never even tried anything. And then I’d had hot sex with his best friend.

  Because apparently I couldn’t just keep things simple.

  Mental note to future self: when you like a guy and you don’t want to complicate things, don’t have hot sex with his best friend.

  Even if his best friend is insanely hot and has a pierced dick.

  I stuck my tongue out at my reflection in the bathroom mirror and gave up a little growl of frustration.

  Because only I could screw myself like this.

  I really had nothing to get “cleaned up” with, but as I stared at myself in the mirror, I found myself frowning. I tussled my hair a little with my fingers and frowned again.

  Then I headed down the hall to the master bedroom to plunder some of Laura’s makeup, knowing she wouldn’t mind. Actually, she’d insist on it. I wasn’t planning to go nuts or anything. Maybe just a little blush?

  Laura bounced in just as I was rooting through her makeup drawers in the bathroom, trying to decide if I should put on some lip gloss.

  “Nervous?” she asked.

  “Nope.”

  Of course I was.

  She plucked a tube of gloss from the dozens on offer and tossed it at me. “Keep it. I haven’t even opened it yet.”

  I cracked it open; a pale, rosy color with a slight sheen. I could handle that.

  “And what are you planning to wear?” Laura was hovering as I carefully applied lip gloss; I hadn’t exactly done it in recent memory. I could see her in the mirror, perusing my outfit. My long, peony-printed dress, with my comfy cream-colored cardigan layered overtop. The one Ashley had peeled off of me last night.