“Yeah.”
“Can I touch it?”
Devin smiled. “You can play it.”
“No shit!” Reverently, Mark picked up the instrument, running his hands over the strings. One of rock’s most distinctive riffs had been created on this very bass. He became aware of Devin watching, and froze, embarrassed to show himself up as a meager talent.
“You want a drink?” asked Devin. “Coke, Sprite, juice?”
“A Sprite would be good.”
When Devin had disappeared down the hall, Mark turned on the amplifier and played the Rage anthem right through, thrilled to the bone. When he’d finished, Devin still hadn’t returned, so he picked up an electric guitar and started playing his own riffs. As an only child, growing up on a farm from the age of twelve, he’d often relied on his own company. That’s when he’d begun to play guitar.
He played one of his songs right through, forgetting his shyness, trailing off when he noticed Devin standing at the door holding two glasses.
“You’re good.”
Mark blushed. “Thanks,” he said diffidently.
Devin put the drinks on the table, picked up his bass guitar and said, “Play that last one again.”
Mark did, and Devin accompanied him, adding tonal qualities Mark would never have dreamed of. “I like that song,” said Devin. “Whose is it?”
“Mine.”
Devin looked up. For a long minute he didn’t say anything. “Let’s try that again,” he suggested.
Mark spent the next two hours in musical heaven. He didn’t ever want the day to end. But eventually Devin stopped and glanced at the clock. “I’m hungry. How about you?”
“Starving.”
Mark followed him into the kitchen and sat on a stool while the rocker opened his fridge and inspected the contents. “I’ve got a better idea. How about we go eat with my mom.”
CHAPTER FIVE
DEVIN WAS WALKING THROUGH Albert Park en route to class the next morning when he glimpsed the librarian sitting by the circular fountain.
Her gaze immediately dropped to the open book in her lap, but he’d been around enough stalkers-and better ones than this-to know he was her target.
Her skills needed work, but her choice of location was sound. All the park’s paths converged on the historic fountain, with its bronze cherubs and their water-trickling orifices.
He hid a grin. This should be interesting. Of course, she had no idea he knew she’d warned Mark to shun him. He braced himself for verbal sparks.
As he approached, she looked up in feigned surprise and Devin was conscious of another spark. One that with any other woman he would have called sexual…if she wasn’t wearing a fifties-style calf-length dress in a red- and-white diamond check with a matching fabric belt. Did this woman own any clothes from this decade? Red suited her, though. He particularly liked the matching lipstick.
He stopped in front of her. “Of all the fountains in all the world, somehow we meet at this one.”
“Isn’t that a coincidence!” She looked past him-checking for Mark-then back with such undisguised relief that Devin was provoked to tease her.
“You don’t happen to have any Tylenol, do you?” He put on his shades to hide his amusement. “I’m too old to keep partying this hard.”
She frowned slightly and he read her thoughts. Had Mark been with him? But the only way to get information…She opened her bag. “Sure.”
Devin sat down next to her and lifted his face to the sun. It was only eight-thirty but already humid. The scent of the park’s roses was heavy in the air.
The breeze changed direction. Fountain mist drifted toward Rachel, forcing her to move closer. She wasn’t wearing perfume today but she still smelled seductive. How did she do that? Maybe he shouldn’t torment her by making things up. He and Mark had eaten at Katherine’s, then been cleaned out in a friendly poker game with her elderly neighbor before the kid caught the 9:00 p.m. ferry.
Rachel said way too casually, “I didn’t think you knew many people here.” Fishing.
He took the pills she offered, shiny in their silver foil. “Heartbreaker, when you’re a rock star you can always find people to party with.” There was no bitterness in the observation. He’d long ago accepted that his real friends were people he knew before he’d become famous.
Except they were still treating him as fragile. Another reason to stay away from L.A. He was too close to broken to shrug off someone else’s doubt. How ironic that the only person who looked at him without deference or sympathy was this woman.
“Well, the last ferry from Waiheke leaves at midnight,” Rachel ventured. “So I don’t suppose things got too out of hand.”
She’d checked the ferry timetable? Her concern for Mark seemed a little excessive. “Oh, I have plenty of room for sleepovers and no one minds three to a bed.” Her lovely mouth tightened. “But it was all pretty tame…some bourbon, coke…” Devin winked to make sure she’d make the connection to the drug, not the beverage. “A hot tub filled with twenty of my closest friends, and rock blasting over the sound system…”
He noticed as he ran out of rock star cliches that she’d slid almost to the other end of the fountain edge, and he had to bite the inside of his cheek. “It was a spontaneous thing or I would have invited you. We could have done with some classier chicks.”
Devin had a sudden image of her in a hot tub, incongruous and unexpectedly appealing. It had been too long since he’d had sex, but the months of therapy and rehab had left him feeling like a peeled onion, exposed and vulnerable.
“Was Mark with you?” she asked bluntly.
“The kid? Hmm, let me just think… We started the evening together. So hard to recognize people when they’re naked and wet.” He stopped when he saw the stricken look in her eyes. “I’m kidding.”
“Please leave him alone.”
He frowned, puzzled. “Who is that boy to you?”
For a split second Rachel looked guilty. “No one. I…I just don’t like seeing minors being led astray.”
Devin’s sympathy evaporated. Ignoring the fact that he’d just given her reasons to be concerned, he got pissed. She was being officious, no doubt basing her assumptions on what she read in the press. Well, if she expected depravity…“If you don’t want me corrupting minors, then give me someone my own age to play with.” Lazily, his gaze traveled down her body, deliberately provocative.
Angry color flooded Rachel’s cheeks. She stood. “Grow up!”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Devin stood, too, stretched and yawned. “You know, I like a feisty woman, and this heartbreaker reputation of yours has me intrigued. Any time you want to take a ride with me-”
“I wouldn’t take a walk with you, cowboy,” she interrupted heatedly, “let alone a drive.”
“Darlin,’” he drawled, “who said anything about a car?”
BY WEDNESDAY OF THE following week, Rachel had confronted an unpalatable truth. Mark was deliberately avoiding her. She knew he’d been into the library because his online history showed he’d been taking out books. But he was obviously timing his visits around her shifts.
She’d blown it, warning him against Devin. In hindsight, it had been a stupid thing to do. But she seemed unable to do anything except react to her emotions where her son was concerned.
The yearning to see him was terrible, as bad as giving him up had been.
Fortunately, he’d struck an acquaintance with Trixie-it seemed only Rachel couldn’t make friends with him-so she was able to gather crumbs of information. It was through Trixie that she knew Mark still spent time with Devin.
