Vintage Volume One Read Online Free PDF Page A

eroticism of it mixed with lust and desire. A tingle of need danced down my spine. I’d never craved a kiss before, but I suddenly felt like I’d die if his lips didn’t touch mine. I saw everything in his eyes that I needed to see. He’d suffered. He’d been down a hard road. Yet he brought this light with him, a light that suddenly I knew only I could see in him.
    His eyes flicked away from mine and down to my lips for a few brief seconds. I was about to assault his mouth with mine when our stolen moment in the middle of the store was interrupted by perhaps my least favorite person in the universe, Drummer Vinnie.
    “James, we need you back at the table. Bitches are getting out of control without you there.”
    The spell was broken as he dropped my arm and his eyes moved from mine over to Vinnie.
    “I’m coming,” he said, his voice that had whispered intimately to me only a few seconds earlier at full blast again.
    He glanced briefly back at me. Torture and pain that I didn’t understand passed through his eyes before he turned from me and walked wordlessly away.
    I drew in a shuddering breath, more affected by the moment than I cared to admit.
    He was a stranger. A complete, total fucking stranger.
    And I was pretty sure a piece of me had fallen in love with him in that moment that was only ours.

five
     
    “I’m sorry, but we have to cut the line off here,” I heard Tim say to some customers waiting for their chance to meet the members of Flashing Light. The store was a mess, and I was just doing my best to keep the top layer of everything looking nice enough for people to consider purchasing. It had been a successful night for sales, but it felt like the longest two hours of my life.
    A rise of protest greeted him, and I wondered how pasty and lanky Tim was going to deal with it. Luckily, Flashing Light’s manager was there to back him up.
    “Flashing Light has a set tonight at Live Oak at eleven,” their burly manager said to the crowd. “Head over there so you don’t miss it.” A few people toward the back left the line peacefully, presumably to head over to the bar he’d just named. It was only a few blocks away. Walking distance. A few stayed, hoping to get their chance to meet the band.
    When the line started getting shorter and the manager forced the back half of the line out the door, I felt a sudden loss.
    I couldn’t ignore the pull I felt to Parker, but he was leaving for six weeks.
    I didn’t want to be the reason he didn’t do whatever the fuck it was that boys did the first time they were on a tour.
    Besides, I had to think of my own sanity. I couldn’t possibly sit at home wondering what he was doing for those weeks.
    Or how many girls were getting the pleasure of his dick in their mouths, as he’d so eloquently put it.
    He’d be leaving my store soon, and I couldn’t handle another goodbye. It was stupid, perhaps, but I had lost too much over the past year. I hardly knew the guy and I didn’t understand the feelings I was having. All I knew was that I was feeling again.
    So instead of saying goodbye, I locked myself in a bathroom stall. He’d have to leave to get to his set, and he wouldn’t know where I was. It was weak. But, admittedly, I was fragile.
    I put the lid down and sat on top of it. The floor was sticky. The bathroom needed a good cleaning, but Virginia was on toilets that night, not me.
    I did everything I could to focus on the ordinary, but thoughts of Parker snuck their way in. A single tear leaked from my eye, and I laughed as I wiped away the moisture. I hadn’t even cried when Damien had left me without an explanation, so I wasn’t sure why I was crying now.
    I felt like a crazy person locked in an institution inside of that stall. Laughing and crying at the same time.
    I checked the clock on my cell phone. I’d been in there for at least fifteen minutes.
    It should have been enough time. The band should have left.
    “Rox? You in here?” Virginia’s