Rock Courtship Rock Courtship (Rock Kiss #1.5) Read Online Free Page A

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    David usually spent the time working on new songs or hanging out with Abe. His bandmate had conquered the drugs that had threatened to drag him under, and it looked like he was finally recovering from his nightmare of a divorce, but David had been friends with the other man a long time. He knew Abe had a way of holding things inside until they exploded.
    Today, however, David was in bad shape himself. The cot in the jail cell had hardly been comfortable, and he’d spent most of the night awake, his thoughts always circling back to one woman: Thea.
    He wasn’t fit company for anyone.
    Striding into the shower after stripping off his wrinkled clothes, he stood there and let the hot water pound over him. The cut on his lip stung, his eye watered, but that was nothing compared to some of the injuries he’d taken as a kid.
    Once he’d stepped out and dried off, he wrapped the towel around his hips and checked out the spreading bruise on his ribs. It looked far worse than it felt. Yeah okay, that was a load of shit. He’d pay for his loss of control tonight when he played the skins. The vibrations would hurt like a bitch. As for his eye—“Ah, fuck.” He hadn’t put ice on it, even when the bar owner offered him an ice pack, because he’d figured it couldn’t get much worse. He’d been wrong.
    Taking a handful of ice out of the bucket that had been sitting outside his door when he came up—probably courtesy of one of the hotel staff who’d either caught the reports of the bar fight or seen him in the breakfast room—he wrapped the cubes in one of his T-shirts and held it to his eye as he lay down naked in bed. He had to catch at least a couple of hours sleep or he’d be useless at the concert, and he wasn’t about to let the band or its fans down.
    Or Thea.
    Her name was the last thought he had before exhaustion pulled him under and the first thing on his mind when he opened his eyes five hours later. The makeshift ice pack had long ago slipped off his face and melted onto the bed, leaving a great big wet spot, but his eye was no longer swollen. It’d be black and blue and probably purple, but his vision was fine.
    Pulling on a pair of jeans, he drank three glasses of water, then sat in the armchair that got the most sun through the huge sliding doors that opened out onto a private terrace. He’d rather be outside, but he’d bet his left nut that the terrace was the focus of multiple long-lens paparazzi cameras right now. At least with the angle of the sun, the vultures wouldn’t be able to get a clear shot through the glass, meaning he could sit here and drink in the sun, have it burn away the last of the cobwebs.
    Since he’d sacked out for so long, he didn’t have much time before he had to head to a downstairs conference room for the interviews. He’d steeled himself for the inevitability of coming face-to-face with Thea, but the sight of her still threatened to gut him.
    Scowling, she strode over on sky-high red heels worn with a sleeveless and tailored black dress that ended just above her knees. “Did you put ice on that eye?”
    He made himself speak, act normal—he’d become pretty good at that after the length of time he’d loved her. “Yeah, past few hours.”
    “What about last night?”
    He shrugged.
    Her glare could’ve cut steel.
    Thankfully, the first reporter arrived a second later, and David spent the rest of the time making light of his new and hopefully short-lived notoriety. Interviews complete, he slipped away while Thea was talking to Abe, and once in his room, used his phone to do some research.
    He had no idea how to write a memo, and if he was going to do this, he had to do it properly. The only question was, was he going to do this? Putting down the phone, he got up and, going to the living area of the suite, got down on the floor and began to do push-ups. It was an easy motion for him regardless of his bruised ribs. Like most working drummers, he had to stay highly