Vanni: A Prequel (Groupie Book 4) Read Online Free Page B

one lock of my hair, which had escaped over my strong, bare shoulder and clung to my damp skin. “I don’t question you,” she clarifies at once. “But I do question our future.”
    My eyes roll. I can’t even help it. A perfectly nice moment and she has to ruin it. Ever since she decided to sleep with me, her thoughts had turned to the future, and exactly what I might be doing (or not doing) to secure it. I lift away from her. “Not this again.”
    She doesn’t even bother to cover herself as she sits up. “Vanni, you’re twenty-six. Don’t you think it’s time to have a serious discussion about what you want to do with your life?”
    “I already told you what I wanted to do with my future. I want to sing.” It is her turn to roll her eyes. which only angers me further. “Thanks a lot,” I grit out between clenched teeth as I hop off the bed to dress.
    “Vanni,” she says as she jumps up after me. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
    I whip around to glare at her. “Then what did you mean?”
    She tries to wrap herself into my arms, but I keep them rigidly locked at my side. This routine is getting old. And I can’t believe she’d bring it up on my birthday. It’s like she doesn’t have faith in me at all. She reads me like a book. “You can have a career in music,” she assures at once. “But you have to be smart about it. Becoming some rock star is a pipe dream. Look at that brochure I brought you, for that music school in the city. You could learn to run a sound board, you could produce. Hell, you could even learn to play an instrument. Those are the dreams to reach for, baby. Everything else is just wishful thinking.”
    “What if it’s not?” I challenge, since that is the question that keeps me ramming my head against every closed door. Sure it doesn’t happen for everyone. But it happens for some. What if I’m that guy and I never know it? What if my story is different? Isn’t that a question that deserves to be answered? “I know my chances are one in a million, babe. But it’s still a chance, isn’t it? I’d rather try to make it and fail than have one more regret to ponder on my death bed.”
    “And I get that,” she tells me as she finally releases my arms to wrap around her. “No one wants to see you make it more than I do. I just… I just don’t want to see you get hurt, that’s all. I love you, Vanni,” she says at last. My eyes widen as he stared down at her. Aside from Mama and Aunt Susan, no one had ever said those words to me before. Not even my oversexed Myra, who had taught me all the finer points of lovemaking. “This isn’t just your future anymore, Vanni. It’s ours. At least, I want it to be. If you do,” she adds in a scared, small voice.
    Suddenly I understand why she feels she needs to drive me. It’s not just me she’s pushing towards something better… it’s us .
    What a great word to hear on my birthday.
    I lift her into my arms. “It wouldn’t be my dream if you weren’t in it,” he say at last, before walking her back to the bed, where we fall together.
    That night I dream of performing in front of a large crowd, with my biggest, most faithful fan, Lori, standing backstage. I wake knowing there is only one way to assuage her fears about a future together. I have to show her how great it could be. And I won’t stop until I do.

CHAPTER TWO:
     
     
    The antsy crowd waiting to enter Madison Square Garden has more to do with the music than the blustery Christmas Eve-Eve. Flakes drift from the sky, with one landing right on Lori’s upturned nose. I grin as I kiss it away. It dissolves under my touch, as does Lori.
    I love how wholesome she looks on my arm, such blonde, blue-eyed innocence. She wears a long white sweater over a leather miniskirt, with tights to keep her legs warm. I know she’s indulging me. The music I love, the raunchy rock and roll I grew up with, doesn’t do much for her. She prefers the classics, and by classics I