He pulls his lips into a straight line. “No. That will be all, Aubrey. Please keep me informed of Ms. Vance’s progress on the campaign.”

I nod curtly and flee from his presence.

Shit.

I flop down in my desk chair inside my little cubicle and run my fingers through my hair. How can I tell a man to take his O.C.D. ass and beat it because I’m totally not interested in dating my boss? They certainly never prepare you for this in college. They should teach When Your Boss Wants to Fuck You: 101.

I punch the spacebar on my keyboard, ready to fire a message of warning out to my best friend, but the message from Riff still sits on my screen.

If I tell Lanie about this, she’ll probably quit and ruin the one shot she has at getting her foot in the door here. Pissing off people as powerful as Diana Swagger is highly inadvisable. She practically runs New York’s advertising world. If she wants to destroy you and make sure you never work in this town again, she will.

Besides all that, going on the road with the man she still loves, even though she denies it, might be the start of a beautiful new relationship for her. One that I can tell even as an outsider isn’t completely over for either one of them.

I stare at Riff’s message, and the thought occurs to me that I cannot only get insider information from Lanie to help her out secretly with the ad, but I may have just won myself a new connection in the form of a sexy, tattooed rocker.

I hit reply and begin to type.

Riff,

I’m amazed and flattered you remember me. It’s nice to know the golden ticket still stands. I am kind of curious as to what it grants me admission to?

Aubrey

I hit send before I have a chance to chicken out. Since my last break up, I swore off the bad boy type, but I can’t help but to still be attracted to them. When I saw my mother over the weekend back in Texas, she went on and on about how at twenty-four she was done with college, settled down with my father, and was ready to start her family. She just can’t understand that I’m not ready to settle down, or feel that I have to.

I’m still young, with my entire life ahead of me. Twenty-four isn’t old by any stretch of the means. What’s wrong with messing around with a guy for fun every now and then? It’s not like this thing between Riff and I will ever turn into a relationship anyway. My mom would have a heart attack if I brought someone like him home to meet her. She would like nothing more than for me to find a nice, boring man like Isaac and pop out a few heathens.

I shudder at the thought. Not that there’s anything wrong with Isaac, but I know me. He would bore me to tears, and the organization issues he has would drive me insane.

I shake my head. The last thing I need to be thinking about right now is men, especially my boss. I’ve got bigger problems than that—namely, how and if I can break the news to Lanie about what’s going on in the dirty underworld of Center Stage Marketing.

Chapter 3

RIFF

It’s been a couple days since I received my Wild Cat’s reply. So many times I’ve stopped myself from answering and telling her to name the time and place so I can fuck her out of my system. I don’t want to seem desperate.

It’s been a long time since I allowed a chick to get under my skin this way. The last time was clear back in high school when I set my sights on the Prom Queen. I didn’t relent in that situation either, not until I had her legs thrown over my shoulders and she screamed about how big my cock was while we were in the back of my Charger.

Sexy women that play hard to get are my downfall.

I lean my head back against the headrest of the captain’s chair while Big Bertha rolls down the road and I fish my phone from my pocket. To hell with trying to resist her allure. It’ll drive me bat shit crazy if I don’t have her soon.

“Who you calling?” Trip, our crazy-ass drummer, flops down in the seat beside mine with a huge bowl of cereal.

I ignore him and open up the social media site on my phone. “Not that it’s any of your fucking business, but I’m not calling anyone.”

Trip readjusts his baseball cap. “Damn, dude, just trying to make some conversation. This place is boring as shit with you and Noel not really talking.”

I raise my pierced eyebrow and shoot him a sideways glance. “That’s not exactly my fault, now is it?”

He takes a huge bite of his cereal and swallows it down before he answers. “Don’t start this shit again. Are you ever going to let this go? You weren’t in love with Sophie. You said that yourself.”

I shake my head and search out Aubrey’s message. “That’s not the fucking point, and you know it. Regardless if I loved her or not, you don’t go behind your friend’s back and fuck his girl. Period. Drunk or not. That’s no excuse.”

Trip nods in agreement. “Yeah, yeah. I get that. And you’re totally right, but you’re going to have to find a way to get past this shit. We’re still a band, and we’re trapped on this tiny fucking bus for far too long to allow this tension to go on. What’s it going to take to fix this?”

I flip my lip ring in and out of my mouth a few times while I reflect on his words. He’s right. Things around here have been tense for the past couple of months. It sucks for everyone because Noel and I have completely zapped away all the fun of being out on the road together. Yeah, it’s partially my fault for bringing a chick on the road with us, but both of them fucking knew better, and I completely blame him.

Her—I couldn’t really give two shits about.