The Echoes of Shadows

CHAPTER 3

The woman behind the counter wearing an elaborate velvet Hatter hat smiles up at me and yells, "Go ahead and seat yourself, hon. Someone'll be right over." I nod my head appreciatively and then find a booth in the far left of the cafe that gives me the best view of Nielson's office and easy access to the wall vent. After I order a double slice of the special - Cheshire pie - and a cup of coffee, I send a series of texts to Maddie that sound more than a little neurotic.

Damian Steele is the person who's bought the house. That shitface bought my gram's house.

The universe has to be plotting against me.

WTF is he doing here?

Maddie???

There's slush melting inside of my pumps and I realize I was so distracted by merely seeing Damian that I forgot to get my bags out of the back of Jarod's truck. Yet now the only thing I can think about is Damian. Not only about how he's trying to throw Gram out of her house, but how he threw me out of his.

I'm still deep in thought and waiting for Maddie to text me back when I hear shuffling beside me. I slide my cell phone from the edge of the table, over toward the salt and pepper shakers to give the waitress room. A large and very unfeminine hand covers mine, calloused fingers from playing the guitar gliding across my knuckles. It's a familiar touch that sends an unwanted - and very delicious - jolt through my body. I snatch my fingers, angry at my body's obvious betrayal, and knock over a porcelain bowl full of sugar packets. The sugar scatters across the linoleum. Damian chuckles.

And I feel the sudden urge to vomit.

Gesturing to the empty seat across from me, Damian asks, "Room for one more?"

"Not much for spending my free time with strangers," I say through clenched teeth as I shake my head. "So, sorry, there's not."

He slides into the booth anyway, stretching out his ridiculously long legs so that his calves straddle mine. I open my mouth to protest, but he holds up his hand. "Before you try to bullshit me, you should probably know I never forget a face." Then, he lifts his eyebrows wickedly and says, "Or a body."

Who does he think he is? Feeling a sudden need to come right out and ask him, I demand, "I guess you're not used to hearing no, huh?" My voice packs a hell of a punch, surprising me. If he were anybody else I would have already separated myself from the situation. Damian has an unnerving way of tearing away the layers of my nervousness, my need to shy away, until I'm raw and wanting to lash out at him.

He grins, c***s his head to one side as if he's carefully studying me. "You really have to ask me that?"

My lips part as my senses and every inch of my skin flood with heat. I ball up a sugar packet, squishing my thumb and forefinger into the grittiness and glance away from Damian out the window toward Nielson's office.

"You're sexy when you're nervous."

"I'm not," I say.

"Sexy?"

My head jerks back, away from the window, and I give him a wide-eyed stare. "No . . . nervous." But I'm sure he can hear the tremor in my voice, feel how my legs are shaking beneath the table right now.

The corners of his lips pull into a sardonic smile that's infuriating and ridiculously sexy. Once again, I feel electricity flow through my body. I hate myself for having any response toward this man other than dislike. "Tell me why you're here, Elena," he demands softly.

"Why do you care?"

Placing his forearms on the table, he leans forward. His sleeves ride up just enough for me to see the tattoos on his wrists. I squeeze my eyes shut, vividly picturing the rest of the tattoo sleeve on his right arm. Anyone who follows his music would know about it. I mean, he and the drop dead gorgeous female lead singer of Wicked Lambs were on the front cover of some rock magazine a few months back - he was shirtless and so was she, with him standing behind her, cupping her breasts.

But in another time, I'd seen Damian's ink up close. I'd gotten to trace my lips along the intricate patterns that ran along his muscled body as he wound his fingertips into my hair and whispered for me to kiss, to taste. I shiver. I wish I could say it was from the 33 degree weather.

Damian finally answers me, untangling me from the memories. I hate myself for being disappointed. "Because being around you is - " He stops speaking so that the waitress can put my lunch on the table. He grants her his trademark buy-my-album-and-vibe-off-to-it grin. She fumbles, blushing as she asks him if there's anything she can get him. I frown. If he orders, that means he'll stick around and really, I just want to hurry this along so Damian and I can go back to being . . . well, nothing to one another.

Luckily for me, he declines.

"Being around me is what?" I demand the moment we're alone again.

Twirling a spoon around in my coffee, he flicks the tip of his tongue over his top teeth. I can't tell whether he's smiling or grimacing. And I have no idea why I should give two shits either way.

My cell phone plays the ringtone I've assigned it for calls and messages from Maddie - a Britney Spears song that she swear she loathes but sings in the shower every morning. I reach for it, but Damian captures my hand in his, threading his fingertips between mine. "You could be bad for music," he whispers, bringing my fingers to his lips. "And that's what I'm here to do - make music."

My stomach ravels into hundreds of knots as he kisses each of my fingers slowly, his eyes never leaving my own. We're in public, and there are people all around us. But for a good minute, Damian Steele and I are the only people in the world.

"Damian - " I start, my voice threadbare. Staring down at the sugar packet disaster on the table, I take a deep breath and then rake my teeth over my top lip. I don't know what to say to him so I don't appear weak. When I glance up in time to see his beautiful face breaks into a smile that makes my chest clench, I realize it doesn't matter what I say. He's already realized he's my Kryptonite.

"The second I saw you, I promised myself I wouldn't do this with you again, Elena," he growls.

Do what - lead me on? Boot me out of his life without so much as a proper goodbye? I'm about to demand an explanation, but then I see the door to Nielson's office swing open and Gram walks out. I immediately feel like the worse granddaughter in history because at some point during my exchange with Damian, I managed to forget she's the reason I'm in this cafe to begin with.

Pulling my hand away from Damian, I toss my phone into my bag with a little too much force. "I'm here because some douchebag musician from California bought my grandmother's house."

I can't mistake his sharp intake of breath or the way his long legs go stiff beneath the table, squeezing my own. "I see."

"So you'll understand why I'm saying this: Go f**k yourself, Damian."

Our eyes meet. His are mocking and angry and something else. Something that I'd seen two years ago, the night I went home with him. Something I'll pretend I don't see. "I've only heard you that forceful once, so I've got to ask: Was that for your grandma or for what happened with us?"

I untangle my legs from his, stand, and put money under the untouched platter of Cheshire pie. "Both," I say.

I'm so flustered - emotionally, mentally, and dammit, physically - by my encounter with Damian that I'm only half-tuned in to my conversation with my grandmother on the ride to her house. I hear her ask if my flight was comfortable, how long I'll be staying in Nashville. I listen to myself respond like a robot. "It was great, Gram. . . . I'll be here as long as it takes. . . ." Then Gram starts asking me a new series of questions, and I give her more mechanical answers. Our entire exchange sounds like a hazy dream to me, but Damian's voice plays loud and static-free in my head. It's teasing me, warning me that I'm bad for music.

Whatever that's supposed to mean. Maybe I inspire him to write angsty music where the rocker doesn't get to screw the girl, or something. When I think of it that way, I guess that is a career drainer.

The only thing I'm entirely sure of is that I wish the person snatching away the home my grandparents loved so much was anyone else in the world but Damian.

Navigating the Land Rover up the narrow hill leading to the house where I spent most of my childhood, I draw my brain away from Damian Steele and back to the most important dilemma.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I ask quietly. "You came to L.A. to see me for Christmas, you must've known then."