Guarded Dreams Read online

  I didn’t know how to react to his having put his number in my phone. Some guy I barely knew. Some guy who lived by a code. I shook it off. I was sure he put it there because if something happened to me, he’d want to be able to tell my dad he’d done his best to look after me.

  I started the car and drove down the street. I wasn’t leaving yet. I had a gig tonight, but I planned on hitting the road afterwards. It was almost a thousand miles to Nashville. That was my destination. I had a new life waiting for me there. Dad didn’t know that. A job, a room, and a course at a Tennessee junior college. It was just temporary. It wasn’t the end game, but I’d have to wait for the fall before I could reapply to Juilliard. This time, I wasn’t going to screw it up. Dad wouldn’t be there to screw it up for me.

  I drove down the street, turned twice, and ended up at Andy and Lacey’s Salty Dog Bar, not far from where Eli and Mac Truck were. But the guys wouldn’t know I was there.

  I pulled in, got out my guitar and my playlist, and went inside. Andy was at the back on the stage with the house band. When I joined them, Ben and the other guys in the band waved at me while Andy frowned and said, “You’re late.”

  I laughed. “By two minutes. And no one here is expecting live music for another hour.”

  “You’re lucky I’m letting you play at all this year.” He was almost as grumpy as the cadet I’d left down the street.

  “You love it when I play.” I kissed his cheek, right above his salt-and-pepper-colored beard. “You make good money when I play.”

  “I keep waiting for someone to take that ego of yours and douse it with a good reality check,” he muttered.

  I’d had reality. Every day of my life living with my dad. But regardless of what my dad told me, I knew that the music inside of me was meant for something that my dad couldn’t see. Didn’t want to see. Refused to see. But I could see it. My dream. And I was going to go after it no matter what. Even if he said that it was going to be my ruin just like chasing dreams had been my mom’s ruin.

  I just smiled and turned to Ben and his band.

  “Night two, huh? Still no dad coming to bust us up?” Ben asked.

  God, I hoped not. Last summer, Dad had caught me coming to play, and he’d thrown such a hissy fit that I thought Andy was going to get his liquor license pulled. But I’d been eighteen. There wasn’t any law against me playing in a bar as long as I wasn’t drinking.

  Dad had his own way of , though. I’d ended up without my guitar, phone, or car keys for the rest of the summer. It wasn’t the first time he’d taken my guitar and phone away. He knew they were the things that caused me the most pain. Unable to hear my music, except in my head. Unable to talk with Jenna, who was my sanity.

  “Thanks for letting me sing with you again, Ben,” I told him. I was pretty sure that Andy gave him and his band the same amount of money they normally got when I sang with them. It was the only thing that made it okay for me to take some of their stage time as I knew that Ben used the money for his daughter’s dance lessons. A father supporting his daughter…I would never get in the way of that.

  “We’re always glad to have you, Ava. The crowd really goes up a notch with you leading the way,” Ben said.

  It made me smile. That Andy and Ben believed in me.

  “Don’t be giving her a hard time, Andy,” Lacey, Andy’s wife, hollered at him from the bar. I smiled at her as Andy waved her off. Lacey winked at me. I blew her a kiss.

  Thank God she’d been with me the night before when I’d gone to the Bay Grill after playing. I’d wanted to be drunk, and I’d done a good job of it, and she’d understood. Understood what running from Dad was costing me as much as it was giving me.

  I was on my own. Monetarily as much as physically. Emotionally, I still had Jenna, who I was still aching to call but didn’t dare yet. This next year was going to be a true test of all my survival skills. I wasn’t sure how, but I’d make it.

  I forced my thoughts back to the band, focusing on the thing that I could make a difference with tonight…the music. The band and I went through my song list. Soon, I’d forgotten all about Eli, and the cadets, and my dad. Soon, I was just lost in the notes and the lyrics. It was me, the band, and the stage. Just the way I loved it.

  Chapter Five

  Eli

  SPEECHLESS

  “What it's doing to me, ain't a secret

  'Cause watching you is all that I can do

  And I'm speechless.”

  —Performed by Dan + Shay

  —Written by Smyers / Jams Mooney / Reynolds / Veltz

  The bar that Ava left us at was packed with tourists. A crowd that was shiny and spoiled and worth way too much money for my taste. It wasn’t a bar you could sink yourself into, and it surprised me that it was where she’d gotten drunk the night before. It didn’t seem like the Ava I’d come to know over the last…twenty-four hours.

  Shit. It seemed so much longer than that. Like I’d been around her for a month already. It didn’t matter. She was gone. Relief filled me but also disappointment. I didn’t understand it myself. She was bad news for all of us, and it was good that she was gone. Yet, I couldn’t help worry that we’d sent her away on a journey to who knew where at nineteen, by herself.

  It was why I’d made the huge leap that most would consider border line psycho and put my number in her phone. She had another number in there, and she could easily call the person she’d labeled “Girlie,” but I’d still felt compelled to do it. At least, that’s what I was telling myself—that it was the obligation to Abrams that had me doing it and not the strange attraction I’d felt for her pulling at me since she’d shown up.

  When we ordered off the tap and declined the oyster appetizer, the waitress slunk off in a huff. She could see her tip dwindling away even though she had been flirting with Mac. She was just his type—all Texas blonde bombshell.

  We nursed our ten-dollar beers because none of us were really into the thought of losing a hundred dollars on alcohol we could have for a dollar back home at a college happy hour.

  “I’m ever so slightly disillusioned,” Truck said as he drank the last swallow and set down the glass.

  He was looking around. He meant he was disillusioned in what he and Mac liked to call “the talent.” Because this crowd wasn’t going to be into a muscled cadet who still had a year left of college. Maybe if he was actually in the Navy and in his white dress uniform, he would have attracted some of their attention. Instead, this crowd was much more about the sailboats in the harbor and the expensive Lighthouse Inn down the street.

  “There’s got to be a better local hot spot,” Mac added.

  We each set down our share of the tab and left behind the rich atmosphere. Mac and Truck argued over the passenger seat, and then, we drove around the little town of Rockport. A lot of the stores and restaurants were still open, allowing the tourists to wander around shopping as the light refused to fade from the sky. It was humid and hot, but we had the windows down, enjoying the atmosphere.

  We found a pizza joint and a semi-permanent taco truck that we agreed we’d come back to another time. We were just about to call it a no-go and return to our store-bought beer at the beach house when I spotted Ava’s car.

  She hadn’t left town at all. She’d ditched us for another bar. It looked like a place the locals definitely hung out. Not quite a hole-in-the-wall, but close. There was a bouncer at the door and a small crowd waiting to get in with music blaring from the doors. Country music.

  I swung the truck into the parking lot, sliding into the spot beside her car. We all got out without having said a word. We got in line, and I could already hear her voice. Husky. Sexy. Filling the street with it. Goddamn. She’d ditched us for not only a better bar, but so that she could play a gig.

  The disappointment I’d felt earlier at the thought of her leaving turned into unwanted waves of anticipation at seeing her again—when I hadn’t expected to ever see her
again. And then I felt slightly pissed, because not only was she still here threatening everything I held dear, but I’d also basically poured my heart out to her, telling her that I was worried about her, and she’d left me to go play at some bar wearing, her short-shorts and a shirt that wouldn’t stay on her shoulder. With her hair cascading around her in a way that would have tempted Satan himself.

  By the time we reached the door and were finally allowed to pay the ten-dollar cover to get in, I was in a surly mood. And when I saw her, it didn’t get better.

  Because she was glowing. And every sexual being in the place was drooling over her. She was onstage, guitar swung back behind her, accenting her breasts again. She was letting the band behind her play the music while she crooned into the microphone that she had left on the mic stand and was all but caressing like a lover.

  I didn’t hear a goddamn word, but it all went directly into my body. Heart. Soul. Dick. I couldn’t help but respond to her like everyone else was. Maybe more.

  She was like a sea nymph. Something you knew in your rational brain that you needed to avoid at all costs but couldn’t help but be drawn to when you saw her.

  “Damn,” Truck muttered beside me.

  Mac came up on the other side, and we all watched as she crooned into the microphone while the crowd ate her up with their eyes and their hearts.

  We were at the back of the room. No way she could see us with the lights in her eyes, but every time she glanced our way, my heart would surge hopefully. Stupidly. I hated myself for feeling it. There was nothing to hope for. Nothing here, and yet, I couldn’t tear myself away from her.

  Ava was in her own world. Like she had been when we’d walked in on her singing on the coffee table. She was the music. It was her. Like the sea was me and I was the sea. So, I understood why she was there, on that stage, but I also found myself getting angrier with her.

  For not telling us that she was coming to play. For letting me believe she was leaving.

  At the end of the song, the crowd erupted like thunder. Mac and Truck moved off to a table in a back corner, flagging down the waitress to get a beer. I stood where I was, in the exact spot that I’d been in since I’d first seen her onstage.

  She drank from a goddamn beer that someone in the band handed her, high-fived them, and then turned back to the microphone. She pulled it from the stand and spoke into it.

  “I think it’s time to speed things back up. We got a space there to dance, right? I want to see all of you on your toes now. Don’t let me down.”

  It was a cover song. Something upbeat that everyone knew except me because I’d never been overly into music. It was almost always just background noise to me.

  I watched, fascinated, as she flipped the guitar around and strummed some chords with the band before going back to singing. The energy was coming off her in waves, like an undertow, and I was going down.

  She reached the end of the stage beside the bar, and I watched in horror and wonder as she leaped from the stage to the top of the bar in one fluid movement. Cat-like. Effortlessly. Still singing. She moved down the bar, swinging her hips, twirling, singing down into the faces of the scruffy-looking locals that were lucky enough to be sitting there.

  She wasn’t showing off anything. Everything was covered, even if she had lost the slouchy top for just the tank top that had been underneath. Nothing was on display, yet I couldn’t help but feel like she was entirely on display. That she was more naked singing on the bar than she had been in her red polka-dotted bikini on the beach with us.

  She stayed on the end of the bar, away from me, and she had hopped back onto the stage before I could even think of moving. She finished the song, smiled at the applause, and dove into another song that had the crowd two-stepping—or whatever the hell it was called—on the makeshift dance floor that had been made by pushing tables away.

  I heard my name and looked over to where Mac Truck sat. Truck was waving me over with a confused look on his face. Mac was flirting with some woman who’d had the unfortunate luck to be sitting at the table next to him. I ignored it all and remained where I was, turning back to the stage. To Ava.

  To the girl who had said she was leaving behind a life that wasn’t hers. And I think I finally understood. She was running away from normal. For this. To turn her normal, glorious self into something even brighter.

  She sang another fast-paced song, the crowd loving her, the band loving her as she interacted with them and the audience.

  “Okay, folks, my time is almost up,” she said, and the crowd groaned. “I’m gonna sing one more thing for you while the band takes a break.”

  Cheers.

  She started on her guitar by herself as the band behind her filtered away for water and the break she’d mentioned. Her song was a yearning note that built slowly. Her eyes were closed, and she started to sing about wanting more. And I didn’t know if it was supposed to be about wanting more of one person, or more of life, or just more, but the throaty, sexy way her voice sang resonated with every person in the room.

  My anger had all but dissipated, leaving in its wake a longing that I’d never had in my life for anything but the sea and the Coast Guard. A longing that had the possibility of surpassing the longing I’d had for those things. The unexpected threat to all my dreams that I’d seen her to be. I couldn’t let her pull those dreams apart, and yet I couldn’t walk away. I’d never felt so torn in my entire life as I did watching her sing about wanting more.

  She took the guitar off, its notes fading as she took the mic from the stand again and sang to no notes. To no music. Just her and the mic. And she jumped again from the stage to the bar, and for the first time since I’d entered, my feet moved toward her. They led me to a vacant spot at the bar top, and when she reached me, I couldn’t help but reach out my hand as if to help her down off the damn thing.

  She looked at me, surprise registering in her eyes. Then she smiled, that smile that had me wanting to touch those lips, and this time, not with just my fingers. I wanted to devour them with my own, even though I knew that doing so would put everything at risk.

  She shook her head ever so slightly at me, but I wasn’t letting her walk away from me twice in one night. I reached out and grabbed her cowboy boot by the ankle.

  The old guy at the bar frowned at me, but I ignored it as he watched to see what Ava’s reaction would be. If she wanted to, she could kick me in the face with those pointed boots, and I was sure I’d have a broken, bloody nose. She could take care of herself easily from our positions, but she just smirked at me. When I pushed my free hand up to her again, she took it.

  Our fingers twined together, the heat scoring me, as I steadied her as she stepped onto the barstool. Then, she caught me off guard by wrapping her hand around my neck and sinking into my arms like I was carrying her over the threshold.

  She continued to sing, her voice a little breathy now. Caught by our movements. Caught, I hoped, by the effect I had on her, because she sure as hell had affected me.

  When the song ended, she smiled her heart-stopping smile and said into the mic, over the applause that was bursting from the room, “Say hello to Mr. Grumpy, everyone.”

  There was laughter and more applause.

  She turned the mic off, and the room stared at us, frozen by the bar with her still in my arms and me unsure of what the hell had happened and what I should do now. Eventually, the bartender took her mic, and the band started playing, and everyone moved on, even if they did still turn every so often to watch us curiously.

  “Are you going to put me down, or do I need to jump?” she teased.

  She didn’t ask, “Why are you here?” or “Why did you grab me?” Instead, she was full of her normal sass. Like this had all been part of her every-day norm. It was nothing close to the norm for me. It was the complete opposite.

  “You told me you were leaving.” It sounded angry even to my own ears. And I knew that I really had no right
to be. None. I wanted her gone, and I wanted her to stay. So ridiculous. I was mad at her for both, leaving and staying.

  “I never said that, but to be fair, I did kind of allude to it.”

  She pushed on my chest, and I let her slide down, her body touching every piece of me in ways that weren’t good in a crowded bar. When her boots hit the ground, she stepped back, looking up at me with her eyes flashing different colors and different emotions.

  “You can’t leave now. You’ve been drinking.” It was a poor excuse. I knew it. She knew it. I didn’t know why I said it. The opposite of what we both knew I needed—for her to be gone.

  “Do you want me to stay, Eli?” It was the first time she’d said my name. Not dad or grumpy or ass. Just my name. And it sounded like the last song she’d been singing as it left her lips. Yearning and desire and wanting more.

  I couldn’t respond because my throat was clogged with emotions that I’d never known I could feel. Had never felt. I gave her the briefest of nods, uncertain as I was never uncertain. But because she never looked away from my eyes, because she had that uncanny way of staring until she could see your real feelings, she saw the nod and smiled.

  “I gotta go get my gear and my money. I’ll be right back,” she said before leaving me. It felt like I’d stepped onshore after being on the boat for weeks, like my sea legs hadn’t quite caught back up to the land.

  Mac Truck joined me. Truck cleared his throat, unsure of what to say to me, but Mac wasn’t going to let any of it slide. “What the hell was that, Wyatt?”

  I couldn’t meet their eyes; I was still lost in blue and green ones that had departed with the citrus smell that surrounded her. I couldn’t answer even if I wanted to. I didn’t know what had happened.

  “Truck, I think our captain has finally found the girl that will do him in.”

  “Fuck off.” I finally found my voice.