Not About Love (This Love Book 2) Read online

  Not About Love

  Copyright © 2016 Hilaria Alexander

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Published: Hilaria Alexander 2016

  [email protected]

  Editing: Editing by C. Marie

  Proofreading: Author Services by Julie Deaton

  Cover Design: Samantha Leigh Design

  Photo: Dollar Photo Club

  Formatting: Champagne Formats

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Playlist

  About the Author

  Also Available by Hilaria Alexander

  December 2014

  I HAD NEVER BEEN ON a tour bus before.

  No, I wasn’t turning into a groupie—I was too old for that. Plus, I wasn’t really on the tour bus of my musical idol.

  I was on my best friend’s bus.

  That’s right, my best friend. The same young, impressionable girl I had found roaming the streets of Amsterdam more than two years ago. Well, roaming wasn’t really accurate. She had actually been minutes away from being attacked by a random weirdo.

  I had stopped him just in time, took care of her, and set her up with some of the best people I knew. As soon as I had seen her, I’d thought of the mess I had been when I was about her age—although I’d had entirely different reasons.

  In the last eighteen months or so, the wide-eyed Ella Fitzpatrick had turned her life around. I had to admit it, I was kind of amazed at how much she had accomplished in such little time.

  It was as if she had woken up one day with a crystal-clear picture of what she wanted in life. She had stopped resenting her past and started writing music. These days, she didn’t second-guess herself.

  Sure, maybe a handsome musician might have had something to do with it.

  Or a lot.

  Well, Ella had done the hard work on her own, but who knew when she would have figured out what she wanted to do with her life if Lou Rivers hadn’t shown up. The girl had been stuck, and he had sort of woken her up from a self-imposed musical coma. She had run away from her problems back home, but had no clue what she was doing with her life.

  Tonight, Ella had played a show in one of the many little music venues in Nashville.

  I had to hand it to her, the show was pretty crowded. She was doing really well, and she looked happy.

  The Nashville crowd went wild when their hometown boy, Lou Rivers, came out to play a song with Ella. Even his brother was there, and he seemed to be just as popular. He wasn’t a musician, but it didn’t take a genius to understand why the ladies loved him. I had seen how women looked at Jackson Boyd Rivers.

  He was just impossible to ignore. God, was he ever the specimen.

  I glanced his way. He was sitting right next to me, and I felt like I might explode from trying to suppress my attraction to him.

  He was tall with broad shoulders and biceps that looked too good and enticing to be real. Even his forearms were fucking sexy—and his hands. I remembered them well. I missed them. As one of them ruffled up his hair, I wished I could do it instead of them. He was staring at the floor, and I couldn’t stop looking at him. I instinctively licked my lips as my eyes fell on his handsome face; even his profile was beautiful—straight nose, high cheekbones, and a strong jaw covered by a luscious, thick, brown beard. I knew how it felt because I had touched it.

  I had felt his beard when I’d kissed him. I had felt it when his mouth had been on me.

  Boyd Rivers and I were what you’d call acquainted.

  Yes, we had slept together. Yes, he had been inside me.

  A few times, actually.

  And it had been magnificent.

  Every. Single. Fucking. Time.

  That was why I didn’t even want to think about that perfect ass of his or any other of his masculine, arousing features. Sometimes, I wished I could forget all about him, because every guy since him had been a lousy consolation prize.

  I needed an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind-type clinic to forget about sex with Boyd Rivers.

  I should have stopped staring at him, but he was right next to me and I didn’t know where else to look. No one really knew what had happened between us or how many times it had happened. All they knew and saw was that we made out, nothing more. We were not a thing, and I needed to keep my eyes and my hands to myself, at least in public.

  His eyes met mine, and he gave me one of those deep, dark looks I had seen before. I swallowed hard. He needed to stop that shit right now. I looked away, but I still felt his gaze fixed on me.

  Ella had asked a lot of questions about what had gone down with him in the past, specifically when he’d visited Amsterdam last summer, but I’d only fessed up to what she saw. I had told her we just kissed, and she had seemed to believe me. She had been preoccupied at the time with Lou and her blossoming career, and we had never talked about it again.

  As I looked up, I caught her staring at us, and by the way she was studying Boyd and me, I knew she was probably going to torment me with questions again. On top of that, we hadn’t completely behaved tonight. There had been quite a bit of dirty dancing on the dance floor.

  Yes, I could definitely sense an “Ella interrogation” coming my way. I just had to get my game face on and make her believe what I wanted her to believe. I could be pretty convincing when I had to. I was an attorney, after all; lying came with the territory.

  You’re indifferent to him. Completely indifferent. You have to believe it, and others will believe it, too. This man has no power over you.

  But, fuck me, he did. He had the fucking power, whether I liked to admit it or not. I couldn’t even glance at him without getting all worked up.

  His warm brown eyes met mine again, and I got lost in them.

  Fuck.

  Why did Jackson Boyd Rivers stir me up so bad?

  I looked away. I stared at the lovers in front of me, who were now whispering sweet nothings to each other.

  “I’m telling you, they are not here for me, Lou,” Ella said, pointing outside the bus.

  “How d
o you know? It was your show,” he replied, his voice playful.

  “Because it’s two girls. I don’t think they’d be standing out there in the cold just for me. I think they know you’re here, and they are just waiting for you. Go out there. Go talk to them. I would hate to wait outside the bus to get the chance to talk to one of my favorite musicians and get snubbed.” She caressed his face and brushed off a strand of his hair. When those two were together, it was as if the world around them faded away. In fact, Lou leaned in and started kissing Ella right then—and it wasn’t just a peck. It was the kind of kiss that led to something else. I didn’t want to stare, but I didn’t know where else to look.

  Certainly not to my right. If I looked at Boyd at that moment, I might have jumped him.

  Luckily, Boyd cleared his throat, and the two lovers stopped kissing.

  “Go out there,” she said, her voice low. “Why don’t you take Boyd with you? I’m sure they won’t mind. If they want to talk to me, I’ll come out and say hello.”

  Lou let out a sigh and got up. “Come out there with me, Boyd,” he said as he put on a jacket.

  “Are these chicks cute?” Boyd asked without missing a beat, peeking through the dark bus windows.

  “Does it matter?” Lou asked him.

  “It always does, brother. It always does,” he replied in a gruff voice.

  I rolled my eyes. The man was incorrigible—or maybe he was just playing his part better than I was playing mine. He put on a leather jacket and followed Lou outside. I felt a drift of cold air penetrate the bus when the guys opened the door.

  “That was quite the mini TED talk you gave up there on that stage tonight,” I told Ella before she could even open her mouth, trying to distract her.

  “What do you mean?” Her brows pulled together, and she pouted in a childish way. She didn’t act like that around Lou, but she enjoyed being particularly silly around me. That was what BFFs were for.

  “I mean that whole speech about not letting go of that special someone,” I said with my chin tipping up in her direction. Ella was a minimalist on stage and never got too personal, but that night she had gone into a speech about holding on to that special person once you found them. “I think the exact words were ‘If you find that one person that believes in you, the one that believes you can accomplish great things, that sees beyond your flaws, your insecurities, hold on to them for dear life.’”

  “That is not a speech, my dear friend, and you know words very well. I think you’re just talking nonsense so I don’t start asking you questions—”

  The playful look in her eyes made me realize she was up to no good. She wanted me to spill all the beans. Get your game face ready, Ally.

  “For example,” she said, pressing her palms together. “I couldn’t help but notice the looks you and Boyd were exchanging over there…”

  “Really? You noticed us? How? It looked like you guys were on your own planet!”

  “I did notice you, and not just now. Earlier on, too. You guys were all over each other.”

  “When?” I asked, hoping my poker face was convincing enough.

  “When I was up on stage.”

  “Really? I thought musicians couldn’t really see the audience with those bright lights shining in their eyes.” Boyd and I had been in the back, in the middle of the crowd. Was she bluffing? How had she seen us?

  “You guys were grinding. It was so fucking distracting, you have no idea. So, what’s up with you two?” she asked, her expression serious. She wasn’t letting me off the hook. She wanted some real answers, that much I could tell.

  “Nothing,” I exhaled.

  She rolled her eyes, and then groaned. “Come on, Ally! You can’t do this to me. There’s obviously something going on between the two of you. There’s this…tension. You guys were making out in Amsterdam last summer and probably tonight, too. You keep insisting nothing else happened, but I don’t believe you. You have that electric look in your eyes when you stare at each other, and by the way you act around other people, it looks like you two have…history. You two have history, and you’re trying to hide it—from me!” she yelled, sounding exasperated. I rolled my eyes.

  “I know what I saw!” she exclaimed, the tone of her voice changing from playful to annoyed. “You’re a good liar, but you can’t fool me, Alberta Ferris.” She looked outside the bus, checking on Lou and Boyd.

  I lifted myself from my seat to look outside, too, and saw them chatting with the girls outside. The girls were flirting shamelessly, not just with Lou, but with Boyd, too. I felt a pinch of jealousy in my chest, and I wanted to kick myself. I had no business being jealous of anyone flirting with Boyd Rivers, no matter how many times he grinded against me, no matter how many times we ended up in bed together.

  Usually, I stayed away from guys like him.

  But I still liked to have fun, so every once in a while, I’d make an exception.

  Guys like Boyd Rivers were fickle, and although he had shown me attention more than a few times, I knew his type. He was the one who’d get easily distracted—like he just had. He probably already had their numbers; I wouldn’t put it past him.

  One of the girls handed Boyd a phone, and he proceeded to take several pictures of the two girls with Lou. Both Ella and I kept staring at the scene outside the tour bus. I glanced at her and noticed that there wasn’t an ounce of worry on her face. She was actually smiling. Ella wasn’t worried in the least—she trusted Lou that much. I knew they both had to trust each other if they wanted to make their relationship work.

  It was sickening how in love they were, how much they trusted each other, but maybe it was because they had both been so close to losing it all. They had been apart for so long, too. It was a miracle it had all worked out in the end. Someone who wasn’t as cynical as I was would say it was a testament to the strength of their love. Someone like me would say it was just sheer luck.

  I didn’t believe in love. Not any more.

  I used to, once upon a time.

  But I knew all too well that love fucked up everything.

  It fucked up your life, it fucked up your mind. It turned you upside down and inside out. It made you lose sight of yourself.

  It made you lose your grip on reality.

  I wanted nothing to do with it.

  Ever again.

  I saw Boyd move back toward us, and a moment later he came up, his heavy footsteps echoing through the bus.

  “Turns out, your fans out there would actually like to meet you,” he said to Ella with a half-smirk.

  “They want to talk to me?” she asked, a huge smile stretching out across her face.

  “Yes,” he replied, and the smirk turned into a bigger, brighter smile.

  Fuck. He was so damn handsome, I could have stared at him all day.

  “Come on…go out there, silly girl,” he said in a reassuring tone. Boyd seemed to like playing the part of the protective brother-in-law.

  Finally, she stopped hesitating and got up. She put her jacket on and moved past Boyd, leaving the bus.

  The slam of the door made me realize we were completely alone for the first time that night. He sat next to me and I exhaled a breath, waiting for his next move.

  He didn’t waste time. As soon as I turned my head toward him, his lips crashed onto mine. My weak willpower was no match for his hungry kiss. His tongue searched for mine as his beard teased and tickled my face. It reminded me of when it caressed other parts of my body…

  Ella hadn’t been wrong. Jackson Boyd and I had history.

  A history of hooking up.

  One year earlier, December 2013

  I NEEDED TO GET OUT of there.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate Lou’s invitation. I did. He was trying to be nice and had invited me to tag along with his group of friends on New Year’s Eve. The problem was, his group of friends was no better than mine.

  Everyone I knew in Nashville was married or in a relationship, which made me the B
ridget Jones of every social gathering.

  Ugh. Good thing I didn’t go home that often. I loved visiting my parents, but every time I came back, it was a reminder of how much I didn’t belong there any more. It was a place that should have still felt like home, but in all honesty, it didn’t. I felt like a foreigner in my hometown.

  Nights like New Year’s Eve sucked, unless you had a good group of single gals who had your back. Like I said, Lou’s friends were no different. They were all paired up, except for me, Lou, and his brother Boyd. On any other night, I would have been okay with it, but that night I was dreading it. I was dreading the countdown to midnight.

  I wasn’t going to get kissed, and it was going to be awkward with all these couples.

  Kissing Lou was out of the question. First of all, he was just a friend. Second, I was pretty sure he was truly, madly, deeply in love with my best friend Ella. Third, he was up on stage playing with some local musicians, so that left me and Boyd.

  Based on the number of words we had exchanged the whole night, I could tell that wasn’t going to happen either.

  One of the musicians on stage announced the countdown coming up soon and it made me jittery and anxious. It was fucking ridiculous. It was just New Year’s Eve. Why was I making such a big fucking deal out of it?

  Part of me thought I wouldn’t have been so pathetic had I not felt like a fish out of water. This wasn’t my scene any more. Since Lou was on stage, I wasn’t even going to get a friendly hug at midnight. I would have felt more at ease if Boyd had been friendlier throughout the night, but we hadn’t really talked much. It might have been because he smelled of pompous ass. As much as I loved and enjoyed Lou’s company, I couldn’t believe how different and down to earth he was compared to his hipster brother. It didn’t make any sense, because Lou Rivers was the “famous” one of the two: Lou was a Grammy-nominated artist, and although hardly anyone recognized him in Amsterdam, he was quite famous stateside.

  Boyd, whose real name was Jackson, only went by his middle name. Apparently, he was a model—sort of. Lou had told me he was getting paid for endorsements on social media, on top of his other entrepreneurial activities.