Stone Cold Notes: A Rock Star Romance (The Seasons Change)

MY APARTMENT WAS SILENT WHEN I WALKED BACK IN. Squeezing my hand into a fist, the plastic handles from the take-out bag dug into my fingers. She’d either found the note or she hadn’t. Anticipation hummed in my veins.

The kitchen was empty. I left the take-out bag on the counter and ventured into the living room. Wren was perched on the edge of the couch, holding a piece of paper in her shaking hand. Her wet eyes searched mine.

“You know?” she rasped.

I lowered my chin. “Yeah. I know.”

Her small mouth fell open, but she quickly closed it. “I was going to tell you tonight. I’ve been rehearsing all the things I wanted to say. I forgot them as soon as I got here, but I promise I was going to tell you. I’ve been hating myself for not saying anything, but I just—”

“So tell me.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Tell me what you were goin’ to say, Wren.”

She shuddered. “I really like how you say my name.”

“I like sayin’ it.”

Her chest rose and fell as she took deep breaths. I watched her. She fascinated me, up close like this. After so many notes passed back and forth between us, being in the same room was still a novelty. An addicting one.

“How did you know it was me?” she asked absently, rubbing her cheek, barely looking at me. “Did I give myself away? I didn’t think…”

I blinked at her. She was more adorable than I’d imagined she’d be. When she panicked and got shy, her cheeks lit up like cherries.

“How many five-foot-tall women named Wren who live with their great-aunt Jenny in Queens and say ‘holy granola’ with a New Jersey accent do you think there are?”

She’d dropped so many hints, I had wondered a couple times if she had wanted me to figure it out on my own. I thought it was more likely she simply wasn’t aware I had soaked up every single detail my little bird had ever written to me and kept them in the forefront of my mind. She had thought I wouldn’t know her anywhere.

Her breath came out in a heavy gust, and when I sat down on the couch beside her, she shifted her body to look at me with her impossibly wide eyes.

“Okay, wow. I am terrible at subterfuge.” She swiped the back of her hand over her forehead. “I really was going to tell you tonight.”

I cocked my head. “I believe you.”

Her hands were tiny and soft looking, always moving, fidgeting with her clothes, touching her face or hair. I warred between wanting to grab them, hold them, still them, and following their erratic path, touching every place she did. For now, I pressed them down to her lap. She sucked in a breath that shot me straight in the groin. I liked that sound even more than I expected.

“Should I start?” she asked.

“Please do.”

“Were you angry when you first saw me?” Her hand turned up under mine, her fingers sliding along my palm. “Are you angry now?”

I closed my hand around hers, keeping it still. “I’ve been angry for a long time, Wren. But not so much now.”

“Okay.” She tried to move the hand under mine. When that didn’t work, she used the other to tuck her already tucked hair. “I was going to come to see you in New Jersey, like I said I would, but I got scared. I thought you would think I was ugly and fat and you’d be disappointed I was the girl you’d been writing to and…I have a lot of baggage and my self-esteem had pretty much bottomed out at that point. So, I went down to Maryland to visit my cousin, and we went to the Swerve Tour there, a week before the Jersey show. I scrounged up all my savings and bought a backstage pass.”

My stomach clenched tighter and tighter with every word that passed her little pink lips. All of this was brand new information.

“I don’t know if you remember when I went to prom and then dropped off the face of the planet for a while.” Her eyes lifted to mine. They were shining, but she wasn’t crying. I didn’t know what I’d do if she cried.

“Of course I remember.” She’d sent me into a blind panic when she went silent on me. I had broken a knuckle when I punched drywall only to find a stud right behind it.

“Right.” Her gaze fell to my hand on hers again. “Well, I went to prom alone. And that took major guts. I was there for a while, sitting at a table by myself, when Karthik Singh…he was my first kiss—”

“I remember that too, Wren.” I knew my instincts about that Karthik kid had been right. He should have been dead the second he looked at her. He never should have had the chance to touch her, least of all hurt her.

“Well, Karthik invited me to sit with his friends. So, I did, and everything was fine. They were talking about random crushes and hookups they’d had. Obviously, I had nothing to contribute. Then the subject changed to a bet they had all made, to hook up with the person they were assigned by the rest of the group. One girl practically gagged about having to make out with David Watanabe, which, honestly, I understood. He only ever talked about his favorite serial killers and never brushed his teeth. I laughed too, even though I felt pretty awful and gross about the whole thing. But then…”

She drew in a deep breath, and everything went quiet, like the moment before a tornado touched down. The seconds prior to a nuclear explosion. The last inhale before plunging into an icy abyss.

“Then it came out that I had been a dare for Karthik. He’d never liked me, but everyone knew I liked him, so he used that. I’d won him twenty dollars. Twenty freaking dollars. That was all my humiliation had been worth to him, and he wanted me to know about it. Him and all his friends laughed in my face while they told me I was no better than the serial killer lover with foul breath. And it got around prom. Everyone knew by Monday. If it hadn’t been almost the end of the school year, I would have dropped out and—ow! You’re hurting me, Callum.”

She shoved at my hand, which had tightened around hers so hard, my knuckles had gone white. I let her go with a hiss. She brought her hand to her chest to cradle and peered at me with an expression so forlorn and vulnerable, it took everything in my power to stay there and not tear my entire building down brick by brick.

Those were the kind of eyes Wren had. The kind that would make a man destroy the world for her if she told him the world had done her wrong. One glance from those oversized, liquid amber eyes, and I was on the edge of forgetting the way she’d left me alone without a backward glance.

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” I gritted out. “You give me their names, I’ll destroy Karthik and every kid involved.”

She choked out a laugh, obviously thinking I was joking, and that was probably better in the long run. If Wren had any idea what went on inside my head, she wouldn’t be sitting here allowing me to touch her.

“Please don’t. I’ve let it go. High school isn’t important anymore. I only told you that story to explain where my head was when I went backstage.”

I rubbed between my brows. “I don’t understand.”

“I just…I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why I did it other than to confirm what I thought was true. That you wouldn’t be into a girl like me. And maybe our relationship was only friendship for you, but it was a lot more than that for me. I wanted more than that with you while, at the same time, telling myself it would never, ever happen.”

Her eyes flicked to mine, and my mouth flattened. I needed her to get to the point, not draw it out with questions that shouldn’t have needed to be asked.

She took another deep breath, her shoulders lifting then slowly falling. “I went backstage at the Maryland show and asked to meet you. You were in a corner by yourself, drinking a bottle of water. I remember you were wearing a pair of gray trousers and a white T-shirt. Your hair was pulled back in a bun. You looked like you were a thousand miles away, and you probably were. I wanted to hug you so badly, but obviously, I didn’t. Your handler or PR person, whoever she was, took me to you. She told you I wanted to meet you. I was shaking like a leaf I was so nervous. And you—” Her teeth practically impaled her bottom lip.

“What’d I do, Wren?”

“You looked through us both at first, like we weren’t even there. Then the PR woman snapped at you to get your attention. She told you again I was a big fan and wanted to meet you. You looked right at me, Callum. At my shoes, my hair, my face, and you said no.”

I raised my eyebrows. “No?”

She nodded. “You looked me over and told me no. You did not want to meet me.”

Leaning forward, I braced my elbows on my knees and dragged my fingers through the sides of my hair. I had no memory of any of this, but it wasn’t a surprise. Iris, Roddy, and Adam were good with our fans. They took pictures, signed autographs, answered questions, while I drifted along in the background. I had no interest in talking to strangers when the only thing we had in common was their love for my music. I appreciated their existence…from a distance.

“Did you tell me who you were?” I asked, even though I knew she hadn’t.

“No. I didn’t get the chance. You took one look at me and dismissed me. I wasn’t even good enough for an autograph from you. I was absolutely gutted.”

“I dismiss everyone. Stone cold, remember? How could you be surprised you got the same treatment I give everyone when I didn’t know it was you? Were you givin’ me a test you knew I wouldn’t pass? Was that what it was, Wren?”

Those eyes of hers were more than wet. They were brimming with tears. My body tensed for the first one to spill, but she swiped them away with the sleeve of her sweater before that happened.

“Maybe it was,” she whispered. “I was so low back then…the way you looked at me, like I was beneath you, brought me right back to Karthik Singh and being the laughingstock of my school. I couldn’t stand for you to look at me in that way when you knew who I really was. I just couldn’t do it. It would have ruined me for good.”

“You should have told me.” I was gruff with her, but I was having an internal battle. One side of me was so fucking angry she’d done this to us. The other side understood being low like that, feeling unlovable, outside of the norm. But rising above every fucking thing else, all I wanted was to protect Wren.

“I know. I’m so sorry, Callum. I was depressed and my life was a huge mess, more than I ever let on in our emails. I ended up making some terrible, self-destructive choices. There was no sun for me for a long time, and I convinced myself you were better off not knowing me at all anymore. I don’t know how to apologize and show you how deeply I regret ghosting you. I don’t think there are words for that. I don’t know them if there are.”

Yanking at my hair again, I stared at her, trying to figure her out, but I couldn’t.

“I made up a lot of scenarios of what happened, you know. I had plenty of time to do it. They were nothin’ close to this. If I had known you were within reach, I would have gone out of my mind.” I huffed. “Well, more out of my mind than I already was.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“I thought it was me.” I scoffed, almost laughing. “I guess it was, in the end. I’m such an asshole, I sent you spinning. If I’d taken one second to pay attention to a girl I thought was a stranger, I would have realized it was you.”

She shook her head. “No. I won’t let you blame yourself. You were my very best friend and I set you up to fail.” Her bottom lip was trembling. There was a red mark in the center where her teeth had dug in. Without thinking, I reached for her and pressed my thumb against it. Her warm breath floated over my skin.

“You did do that. You were my brave girl, but you couldn’t be brave for me.” I took her chin in my hand, gentle in how I handled her this time. “The first time I saw you, when I knew it was you, it clicked. Of course this is what you look like. How could you look like anything else? I would never have been disappointed, Wren, but you didn’t know that. You couldn’t have known that.”

Her lip began to tremble again. Wren wore sadness adorably. It drew me in, needing to see it up close. “No, I didn’t know that, and even if you’d told me that, I wouldn’t have believed it. I wasn’t in a place to believe anyone would be attracted to me, let alone you.”

“Why not me?”

“Because you were important to me. You meant everything. And…you’re a rock star. Holy granola, don’t you get that? You’re a beautiful, talented rock star coveted by women everywhere you go.”

Letting my hand fall from her chin, I waved her off, dismissing all but her first two sentences. “Why are you using past tense?”

“Um…” She tucked her hair twice. “Because it’s been three and a half years since we’ve spoken. I’ll treasure what we had forever, but we’re not best friends anymore. Too much has happened to call us that. I don’t even know if we were back then. We never said it.”

“We were.”

Her lips parted in an O. “Okay. We were.”

At least we agreed on one thing. At least I knew I wasn’t fully crazy and our relationship had actually had value to her. A dark corner of my mind had always whispered words on a screen didn’t equate to anything more than what they were. They weren’t a connection. They weren’t feelings. They weren’t real. But I knew that wasn’t true. Nothing had ever been as real as Wren Anderson.

“You’re still important to me.”

“Thank you,” she said.

I laughed under my breath. “You’re welcome.”

“Did you know who I was at the party?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She nodded, her nostrils flaring a bit. “But you let me be with Adam.”

“At the party, I didn’t know what I wanted with you yet. But Adam’s not gonna have you. As far as I’m concerned, no one else is.”

Her hand drifted from her chest to her forehead, cupping it as her head bowed.

“Are you saying you’re going to have me?” Her voice had gone tiny and meek.

“Yes.” No sense in beating around the bush and pretending those weren’t my intentions. Wren was mine. She’d been mine since she first wrote to me, even if neither of us had known it at the time.

“I don’t know you, Callum. I’m not…I can’t…”

I dragged her hand from her face and lifted her chin. “Don’t shrink.”

Her mouth twitched. “That’s really strange to hear you say in person with your Alabama accent. The voice I had in my head wasn’t anything like this.”

I wasn’t amused like she was. I didn’t find humor in her telling me she didn’t know me. There was nothing funny about having the image of Adam’s lips touching hers forever burned into my memories.

That wasn’t her fault. It was mine. I’d let that go too far, but I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

“Come here.” I laid my hands on my thighs, showing her where I wanted her.

Her pale brows furrowed. “What? I just got through telling you I don’t know you anymore and now you want me to sit in your lap?”

“Yes.” I held my hand out for her. She didn’t budge. “Come here, Wren.”

“Okay.”

Slowly, she crawled across the wide cushion separating us. I could have scooped her up and taken her once she was within reach, but the unpracticed sway of her round, wide hips froze me in place. How could she have thought I would be disappointed that she was my little bird?

She kneeled beside me. “I’m here.”

“No.” My arm circled her waist and tugged her until she was sprawled against me. “Now you’re here. Sit.”

“I’m not a dog.” Her lips were quirking again. She obviously wasn’t offended by my abrupt orders.

“I know that. You’re a little bird.”

She perched on my legs like she was seconds from springing up and making a run for it. I kept my arm around her middle, securing her in place. She was small, but solid, every bit of her full and convex, and I liked the feel of her weight on me.

“What is this?” she asked.

“I don’t like you sayin’ you don’t know me.”

She sighed and brought her fingers up to the scruff on my jaw. “I know parts of you, just like you know parts of me. But I was able to hide a lot, and I’m certain you were too.”

“I didn’t hide anything.”

Her eyes flared. “Well, I had no idea you were a voyeur.”

“If you’d asked, I would have told you. I’ll never lie to you.”

“Okay.”

I rubbed my face into her hand. Her short nails gently scratched my cheek, and it felt almost as good as holding her in my lap.

“What do you think of me?” I asked.

Leaning back, her brow pinched in confusion. “What do you mean?”

I waved my hand in front of my face and torso. “Do I live up to your expectations, or are you disappointed? Were you disappointed when you saw me backstage?”

Sometimes feelings eluded me. Expressions went right over my head. Subtle hints were lost on me. But Wren wore her feelings all over her face. Every thought and emotion was there, in the pinch of her brow, the parting of her lips, the flush of her skin. Right now, she looked confused and a little pissed off, with parted lips and cherry cheeks.

“I knew what you looked like, Callum. It wasn’t a secret.”

“But not up close. You’d never heard me speak or touched my skin. I want to know if I’m livin’ up to your expectations.”

“What if you’re not?” The question was a challenge, but her face was so sweet and earnest, it didn’t feel that way.

“Then I’ll fix whatever you don’t like.”

She let out a short giggle. “It’s that simple?”

“Why not?”

Her hand landed on my chest, barely skimming my T-shirt. “You don’t have anything to fix. You’re exactly like I’d hoped. Well, no. You’re better.” Her teeth caught her bottom lip again. I used my thumb to free it, and her eyes flicked to mine. “I’m not going to ask you if you’re disappointed. I know I’m not perfect and the list of things I need to fix is stupid long, but I don’t want to know—”

I covered her mouth with my hand.

“No.”

“No?” she mumbled.

“No. There’s no list, nothin’ to fix. I like everything about the way you look and even more, I like how you feel when I’m touchin’ you. You smell like the very first summer on earth, when life was fresh and clean and bright. Your hair is pure gold and sunshine, and your eyes would bring a man with half a brain and a fraction of a heart to his knees if you turned on their full power.” I ran my hand up her side, skimming the side of her breast without going any farther. “Ever since I had you in my lap at the party, I’ve been dreamin’ of gettin’ you back here so I can touch more of your soft little body. There is nothing about you that’s disappointing, Wren, other than you runnin’ away from me for three and a half years with no plans to return.”

Her throat bobbed as she swallowed hard. “No one’s ever said anything like that to me.”

I cupped her breast, giving it a light squeeze before dropping my hand to her stomach. “I should hope not. And if someone does after this, I will feed him his dick.”

She giggled again, and I knew she thought I was kidding, but I wasn’t. I’d come to a decision about Wren Anderson, and I wasn’t going to waver. She was mine, and that would not change. If I had to convince her, I would. There wasn’t an outcome that didn’t include us together.

Her lips touched my cheek. “I thought you didn’t talk,” she murmured beside my skin.

“I don’t, unless it’s important.” My fingers wove through her silky hair. “I told you, you’re important to me.”

“I want to believe that, Callum.” Her nose nuzzled into my scruff. “Can we go slow? Just a little. There’s so much we know about one another, but so much we don’t.”

“Does that mean you don’t want me to hold you?”

“No.” She shook her head. “No, I like this. But I was thinking we could maybe have the dinner you promised and not talk about shoving dicks down anyone’s throat for the rest of the evening.”

“I was gonna chop it up and sauté it. No shovin’.”

She snorted a laugh, and this time I was actually joking, so I laughed with her. And I agreed it was time to dial down the intensity for a few minutes, so I led her into the kitchen where we made plates of Thai food. We sat beside each other on stools at the island, eating and talking about The Seasons Change. Wren had a lot of questions about touring and what it was like to be well known. I enjoyed answering her. It reminded me of her early letters, and knowing she was, at least partly, who she’d always said she was, filled me with a deep satisfaction.

It was near midnight when I buttoned her up in her coat at my front door, hating to let her go, but knowing I had to. For now.

Her fingers curled around my wrists when I got to the button beneath her chin.

“Thank you, Callum. For dinner, for forgiving me, for everything you said.”

My fingers slid into the back of her hair, cupping her crown in my palm. “I need to know when I’ll see you next.”

Her lips flattened. “Well, I don’t know, but—”

“Tomorrow.”

“I have things I have to do.” My fingers curled in her hair, tugging gently, but with firmness that couldn’t be ignored. “Are you going to be murder-fighting again? I might be free to watch you spill some blood.”

“For you, I’d murder-fight any time you want me to.”

Her eyes landed on mine, so wide and open, like twin planets floating side by side, naked for all to see. The next second, her arms were wrapped around my middle and her face was pressed against my chest as she sighed. My arms responded without a clear thought from me, holding her against me, and my head dipped to bury my nose in her hair.

“This is what I wanted to do that day. I wanted to hug you so tight.” Her voice was muffled, but I heard her loud and clear.

“I would have really fuckin’ liked that, Wren.”

Her head tipped back. Her lips spread into a tremulous smile. “I want to see you tomorrow, but it can’t be for long.”

“I guess I’ll have to take what I can get then.” I touched her lips with my fingertip. “If I kiss you right now, I won’t let you go.”

“Then you better not.” Her tongue peaked out to lick where my finger had been. “We’re supposed to be going slow anyway. This is hello, not goodbye. We have time.”

“I like that.” I touched my lips to the top of her head, then stepped back. Not because I wanted to, but out of necessity. “Let’s go. The car’s waitin’.”

Downstairs, I helped Wren into the SUV then climbed in after her. She started, but quickly scooted over to give me room to sit.

“You’re coming too?”

“Why not? It gives me a couple more minutes with you.”

With a smile, she slid over so her thigh was aligned with mine and rested her head on my shoulder. I took her hand and stacked our palms on top of each other. We sat that way in silence for the short ride, then I walked Wren to her door.

She shoved me away as soon as she got it unlocked. “Go, before you freeze.”

Chuckling, I kissed the top of her head again. “All right. Go to bed, I’ll go warm up in the car.”

With a wave, she stepped inside, and I waited until I heard the door lock, then I headed back to the SUV.

“Home, Mr. Rose?” the driver asked.

“In a minute.” We were double parked, but it was late enough, it didn’t really matter. “Just sit here unless we have to move.”

I looked at the townhouse Wren had lived in with her great-aunt Jenny for a little over three and a half years. She’d moved in a month or two after she’d stopped emailing me.

Her absence had taken me to a dark place. One of despondence and self-hatred. I never blamed Wren for leaving me, even though I’d been angry at her for the way she’d done it. I told myself it had been my neediness that drove her away. I had pushed her too hard. I’d misread the situation and her feelings didn’t actually reflect mine. I told myself a lot. It took me six months to shake myself out of my stupor and into action.

When I told Wren it hadn’t been difficult to find her, I’d been truthful. Three years ago, I asked my cousin, James, a tech genius, to trace her IP address, which led me to her parents. They were too happy to inform me their ‘slutty daughter’ was living with her aunt because she was no longer welcome in their home. It didn’t take much digging to track down Jenny Malkovich in Queens.

Three years ago, I sat outside Wren’s townhouse in my car and saw her for the first time. Sunlight loved her. It rested on her copper hair like a halo and flushed her cheeks rosy. I’d nearly swallowed my tongue when I’d caught sight of her swollen belly. She was so short, she had been pretty much all tits and baby.

She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever laid eyes on, even with another man’s baby in her belly.

Betrayal had burned through my blood that day, but once I had found my little bird, I couldn’t stop watching her. She hadn’t been mine anymore, and the evidence growing inside her body reminded me she never really had been.

I was there the day she brought her son home from the hospital after a month-long stay in the NICU. I’d watched her take her stroller on endless walks through her neighborhood, and I’d witnessed her sit down on park benches and sob her heart out. There were times I almost stepped in because it became too much even for me to bear, but she always pulled herself together and moved on.

Over the years, I considered taking her and keeping her. More than considered, I’d planned it in my head. It wasn’t rational, but it soothed me and allowed me to keep my distance.

Wren made it easy to watch her. She was a devoted mother and student. When she wasn’t in school, she was with her child. Her shadow had finally found her, and she was so busy with her life, she’d never once checked behind her to notice.

As time passed, our connection should have withered, and maybe it did on her end. My obsession calmed, but it wasn’t ending. Wren was mine to protect. Always.

Helping her find a job at Good Music had been a small part of that. Putting her in my path had been another. What I hadn’t expected was my own reaction to being in the same space as her and letting her finally see me. That first day, I couldn’t even look at her. It took seeing her in Adam’s arms to break me out of the chains that had been holding me back, and finally, after years of watching, to claim my little bird as my own.

Wren’s light turned off in her bedroom. I laid my head back on the rest and closed my eyes. She was safe and secure. For now, that would be enough.

“Take me home.”