It’s Complicated (Her Billionaires #5)(76)
Author: Julia Kent

“A man? How can you talk about a man? There aren’t any men out there.” The last guy back home Josie had dated was Davey Rockland, who had managed to fail out of the police academy because he couldn’t keep track of how many bullets he’d shot from a clip. When you can’t manage basic arithmetic up to fifteen or so, it’s time to just go become roadkill.

“No kidding,” Darla muttered, “but I actually managed to find one.”

“So, who is this man you found?”

“I literally found him, Josie. He was naked, wearing nothing but a guitar on the side of the road.”

Huh? Did Darla just actually say what she thought she said? The cat leapt onto the counter and headed toward the salad Josie was working on. One good shove later and she had an offended cat, tail up and puckered ass**le sauntering away.

“What?” Josie barked, struggling to pin her phone between her cheek and shoulder while covering the food with plastic wrap to protect it from the feline menace.

“I’m not kidding.” Darla’s mantra. Even at three or four her stock phrase had been “I’m not kidding,” one hand jauntily on her cocked hip, an insulted expression on her face.

“He was just standing there on I-76, wearing a guitar and a collar and sticking his thumb out, and so I stopped.”

“Did you f**k him?” This sounded like the start of a good Penthouse Forum story.

“Wow, way to be blunt, Josie.” She paused. Josie could imagine Darla biting the cuticle of her thumbnail, shoving her giant mane of blonde curls over her shoulder, buying time to decide how best to tell the truth. “Yeah, of course.”

Victory! “How can I be blunt if I’m right?”

“You can be both.”

“I often am, but don’t accuse me of being too blunt when, in the end, the direct question I’m asking relates exactly to what you’ve actually done.” Boy, that sounded wayyyyy too officious, even in Josie’s head. She opened her mouth to say something to lighten the conversation when Darla spoke.

“I don’t want to talk about that, either,” Darla snapped.

“So, what do you want to talk about?” Where was this going? Was she pregnant or not? If she was, she would just blurt it out. Darla wasn’t the type to keep anything to herself. Whatever was going on had to be complicated if it didn’t pour out of her in the first few seconds.

“I want to talk about this man.”

“What’s his name?”

“Trevor.”

“Trevor what?”

“Trevor Connor.” Josie could hear the grin in Darla’s voice. Trevor Connor. She knew that name.

“Trevor Connor…where have I heard that name? Why is that so familiar?” Josie asked. She knew it wasn’t someone they’d grown up with. How was Darla dating someone whose name she knew?

“Wait a minute!” she practically screamed. “Trevor Connor? From Random Acts of Crazy?” A year ago one of the teenage granddaughters of one of Josie’s patients had been blasting a song that Josie loved. One thing led to another and she’d downloaded “I Wasted My Only Answered Prayer” and sent it to Darla. The rest was history. Her niece had become a serious groupie for this tiny little local band, but Random Acts of Crazy was growing. Were they touring in Ohio already? If so, why Peters? Of all the places you could perform in Ohio…

“Yup.”

“Darla.” Calm seeped into her voice. It occurred to her that Darla might be calling her, high as a kite, and rambling on about something that wasn’t real.

“Yeah?”

“Are you on something? Because you don’t just conjure a na**d man on the interstate, wearing nothing but a guitar, who happens to be the lead singer of your favorite band.” Compassion filled her. This was not what Josie had expected, and her shift in focus went from her pending date to her far-flung niece. “Honey, do you need me to call someone?”

“I swear to God, Josie, I am not making this up.” The tone in her voice was believable. If this were true, then how did Trevor Connor get to Peters? It was all too crazy.

And random.

“Okayyy,” Josie said, skeptically. “And you f**ked him?”

“Yup.”

“Any good?” Wincing, Josie forced herself to ask the question. While Darla and she were adults now, there was still an ick factor in talking about sex.

“Hoo boy,” Darla chirped.

“That good?” A flicker of her and Alex pressed up against the stone wall by the river sent shivers through her.

“Yup.”

“So what’s your problem?” Please don’t be pregnant.

“My problem is that I don’t know what my problem is and Trevor is about to leave any minute now and I’m going to pick up his friend Joe, who—”

“Joe? Joe as in Joe Ross, the bass player?”

“Yup.”

“Quit saying ‘yup.’” This one-word answer shit drive Josie nuts.

“Yes, ma’am. Is that better?”

“Actually, yes.”

“Okay then, ma’am.”

“You’re telling me that you’re hanging out with the bass player and the lead singer of your favorite band in the middle of Peters?”

“Yup—yes, ma’am, I mean.”

“You know they’re from Boston, right?

“Well, outside of Boston, some suburb named Sudborough.”

Josie snorted. “More like Snob-borough.”

“I picked up on that,” Darla said. Josie could imagine the tongue roll, how Darla would mug, her eyebrows lifting in a goofy face. God, she missed her. Maybe this was the chance to get her out here. Finally. Aunt Cathy didn’t need nearly as much help as Darla claimed she needed. Fear stopped Darla from even visiting Boston.

“Are they being ass**les?” she said, coldly. “Because if you need me to—”

“What? What are you going to do, Josie? You’re a hundred pounds soaking wet. You gonna go and raspberry them to death? Shake your finger in their faces extra hard?”

Oh, great. As if Josie weren’t already teeming with insecurity. A wave of protectiveness rose up in her nonetheless, pushed through by a sense of indignation that these two metro-west Boston spoiled college boys might be hurting Darla.

“Fair enough,” she said. What she wanted to say was something devastatingly visceral, but this wasn’t about her. It was about Darla. Her voice softened. “So, what’s really going on?”