Read One More Kiss (Affair Without End Book 2) for Free Online Page B

tomorrow morning.”
    My heart jumps and then begins to race. I’ve actually got a call back from one of my interviews this week. And from Sandy Harris, one of the biggest music promoters based in LA. I hadn’t expected that. Not by a long shot.
    “Did he leave a number, Mom?”
    “Sure. 213…”
    “Wait. I need to find something to write it down with.”
    I drop the receiver on the sofa and go to the desk for the little leather binder with the complimentary stationary and a pen. I jerk out a sheet and pick up the phone again, balancing it between my shoulder and ear.
    “OK, shoot.” I jot down the number. “Thanks, Mom. Things are starting to look up, finally.”
    “What’s this about, Linda? Is that your mystery boyfriend you’ve been keeping from your mom?”
    “God, every call from a guy isn’t someone I’m dating. Hopefully it means I have a job. I’ll let you know, Mom.”
    “I’m glad, dear. Everything is going to be OK. You’ve always been such a worrier. You need to worry less. Things will take care of themselves if you let them.”
    I laugh. That sounds like something Jack would say.
    “I’ll try, Mom. I’ll try to worry less.”
    “You do that, dear. And call your dad. He really wants to talk to you, Linda. Learn to give people second chances.”
    I feel a flash of irritation over her quick defense of my dad. But then, Doris wasn’t there in San Francisco the day I finally met Brian Cray. And as much as I wanted to set my mom straight on a few hard truths about my dad, I just couldn’t do it. If she wants to carry a delusional torch for the man, why burst her bubble? Doris deserves some happiness, even if it is fictional.
    “Love you, Mom. Bye,” I say and quickly hang up.
    I’m suddenly feeling really good. I look at the clock. That call ate up all of ten minutes. What am I going to do for the rest of the six hours until Jack returns?
    There is an inescapable pathos being stuck in a hotel room waiting for a man. It’s not the first room I’ve waited for Jack in. It won’t be the last…I feel my anxiety sharpen… hopefully it won’t be the last, though a sane girl would probably want it to be.
    I go to the window and stare down at the street. Sunset Boulevard. My old stomping ground. I’m within walking distance of The Whisky, The Roxy, and The House of Blues. I can go into any rocker haunt in LA and run into someone I know. Find a party without even trying.
    My face scrunches up… that’s part of the problem, Linda. One of the things about you you’ve got to fix if you hope ever to have the kind of life you want.  
    I chase away my thoughts and focus on how pretty the city looks at night with the lights and the cars. It’s only 9:30 p.m. Things haven’t even started to heat up on the strip.
    The drapes fall from my hands and I step back. I go to the pretty, polished bar, find it not stocked, though that’s not a surprise. Jack doesn’t drink. I debated going to the roof top pool. There’ll be people there on a Friday night with a major concert going on at The Forum.  It would be nice to sit beneath the stars and have a glass of wine. I’m so fucking restless and tense these days.
    What’s the matter with me? Is it just the stress of having an on-and-off kind of relationship? There are times we hang up the phone and the wait between calls is so miserable—that icky, anxious, unreasonably suspicious, excessive-worry, kind of miserable—that I almost can’t take it until Jack calls again. Sometimes it makes me physically sick, and I get angry at him, though it’s not his fault and isn’t fair for me to be angry with him. When Jack’s on tour it’s difficult for us to connect by phone between his schedule and, what was, my schedule at school. It wasn’t like this before he was on the road. I could drive to Santa Barbara to be with him. He could drive to LA to be with me. We talked every morning and every night. It wasn’t like this before.
    I shake my head. It