Crazy in Love (Blue Lake #3)(20)

Cole sank another three balls before missing the fourth. He was good at pool. Probably one of the better players she’d been matched against.

“What happened at your tour stop in Houston?” she asked.

She remembered Rita mentioning something about it, and that Cole needed peace and quiet to focus. Although it wasn’t something nobody knew about him, she’d been dying to ask.

“I’m surprised you haven’t heard the rumors. Guess not many current events get through the mountain pass.” Exhaling heavily, he chalked up his stick. “I’d gone out with Tori West a few times, over the course of a few weeks. Have you heard of her?”

Tori West, A.K.A. blonde bombshell and Victoria’s Secret model.

Rachael hadn’t realized it until this moment, but she’d sort of hoped Cole felt the same spark she did. That he felt the same simmer in his blood, the same attraction. If he’d dated Tori West, glitz and glamor to the extreme, she probably had as much sex appeal as Mrs. Butterworth.

“The name’s familiar,” Rachael said nonchalantly. “She’s a model, right?”

“Right. She showed up to the show in Houston. I wasn’t expecting her and…” His gaze drifted off. “…let’s just say I was distracted and the show went to shit.”

Rachael shook her head. “Nuh-uh, that’s not an answer! That doesn’t count.”

“Of course it does.”

“You didn’t really tell me anything. You don’t answer, you forfeit the game.”

“The hell I do.” He folded his arms over his chest. “Tori’s one of those girls who needs attention all the time, from everyone around her, twenty-four hours a day. She wanted me to allow her to come onstage during the last song of the night. It was a slow song, Just Say Love. I think she’d dreamed up this huge moment in her mind where she’d come on stage and I’d declare my love for her in front of everyone or something.” He set down the chalk and met her gaze beneath the amber lights. “I told her no, that she wasn’t allowed to come onstage. I’m not the type of person to make my private life public that way. She lied, told stage security that we had this big thing planned. She walked onstage and the crowd went wild.”

“What’d you do?” Rachael asked, wishing she’d heard before now.

He shrugged. “I stopped the show mid-song. Told her I didn’t want to see her again.”

Rachael winced. “Ouch. Bet that didn’t go over well.”

“No, she chucked a guitar into the audience. Kicked over speakers. I tried to continue playing, but the crowed booed me offstage. She looked like the victim, and now I’m the bad guy.” He licked his lips, letting his tongue linger in the corner. “No skin off my nose. I’m used to being seen that way. Rita thinks the tour could rebuild my reputation. If I knock people’s socks off with my music, they’ll put Houston and my personal life in the backseat.”

No wonder there was so much pressure to nail the last two tour stops.

“Did you love her?” Rachael asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

He grinned slyly. “I believe that’s another question.”

Diving back into the game, Rachael put a blue-striped ball in her sights and shot it into the side-pocket. She sent another two balls whizzing into the corners, tying up the game.

Cole took off his sweatshirt and draped it over a table in the corner. The black shirt underneath was tight, stretching over his biceps. Her hand wobbled slightly as the stick slid over it, and she missed her next shot.