The Girl's Got Secrets (Forbidden Men #7)(110)

Then Remy called, “Jodi? Hello? You home?”

“Uh...yeah.” Jodi cast me a leery glance as if she thought I’d slit her throat or something if she answered wrong. “In your room, puta.”

“What’re you doing in my room? Doesn’t matter. I’m glad you’re there. You need to help me come up with a way to tell Asher—”

She rounded the corner to enter her room and gasped when she saw me, skidding to a halt and clutching her chest.

I had no idea what I’d been expecting, maybe that she’d be dressed as Sticks with the mask on, even though I held the damn mask in my hand.

But the very last thing I did expect to see was...Elisa.

My mouth fell open, my jaw worked, but no words came.

Her wild-eyed panicked gaze darted to Jodi, then back to me. When her attention fell to the mask I clutched in my hand, she turned back to her roommate.

“He already knows,” Jodi whispered with a sympathetic wince.

Remy, Elisa, or whoever the hell she was, whirled back to me. “Asher...” she started softly, her eyes crinkled in apology as she took a step toward me.

I lurched backward and held up a hand, warding her off, trying to make sense of what was going on.

But, shit, f*ck, hell, and damn. This changed everything. When she’d merely been a girl, masquerading as a man, that was one thing. I hadn’t been too awfully mad then. But tricking me as Elisa too, deceiving me until she’d tumbled me right into bed with her...

“What the f*cking hell is going on?” I demanded. “I go into work tonight and learn you’re not only a girl, but THE girl I wrote a song about and had been seeking for months. And now I see you walk into this room, and you’re Elisa too? Who the hell are you really?”

Oh, Jesus, I hadn’t realized until that moment, I honestly didn’t know her real name.

“I...I’m Remy,” she answered in a small voice.

I narrowed my eyes, silently commanding her not to f*ck with me right now.

She lifted both hands. “I swear. My full name’s Remy Elisa Curran. Elisa is my middle name, but only my uncle at the restaurant calls me that.”

“And you apparently understand English perfectly fine,” I sneered. Then it hit me. Fuck, she knew English. She’d understood everything I’d told her when we’d been together, things I never would’ve admitted to a girl I’d just met.

Jesus, how the lies were piling up.

I ran my fingers through my hair, tugging at my scalp, trying to calm down, but I just...this blew my mind.

She reached out toward me, concern lacing her features. “Do you need to sit down?”

I cast her a killer glare. “No, I don’t need to f*cking sit down. I need a f*cking explanation. Why?”

“I just...” Her lashes blinked rapidly, and I could see tears glaze over her eyes. Then she hugged herself and admitted, “I just wanted a chance to be in the band.”

I shook my head, confused and not at all expecting that answer. “What?”

“Non-Castrato,” she said. “I went to audition for the drummer spot as myself...but that bastard Galloway wouldn’t even let me play one song with you guys.”

My mouth fell open. “Punk rocker girl?” I whispered in horror. She was punk rocker girl too? “That was you?”

When she nodded, I threw my arms into the air and snorted. But of course. It was just my luck that the biggest liar on the planet would end up being all three ladies I’d been daydreaming and fantasizing about lately. Fucking perfect.

“What was up with the Tina Turner wig?” I demanded.

She shrugged and looked a little ill. “Nothing. I just thought it looked badass for the part.”

The part? Yeah, she’d definitely been playing a part...all f*cking month long.

“How many other secret identities do you have?”

She shook her head and bowed her face. “That’s it.” When I sniffed, she looked up, scowling. “It is!”

“Whatever.” I rolled my eyes and ran my hands through my hair, trying to straighten everything in my muddled head. “So you made up ‘Sticks,’ the gay male drummer, to get into the band—” I broke off abruptly to wince because it suddenly struck me...Sticks didn’t exist. All the rounds of Call of Duty we’d played, the teasing, songwriting together, all the shit he’d helped me with and times he had my back. I recalled the night in Chicago when he—she’d—been ready to defend me with nothing but mace and a whistle, and an arrow of pain passed through me. Sticks, my friend, was gone forever.

And why the hell hadn’t it thumped me right over the head that mace and a whistle were the classic rape preventatives—lady protection. I was such a f*cking dumbass. How many times she must’ve laughed over my idiotic cluelessness.

I narrowed my eyes on her as she said, “I actually didn’t even mean to join the band. I was just so pissed after you wouldn’t listen to me; I planned on ripping off the mask afterward and telling you, ha, a woman could play drums just as well as a man could. But then you went and invited me to play with you guys that Friday. I’d never played in front of an audience before. I wanted to know what it was like. And then that very night, we got the gig for Chicago and you sounded so excited, I couldn’t let you down and tell you I was a girl then. What if Gally kicked me out and you’d never gotten to go to Chicago?”