Echoes of the Heart, Casey, L.A. [reader novel .txt] 📗

I could leave. I apologised to every single person I had to step over and just as I reached the edge of the row, a kid who had walked from the front of the hall to speak to who I assumed was their parent at the back, stopped walking when she saw me. Everyone had quietened down as Mr Jones moved back to the microphone stand. The girl’s eyes locked on my face and almost instantly they widened.

“Hey!” she gasped dramatically. “Aren’t you the girl in the video who was kissing Risk?”

She may as well have used a megaphone because her voice carried throughout the whole hall. Everyone looked in my direction. I could have died there and then from embarrassment. I looked from the kid to the stage and my legs threatened to give out. Standing there, staring right at me, was Risk Keller. I nearly choked on air. Instead of smiling, nodding, or doing something, I turned and all but ran out of the hall.

I made it out to the car park. After I hurriedly got into my car, I grabbed my inhaler from my bag and took a few puffs. My heart was beating so fast I thought it would explode. He saw me. Risk looked right bloody at me. I was wrong. I thought I was grown up enough to take whatever happened in that hall on the chin, but I was a chicken shit. There was no way around it, I was a complete and utter chicken shit. The man probably thought I was some crazy ex-girlfriend who came by the ceremony just to see him.

“Jesus,” I groaned as I drove out of the car park. “God in Heaven, what’d I do to deserve that?”

I drove all the way to work in silence as my mind kept replaying what had happened back at the school.

He looked great.

Better than great: he looked incredible. I’d seen glimpses of him over the years, obviously I couldn’t avoid him everywhere I went with how famous he was, but I never ever stopped and truly looked at him like I did today. All the memories I had with him were when he was a boy. He was a grown man now. Who he was as an adult, I did not know. This was unsettling for me because it was a wake-up call to just how much time had really passed since we were together.

It’d been nearly a whole decade and I was still hung up on him.

When I reached work and entered the diner, I was actually happy to find that we were busy because it gave me something else to think about other than Risk, other than how pathetic I really was for not being over my childhood boyfriend. I threw myself into work, I barely spoke to Joe, or the other waitresses unless it was to do with orders. I didn’t want to talk to anyone if I could help it and I think my co-workers could sense that. I knew they knew why too. They were aware that I would arrive late to work because I was attending Mr Jones’s retirement ceremony. They obviously knew that Risk was there too.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that I was feeling sensitive because of him.

The day passed by quickly thanks to the steady flow of customers. My feet were aching. I worked myself to exhaustion and I couldn’t wait to go home so I could shower and fall into bed where I would hopefully have a dreamless sleep. I was standing up, leaning against the hostess counter, checking over the inventory of our stock and making a note of what deliveries needed to be made the next day. Mary Well’s was a themed diner so the only music that Joe wanted played was from the forties to the eighties by the original artists. I loved that. It made sure that I would never hear Risk’s voice while I worked.

I was humming away to ‘Greased Lightnin’’ as the song filled the diner. I grabbed the tray next to me, intending to put it back in its spot, when the bell over the entrance door rang. I automatically straightened and turned with a smile on my face to greet the potential customer, but the face peering down at me was one that had been on my mind all day long.

“Hello, Frankie.”

CHAPTER SIX

RISK

“Lads, I’m nervous.” May paced back and forth in the hallway outside of the emergency exit of the hall of Sir John Leman High School. “Why am I fucking nervous?”

“Because you’re not going out to a crowd of Sinners like you’re used to. You’re going out to people who taught you as a child and knew you before you were a rocker and you’re worried you can’t be cool because deep down you know that they know that you aren’t really cool. Am I right?”

“Angel’s right!” May’s eyes turned wild. “I’m an imposter. Everyone knows it!”

“Leave him alone.” I shoved away a snickering Angel and stood before May, placing my hands on his shoulder. “Relax, you’re good.”

“I’m good.” He nodded frantically. “I’m fine, this is fine.”

“Totally fine.” Hayes said from my right. “Mate, breathe. This is home. We’re good.”

“Home.” May nodded. “We’re home. I shouldn’t be freaking out.”

“Exactly.” I squeezed his shoulders. “Here, we’re just a couple of regular lads.”

“Regular lads that are global rock stars and carry the weight of the world on their shoulders.”

May looked like he was going to collapse but he snapped out of his breakdown when Hayes got Angel in a headlock, shutting him up. He laughed and so did I as Angel spluttered curses and promises to kill Hayes, who smirked and shoved our drummer to the floor.

“Leave him be, dickwipe.” Hayes grinned as he held his hand out to Angel. “Get your laughs by tearing into someone other than our brother.”

“You three are no fun.”

Hayes pulled Angel to his feet and clapped a hand on his back. Angel was