Free Dare To Love Series: Daring Ink (Kindle Worlds Novella) by Avery Flynn Page B

discount.”
    *****
    As Sawyer’s granddad always used to say, desperate times called for desperate measures. Looking around his bedroom a week after the disastrous elevator ride and he figured this stunt would either get Penny’s attention long enough that she’d finally talk to him, or he’d get kicked out of the building.
    His bedroom looked like an electronics store. Speakers. Subwoofers. Sound bars. He had it all stacked up on top of each other facing the wall dividing his bedroom from hers.
    “You have officially lost your mind, man.” D’Andre surveyed the room with a mix of awe and fear. “She is either going to report your ass to the cops or the mental health professionals. My vote’s for the psych ward.”
    Sawyer flipped his friend off. “Please, you’ve known me for ten years. I’m crazy but I’m not that kinda crazy.”
    “You’ve never tried to blow a hole through your wall with sound before.”
    He adjusted one of the speakers that looked like it was about to tip over. “I’m not going to do that, I just can’t think of anything else. She won’t talk to me because of your big ass mouth.”
    “Is that not why I hauled all of my very expensive, top of the line and formerly perfectly calibrated equipment down from the penthouse floor for you?” D’Andre asked. “I admit it when I’m wrong.”
    “So do I, but she won’t listen. I’ve sent flowers that she trashed, balloons she left in the hall until they deflated like a drunk dick, and I’ve gone to her studio.” The past week had been hell. He’d gone from never wanting the same girl twice to never wanting anyone but Penny. She’d taken over so much space in his brain that he almost got kicked out of the grocery store last night for standing around and smelling the peaches too long. Obviously, he had lost his mind and was at a breaking point. “None of it has worked. If she’d just listen, I’d tell her I’d do whatever it took to get her to forgive me.”
    D’Andre lifted an eyebrow. “And you think busting her eardrums is the way to make that happen?”
    “I think it’s a way to get her attention.” Maybe. Hopefully. He was a man of action without options here, so he was making his own.
    “All this for some girl you’ve known for what, a week?” D’Andre shook his head, sending his dreadlocks swinging.
    “She’s more than just some girl.” She was Penny. His Penny.
    “Are you telling me you’re in love?”
    Was he? He felt a little deranged and he was more than willing to make a total ass of himself in front of God and everyone to get her back. It definitely wasn’t the kind of thing they wrote about in greeting cards. “Something like it.”
    D’Andre laughed. “Good luck to you man. I’m outta here.”
    His best friend let himself out while Sawyer looked around one last time. This was crazy, but it just might work. He hit play.
    *****
    For the third time that week, Penny lay naked in her bed and promised herself she wouldn’t cry herself to sleep. Inhaling a deep breath, she let her eyelids drift shut and tried to picture skulls and bad rose tattoos rather than the honey-brown happy trail dusted across Sawyer’s six pack abs or the way her heart kicked into high gear whenever he walked into the room.
    Skulls and bad roses, she chanted to herself, skulls and bad roses, skulls and bad ro—
    Music blared through her wall and she jackknifed into a sitting position. The noise was everywhere. Heart pounding against her ribcage, she spun around on her bed and scrambled off of it, then rushed to the doorway to turn on the lights. She slapped her hands over her ears and looked around for the source, but the only thing unusual was the way her paintings bounced against the wall dividing her bedroom from Sawyer’s.
    Sawyer…
    Still keeping her hands over her ears, she tried to pick out the lyrics blaring through the drywall. The song had a solid thump-thump beat followed by a man with a Scottish accent promising to