Charmer

by Loring, Kayley

  15

  Kat

  "Really they're quite fearful—that's my theory. They see us on stage with tight trousers. We've got, you know, armadillos in our trousers. I mean it's really quite frightening." Nico practically folds in on himself, he’s laughing so hard.

  I surreptitiously pick up my video camera to film Nico as he watches This is Spinal Tap.

  Ricky is driving us the final thirty miles to the hotel in Dallas, after the show in Oklahoma City. Tate and Lou are asleep in their bunk beds. Nico is wearing an old white T-shirt and gray sweatpants, stretched out on the leather sofa under the mounted flat screen TV. His arms are crossed behind his head, and he looks comfortable and happy. The volume’s down low, but it hardly matters, since we both seem to know this whole movie by heart and Nico has been treating me to his flawless impressions of the characters.

  I’m in my sweats too, on the sofa across from him. This is exactly the kind of “behind-the-scenes of the tour” moment I want to capture for his fans. Nico Todd looking unbelievably cute and cozy while reciting every line of dialogue from the cult classic mockumentary that I’m pretty sure every rock musician on earth watches when they’re chillaxing. I do a slow sweep of his long, lithe body, all the way down to his big beautiful bare feet. Yer welcome, Nico fans. Just doing my job.

  Nico and I have never really had any alone time together since that moment in his dressing room in Phoenix, so we haven’t talked about it again. But in the time that we have spent together with Tate and Louise and Ricky on the bus, and with all the other people around at the shows, we have somehow found a way of being with each other. My way has been to try to be slightly less hot and lovable. His way has been to spend a lot of time hanging out with Tate on the bus, while looking hotter than ever and to occasionally be an aggravating turd. I can’t really blame him. He can’t take a cold shower on the bus. He probably doesn’t beat off when he’s in the back lounge, but who knows. I suppose I could have tried to talk to him about his beautiful little Phoenix meltdown when Tate and Lou were asleep in the bunks, but I don’t want to bring it up again until we can really talk about it. So I guess he’s frustrated. I am too.

  “‘It’s such a fine line between stupid, and uh…’ ‘Clever.’ ‘Yeah, and clever.’” Nico covers his face and shakes with laughter. “It’s so subtle,” he says. “So fucking subtle. It’s brilliant.”

  It’s so good to see him this happy and relaxed. I put the video camera down and grab the still camera. The light in here is low, but the graininess of the image will be gorgeous. I kneel down on the floor behind Nico’s head, so I can get the TV and the full length of him in the shot. When I’m quoting Rob Reiner’s dialogue along with him, Nico looks back at me, surprised. I get the shot of him smiling, and it’s so cute.

  “How many times have you seen this movie?” he asks.

  I settle onto the floor, cross-legged and lean back against the opposite sofa. “Twenty?”

  “Really?”

  “It was one of my dad’s favorite movies. We watched it a lot.”

  He runs his fingers through his hair, then props himself up on one of his elbows, turning toward me. I get a shot of him looking at me with such kind eyes. “Yeah?”

  I nod.

  “Can you tell me about him?”

  “My dad?”

  “Did he get sick?”

  “Yes. He died the year before Tate was born.”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And your parents were still together then?”

  “Oh yes. Very much so. My mom took really good care of him right up until the end… Actually, some of the most beautiful pictures I’ve ever taken were of the two of them together in his last months. It’s hard for me to look at them. But they’re beautiful.”

  “Were you close? With your dad?”

  “Yes. He was a really sweet man.” I watch Nico, because he’s waiting for me to keep talking, but I get too self-conscious when people pay this much attention to me. I hold the camera up to my face and ask, “What about your parents? Are you close with them at all?”

  I capture the look on his face as he processes the question, and immediately wish I hadn’t. It feels too intimate. Such a vulnerable expression, but it’s gone in a flash. “Nah. They’re nice and all. They’ll be at the show in Detroit,” he says. “You’ll meet them. But they’ve always been more into each other and their work. I always felt closer to my grandparents. And my sister. You’ll meet my Grams in Detroit. She’s something.”

  I get a shot of his expression when he’s thinking about his grandmother and it tells me everything I need to know about how much he loves her.

  That face.

  He’s handsome from every possible angle, in every kind of lighting, but he almost looks like two different people when he’s smiling or being serious.

  I realize he’s watching me and get self-conscious again.

  He grins and looks back at the TV, aware that I’m uncomfortable. “I like how you’re always looking for the light.”

  “That’s my job.” I lean forward to push a wavy lock of hair away from his forehead. “This is driving me nuts.”

  He wraps his hand around my wrist. I hold my breath and remain still. He drags his fingers down the inside of my forearm, lifting them away when he gets to the crook of my arm, leaving me shivering all over. I inhale, collapsing back onto my butt. Damn him. I think I just had a tiny orgasm and all he did was touch my freaking arm.

  He musses up his hair, looking up at the screen again. “I need to find a place to get a haircut tomorrow.”

  “In Dallas?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I can cut your hair.”

  “Really?”

  “I used to cut hair to make extra money in college. I cut Tate’s hair. And my own. I brought scissors. And an electric hair clipper.”

  He grins. “Okay. After breakfast? In my room?”

  “Okay.” I hold the camera up in front of my face, so he can’t see me grinning. Or blushing because of my stupid arm orgasm.

  “Okay,” he says again. “It’s a date.”

  “It’s not a date,” I say.

  But it is.

  * * *

  “Okay, we’re all checked in.” Nico climbs into the bus, handing out key cards to Ricky, Louise and me. “Everyone’s on the same floor.”

  “Thanks, hon,” my mom says, patting him on the shoulder. “You must be so tired.”

  “Looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow.” He squeezes by me in the hallway between bunks—Bunk Alley, it’s called. My mother is busy questioning Ricky about where he’s going to park the bus, and my son is still asleep in his bunk, so Nico doesn’t hesitate to gently place his hands on my hips as he brushes past my ass. “Pardon me.” His voice and his touch are somehow both polite and suggestive at the same time, and everything inside of me is fluttering in anticipation of tomorrow.

  Tomorrow we will be alone in a room together. Just the two of us. Finally.

  I have all of my gear in a huge backpack and I pick up my duffel bag as well as Tate’s little rolling suitcase. My mother signals to me that she’ll take Tate’s suitcase so I can carry Tate. When I slide open the curtains to Tate’s bunk, Nico comes out of the back lounge wearing his giant backpack. “Let me get him,” he whispers.

  “What?”

  “I’ll carry him.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to.”

  He reaches in and takes hold of Tate, easily pulling him out and into his arms. I untangle the sheets and blankets from Tate’s legs. He’s wearing his Spiderman pajamas and he’s still fast asleep.

  “Thank you,” I whisper.

  My nose is tingling.

  “I’ll be checking in with y’all in the morning,” Ricky whispers, winking at me. “About the aquarium.”

  I nod at him. He offered to take Tate and Lou to the Dallas aquarium after breakfast tomorrow, and I’ve been vague about my plans. If I tell Lou now that
I’m not going with them so I can give Nico a haircut, she might change her mind about sightseeing. But that’s not what I’m thinking about right now as I lock eyes with my mother.

  She waits for Nico to step off the bus with Tate, and we stare at each other, lower lips quivering. The rims of my eyes are burning and hers instantly flame pink. She can act tough all she wants, but I know exactly how she feels.

  Neither of us has ever seen a man hold Tate like this, in years. I have pictures of his father holding him the first couple of times he met him, when Tate was a baby. But I’ve never seen a man carry my sleeping son before.

  When Lou and I are both off the bus and following Nico to the lobby, Lou hisses at me, “Katherine. Do not cry.” I look over at her, and she is totally tearing up.

  “You don’t cry.”

  She covers her nose and mouth, shaking her head.

  We’re both going to start sobbing as soon as we’re in our rooms, I know this.

  My cousins and neighbors have played around with my son, tossing him over their shoulders or flinging him around by his arms, but there’s something so tender and intimate about holding a sleeping child.

  Part of me wishes that Tate were awake so he could experience it too, but part of me still doesn’t want him to get attached to Nico.

  Part of me knows that the truth is, all I want is to be completely attached to him.

  It’s late, but I am well aware that that is not the only reason I’m so tired.

  It’s exhausting, feeling like there are so many parts of me—the fearless younger me with the big dreams, the mom, the daughter, the photographer, the waitress, the horny twenty-seven-year-old who just wants to get some. I’ve been compartmentalizing for years because it seemed like that’s what I needed to do to keep it all together. But what if one man could actually love all of me, and my son too? What if that man is the opposite of what I imagined a responsible partner would look like? What if I stop resisting him and just start licking him…and go from there?

  16

  Nico

  “Do you want me to dry my hair some more?” I rub my hair with the towel again and then let it drop around my bare shoulders and hold on to both ends of it.

  Kat frowns at me as she places a chair down on the bathroom floor, in front of the sink and mirror.

  “I’m not putting a shirt on if it’ll get little hairs all over it,” I explain. She’s lucky I put on my sweatpants before she knocked on the door. We have maybe three hours tops—if we play it safe—before the other three return from the aquarium. And while I do need a haircut and I really want her to be the one to give it to me, I do not want to waste time with stupid things like clothes that are just going to come right off. If she doesn’t like the sexy music that’s playing in the other room—that is just too bad. I’m in the mood for Miguel, and the song ‘Pussy is Mine’ does not have to be taken literally.

  “Sit,” she orders. She’s already exasperated and it’s so hot when she glares at me, I’m afraid I might just have to keep saying and doing things to annoy her. Quite frankly, I should be mad at her for wearing a loose-fitting tank top and tight jeans that perfectly hug her gorgeous ass, flip-flops that show off her sexy feet and that lacy pink bra that I keep getting glimpses of every time she bends over even the slightest bit. And her hair’s all piled up on top of her head in a messy bun, exposing her long beautiful neck. What’s that all about, huh?

  I sit.

  She lifts the towel from my shoulders, rubs my hair with it, somewhat aggressively, and then hangs it on the rack. She grabs an unused bath towel and drapes it over me. Covering up my bare chest. Securing it at the back with a large clothes pin.

  “Great idea, thanks,” I mutter.

  She slides her fingers through my damp hair and I have to tense up my entire body to keep from dropping my head back and groaning.

  “You want me to cut about half an inch? Just a trim, right?”

  “Yeah, mostly on the sides and in back. Just a little off the top. So my hair doesn’t get in my face and drive you nuts.”

  “As if that were the only thing about you that drives me nuts.” She laughs. “Your hair grows fast, huh?”

  “I’m a quarter Italian,” I shrug.

  She steps around me, picking up the scissors and comb from the counter. She’s so fucking clean and fragrant and she should be completely naked right fucking now. I get an eyeful of that ass in those jeans, and she watches me in the mirror. I don’t even apologize with a sheepish grin, because it was right in front of my face so where else am I gonna look?

  “What’s the rest of you?” she asks.

  Horny. All yours. Ready to go. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re a quarter Italian…” She positions herself behind me, running her fingers through my hair again, studying the waves and growth patterns.

  “Italian-French on one side. English-Welsh on the other. You?”

  “Irish, Norwegian, English, Greek.”

  Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot.

  She glances up at my reflection in the mirror once and then works quickly, sweeping her fingers and the comb through my hair, snipping with confidence.

  “What’s Tate’s father like?”

  “His ancestry? Scottish, Irish, English and supposedly one sixteenth Cherokee.”

  “Is he cool?”

  “Cool enough.”

  I don’t buy it. What kind of guy walks away from a woman like Kat after having sex with her, let alone after knocking her up and meeting Tate? He’s not cool at all, in my book. “Is he good to you and Tate?”

  “Sure. I mean. We really don’t interact with him all that much. But he sends checks. He Skypes with Tate on his birthday and at Christmas. That kind of thing. He has this new girlfriend that he seems a little obsessed with lately.”

  “What about his parents?”

  “They send Tate birthday and Christmas cards, with checks. He’s never met them and neither have I.” I watch her reflection in the mirror. She inhales, about to continue, but changes her mind.

  “And?”

  She concentrates on snipping away at my locks, shakes her head. “Nothing. Have you played Texas before?”

  “Yes. Austin, mostly. At South by Southwest. That was fun. I’ve been an opening act in Dallas a couple of times. Never done Houston before. What were you like before you became a mom?”

  My sudden change of topic doesn’t seem to faze her. Since it’s the theme of her passion project, it’s probably something she asks women all the time. She smiles and blushes but doesn’t meet my gaze or stop cutting my hair. “What do you think I was like?”

  “I think you were a bit of a bad girl.”

  She bites her lower lip and I feel it in my cock.

  “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “I wouldn’t say I was a bad girl. I mean, I studied and worked hard and I had fun. And sometimes, if I was sad or stressed, I’d go out and play a little harder than usual.”

  “Did you sneak out of the house to meet boys when you were in high school?”

  “Occasionally. But I always left a note on my pillow, telling my parents where I’d be. So they wouldn’t panic.”

  “That was very considerate of you.”

  “I know, right?” She finally looks up and stares at me in the mirror. “So I have had my share of fun.”

  “Same here.”

  She scoffs. “Oh, I’m quite sure you’ve had more fun than I have.”

  “It’s not a competition, Katherine.”

  She bends forward, so her head is at my level, examining her work from that angle. I have a beautiful view down the drooping front of her tank top, and she knows it.

  “This looking okay to you?”

  When I don’t answer, she meets my lusty gaze in the mirror and gives me a little bad girl smirk. That fucking dimple. To. My. Knees. She stands up again, messes up my hair, goes in with the scissors and trims a few more waves on the top of my head. “I’m just going to tidy it up a little bit
and then do the sides and back.”

  Great. I’ll just sit really still and concentrate on not getting a full-blown erection.

  We don’t talk anymore.

  I just watch her in the mirror, and she is just really focused on giving me a good haircut.

  I’m gonna take my mind off of her cleavage and that sexy round ass by thinking of words that rhyme with “haircut.”

  Shut.

  Gut.

  What.

  Smut.

  Nut.

  Fucking gorgeous butt.

  Nope. Not helping.

  She steps around me, places the scissors back on the counter in front of me, picks up the electric clippers and changes the blade guard.

  She trims the neckline, and I don’t know why, but the buzzing sound and the delicate touch of the electric clippers at the skin on the nape of my neck turns me on even more.

  “Hold your head up straight,” she says.

  I do. My entire body is rigid.

  She reaches over my shoulder, to grab a hand towel from the edge of the counter. I can feel one erect nipple against the back of my neck, through her top. Jesus. She’s trying to kill me.

  She loosens the bath towel that’s around my shoulders, swipes at the loose hairs along my neck with the hand towel. My bare chest is revealed. My own hard nipples are revealed, and they do not go unnoticed by Kat. I push the bath towel aside, let it drop to the floor, revealing the bulge in my sweatpants. Her eyes go wide. She swallows hard, and then steps around me again, plugs in a hair dryer and blows warm air at my head and shoulders. She runs her fingers through my hair again, shaking every last stray hair loose and onto the floor, turns off the blow dryer and puts it back down on the counter.

  It is incredibly quiet, all of a sudden.

  “All done.” She steadies herself at the counter, blowing out a breath, clenching her thighs together.

  “Thank you. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a haircut more.”

  “Welcome. I’d appreciate a nice review on Yelp,” she quips, but her voice is husky and strained. Stares down at her hands. They’re gripping the edge of the counter. “You want me to style it for you?”