by Susan Ward
“Just messing around with Ethan in a studio. Bouncing down tracks and seeing what we can do.”
I tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Bouncing down tracks?”
He laughs. “Recording music.”
“Oh.” It bothers me how little I know about this part of his life, and I’m equally aware how much I want to know everything. “Recording it for what? Are you thinking about starting your career again?”
“Don’t know. Haven’t decided anything. Don’t have a handle on exactly what I want to do with my life yet. Still thinking things through.”
That sends me catapulting back to all that’s undecided about us. “Me, too.”
He laughs. “Such as?”
“The apartment.” I sigh. “Being in there today showing it to people makes me think I should move in there. A fresh start for my life, thanks to you.”
“I like how that sounds.”
I flush. “Me, too. Long overdue.”
“Are we still on for dinner with Ethan and Avery tonight? They’re a go if you are.”
I don’t like that he jumped there. “Yes, I was planning on it.”
“Do you want me to pick you up at the bar or your house, or would you rather meet us at the hotel?”
I frown. Meet him? “My house. I was getting ready to lock up here and head home.”
“Seven OK?”
My brows lower. I dropped a hint that I had a free afternoon and he didn’t pounce on it. “Seven’s great.”
“See you then, Willow.”
He’s about to hang up and I remember why I called. “Hey, hold on. I forgot why I called.”
Why I called? Yuck, Willow, that came out wrong.
“There’s more?” He sounds hopeful and I don’t know what to make of that.
“Ivy thinks there was a reporter hanging around Mel’s this morning. She said he tried to ask her questions about me and you. I want to know what I’m supposed to do.”
“Fuck.” Silence comes through the phone. “If you’re bothered again, don’t talk to them. Don’t give them anything. They go away faster if you don’t.”
Again? He sounds certain that’s a possibility, but it’s one I haven’t considered. “We didn’t, and I won’t.” I try to sound upbeat.
“I’m sorry.” He sounds disconcerted.
“It was no big deal. I thought you should know.”
“The thought of people bothering you because of me is a very big deal. To me. Once they decide you’re a story worth chasing it’s impossible to make them go away. Doesn’t matter if you are. Doesn’t matter if you’re not. They’ll hound you everywhere you go and write whatever they can invent about you. They keep you a story even when you’re not. For some reason, anything about my family sells papers.”
What does that mean? “Well, they didn’t bother me. They bothered Ivy.”
He makes a short laugh. “Then it’s safe to assume the reporter got the short end of things.”
I force a laugh. “Yes, I’m sure he did.”
“If you’re bothered by more of them, you have to let me know. There’s not much I can do but the family does have pull with the press, here and there.”
“I will.”
“See you tonight, baby.”
Why’s he rushing off the phone? “See you then.”
Click.
“Everything good?” Ivy asks, and I look up at her.
“Fine. We’re having dinner tonight. He said if you’re bothered again don’t say anything.”
“I can do that,” Ivy announces with a firm nod.
I grab my purse off the counter. “I’ve got to head home. You want a ride back to your house?”
“You’re leaving early today?” She looks surprised.
“Yeah. I didn’t have as much work to take care of as I thought I would, and I think I’ve already found my new tenants if their references and credit check out. Doesn’t seem right to show the apartment more when I think it’s rented.”
Ivy beams. “Congratulations. That was fast.”
“Yes, fast. Thanks to the amazing job Eric did on the place.” I shut off the lights in the kitchen and close the door. “Once I get their deposit, I’m thinking of hiring another person full time for Mel’s.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me. You deserve more free time, Willow. Give you time to focus on other things.”
Free time—that thought isn’t appealing.
Other things—not subtle at all, Ivy.
I’m not even sure if I’ve got other things to focus on. I’m feeling more in disarray than I should given how well things are going for me. I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing. It’s like I’m making room for Eric in my life and I don’t even know if he wants it.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Willow
ERIC IS STANDING ON my front stoop, gazing at me, his vibrant blue eyes wide and smiling. Just seeing him there is my talisman, chasing away the unrest that plagued me before I opened the door. Surely no man could look at a woman this way if he wasn’t serious about her.
“Hi,” I murmur.
“Hi,” he replies with enough rasp in his voice to make my heart shimmy. My doubts of the day seem silly now. Whatever we are, defining it isn’t necessary. It never was, not when we were twenty and not now. Not when he looks at me that way.
I note the Audi parked in my driveway. “Simone’s?”
“Yeah. He’s like my lending library for cars.”
“Interesting friend.”
“Yeah, he is.” He steps forward and grasps my face, pressing his fingers firmly against my cheeks as his thumbs brush lightly beside my mouth, a soft, soothing rhythm that floods me with anticipation of his kiss. “Did you have a good day?”
That he didn’t kiss me kicks up my hunger for him, and his lazy smile warns that’s exactly what he’s intending. I swipe my lips with my tongue and smile. “All right. Better now.”
“Me, too.” His lips part as his gaze lowers to my mouth. And suddenly it’s there, that feeling that’s him. It’s so strong. “Nothing can quite rank as seeing you does. Not even when the day’s been good. You’re my pow moment of every day.”
“Pow moment?”
“Yeah, that’s what it feels like when I see you. Pow.” And he claims my lips. There’s an intense, passionate quality to his kiss that matches mine, desire exploding in our bodies, tension from having been apart seeking an outlet. I strain against him seeking more, needing more. His hands are on my backside, pressing me up against him, his fingers stroking my curves.
“Twenty-four hours with no Willow.” He moans as his mouth roams my neck. “We may miss dinner. You shouldn’t have let me kiss you.”
He makes me feel so wanton. Right now going to bed sounds like the perfect itinerary. He breathes in deeply, tightening his hold on me, then steps back.
Very deliberately, I tip my face to meet his gaze. “Kiss me again that way and we’re going to stand up your family tonight.”
“Behave yourself in the car,” he orders, his voice husky and teasing. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you look right now?”
His voice is so emotion-rich all my angst from the day washes away. It’s just him and me, loving each other and doing the best we can at that. Thinking of us that way makes it less intimidating, more manageable, as comfortable as how right he feels to me.
“Are you ready to go?” he asks.
When I nod, he reaches over and takes my hand, lifting my keys from my fingers, and shuts my front door and locks it. Holding hands, we walk toward the car. I glance down at how our fingers are laced, a tangle of pale and tanned flesh. I’m more than a little nervous to meet his family, but Eric is a soothing balm.
He opens my door and smiles. “Avery’s been looking forward to this all day.”
My lids flare. “She has?”
“Yes. You’re going to love her. Everyone does.”
I si
nk down into my seat and he closes my door. I watch him move around the car to the driver’s side, then how his clothes hug his strong limbs as he settles beside me. He’s simply dressed—jeans, a soft cashmere pullover sweater in a charcoal gray, and Vans—but the casual look is so sexy on him.
Nervously, I run my hands down my thighs, smoothing the tight black pants I’m wearing. I wasn’t sure how to dress for an outing with Eric’s family, not after trolling their life on the internet, but given what he’s wearing I think I called it right, wearing flats instead of heels and the Anne Taylor black V-neck sweater Jade bought me.
“Where are we going to dinner?” I ask as we back onto the street.
“We haven’t decided yet. We’re meeting up at Pike Place Market. Avery loves all things touristy, and they’ll have Noah with them. They take the baby everywhere with them. Strapped to one of them, even through dinner. Prepare for anything.”
My only experience with parents of young children is Jade. How Eric describes his brother and sister-in-law is an unexpected contrast, and I laugh. “You make them sound delightful. Jade and Gary hardly take their kids out with them ever. Not even when they were babies.”
His smile fills his face. “They’re happy and in love. Noah is part of their gig. That’s everything.”
I sigh, emboldened by his words and the way he glances at me. “I’m happy and in love.”
He swallows. “Me, too.” His fingers close over mine and my head floats down onto his shoulder.
We lapse into silence as we zip onto the freeway. He taps a button in the steering wheel and music floods the car. My lids drift closed as I listen—the poignant strains and hauntingly husky voice. The words are so beautiful it takes me a moment to realize what I’m listening to, or rather who.
I straighten up and stare at him. “That’s you.”
“Uh-huh.” He nods, checking the mirror before he changes lanes. “That’s what Ethan and I did today in the studio. I told you when I finished that song you’d be the first to hear it.”
My eyes widen, his voice swirling around me in the car like an aura around and between us. Hearing him sing fills me with something so strong.
“Don’t you recognize the melody?” he asks. “You better, seeing as you are my muse.”
My cheeks heat. The words are sexy as hell, but oh, how he sings them. This is what he did all day when he wasn’t with me. He finished my song. Recorded it. So he would have it now…emotion tightens my throat. “Yes. But how?”
He darts another fast look at me. “I don’t just have a magic tongue, I have magic fingers as well.”
My face grows even hotter. “Oh you. I’m about to cry or kiss you and you’re making jokes.”
“If I stop making jokes will you kiss me?”
“No, we’re on the freeway.”
He grins. “What if I pull over on the shoulder? I don’t think I can wait for our exit to kiss you again.”
He makes a playful move as if to cut off the highway.
“Don’t you dare. Being parked on the shoulder is the most dangerous place on the interstate. And when I kiss you I don’t want to think of anything but you when I do it.”
“Fine. I’ll keep driving.”
I search his face. “That’s really the song? My song?”
“Who else would I pour out my heart to in music, pretty lady? Black hair, black eyes, and I even managed to work braggadocious into it. Which wasn’t easy, but a must for a guy singing about you.”
I relax back into my seat, unable to do anything but stare at him. Braggadocious. Jesus Christ, I can’t believe he remembers those pretentious words gleaned from a thesaurus I was so fond of spewing at twenty.
“I don’t know what to say,” I murmur, running his profile with my eyes. “Just when I think there are no more extravagant surprises, pow, another one.”
We’re parked at the light at the end of the off-ramp, and Eric turns toward me. “I meant every word in that song. It’s how I feel about you and me.”
He comes in for a fast, ardent kiss that leaves tears in my eyes. Embarrassed, I brush at my cheeks and say, “Play it again. I was too in shock to hear everything.”
Laughing, he taps the button to replay and then starts driving again.
“God, it’s overwhelming what you can do with six strings and your voice.”
“Is it overwhelming enough that tonight you won’t show me the door?” He stares at me, his expression heated, and my pulse jumps.
“I didn’t need any of that. I wasn’t planning on showing you the door tonight.”
He inhales sharply, surprised. “Good. I don’t think I could take two nights in a row apart from you.”
“Me either.”
“I love you, Willow.”
Three little words. He’s said them before, only this time they feel different. I gaze into his beautiful blue eyes. “I love you, too, Eric.”
He pulls into a vacant spot on the street, parks, then leans over and kisses me. My world spins on a new axis and I can’t imagine my life without him.
I deepen the kiss and I’m feeling swept away by him when I hear his name shouted. He pulls back, gazing intently through the windshield. I turn my face and my gaze runs smack-dab into a mirror image of him and a pretty redhead with a baby strapped across her chest.
“Ethan and Avery?”
“Yep. Killing my moment with my woman.”
He growls, and I pout. “Give you something to look forward to later.”
“Well, I guess we can’t ditch them now,” he mutters and gives me a crooked smile of resignation.
I laugh. “No, I don’t think so. Climb out of the car, Eric. Avery’s going to get tired waving at us.”
AVERY AND I WALK side by side, our men holding our hands and talking over the tops of our heads at each other as we navigate the crowded sidewalks.
Since it’s summer, Pike Street is packed with tourists, street performers, sounds, and smells. Eric wasn’t wrong about his sister-in-law. Avery likes to stop and see everything. I’m sure we’ve been wandering through the market nearly two hours.
Sometimes she snaps pictures, sometimes a fast selfie with Ethan and Noah, sometimes she pauses to tap out a post for her blog, and somehow through it all she’s been answering an endless stream of incoming texts.
She certainly lives up to her handle, The Roaming Redhead, as she pulls in whatever direction catches her notice. Both Ethan and Eric defer to her, but I’m starting to get a little hungry. It’s after nine. Hopefully, the next stop will be a restaurant.
Leaning into Avery, I whisper, “You never feel a little strange when you’re with them both?”
She laughs. “No. We were all friends long before I married E. I’m used to it. Does it make you feel strange?”
“A bit off balance. They’re so alike.”
Avery crinkles her nose. “Not really. They’re like the opposite sides of the same coin. Very different.”
Hmm…interesting perspective, but Avery would know best. I glance back and forth between the brothers. Everything about them is an exact replica. What makes them different?
“I don’t see it,” I confess.
Avery laughs. “How emotion plays on their faces. Ethan’s like a still-water pond and Eric is like a hurricane.”
Hurricane. Clearly, Avery knows Eric well.
“Thanks for the tip.”
“You’re not going to need it. You’ll always know which one it is by how they make you feel.”
I blush because how Eric’s making me feel simply walking beside me and holding my hand I’m sure isn’t rated for all audiences. And it confirms that Avery’s right. I’ll always be able to tell them apart by how I feel when I’m with Eric.
My gaze strays to Noah, his golden curls and alert blue eyes. “He’s such a beautiful baby,” I gush.
“We think he’s pretty special.” Avery’s face glows with pride. “Eric’s daughter is
beautiful, too. Have you seen a picture of Hana?”
I nod, remembering the photos Eric showed me on his phone—Noah and Hana look so much alike they could be brother and sister—and I wonder if our children will look as precious should Eric and I ever have any.
I’m brought up sharply by the trek of my thoughts. It’s not something I’ve ever considered before—having a baby—and I’m certain it’s a bit early with Eric to be doing that now. I shrug it off as a result of being around Noah. What woman wouldn’t feel her heartstrings pulled looking at his adorable little face?
Eric’s fingers squeeze mine. “Penny for your thoughts?”
I flush and shake my head. “Nothing I’m going to tell you.”
“Darn. You had the most interesting expression on your face. I was kinda hoping you were thinking of me.”
He drops a kiss on my nose.
I smile. “Sort of. Tangentially.”
“Tangentially. That works. Just so long as I’m in there somewhere.”
“Avery, pick a restaurant,” Ethan orders affectionately.
“I will. I’m enjoying walking, seeing things, and talking to Willow.”
I look at her, crinkling my nose. “I’m kinda getting hungry.”
Her eyes go wide. “You should have said something. How about over there? Do you know that place? Is the food any good, Willow?”
She’s staring in the direction of a burger joint across the street from the public market—a touch overpriced for my tastes, very crowded, but at least it’s a good one. “Very good food.”
“That’s all I need to hear.” She tugs Ethan’s hand and they move ahead of us toward the curb.
“Is that OK with you, Willow?” Eric whispers.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”
He rubs his chin ruefully. “I was hoping for something a little more chic and romantic.”
I roll my eyes. “Then I don’t think we should have gone out to dinner with a married couple and a baby.”
