Love Songs for the Road

by Farrah Taylor

  Marcus knew it would look funny if anyone were to catch him staring at his nanny like this. But this wasn’t just a sexual thing, and he was no Peeping Tom. Sure, Ryan was beautiful. He couldn’t help but notice the way her hair cascaded over her shoulders. And the curve of her hips, straining against her jeans, hit him right in the gut. If he wasn’t careful, he’d start imagining all kinds of things, like sweeping her right off the floor and taking her into his strong arms. Like pinning her to the wall and kissing her on the soft part of her neck, nuzzling her, lightly running the back of his hand against her bare stomach, and…

  Cool it, Marcus thought. You’re her employer. Don’t be creepy.

  Suddenly, a cell phone started buzzing. He looked around the room for where the noise was coming from and spotted Ryan’s windbreaker. He pulled it out. Someone named Nick was calling her. Not wanting the kids to wake up, Marcus rejected the call and silenced the phone.

  “Daddy,” Charlotte cooed, half-awake. “Tuck me in.” That was sweet. If she’d been more alert, Charlotte never would have said something so young and vulnerable-sounding. For LA kids, ten was the next fourteen, and Marcus was thankful for every moment his daughter forgot to act like a grown-up.

  Ryan stirred a bit, and so did Miles, but they were a long ways from awake.

  Marcus sat on the edge of his daughter’s bed and kissed her on the head. He pulled the sheets up all the way to Charlotte’s throat, just the way she liked them. She smiled and was asleep again in an instant. Miles had stopped stirring and was also in a deep sleep again.

  “Hi there,” Marcus whispered, jostling Ryan gently.

  “Is that my phone?” Ryan asked, confused.

  “Yeah, sorry, I wasn’t going through your stuff or anything. I just needed to turn off the ringer. You know, the kids being asleep and all.”

  “Sure.” Ryan delicately untangled Miles’s arms and legs from her own. “I’m sorry I fell asleep here. That must have looked weird.”

  “Not at all––you did the right thing. This might happen from time to time. You know, me coming in late. It’s best if you stay in the room, although you should feel free to spread out. The couch is cool, or even my bed.”

  Ryan looked surprised. She was definitely awake now. “What?”

  “No, I didn’t mean it that way,” Marcus said. He tried not to sound too defensive. That really wasn’t what he’d meant; he was a responsible boss. “I meant, just, you know, find a comfortable place in the suite. There are lots of spots to crash.”

  “Sure, sure.” Ryan stood up. She smoothed out her pants legs and tucked her hair behind her ear. “So, can you tell me where my room is?”

  “Oh, you haven’t gotten checked in yet? Sorry about that. Hold on a sec.”

  Marcus walked into the living room and turned on a light. Serena had left him an itinerary on the desk near the door. He riffled through the packet and found the key to 2102 easily enough. When he turned around, Ryan was sitting down, putting her Converses back on.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Marcus said. “You’re only traveling about twenty feet.”

  “I guess you’re right.” Ryan picked up her shoes in one hand and walked toward the door. Because his mother had drilled into him from an incredibly early age that a woman should never hold the door for herself if a man is within a country mile, Marcus jogged to beat her there.

  But Ryan, still sleepy and disoriented, stumbled at the threshold. Marcus swept in and grabbed her at the waist, barely catching her before she knocked that beautiful body of hers against the doorframe.

  “Oh my God, that’s embarrassing,” Ryan said. She didn’t pull away, not immediately anyway, and Marcus found himself holding her. Remembering Ryan’s comment about taking his bed, remembering that he was her boss, he pulled back.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Marcus said. “It’s my fault for staying out for drinks, instead of tucking the kids in myself, like I should have.”

  He was still close enough to look her dead in the eyes. He couldn’t help it. He had to see if he’d feel that same electric jolt he did before. And he did.

  Up this close, seeing the flecks of brown and gold in her green eyes, he was almost knocked down himself. He took in one last drink, diving into the depth of Ryan’s eyes before stepping back.

  “Good night,” she said, looking down.

  “See you tomorrow,” he replied. He’d meant it to sound casual, indifferent even, but it came out a little more eager than he’d hoped. “Oh, and Ryan? Feel free to sleep in a little. I’m going to spend time with them alone in the morning, maybe even through lunch.”

  “Yeah? You sure you don’t need any help?”

  “I’m going to need tons of help…later. After soundcheck, I’ll get sucked into the vortex till God knows what hour.”

  “Got it. Not a problem. Sleeping in is something I can do. Not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

  “Sleep well, Ryan.”

  Marcus was exhausted, but after he got into bed, he just lay there for an hour thinking about Ryan’s magical eyes, her body, and the sweet smell of her skin. Jasmine, he thought. Emerald eyes and jasmine-scented skin. He hadn’t had this feeling in a long time—desire.

  He blocked out Smitty, who had always been the voice of reason in his life. But that burly, bearded angel appeared on his shoulder without invitation, saying, Get it together. Dude, you cannot fall for the nanny.

  Chapter Five

  A Roommate

  Ryan slept soundly in her room until 3:30 a.m., when she woke up with a start. Someone was in the room with her. She could hear the person fumbling for the light switch.

  “Who the hell is that?” she hissed, instinctively jumping out of bed. She grabbed a pillow, as if it would serve as a halfway-effective shield, and swept her hand across the bedside table, grabbing the first object that felt like a weapon. Just like that, she was no longer a nanny, but a knight, a warrior.

  Who was in her room? Crazily, she thought of creepy Mr. Randall, who, though now presumably several hundred miles away, still popped into her brain at odd moments. Was it Marcus? He might have her key. Or that jerky reporter? The thought made her so angry, she knew she wouldn’t hesitate to crack him across the head with the heavy, club-like thing she was holding.

  “Answer me,” Ryan cried. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Jacey,” said a hoarse-sounding female voice. “Jacey Richards.”

  “Well, Jacey Richards, what are you doing in my room?”

  “Calm down. I’m sure there’s an explanation for this.”

  Not only was Ryan blind in the darkness; but she couldn’t hear very well either, with her heart pounding in her head a million miles an hour at a volume that would have made Marcus’s band put in earplugs. Then she heard a click, and suddenly the room was filled with light. But it was a disorienting light, sending shadows bouncing around the room. Ryan felt like she was in a disco, or a horror movie.

  “What the hell?” Jacey said, pointing to Ryan’s right hand. “Put that thing away.”

  Ryan looked down and saw that she was holding the lamp that Jacey had just turned on from a wall switch. Although she was reluctant to put down her weapon, Ryan took a quick glance and assessed that Jacey Richards, all 110 pounds of her, didn’t pose much of a physical threat. She placed the lamp back on the table.

  “What were you going to do, lay me out with that thing?” Jacey asked. She looked about Ryan’s age, with bright blue eyes, translucent skin, and strawberry-blonde hair. Leather pants. Artfully torn T-shirt. Motorcycle boots. Jacey Richards was either a rock star, a serious poseur, or both. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Look, I woke up, and there was a stranger in my room,” Ryan said.

  “No, I walked into my room, and there was a stranger in my bed.”

  Quickly enough, the two of them established what was going on. Ryan was Marcus’s nanny; Jacey, a musician, was Marcus’s opening act for the entire tour. She and her band had hit som
e rough weather on the flight from LA and arrived at the hotel moments earlier. Somehow Serena, or the hotel, had given them the key to the same room, and now here it was, middle of the night, and there was only one bed for them to share.

  Ryan picked up the phone, called the front desk, and explained the situation. The manager apologized profusely, but explained that, tonight anyway, there wasn’t a single additional room available. “We have three conventions in town, Ms. Evans,” he said. “It’s a perfect storm.”

  Ryan thanked the man and filled in Jacey. “Oh well, at least it’s a California King,” she said. “We can share and still have room to spare.” She was being pretty friendly, she thought, considering the situation. “Go ahead and unpack, take a shower, whatever. You can have that side. See, it’s totally untouched.” She smiled as warmly as she could.

  Jacey looked at her, uncomprehending for a moment, then laughed. “Oh, we’re not going to share the bed.” She put on an ewww face that made her look like an uptight daddy’s girl in rock star’s clothing. Ryan had grown up in Montana, where accommodation and adaptation were rewarded, and complaining of any kind was met with zero tolerance. She hated daddy’s girls. “I’ve never even met you.”

  Thinking how odd it was, all this talk of bed-sharing in one evening, Ryan tried to reason with Jacey as if she were reasoning not with a total bitch, but with Charlotte, Miles, or anyone else whose frontal cortex had not yet fully developed. “Look, it’ll be fine. We’ve never met, but we’re in the same position, right? And we both work for Marcus.”

  “Work for Marcus? You might work for Marcus. I work for myself. ”

  “That’s wonderful for you, Jacey,” Ryan said. “But here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to try to get back to sleep while you quietly put away your things. Then you can join me on the clean, untouched half of this luxurious hotel bed, and we can sort out whose room this is in the morning.”

  Jacey, conceding defeat, said incredulously, “You’re…the nanny?”

  “Yep. Just the nanny. But you can call me Ryan.”

  Jacey rolled her eyes, groaned dramatically, and disappeared into the bathroom.

  …

  The next day, Marcus made sure to squeeze in some alone time with the kids bright and early––he prided himself on being able to get by easily on four or five hours of sleep, even at thirty-four. He knew his day was going to get pretty insane by two p.m. or so, when the band would endure its most painstaking soundcheck of the entire tour. He woke Charlotte and Miles at seven, showered and dressed, and while the kids were eating cereal (the fridge and cupboards, of course, were fully stocked with a list of groceries Serena had provided the Hyatt people), he swung by Ryan’s room to check in with her. Did he need to do that, strictly? He had told her she could sleep in. Pushing away the thought that perhaps he was initiating contact with his pretty nanny for no good reason, he reasoned that Ryan had been tired last night, and might have forgotten the plan.

  Strangely, though, after Marcus knocked, Ryan didn’t answer the door. Jacey Richards did.

  “Oh, hi Jacey!” He gave her a quick hug. Jacey was a client of Marcus’s tour manager, Alex, and the daughter of his old buddy and mentor, Austin singer-songwriter Earle Richards. Jacey, who’d had some of Earle’s wildness in her blood since Marcus had met her when she was just eleven, had a great voice, and the right look to be a star. All he’d had to do was hear her once to know she was talented and ambitious, and he was happy to have her along for the tour.

  The only problem was that Jacey had an obvious crush on him, and she could be a little aggressive about it. It was cool, though. He would keep their relationship older-brotherly, all the way. “Great to see you. But isn’t this Ryan’s room? I swear she was in 2102.”

  “Oh, there was a mix-up,” Jacey said, smiling almost too sweetly for somebody with Mad-Dog blood in her. “Somehow, we both wound up with the same room key. But Ryan was really cool about it. We crashed here together, and now she’s in 2103. Just next door.” Jacey pointed down the hall.

  “2103? Isn’t that Serena’s room?”

  “That’s your assistant, right?” Marcus nodded. “Yeah, the hotel’s booked solid, so they’re bringing up a pull-out bed so they can share.”

  “Listen, Jacey, it’s great to see you, and I’m so psyched to hear you play tonight.” She was leaning against the doorway, eyeing Marcus with a flirty look that he pretended not to notice. “And it’s obviously the hotel’s fault, not booking us enough rooms…but I really need Ryan to be right next door to me. You know, in case something happens with the kids?”

  “Right, she’s your nanny,” Jacey said. “Makes sense.”

  “So until we get this sorted out, would you do me a huge favor and give the room back to her?”

  “Sure, Marcus.” But she didn’t look so sure. She looked annoyed. “Not a problem.”

  “Thanks, Jacey. I appreciate that.”

  “No problem.” She leaned in for their second hug in two minutes, pressing her body against his. He didn’t feel a thing, though. Without being rude, he pulled away as quickly as possible. He couldn’t help but remember how different it had been brushing past Ryan on the bus, or holding her after she’d stumbled out last night. Jacey wasn’t shy about liking him, but he had no interest in her whatsoever. Whereas his attraction to Ryan was intense, but she was strictly forbidden. Life sucked that way sometimes.

  “Oh, and Jacey,” he said. “Just tell Ryan to show up at soundcheck at two. Actually, she might not know the way to the stadium, so why don’t you carpool with her?” Then, over his shoulder, “Sorry I’m in such a rush. Gotta squeeze in some time with Charlotte and Miles before things get too hectic.”

  “Can’t wait to meet them!” Jacey said, but Marcus was already halfway to his room. When he re-entered the suite, Miles was bouncing on the couch.

  “Ryan already told you not to do that,” Charlotte was saying to her brother.

  “Oooh, Ryan said?” Marcus teased, tickling his daughter. “Does that mean you might, um, actually…like Ryan?”

  “She’s nice,” Charlotte said, although not too harshly. “Plus, she’s right. He shouldn’t jump on the couch. Right?”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that, Charlotte. We’re paying a lot of money to stay in this room. The least we can do is break in the couch a little bit!” Marcus pounced on one of the overstuffed pillows, butt first, bouncing his fifty-three-pound son high into the air.

  “But Ryan said not to,” Charlotte said.

  “Sweetie, your brother can go ballistic on the couch, as long as his feet are clean. See?”

  To demonstrate, Marcus started to jump trampoline-style. He even attempted––attempted was the word because he sure was a half-assed gymnast––a flip, which careened him off of the couch and onto the floor, where he narrowly missed cracking his head on the glass coffee table.

  “Dad, stop! You’re too old for jumping!” Miles said.

  Marcus looked over at grumpy Charlotte. He made faces at her until she cracked a smile. He loved his kids so much in moments like this, he thought his heart was going to explode.

  Chapter Six

  Lock the Door

  Ryan couldn’t believe she’d gotten to sleep in until ten a.m. The incident with the reporter last night had been pretty disconcerting, and Jacey’s arrival hadn’t exactly been a barrel of laughs, either. But the junior rocker had already moved all her things into another room before Ryan had woken up. If Ryan could sleep in like this even a couple times a week, she could handle the unexpected obstacles that working for Marcus presented.

  She spent her morning writing e-mails to her parents and a couple of her closest girlfriends, telling them for the first time who her employer was and swearing them to secrecy. After her run-in with the Harry Potter reporter, she realized she needed to be super careful when it came to associating herself with the rock star. No matter how professional their relationship was, people would be tempted to think otherwise. So,
no way was she going to scream on Facebook, “I SLEPT 20 FEET AWAY FROM MARCUS TROY LAST NIGHT!!!” In fact, she didn’t post a status at all, satisfying herself by looking at her friends’ photos and comments instead.

  Since Nick had dumped her for Natalie, Ryan had maintained a much lower presence on Facebook. In fact, she had come to be deeply wary of all social media, checking her accounts only once or twice a week to make sure she didn’t fall off the face of the earth. Not one week after their breakup, Natalie had had the nerve to post an image of herself and Nick, kissing in a series of those old-photo-booth-styled pictures. And then she’d changed her relationship status, too. Really, after one week with Nick, one week after betraying her best friend, she had the nerve to say that she was “in a relationship” with him? And when she knew, she had to know, that Ryan would inevitably see all of the above? It was outrageous. She de-friended both of them, and for good measure, blocked them, too.

  Ryan had never thought of herself as particularly private until this, the most painful drama of her life, had unfolded on Facebook. The world of social media seemed to have desensitized even her most caring friends, to the point that they felt it was perfectly okay to comment in public on the most intimate details of Ryan’s life.

  Her friend Karen, a sweet, caring presence in her life for more than five years, had ended up defending Nick, posting on Twitter that the chemistry between Ryan and him had “never been too sizzling in the first place.” Had she not realized that Ryan would read this brilliant insight along with all their other friends? But something about Facebook, Twitter, and all the other sites that Ryan now thought of as nothing more than universally accessible gossip blogs, made people lose their heads. They spent more time maniacally speed-typing on their phones than they did reflecting on the appropriateness of their comments. “The need to assert self,” as one of her child-development texts had characterized the terrible two’s, held dominion over almost every adult she knew. Trust and respect, even friendship itself, seemed to have been abandoned by all her supposedly adult peers in favor of this childish and constant selfishness.