“We’ll work on it tomorrow then,” Nick says. “Good luck on your show tonight, bro.”
“You’re not coming?” Shea asks, his eyes wide.
I wonder why he’d never mentioned Nick to me, or maybe he had and he just called him Shadow and I never noticed it because I was to busy working on my microphone line. Who knows, but it seems like he values Nick’s opinion of things.
“Yeah, I’ll be there. Wouldn’t miss it,” Nick says, bumping fists with him.
“Good luck in the interviews and stuff,” I say, giving him a kiss on the cheek before walking away.
“Thanks. Be careful,” he calls out behind me. His voice sounds hesitant and I know why, but I refuse to acknowledge it as I leave him behind.
Nick holds the lobby door open for me and gives his ticket to the valet, who runs off to get the car. As we stand there, Nick wraps his arms around me from behind and places his head on mine. We’re both quiet, enjoying each other’s company while we wait for his car. I’ve decided I’ll try and guess what he has. Ryan and I used to play this game, picking out people’s cars based on the way they look. My mom, for example, always drove a Mercedes, which we decided was a perfect stuffy car. My dad drove, or was driven around in, a Bentley, which matched him well. Hendrix has driven an array of cars, but has mainly stuck with Range Rovers. My first car was a two-door Cadillac, but I quickly realized it didn’t match me. I ended up getting a two-door BMW, which also didn’t match me, so I got an Audi A5. That was the best fit for me. Ryan drove an Aston Martin, because you can’t go wrong with that car regardless of who you are.
As I stand here, thinking about Nick’s car, I can honestly say I can’t figure him out. It could be an old collector’s car like a badass Shelby, or a BMW. It hasn’t even occurred to me how much money he makes. I know a producer like him, working with an artist like Shea, is getting paid a pretty penny. And from the people he’s worked with in the past (Google has become my best friend), I know he’s doing well. I don’t pay attention to things like watches or cars in order to define how well off they are because I’ve known many people who have beautiful cars and amazing watches and live paycheck to paycheck. Still, everything about Nick Wilde intrigues me, even to the car he drives.
“There it is,” he murmurs when a beat up Honda Civic pulls up to us. My mouth falls open and I’m so glad he’s standing behind me because I definitely did not picture him in this tiny beat up red car. I bite my lip to keep from laughing, mainly at myself for being the presumptuous douchebag I always told myself I wouldn’t become, and take a step forward when the car comes to a full stop. My eyebrows knit together when a young kid, not the valet, steps out of the car, taking a pizza box out of the backseat.
Turning around to look at Nick, my mouth agape, I find him laughing, his eyes twinkling in amusement. “You’re so stupid,” I comment, shaking my head and turning back around at the feeling of embarrassment that I refuse to show him.
He wraps his arms around me again, kissing my cheek loudly. “I love that you were going to get in it regardless,” he says, turning me so that I can look at him. His eyes are still playful, but his tone is serious.
“I’m not a gold digger,” I say with a shrug, fighting a smile. It’s a ridiculous statement, and I know he knows it, but it makes me wonder if he deals with them as much as I have in the past.
“I know you’re not. You run your own successful business and work for a good company doing something you’re great at,” he says, his lips brushing against mine. I smile against him, loving that he doesn’t mention my father’s money or my mother’s fame. Loving that he treats me like I’m my own person and doesn’t throw my last name in my face.
“I would get on the back of a bike with you,” I say, truthfully, looking up at his gleaming eyes that have become possessive over my own. His mouth meets mine again, giving me a long, hard kiss. “I meant a regular bike, not a motorcycle,” I add bashfully, feeling the need to correct myself.
Nick laughs. “I know what you meant.”
A sleek charcoal grey two-door Jaguar drives into the carport of the hotel and Nick pulls my hand, signaling that this is his. A smile takes over my face at a couple of things: this car is sexy as hell, just like its owner, and I find that I was completely serious when I told him I would get on the back of a bicycle with him. And I don’t think I’ve ever even ridden a bicycle.
The ride to his house is fun. I sort through all of Nick’s music and find that the last song he was playing was The Door’s “Touch Me”, which Nick serenades. I won’t tell him, because he looks way too sure of himself, but he does a hell of a Jim Morrison impersonation. My stomach drops slightly at the view of the Golden Gate Bridge outside of my window, but I don’t pay much attention to it otherwise because Nick is doing a great job of keeping my eyes on him.
“We’re here,” he says as we pull up to a tall glass building. He lowers his window and presses a card into a monitor that opens a gate and drives in, backing the car up into a space. He holds my hand on the seatbelt and gives me a look that confuses me, but I take as a warning not to get out, before he walks to the other side of the car and opens my door.
“Chivalry isn’t dead,” I muse, leaning up to kiss him as a thank you.
“Not when I’m around,” he responds with a twinkle in his eye as he grabs a handful of my ass and squeezes it, which makes me laugh because it totally cancels out my previous statement.
“You left that girl alone last night,” I point out as I follow him to the door of his building.
“What girl?” he asks, playing dumb.
“The redhead that was all over you—the one you bought a drink for,” I say, raising an eyebrow as he opens the big glass door for me and lets me step in.
“The girl that wasn’t you?” he asks. I look up at him and notice he’s trying to stifle a smile.
“Obviously she’s not me,” I respond, failing to see the point.
He shrugs. “There’s your answer. Only one girl was leaving with me last night and that was you.”
I cock my head at him as we step into the elevator and he slides his key in the slot. “What if I had been with Shea or somebody else?” I ask curiously.
Nick presses his body into mine, pushing me against the cold elevator wall behind me. “I would’ve had to get into a hell of a fight and lose a hell of a client then,” he murmurs, dipping his head into the crook of my neck and sucking. I throw my head back, enjoying the feel of his lips on me.
“But Shea’s your friend,” I remind him breathily. “You don’t want to lose your friendship over some girl.”
He pulls his head back and looks down on me, his blue eyes intense as he speaks, “First of all, you’re not just some girl. Second of all, he’s my friend, and I value that, which is why I didn’t try anything before. But seeing his hands all over you … fuck,” he says, placing my hand over his heart. “I hated that, Brooklyn, and if going after you makes me the ultimate asshole, then so be it, but I want you.”
The fast pounding of his heart beneath my hand makes his words easier to believe, to swoon over, even. And I don’t swoon. Not ever. I’ve known enough guys to see through their bullshit sweet talk, but Nick’s talk isn’t sweet, it’s transparent.
“I want you too,” I offer quietly.
“I know,” he murmurs, brushing his lips against mine, making my heart skip a beat as the elevator doors open. Nick backs away from me and takes my hand, pulling me into the hallway. There’s only one door, so I know the floor is his, just like Hendrix’s place and my parents’ place in New York.
He drops my hand to sort through his keys until he locates the one he’s looking for and unlocks the door. “I hope you like dogs,” he says as he opens the door.
Before I have time to react, there’s a black horse galloping toward me. “Whoa,” I say, putting my hands up to guard my face with a laugh. Thank God I love dogs because if I didn’t this one would have given me a heart attack.
“Sc
ooby! Down!” Nick says firmly, effectively stopping the dog from jumping on me, which is good because he could completely knock me down.
“Scooby?” I ask as I pet the Great Dane. “Not Marmaduke?”
Nick scoffs and rolls his eyes, but his eyes are smiling. “Please. Scooby is way cooler.”
“What if I had been terrified of dogs or something?” I ask as I pull on Scooby’s ears. I’ve always loved these dogs; they have the most amazing bark in the world. Growing up, Ryan had three of them, so I’m very familiar with them. I kept his favorite one, Rascal for a while before I had to give it to his mom because the pain it caused me to see him every day.
Nick frowns. “I don’t know, I guess I wouldn’t be able to keep you around,” he says with a shrug as if it’s no big deal to him either way. I laugh when I notice his lips twitch as he turns around and walks toward the living room. “To be honest, I’m more worried about you freaking out over this,” he says, signaling at the view of the Golden Gate Bridge his floor to ceiling windows provide. My breath gets caught in my throat, mainly at the beauty of it.
“Wow,” I breathe. “This is nice.”
My parents’ homes and offices always have the most spectacular view of each city they’re in, but no view ever gets old to me. I’ve always had a fascination with nature and with manmade things. That bridge for example, holds memories for me that I wish I could forget, but people made it with their hands. Men labored on it for years and years and built it so that people can get from one canyon to the next without having to rely on a boat. It’s a marvelous thing, really, despite the lives lost on it yearly by accident or otherwise.
“No freak outs?” Nick asks quietly from behind me, wrapping his arms around me and breathing me in as he nuzzles his face into my neck.
“No freak outs,” I promise in a whisper. And I mean it. In this moment, I feel completely at ease with being here.
He loosens his grip on me when he feels me turning around. I want to really see where he lives, really see what Nick likes and to know every little thing about him, so I tell him that. He laughs but agrees to show me everything. We start in the kitchen, as most people do, and he offers me something to drink and eat.
“I have someone come every day when I’m gone. Scooby goes to a doggy daycare, he’s a spoiled brat.”
I laugh, trying to hold in the water spilling from the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand. “Doggy daycare? Interesting.”
“Don’t judge. You don’t want a Great Dane stuck inside a house for too many hours, that’s when you come home and start discovering holes all over your walls,” Nick says in a serious tone that tells me it’s happened.
“Why do you have him here though? I mean, why not buy a house with a yard?” I ask.
He places his forearms on the counter across from me and leans in. I love the way his shoulders move up when he’s in that position. And the way his neck extends … and the way his lips part slightly, making his full mouth look fuller.
“I will someday,” he says.
I roll my eyes and exhale. “Let me guess, when you’re ready to start a family.”
His lips tilt up slowly. “Exactly.”
“So predictable,” I say, shaking my head.
Nick circles the counter and pulls my hand so that I hop off the barstool. When I turn to walk toward the bedrooms he slaps my butt and I yelp at the unexpected sting, though it wasn’t hard.
“Nick!” I reprimand.
“I never claimed to be unpredictable,” he says, growling into my ear and placing a rough kiss on my neck before squeezing me into a hug.
“This is my favorite room,” he says, turning the knob to what looks like a recording studio with no closed off booth. There are musical instruments laid out across the room, leaning on the wall and sitting on chairs.
“Hmm. Not the awesome living room?” I ask, surprised that the massive living room with the stunning view and large sectional wouldn’t be his favorite place.
“Nah, I love it, but it’s not my favorite,” he says. “This is where the magic happens.”
I laugh. “Isn’t that supposed to be your bedroom?”
Nick shakes his head and looks at me like I’m a moron. “That’s so played out.”
“So you make music here?” I ask, stepping into the dark room with black padded walls.
“Magic,” he repeats, making me smile.
“Okay, so show me the magic,” I say, giving in to his little game.
“Sit,” he orders, pulling out a big leather chair that looks like it belongs in a living room more than a regular room.
When I sink into it, I realize why it’s here to begin with. I could fall asleep on it, and I’m assuming Nick often does. He sits in the one beside me and hands me some earphones, putting on a pair himself before he starts touching the controls on the soundboard. I get lost watching the way his hands move over it, and before I know it, there’s music playing in my ears. The song is slow yet fast, it’s sensual yet trendy. It’s difficult to explain, even for me, who listens to music all day. There’s a bit of that Houston chop and screw vibe to it, yet it has a little Marvin Gaye too. It’s absolutely brilliant, really, the way it’s mixed in there.
Closing my eyes, I let the music sink in, and as I try to sort out the types of music in it, I hear Nick’s voice, singing a verse. It surprises me so much, my eyes snap open and I gasp. He smiles at me, knowing I can hear him, and I notice it’s something he previously recorded. He pushes down on a button and talks into his microphone.
“It’s for Shea. He’s going to kill this beat, right?” he asks, his voice sure like he knows this song is a sure hit. I can’t argue there, I can totally picture it being played everywhere. I take my earphones off and he does the same.
“You sound really good,” I say.
He shrugs off the compliment but smiles. “I try.”
He’s not as good as Shea, but he’s definitely better than a lot of singers on the radio nowadays.
“How did you get into producing anyway?” I ask. “Did you want to be a singer?”
Nick laughs as he stands and takes our earphones and sets them down on the board. He takes my hand and pulls me out of my seat, stepping out of the room with our hands joined together.
“As flattered as I am, singing isn’t my thing. I can compose a song, play it on different instruments, but not really sing it … not good anyway. Producing comes easy to me. I’ve always made songs, worked out beats. I guess it’s in my blood,” he explains with a shrug.
I mull his words over for a moment as he pulls open the door to what I’m assuming is his bedroom. It’s a vast space: the walls are all dark gray and the dark wood king sized bed in the middle of the room is low to the ground. His bed has a big fluffy comforter like the feather goose ones that hotels have, which I love. I notice that his walls are plain and everything is pretty simple. He has a leather couch that’s pushed off to one side of the room and a massive television on the wall in front of his bed. Why is that not surprising?
“Nice,” I comment, walking around his room. I stop short when I take a closer look behind the couch. At first glance it looks like he has a regular bookshelf beside it, but looking at it closer I notice that they’re not books, they’re vinyl records. Holy smokes. The man is my ultimate weakness. It has been confirmed. I walk up to it, not even trying to hide my excitement, and hear Nick laugh behind me.
“Aha, I have something you like,” he says.
“Shh,” I respond, running my fingertips along the edges and taking a deep breath to smell that old lovely scent that means the world to me. I begin to pull some out but stop short when I find a specific one that makes my jaw drop.
“Oh. My. How’d you get this?” I ask, holding up a Please Please Me LP by The Beatles that says: Promotional. Not For Sale on the cover. I feel weird touching it, even if I’m only holding it by my fingertips. I lay it down on the couch and stare at it in complete awe. “How. Did. You. Get. This?” I as
k in shock.
Nick throws his head back in a laugh, and as adorable as I find his carefree laugh usually, I can’t bring myself to pick up my jaw from the floor. “Am I still predictable?” he asks amused.
I shake my head, my mouth still agape. “No, but for real, how?”
Nick just smiles and shrugs. “Ah … one of the many unsolved mysteries of Nick Wilde,” he muses like an idiot.
“You’re not going to tell me?” I press.
“Maybe someday. I can’t give you all my secrets in one day, then you’ll get bored of me and leave me high and dry,” he says as he disappears into his closet.
“I can’t even touch that record to put it away now that I’ve seen what it is,” I say. He laughs. “I’m serious.”
“Brooklyn, it’s just a record,” he says from his closet.
My eyes widen. He can’t see me, but I’m just shocked right now. I’ve seen a lot of stuff in my day. I’ve met a lot of important people, been to more exclusive events than I can count. Hell, I’ve even met Sir Paul McCartney himself. You would think seeing this record would pale in comparison, but it doesn’t. Not one bit. Maybe because it’s one of my favorite bands, maybe because I wasn’t expecting to see it, maybe because my own father doesn’t have an exclusive vinyl like this one, or maybe because I wouldn’t in a million years expect Mr. Cocky Music Producer to have one.
“How did you say you got into the music business?” I ask, knowing he hadn’t said anything about it at all.
“I love music,” he answers.
I exhale, unwilling to let myself get frustrated. I’ll find out sooner or later, even if I have to call Hendrix or Sarah for the real scoop. “Whatever,” I mutter, taking a seat on the edge of his bed, which is super soft and comfortable. I just feel like crawling in it, but I hold back. It’s weird how a place I’ve never been before can make me feel so comfortable, so at home. I’m not sure if I like that I feel this way in his house. Everything I feel around Nick Wilde is new, unsettling and scary.
Catch Me Page 19
