Nashville Boxed Set #1-3

by Bethany Michaels

  “Yeah. Several of your demos for songwriters you work with have gotten passed to him by his label. Most of the songs are crap, but he always says you’ve got a voice that could sell anything.”

  The guys at the studio had hinted before that I should record my own stuff and try to become a recording artist in my own right. Sure, I knew I had a good voice, but to make that kind of commitment to so many other people, put myself out there like, that, take a risk and maybe fail like a million other suckers that have come to Nashville with stars in their eyes? No, thanks. I made enough doing something I really loved and was good at. Even if it was a little creatively stifling sometimes, it was comfortable and safe.

  “Tell him I appreciate his interest, but I’m just not interested in becoming a product of the Nashville music machine.” I shrugged and shot her a grin. “Besides, I’m much too lazy to put in the kind of hours Dex does.”

  It was sort of the truth, but Sydney knew me well enough to know it wasn’t the whole truth. She rolled her eyes and headed into the changing room. “Well, think about it some more, okay? It’s a waste of your talent not to give it a shot, at least.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Good. It’s your turn.” She gestured to the pedestal and the hall of mirrors.

  “I think I’ll just head over to JC Penney and see if they have any prom dresses on clearance,” I said, thinking there was no way I could afford a pair of pantyhose in this place, let alone a whole gown.

  The saleslady laughed, as if I’d made the joke of the year.

  Sydney came out as few minutes later dressed in the jeans and a red sweater she’d arrived in. “Come on, Becca. My treat.”

  “No way. I’m not letting you buy me a dress.”

  “I owe you,” she said simply. “I left you high and dry with the apartment. Besides, if you don’t come to the ball, I won’t know anyone. You’re doing me a big favor. Let me get you something nice to wear.”

  “JC Penney has nice things,” I said defensively.

  Syd pointed to a red number displayed on a mannequin that in no way reflected an actual woman’s shape. “Try that one on. It would be perfect with your dark hair and coloring.”

  I eyed the gown. It was nice.

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “I’ll try it on. But no promises.”

  “Excellent,” the saleslady said, and I could almost see the dollar signs dancing in her eyes.

  I headed into the mirrored room, which reminded me of the funhouse I’d kissed Jimmy Collins in when I was fourteen. Everywhere I looked, all I could see was me—front, side, back, and sides I didn’t even know I had.

  I stripped down to my skivvies and the saleslady helped me shimmy into the form-fitting gown.

  “Fabulous. This gown was made for you,” she said, once she had coaxed the zipper up the back.

  I looked at myself and had to admit, it did look damn good. I had just the right color of red lipstick to go with the red velvet. It was off the shoulder and edged in rhinestones at the low-cut sweetheart neckline. The cut accentuated my curvy figure in all the right places, though I was much shorter than whomever the gown was made for and the hem dragged on the floor.

  Sydney came in the room behind me, smiling. “I knew it. It’s perfect.”

  I nodded and turned to the side. “It is nice, isn’t it?”

  The saleslady scrambled to fetch her pins to mark the hem.

  “Wait until Dillon sees you in this.”

  I frowned at Sydney in the mirror. “Dillon? Why would he care?”

  “Aren’t you going to the ball together?”

  “Yeah. As friends.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, turning to face her.

  She shrugged. “Nothing. Just that you two seem pretty cozy lately.”

  “We’re roommates.”

  “Okay,” she said, holding her hands up. “When Dillon said you were going to the ball with him, I thought…well, never mind.”

  I turned back around, my face flush. “We’re roommates,” I reiterated. “I mean, he’s nice-enough looking. Funny. Smart. A really good listener. Amazing cook.”

  “Oh?” I could hear the laughter in the tone of her voice.

  “He’d be a great boyfriend.” I turned to face her. “For someone else.”

  “Oh.” She seemed disappointed.

  My cell phone rang and I gestured to Syd to grab it out of my purse for me since I was becoming a human pincushion.

  She looked at the caller ID, then glanced up at me and grinned, an ornery glint in her eye.

  “It’s your friend.” She flipped the phone open. “Becca’s phone,” she said.

  She grinned wider. “I’m fine. Becca and I are just trying on gowns. I hope you’re bringing your “A” game, because Becca’s a knockout in this dress.”

  She laughed and if there hadn’t been a woman at my feet poking a cushion full of sharp pins into fabric a few millimeters from my flesh, I would have lunged for the phone.

  “Yeah. I think so, too,” Sydney said into the phone. I could just hear the deep undertones of Dillon’s voice, but not his words.

  “Hang on,” Syd said. “I’ll ask her.” Sydney covered the mouthpiece. “Your friend wants to know if you’re still on for dinner. Something about Thai night?” She arched a brow.

  I gritted my teeth. “Tell him I’ll be home about six thirty.”

  “It’s a date. Six thirty.” Sydney said into the phone. Her gaze met mine as she listened to Dillon’s reply. “Okay, I’ll tell her. Talk to you later, Dil.” Sydney flipped the phone closed and leaned her hip against the wall, a smug look on her face.

  “He says it’s your turn to pick the wine.”

  “Thanks,” I said, waiting for the inevitable line of questions from my well-meaning but meddling friend. Why was it that once a singleton got herself into a couple, she suddenly assumed it was her mission in life to pair up everybody else around her? I mean, some of us just weren’t cut out for the relationship thing, me being the poster child for the single state.

  “So…you’re having dinner.”

  “Yeah.”

  Syndey dropped her arms. “Come on, Becca. You’re killing me here. Spill.”

  “There’s nothing to spill. I told you, we’re friends.”

  “Friends who have dinner together and share a bottle of wine.”

  “Yeah. Like you and I used to do once in a while when we were roommates.”

  “There’s one big difference between Dillon and me, though.”

  “So he’s got a dick. So what? Still a friend.”

  “And how often do these dinners take place?”

  I glanced down and was pleased to find the saleslady was more than halfway around the hem of the gown.

  “A couple of times a week,” I said, fibbing a little. Actually it was more like three or four lately. After that first dinner together, it had become a sort of ritual.

  “You always stay in?”

  I rolled my eyes. “No, Mom, sometimes we go out. To a bar, to a club, to a restaurant or pub.”

  “You’re totally dating your roommate.”

  I turned suddenly, eliciting a small squeak from the saleslady as her pins went flying.

  “It’s not a date. Dillon and I just enjoy spending time together. We talk about our day, about stuff like movies and music and Elvis.”

  “Dating,” she sing-songed.

  “It does sound like you’re dating,” the saleslady offered.

  I cocked an eyebrow and she lowered her head and went back to her pinning.

  “Has he ever kissed you?”

  “No!” I said, reddening. “Of course not.”

  “Touched you?”

  “Just when he rubs my shoulders.”

  She clapped her hands together, her smile beaming. “That’s awesome. I always thought you needed someone different from the losers you were bringing home. Someone nice. A gentleman.”
She rushed up to me and hugged me. Pins poked into my ankles, but it was less painful than listening to Sydney ramble a moment longer.

  “I’m so happy for you.”

  I rolled my eyes. It was a lost cause.

  Her played digital version of one of Dex’s songs and she immediately flipped open her phone. “Hey, honey.”

  She went to the back corner of the store to take the call.

  She didn’t get it. Dillon and I had grown close over the past few weeks, but we weren’t a thing. I looked forward to seeing him in the evenings. We talked about stuff. Stuff that happened to us during the day, our frustrations, our hopes, people we met. He chuckled over the outfits I wore to work sometimes to cater, and teased me about the sexy braids. I asked him about the progress of his music students and watched the way his face lit up when he described their latest accomplishments.

  Okay, so maybe during the massages, I’d wondered a time or two, clear in the back, cobwebby corners of my mind, what it might be like to touch him. Or maybe run a hand through his hair. Sometimes, when he looked at me, thinking I wasn’t paying attention, I caught a certain expression on his face: softer, more open—wistful, even. But as soon as I turned to meet his gaze, it was gone and good ol’ buddy Dillon was back.

  But, it wasn’t as if we always had dinner together, like a couple or something. Sometimes Dillon had to work late at the music store, then head straight to rehearsal or a gig. On those nights, if I was off work, I’d go see him play. I loved live music of any kind, but I especially loved watching Dillon. The passion he felt for his music was tangible, so evident in every strum of his vintage Fender. If I had been a churchy girl, I would have called it downright inspirational, the things he could do with a guitar.

  That still didn’t make us a couple. Just two people who enjoyed each other’s company and liked to hang out together. A lot. If it had been a relationship, there would have been sex, Lots of sex. But that was a moot point because I didn’t do relationships.

  The saleslady got to her feet.

  “Okay, let’s get this off. I’ll have the alterations done by the end of the week.” She looked at her work again, circling me. She nodded. “Your young man is going to love you in this.”

  I looked heavenward, knowing that explaining once again that it didn’t matter because he wasn’t my young man wouldn’t make a dent in her perception. Or Syd’s. She winked at me and leaned in to whisper. “I’d bet my commission that he’ll like you even more out of it.”

  Chapter Four

  I spent the next couple of weeks working late with one particular songwriter I really liked. She wrote happy stuff—upbeat, sassy, about women taking control of their lives and their men. She’d asked me more than once if I’d be interested in recording it for myself, but I always thanked her and declined. I was perfectly happy singing demos and clocking out at the end of the day.

  After another long day, I left the studio and stepped outside to find that fall had arrived. Gray blankets of clouds hovered over the city and I huddled in my lightweight sweater, marveling how the weather could change so fast. I hurried home as the wind picked up and chilly rain began to pelt my face.

  By the time I got to my apartment, it was a full-on rainstorm and I was soaked to the skin and shivering. I hurried up the stairs and unlocked the door to the apartment.

  “I hate rain,” I said, shutting the door behind me and shaking the water from my hair.

  There was no answer, but the smell of dinner bubbling away in the Crock-Pot on the counter was pure heaven. I remembered Dillon promising the best pot roast ever that morning when he’d loaded the cooker with carrots, potatoes, onion, beef, and a “secret” blend of spices known only to him and his mama. My stomach grumbled.

  “Dillon?”

  Still no answer. I shrugged, deciding he must have run down to the convenience store on the corner or something.

  I headed to my room to get out of my wet clothes. Since Dil wasn’t home yet, I thought about grabbing a quick shower to shake off the cold that had seeped into my bones on the walk home. It sounded heavenly.

  I stripped down to my panties and bra. Those were soaked, too, so I peeled them off and tossed them in the laundry basket with the rest. I pulled a pair of sweats and a tank top out of my dresser, grabbed my Elvis beach towel off the back of my door and headed for the bathroom.

  I had opened the door and stepped all the way into the steamy bathroom when I realized I wasn’t the only one who’d had the idea of grabbing a quick shower. Dillon stood at the sink wearing nothing but a face full of shaving cream and a wide-eyed stare. We both froze like a couple of deer in the headlights. Naked deer.

  The first thought in my head as my gaze slid over his damp body was that Dillon had been holding out on me. Beneath all those boring clothes lurked the body of a Playgirl model. The boy was hot. His abs alone could inspire a song, and that was one ditty I’d be happy to sing.

  His hair was damp and hung around his face in charming disarray, not combed to perfection as it usually was. His chest was nearly hairless but there was a very nice happy trail that stretched down his flat belly. All the way down.

  My eyes jerked back to his face. He was staring, too. His mouth hung open, but his Adam’s apple bobbed once as he swallowed hard, his eyes traveling over my breasts, down my belly, to the neatly trimmed thatch of black curls between my thighs.

  The chill from the walk home burned off in a blaze of heat. My pulse raced and my skin tingled in pure, unadulterated lust. In a flash, Dillon went from a boring, asexual roommate who did laundry with me on Sunday nights to a guy I’d be happy to let dirty my bed sheets any time.

  I had the sudden and undeniable urge to put my mouth on him. Touch him. Trace that happy trail until I got to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Given his body’s reaction, happening right before my eyes, he wouldn’t have minded at all.

  Dillon shook off the shock first and grabbed a hand towel to cover his goods. “Uh, I’ll be out in a minute?” He grinned a bit, his gaze holding steady on my face. He’d seen me checking him out.

  My face burned almost as hot as certain other parts of my anatomy. I jerked my wadded sweats up to cover my breasts and their puckered nipples as I slowly backed out of the room. “Sorry. I’ll just…Yeah. Let me know when you’re done, ’kay?”

  I turned and fled back to my room, wondering if he checked out my ass. I closed the door and sat on the side of my dinky twin bed, totally in shock. Shock that seeing him, Dillon, my friend, my totally platonic roommate, in the buff had turned me on so fast and made me want him with an intensity I’d never experienced. Damn.

  Dillon’s light knock at my bedroom door a few minutes later made me jump.

  “I’m done.”

  “’Kay. Thanks.”

  “Dinner will be ready in fifteen.”

  “’Kay. Thanks.”

  I strained to hear him, holding my breath as if it would help me read his mind. He didn’t leave right away and I pictured him standing there awkwardly, wanting to say something more. But what? He was sorry for staring? Tell me to fucking knock next time? Or would he laugh it off and forget it ever happened?

  It was just a little flesh, after all. Okay, more than a little. But I’d seen lots of naked men. Why should the sight of this one mean anything? We were friends who lived together. It was bound to happen sooner or later and it could have been worse.

  No big deal.

  * * * *

  Pot roast had never given him a boner before, Dillon thought, as he fixed plates for Becca and himself in the kitchen. But then, he’d never had to sit across from a woman he’d just seen completely bare naked from the tips of her toes to the top her head. Even after she’d closed the bathroom door and scurried off to her room, Dillon couldn’t get that image out of his head. And didn’t really want to. It took a few minutes under another shower—a cold one this time—to get it to the point that wearing pants was semi-comfortable.

  He knew Becca was
a gorgeous, sexy woman. Any man with two eyes who had seen her walk into the bar as if she owned the place knew that. However, she was even more amazing beneath all the sexy clothes and makeup and big hair. Sure, her full, round breasts with their pert pink nipples made his eyes roll back in his head. Not to mention the way her waist nipped in then flared out at the hips in a classic hourglass figure that could give anyone from Marilyn Monroe to Brigitte Bardot a run for their money.

  But what hit him, after the raw lust sent all the blood in his brain south, was that she looked so vulnerable. She was Becca without all the tough talk, the snappy one-liners or the sexuality she’d cultivated over the years. She was sexy and beautiful and just all Becca at that moment.

  Dillon’s heart flipped over in his chest and he realized he’d been standing there frozen in thought with a ladle full of gravy from the Crock-Pot dripping steadily on the floor next to his bare feet.

  Shit. Was he developing a thing for his roommate? Because Becca had made it abundantly clear that Dillon was not her type. In addition, when he had assured her that she was not his type, either, he thought he’d meant it. Dillon never been into the bad-girl type, instead dating the kind of girl you could bring home to Mama. He thought that was what he wanted. Until he saw Becca. All of Becca.

  Dillon set the plates on the table and bent to wipe up the mess on the floor. The only consolation was that he knew Becca was checking him out, too. She’d looked her fill and if the flush on her skin was any indication, she’d liked what she saw. But where did that leave them? Would they pretend it hadn’t happened and just go on as they had, as buddies and roommates? Or had this thing opened a door neither of them had considered before?

  Images of them together—laughing, going to clubs, picnics in the park and kissing, lots of kissing—ran roughshod over the part of his brain that still contained enough blood to function rationally. It was surprisingly appealing, a completely new world he’d never considered.

  Dillon smiled to himself. Yeah, it sounded good. Really good. They were already good friends. He wasn’t sure he’d ever cottoned to anybody as fast as he did to Becca. One minute they were acquaintances through Sydney; the next, roommates; and a second or two after that, good friends. Why not this next step? It felt right.