by Rachel Lacey
“Fans of Cole’s,” Jenn told her.
“But how did they even know he would be here?” Mrs. MacDonald asked.
“They didn’t,” he told her. “They’re just people who happened to be here at the airport today.” He shrugged, offering her what he hoped was a charming smile.
She stared at him with a somewhat horrified look. “And do they often ask you to sign their…well, private areas?”
All the fuckin’ time. “Ah, well, I do get asked to sign a lot of shirts.” And bare breasts. Backs. Thighs. Even a few asses.
“He’s a very popular musician,” Jenn said, tossing a sweet smile in his direction.
“But you always said…” Her mother drifted off.
“That I’d never date a musician?” Jenn took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “Famous last words, right?”
They walked outside, and Jenn’s parents led them to a black Honda sedan parked on the second floor of the parking garage. Once they were safely inside—him and Jenn in the back, her parents in the front—he stuffed his cap into his pocket and released a breath.
“I’m sorry about that scene in the airport,” he said.
“Don’t be silly,” Jenn said, squeezing his hand. “You have nothing to apologize for. That’s what life is like when you’re in the spotlight.”
Conversation was stilted on the car ride to their house. Her mom talked on and on about a luncheon at the church that she wanted to bring Jenn to tomorrow. Her father talked about the weather and the Reds. Cole—being originally from upstate New York—was a Mets fan, which earned him a grunt and a “better than the Yankees.”
Jenn’s parents lived in a modest-looking two-story house with beige trim and black shutters. Everyone seemed more at ease once they were out of the car. He carried his and Jenn’s bags into the house, where her mother told him to take them upstairs to the first door on the right.
“Both of them?” Jenn said, her eyes widening. “Isn’t Cole sleeping in the den?”
“Well, no, dear. He’s your husband,” her mother said, blushing slightly.
“Oh. Yeah. Right,” Jenn stammered.
He and Jenn would be sharing a bed tonight. In her parents’ house, where he sure as fuck couldn’t touch her. Kill me now. “Be right back.”
He took the bags upstairs, finding the guest room with no problem. This room had probably once belonged to Jenn. The walls were a light purple color, the bedspread white and frilly. And that bed was small, much too small to share with the woman he was damn near dying for and couldn’t touch.
But that was a problem for later. He went back downstairs and joined Jenn and her parents in the living room. Jenn’s mother, Felicity, had set out a pitcher of lemonade, and he poured himself a glass gratefully.
“Tell us more about yourself, Colton,” she said.
“Call me Cole, please.” He took a sip of the lemonade. “Well, I grew up in Albany, only child. My parents divorced when I was six. They’re both remarried.”
“And how do they feel about your marriage?” Jenn’s father, Terry, asked.
“They were surprised, but they’re supportive,” he said.
“How did you get into music?” Felicity asked.
“I started playing the guitar when I was just a kid. Started a band after I graduated high school called Quentros. We put out a couple of albums, but things fell apart pretty quickly, so I went solo.”
Not too long after, Jenn and her mother went into the kitchen to start cooking dinner. He offered to help (mainly to have something to do) but they wouldn’t hear of it, so he found himself stuck in the living room with Terry. Jenn’s father gave him a lecture in which he let Cole know all the many ways he had screwed up by eloping with their daughter rather than courting her properly and attending Pre-Cana at the church so that they could be married there.
Cole tried to explain how they’d been swept off their feet by their whirlwind romance, but since this wasn’t exactly true, his words rang hollow. Once the lecture was out of the way and Cole had promised to do what he could to make things right, Terry put on the game. The Astros were playing the Red Sox, and at least sports seemed to be a safe subject between them.
By the time they went upstairs to bed, Cole was exhausted yet buzzing with restless energy. He’d spent the whole evening sitting around with Jenn’s family, and he was so wired, he couldn’t stop his leg from bouncing. He needed a long run, or a few hours in the studio with his guitar, or sex…and since none of those options were available to him, he could only hope he’d make it through the night without imploding or losing control with Jenn.
* * *
“How are you holding up?” Jenn asked as she shut the bedroom door behind them.
“Restless,” Cole said, turning away from her. “I’ll sleep on the floor so I don’t keep you up all night tossing and turning.”
She still couldn’t quite believe her parents were letting her share a bed with a guy under their roof. Okay, so she hadn’t been married to any of the previous guys she’d brought home to meet them. Ironically, the one man they’d let her share a bed with was one she’d never had sex with. “No way am I letting you sleep on the floor.”
Cole said nothing, but his whole body was practically vibrating with tension. Poor man. He’d been such a good sport all evening, obviously trying his hardest to earn her parents’ respect.
“What do you think about escaping this place for a little while before we go to bed?”
“Fuck yes,” he answered quickly, too quickly.
She smiled. “Okay. We just have to give my parents a few minutes to get settled for the night.”
They sat side by side on her old bed. “Isn’t this backwards?” he asked, his tone already more relaxed. “You’re supposed to sneak boys into your bedroom, not out of it.”
“Yeah, well, I never snuck a guy in here in high school either.”
“This was your bedroom?”
She nodded.
His eyes darkened, his body leaned subtly closer to hers. “And you never?”
“This bed is a virgin,” she whispered, laughing a little at the ridiculousness of what she’d just said.
Cole let out a frustrated groan, staring up at the ceiling. “You have no idea how bad I want to change that.”
“Maybe we could get the bed to, I don’t know, second base?” She slid her hand onto his thigh, feeling the current that ran between them every time they touched. It made her warm and tingly, drunk with lust.
“I think that’s a fucking excellent idea.” He leaned in to press his lips against hers, lowering her to the bed as he did so. They kissed, bodies pressed together, legs entwined. His tongue stroked hers in a lazy rhythm that lit a slow blaze of desire inside her, growing stronger with every movement of their bodies together.
They made as little noise as possible, sharing their pleasure with muffled moans and whispered words like teenagers sneaking around behind her parents’ backs. Except she and Cole were adults. Married adults. And even though it was all supposed to be fake, she was ridiculously attracted to her new husband, almost hopelessly so.
He slid a hand beneath her shirt, gasping into her mouth as he cupped her breast in his warm grasp. His fingers—roughened by many hours strumming the guitar—scraped over her sensitive skin, sending sparks ricocheting around inside her.
“Never been so happy to make it to second base,” he whispered.
“Me either.” She decided to do a little exploring of her own, tracing her fingers over the sculpted expanse of his abs, thrilled by the way his muscles bunched beneath her touch. Her hand drifted lower, tracing the outline of his arousal through his jeans. He hissed out a breath, making her whole body clench with need. “Cole?”
“Yeah?” His voice rumbled through her, low and gritty and delicious.
“Do you ever wonder what would have happened if we hadn’t gotten so drunk that night on Luca Cay?”
“We would have had the kind of sex that left you walking
funny the next morning,” he answered without hesitation.
A rush of arousal swept through her, intensifying the ache that throbbed between her legs. “And then?”
“Then we’d have gone our separate ways.”
“Weird to think about, right?”
“Yeah.” He sat up, bringing her with him. “You mentioned something about blowing this joint?”
She nodded. “My parents should be asleep by now. Come on.”
They put on their jackets and left her room. Together, they tiptoed down the stairs to the front door. She led the way outside, closing the door softly behind them. The night was cool and quiet, the only sound the rustling of the wind in the trees overhead.
“Did you do this a lot as a teenager?” he asked as they started walking. “Sneak out after your parents were in bed?”
She shook her head. “Believe it or not, I was a total nerd—and a prude—in high school.”
“Oh, I believe it, especially the nerd part.” He gave her a cocky smile as they left her parents’ yard and struck out down the sidewalk toward the neighborhood park.
“I guess I was your typical Catholic schoolgirl.”
“I think you and I have different ideas of the typical Catholic schoolgirl.” He still spoke quietly, as though hushed by the night around them.
“Oh yeah?”
He leaned in, his lips brushing her ear. “I heard they were slutty.”
“Well, some were, I guess. When you forbid things, it only makes us want them more, right?”
“Mm-hmm.” He gave her a heated look, and she had a feeling they weren’t talking about Catholic schoolgirls anymore.
They turned a corner, and the park came into view, lit in the eerie yellowish light of the streetlamps. In silent agreement, they walked together to the swings and sat side by side. “I did sneak out once to meet my boyfriend here.”
“And what did you do?” he asked, looking amused.
“We sat here on the swings and talked…and held hands.”
He looked up at the stars overhead. “You really were a prude.”
“I was,” she confirmed. “You wouldn’t have given me the time of day back then.”
He dipped his head to look at her. “That’s not true. I probably would have found you as fascinating then as I do now.”
“What were you like in high school?” she asked.
He seemed so effortlessly cool, the object of millions of women’s fantasies, sitting here on the swings in the park she’d been visiting since she was a little girl. “I was a slacker, mostly,” he said, kicking against the earth so that he began to swing lightly back and forth. “I skipped a lot of classes to smoke pot and play my guitar.”
“I can see that,” she said around a smile.
“So I think the truth is that you wouldn’t have given me the time of day back then.”
She opened her mouth to object and instead doubled over in laughter because she would have thought a stoner like Cole was a total waste of her time. “You’re right. Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said with a grin. “I wasn’t exactly going places back then. Somehow, I got here anyway, still not exactly sure how.”
“Lots of hard work and a little bit of luck, I’d guess.” She pushed off to swing next to him, never breaking eye contact.
“Sounds about right.”
“Same story of just about anyone in this business, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess it is.” He reached out and took her hand.
They swung together, laughing and shrieking when they got out of sync and he almost yanked her out of her swing. And when they got back to her parents’ house, she fell asleep in her childhood bed beside him, this man who was nothing that she’d wanted but becoming everything that she craved.
8
The rest of the weekend was one level of awkward after another. Cole spent Saturday morning with Jenn’s father while she and her mother went to a function at the church. Terry invited him to play golf, but since Cole had never played a game in his life, they went to the driving range instead, where they whacked golf balls across a field and talked about sports. It could have been worse. At least the upper-crust men at the country club had no clue who he was so his crappy swing didn’t make tomorrow’s gossip blogs.
It wasn’t until later that afternoon that things really got crazy. See, he knew Jenn was the youngest of five girls. Maybe he’d also known that she was the only one who’d strayed so far from the nest. But he definitely hadn’t put two and two together until the house began to fill with people as dinnertime drew near. Her oldest sister, Joy, arrived first, with her husband Trevor and two tween girls with their faces glued to their cell phones.
Next came Sophie, Sarah (Sophie’s twin), and Diana, along with their husbands and an exponential number of children—many of them redheads. Everyone was keen on meeting Cole and hearing all about how he’d swept their strong-willed Jenn off her feet. The tween girls (also twins, which apparently ran in the family), who’d been first to arrive, became completely starry-eyed once they realized who he was and followed him around for the rest of the evening, asking him to record ringtones for their phones and taking not-so-subtle photos of him whenever they thought he wasn’t looking.
“Overwhelmed yet?” Jenn asked, slipping her hand in his.
“Just don’t quiz me on names later.” He winked, taking a drink of his lemonade and wishing it had been spiked with vodka.
“But a quiz always follows a MacDonald family gathering, didn’t my sister tell you?” one of Jenn’s sisters—Sophie, he was pretty sure—said as she walked over to join them, a playful smile on her face.
“I’ve never been any good at test taking, sorry to disappoint.”
“Well, I’m Sophie, and I’m the only one you need to remember anyway, because I’m Jenn’s favorite sister. Isn’t that right?” She gave Jenn a nudge with her elbow.
“She’s right,” Jenn answered with a smile. “Sophie comes to visit me every year, and we make a girls’ weekend of it, either in LA or New York. Everyone else pretty much waits for me to come home to see me.”
“If you want to know the truth,” Sophie said, lowering her voice conspiratorially, “I’ve always been a bit envious of the way Jenn chased her dreams to Hollywood instead of settling down after school the way the rest of us did.”
As the evening wore on, Cole was glad for Sophie’s comic relief. She looked a lot like Jenn, with long, curly red hair and an effervescent attitude that kept the conversation lively. When Jenn and her sisters huddled in the kitchen for “girl talk,” Cole hung out with the men but found them to be a boring bunch. They talked mostly about business with the occasional mention of sports, where at least Cole could chime in.
All in all, he was more than ready to call it a night when they’d finally gone home. The next morning, after another tortured—although also wonderful—night sleeping beside Jenn, they attended church with her parents before flying home. No big deal. He’d been to church enough times as a kid to know what to expect.
Except that Catholic mass turned out to be unlike anything he’d ever experienced. There was endless kneeling, sitting, standing, kneeling again. And then—just when he thought he’d finally gotten the hang of things—they’d filed up to the front of the church to receive communion. Just as he’d started to panic over what to do when faced with the cup of wine and all the little wafers, Jenn’s father told him that he should remain seated since he wasn’t Catholic.
And then he’d heard the murmur of recognition behind him. By the time they left the church, half the congregation was crowding around, asking for photos and autographs. He couldn’t tell whether Jenn’s parents were horrified or impressed. Either way, he was relieved as hell when their plane touched down at LaGuardia. Jenn was quiet on the ride home. He wasn’t sure whether she was horrified or impressed by their weekend at her parents’ either.
“I got us passes to a show tonight. The Swinging Squirrels, heard of them?
” He thought it might be fun to go out with her here in the city, especially knowing that she enjoyed live music as much as he did.
“I have.” She nodded. “I like their music. Sounds fun.”
It was just past eight when they got home. Jenn disabled the alarm and let them in as easily as if she’d lived with him for months instead of days. They’d definitely done a lot of getting to know each other over the last week. His relationship with Jenn was unlike anything he’d ever had with a woman. He liked her, enjoyed spending time with her, and was desperately attracted to her. Usually, his relationships with women were either family members, platonic relationships with staff, or women he was already sleeping with or hoping to within the week. Jenn didn’t fit anywhere inside his frame of reference.
“I’ll go get dressed and meet you in half an hour?” she said, already heading toward her bedroom.
“Yeah. Sure.”
Forty-five minutes later, they were walking out the back door. Jenn had on a multicolor top that brought out not only the vivid red of her hair but also the green in her eyes, snug jeans, and black boots. She was a knockout.
“Kate comes home tomorrow,” she commented as they stepped into the car waiting to take them to the Lunar Lounge.
“Oh yeah?”
“Back to work for me.”
“How busy does she keep you?” he asked, thinking of Jorja, who didn’t do a whole hell of a lot unless he was touring or in the middle of a media circuit.
“This week won’t be too busy. We have meetings booked tomorrow to plan out the rest of her appearances before the baby comes. We’re doing an event with her fan club on Tuesday. More meetings on Wednesday. She’s got several interviews on Thursday, and then you two are preforming together on Good Morning America on Friday.”
“Right,” he said, feeling like somewhat of a slacker by comparison. Aside from the Good Morning America performance on Friday, he didn’t have much on his calendar for the week other than writing new music. He was hoping that tonight’s show plus Jenn’s presence would be just the inspiration he needed to get this new album in the bag.
