He had actually smiled once though. During dinner, Abel had been talking about their childhood and how they used to get together almost every night. Michael would start to sing and gradually every other person would fall into harmony.
“We would just sing from the heart. If we were down about something. If we were happy about something, it didn’t matter.” Abel had said. “I think that was what started this music thing.”
It was at that point that Michael had surprised her. His face had cracked into a smile that softened his entire look. His voice was nothing like the harsh tone he spoke to her in earlier. “When our mother heard us, her face would light up like we had given her the world. That had to be the most amazing sight then.”
“Is that why you make music?” she had asked.
Michael clammed up immediately.
Tanner caught the awkward silence and interjected. “Yeah, in a sense. We make music because of the smiles that it brings to our fans. It just feels right. There’s too much of the negative stuff out there already.”
She had stored that away into the back of her head, filed away with Michael's smiling face. She needed to get to that side of him. She needed to think of ways to make him open up and be that smiling Michael again. Only that Michael would give her the information she needed. Only that Michael would be of any use to her.
She walked towards the pool. She was cold but there was this crazy feeling to just go swimming. She’d been swimming five days a week for years. Some people jogged, but she swam. She gazed at the pool with longing. Why not? This was her only opportunity to get a swim in while the guys were gone.
She quickly stripped off her clothes, folded them neatly and laid them on one of the chairs. She walked back to the pool and gently lowered herself into the water. The water was warm, contrasting with the cool air of the mountain evening. She lay motionless at first, just letting the water soothe her. She closed her eyes. She could get used to this. This feels good.
A splash shook her out of her reverie. She was disoriented before she realized someone had gotten into the pool with her. In a panic she dove underwater, not really sure what her plan was. She rushed on up gasping.
“What the hell?” the voice said and started swimming towards her. “Who is that?”
She knew that voice. Of all the people she had to be stuck in a pool naked with, it had to be Michael. This was the last thing she needed. The big brute seeing her in her birthday suit. “It’s Nicole. Please stay where you are.”
“Wanna race? I’ll give you a head start,” he said as he swam over to her.
Nicole was even angrier. “Stay where you are! I came for a swim. I didn’t know you were going to be back so soon. I thought you’d be at the pub. Please don’t come closer,” she said but it was too late.
His broad shoulders bobbed up and down less than three feet away. “Why?”
She was exasperated. “Because I’m not wearing any clothes,” she blurted out. There. She had said it.
His eyes went half lidded for a moment and he inhaled through his nose. “Look, I didn’t know you were in here. I thought I had the house to myself,” he said, his eyes normal and wide again. He didn’t why away from her. He wasn’t embarrassed or awkward at all.
“So did I. We were both apparently wrong. I’ll leave. Close your eyes, please,” Nicole said. She couldn’t tell if it the temperature of the pool got turned up, but the water felt hot. Electric. The warmth spread through her body, a tingling sensation that was adrenaline and excitement. To be naked in front of an alpha male stud rockstar like this was thrilling. It was primal.
“You don’t have to on my account,” he said, closing his eyes.
“I’m cold already. I need to get in,” she said and swam past him. She got out of the pool without another word. She walked back to where she lay her clothes and got dressed quickly. Without another word, she walked back towards the house. Today was all shades of wrong.
Nicole tried to open the backdoor but it wouldn’t budge. She assumed she wasn’t turning it all the way, and she strained against the big oak door with all her might. She was so cold, she was shivering already. Why was everything going wrong for her today? Why in the world was it like this? She was going to hit the door with her shoulder again when she felt a presence. She turned to face Michael clad in nothing but a towel.
“Need a hand?” he asked.
Something in Nicole snapped. The spider silk thread that held her patience together broke clean in two. “There has been nothing but problems since this morning! I’m freezing and wet in the mountains! The door won’t open. I didn’t even want to take this assignment but my boss insisted. I seem to be stuck with someone who has chosen to hate me and make me suffer for the next week because of the singular fact that I am a journalist!” she blurted out. She got livid when he started to laugh. “And what is so funny?”
He held up a bunch of keys in front of her and then used one of the keys to open the door. He outstretched his arm signaling to her to go in. She walked into the hallway and immediately spun around.
“Let’s just rip this bandaid off,” she said. “If you don’t want me here, why not just say so? Why make my life a living hell? First you decided not to show up at the airport and then you decide to lock me out. What did I ever do to you?”
Again he started laughing. He shut the door behind him and started to nudge her towards the stairs. She pushed his hand away and glared at him as though she wanted to tear him apart.
“I guess you are too angry to notice you are shivering already. I don’t have a vendetta against you Nicole. Let me help you before you catch a cold.” He said and held her with both arms. She looked at herself and realized that she was indeed shivering. She let him lead her to her room. He got her to lay on the bed, tucked a blanket around her and headed back out of the room.
She couldn’t get a bead on Michael. What was going on? Before she could answer the question, he was back in her room with a mug of hot chocolate. For the first time since they had met that night, she actually looked at him. He was still in his towel and so she had the complete view.
Like his brothers, he was a hulk. His hair was wet map, occasionally letting a drop of water run down a sculpted jawline. An extremely attractive one at that. He had baby fine hair on his chest, arms and legs. She wondered what those would feel like, pressing down onto her. The towel was cinched around his waist, strained from beneath by two massive legs. And they weren’t the only massive thing under that towel. God bless the cling of a wet towel. She realized she was biting her lip when she shook her head to snap out of it.
“Hot chocolate should warm you up a little. I turned on the heater too.” He said and handed her the mug.
“Why the nice act all of a sudden?” she asked. She was still distracted by the sight of him in just this towel.
“This isn’t an act. This is me.”
“I disagree. I met you earlier and…”
He sat on the edge of her bed. Nicole thought there was something about every member of this family being overly familiar with strangers. Maybe boundaries were different in the south?
“And you are just making a mountain out of nothing,” Michael said. “Look, I’m sorry about this evening. I don’t like the idea of my life being out there for the world to see. And I didn’t lock you out. I got back from my drive and saw the door was unlocked and there was no one in, so I locked up and went for a swim. As for picking you up, that was another misunderstanding. One I apologize for and would ask you to…” he sighed. “Just leave it at that.”
“But you had an argument with Greg.” She was still confused by this whole business and she wouldn’t hide it.
“About a lot of other things and this.” he replied.
“Oh.”
“Listen, I’m not the terror you’ve made me out to be. I’ll admit that I’m not a huge fan of the media, but can you blame me?” He rested his fingers on Nicole’s calf and softly stroked it through the blanket. “I’
ll be right back,” he said and went out of her room again.
Please get something to wear while you are at it, she thought. Some tiny part of her wanted him to come back. To sit on the bed. Maybe keep her warm. Stop! This is a job! She couldn’t risk her professionalism on some groupie fling thing.
He was back in the room again, this time with a small tub of something. She sat up as he approached her bed and placed the mug by the bed. She could feel her nipples getting hard and pulled the blanket up to cover herself. He was still here in his towel. Why wouldn’t he just get dressed?
He sat beside her again and reached out for her palm. He took some of the content of the tub and started to rub it on her fingers. He was gentle on her fingers as he massaged the ointment on them. The cold completely forgotten, Nicole started to feel something different entirely as he worked her fingers. It didn’t help matters that he was in a towel only. “The menthol in this is good for your lungs.”
“Thank you,” she replied. She was distracted by the stirrings in her loins. She was dangerously close to doing something dangerously stupid. She snatched her hands away from him a lot quicker than she intended to.
“Is something the matter?” he said, arching an eyebrow.
“Nothing. I’m fine,” she said.
He still had the look on his face.
“Fine. I’m exhausted and cold. I was just naked in front of you, and now you’re pretty much giving me the full butcher’s window treatment. I just need to get to bed.”
“Shit, I’m sorry,” he said, leaving the bed and walking to her door. “It didn’t register in my head that I was still in a towel. I just wanted to be sure you were fine first. Call me if you need anything. I’m just down the hall.”
“Okay.” She said and watched as he left.
She grabbed the scratchpad she put on the bedside table. The pen wrote in a flurry. She was probably seeing things, but what she saw was what she saw. Right before Michael left, she looked him right in the eyes. One was blue like before.
The other eye was gold.Nicole settled into the far back of the concert hall with her pen and notepad in hand. She loved the vantage that this position provided. Some reporters would have preferred front row seats to the show but she knew the back was the place to be. Here, she could not only see the artists, she could see the fans and feel what they felt. The fans were important: they were as much a part of the story as the artists. It was for them that she wrote. It was for them that she gave reviews.
The tour was starting with a special show for the locals before kicking off for real. The first time they’d played this hall two years ago, it had been part of a local battle of the bands. The rest was history. They’d play this show to open their tour, rest for a day or two at home, then move on from Georgia. Then she’d be on a plane back home.
The room was already bursting with excited fans. The hall was dark, with house lights dimly lit for minimum safety purposes. It had that strange smell that old dive bars had, probably from the constantly leaking beer taps. The boys were backstage, doing their last minute preparations in private. Her pleads and demands to observe them fell on deaf ears, so she was out here, with the rabble.
They were all waiting for The Solid Oaks to come on stage. Some of the younger fans had boards and posters, the rest of them just stuck with chanting their name. Two girls beside her were going on and on about how much they’d like to be near them, touch them even. Then one had teased the other that she had a crush on Michael. Nicole’s head turned in their direction automatically. Her look must have been withering because the young girls skittered away without another word.
Nicole sighed, wondering what was getting into her. A part of her was glad that the job was almost over. She needed it to be over. She needed to be back in the regular rhythm of her life. But another part of her, well, had less professional thoughts. There was so much to Michael she needed answers to. Like peeling back layer after layer just to find more layers beneath. Her curious side wouldn’t let it go, and it certainly didn’t hurt that he was a tall handsome country music star. I wonder if those hands could strum other things besides a guitar…
She shook her head mentally. She had to shake that thought out of her head if she wanted to get any work done. She was going to let irrelevant things cloud her piece if she continued like this. The hall exploded in cheers as the guys took the stage and got ready.
“Thank ya’ll for comin’ out tonight,” Michael said, speaking into the mic. “We’re the Solid Oaks, just some local boys from the hills. Now we’re gonna show ya how the hills get down!”
****************
After the show Nicole barely got a chance to congratulate the guys on such a rocking performance. Exhausted and subdued, they thanked her and each headed to their vans to get some sleep. One thing she picked up on by being in their presence was that they took their success very seriously. They knew some of their fans might be choosing to buy their album or lunch that day, and out of respect for that sacrifice they put on great shows. So the wild parties would have to wait until the tour was over. You weren’t at your best if you were crawling out of bed three minutes before showtime.
They were all pulled over at a rest stop along some highway so the drivers could catch an hour of shut eye. A few station wagons were parked there too, probably filled with midwest families on their way down to Florida for some time in the sun.
Abel's snoring from the driver’s seat was maddening, so loud that she thought it must have been on purpose. But no, he was just a snorer of the worst kind.
She rubbed her face and looked at her watch. Two AM. Night’s purgatory. She wished they would have just driven straight through to get back home, but the boys were set in their ways. They loved their food and they loved their sleep. Trying to interfere with either was a bad idea. In an hour they would get moving again, but it wasn’t an hour she wasn’t to spend next to the loudest snorer in the world.
She opened the van door and stepped out into the brisk Georgia air. She walked past the vans to a cleared grass area set in front of some heavy woods. The sky above was clear, the crescent moon shining fully. Far from the light pollution of the city, she could actually make out the stars. She reached a finger up to one and traced a line to the next, just like her father had taught her to do when she was a little girl.
She was struck by that bittersweet memory of her father trying to set up a telescope in the backyard. She’d begged him for one for months to get one, and one night he relented and came back from the department store with a huge box. He’d been so eager to set it up for her that he assembled it backwards and stripped a bunch of the screws, which ruined the stabilizing frame.
“I’m sorry, baby. Daddy isn’t so good at some stuff,” he had said. He turned his head and wiped at his face. “We’ll, uhh, we’ll save up for another one and try again next year.”
“It’s ok, daddy. We can still see the stars just fine without one,” Nicole had said.
“Here, let me show you a trick,” he said, his voice regaining some confidence. “If you pretend your finger is a pencil, you can draw the lines between the stars…”
“Hey there,” a voice said from behind her.
Nicole was knocked out of her reminiscence. She turned to find Michael walking up to her. “Hey. Come here often?”
He chuckled. “Yeah. Love the rest stops. You find the really classy ladies here. Some even have molars and incisors. What are you doing here?”
“Can’t you hear?” Nicole asked jokingly.
Michael cocked his head, then nodded slowly. “Abel is the worst snorer in the group. You drew the short straw on that one,” He said and stood next to her. “Are you a stargazer?”
“No. I mean, not really. I don’t know,” she said, butterflies in her stomach. This whole interaction had a dreamlike quality to it, thanks to the hour. “How do you know if you are or not?”
“Good question,” he said, his arm brushing against hers. “Maybe it has to do with what
you expect to see when you look up in the sky?”
“Ok,” she said, turning her gaze back up to the sky. “I see the North star!” she pointed proudly.
“You’re missing the point,” he said. “What are the stars to you? Are they the past? The present? The future?”
The answer left her lips without a second thought, “The past.”
“Good,” Michael said. “It’s good to be grounded. To know where you came from.”
“And what about you?” Nicole said. “What do you see?”
“I see the future,” he said, shifting his gaze back to her. “It’s laid out in front of me, but it’s still unknown. Uncertain.”
“Terrifying,” Nicole said. She felt her pulse racing. She wanted him to put his arm around her.
Luke (BBW Country Music Bear Shifter Romance) (Bearly Saints Book 3) Page 64
