Matt flipped the watch dangling from his wrist. “In the next seven hours?”
Brad grimaced. “Better make the beer a quick one.”
“Quick and free,” Matt said, slapping a hand on Brad’s shoulder.
“Free?” his manager asked.
“Yep, you’re buying.”
“How do you figure?”
Matt smiled—the first real one in over an hour. “I recall you saying you were in a bind—and I just helped you out.” A deep knowing quivered in Matt’s chest. If he played this right, he’d be helping himself out too.
The past didn’t matter. It’s where he went from here. He’d grab this opportunity by the horns and show everyone he was more than a pretty face.
Chapter Two
Avery Lind set down her coffee cup and placed the second plain white ceramic mug directly across from it. She moved the guest microphone a centimeter to the left so it was in a direct line with her own. She tapped her notes so that every paper squared up and set them down next to her pens—one blue, one black, one green, left to right.
“Relax, love,” her longtime producer called in his crisp British accent through the intercom. “A few more people might hear this show, but we won’t do it any differently than we have for the last three years. I know Celeste threw you a curve ball, but you’re a professional. You’ll roll with it like always.”
Avery’s eyes snapped up to the man behind the glass. “Wait, what? Ajay, what curve ball?”
Ajay held up a hand and walked from his space to hers. “The email she sent last night? About Addison May not being here?”
Her heart rate ticked up and a bead of sweat formed at the base of her neck. She rubbed the dip between her collarbones, trying to stave off the anxiety that was already climbing up her spine. No, no, no. She’d planned every part of this show, down to the very last minute.
She fumbled for her phone, attempting to open the mail app. “I’ve been up every night for a week prepping so I turned off my phone last night hoping I’d sleep better.” She turned to Ajay, eyes wide. “We really don’t have a guest? What are we going to do?” she nearly shrieked.
She yanked open the tiny desk drawer below the control panel and popped three antacids. Focusing on the peppermint flavor and the way it dissolved on her tongue, she counted down from ten.
“We have a guest, love,” Ajay said, placing a steadying hand on her shoulder.
“We do?” She finally located the email from Celeste with the subject line, Change of Plans. “I’m never turning off my . . .” she trailed off, skimming the email. Laryngitis. Her manager sending another one of his clients. Performed last night at the Ryman. She stopped short at the next five words, country a cappella group Storyhill. The anxiety she’d barely tamped down moments ago bolted up her neck.
“Avery, you’re flushing.” He reached his arm around her shoulder. “I need you to breathe.”
“Please, please, please,” she whispered, flopping into her chair. Please let it be someone else. There are five men in the band. The next two words jumped off the screen. A nightmare in black and white. Matt Taylor.
This wasn’t happening. This was her big shot. She’d clawed her way up in an industry dominated by men to stand atop the heap and now, at the precipice of achieving all her dreams, a giant wrench was hurtling toward her head. Not funny, universe. Not funny at all.
She dumped one more antacid on her desk and popped it in her mouth.
“Four?” Ajay asked. “This hardly seems like a four situation.”
Avery turned to the man who’d produced her show since she’d arrived in Nashville. They’d come up together, a packaged team. “Ajay, you don’t understand. This guest . . .”
“Is Matt Taylor,” her manager announced from the studio door, “the high tenor from the up-and-coming a cappella group Storyhill. Fresh off an unbelievable concert at the Ryman. Not to mention an epic proposal.”
He’d proposed to someone? Seriously, Avery, that’s none of your business. Focus on not letting this speed bump turn into a full-blown car crash.
Avery should have known something was up when Celeste was already in her office when Avery arrived. But why hadn’t she said anything? Because she’d assumed Avery had seen the email. Fastidious Avery, who required a certain brand of pens, who did impeccable research, and who never missed a thing.
Plus, Celeste would have no way of knowing she’d detonated a bomb.
Avery gripped the edge of her desk with both hands, knuckles immediately white, and turned her chair toward the door. Maybe he wouldn’t recognize her. Nine years had passed. She had a new name and a new hair color. Sucking in a breath, she lifted her eyes to the man standing next to Celeste, towering behind her like some sort of Norse god. They locked eyes and she sent up a silent prayer for anonymity.
His hand, braced on the door frame, slid down while he searched her face, finally settling on her eyes—about the only thing she hadn’t changed since leaving the University of Oklahoma.
“Amy-Lynn?” he asked, his voice barely audible.
“Amy-Lynn?” Celeste said, her eyes moving between Avery and Matt. “I didn’t know anyone other than your mother and the government called you that.”
“They don’t.” Avery forced the wobble from her voice. She hadn’t been in radio for nearly a decade for nothing. Ajay might know about her anxiety, but Celeste would find out over her cold, dead body. “Unless they’ve known me since I was a kid,” she said with a laugh that sounded as fake as it felt.
Avery rose from her chair, using the movement around the desk to rub her palms down her pants. She stuck her hand out to Matt, hoping no one noticed the slight tremor in her fingers. “Nice to see you again,” she said with every ounce of crisp professionalism she could muster.
He stared down at her hand like it was covered in something smelly and rotten. She inched it closer to him, willing him not to make a scene, and he took it reticently. A bolt of electricity started in her fingertips and streaked up her arm. She dropped his hand as if burned.
“It’s nice to see me again?” Matt asked, rubbing his hand down a very muscular thigh.
Huh. So he’d felt it, too.
“I didn’t realize you two knew each other. How delightful.”
Either Celeste was trying to smooth over the discomfort radiating off both of them, or she was oblivious. Avery hoped for the latter.
“That’ll make this last-minute change easier,” Celeste added.
Avery wrenched her gaze away from the man making her heart ram against her rib cage. “I have to admit that I missed your email last night, but I don’t think this is a great idea, Celeste. I’ve had no time to research Mr. Taylor or his band.”
Celeste looked at her, narrowing her eyes. Was Celeste surprised over her admission or was calling him Mr. Taylor a bit too much? She gave Avery a last glance before flashing a smile at Matt.
“Nonsense,” Celeste said. “Clearly you’ve known each other for a long time. You can use the interview to reconnect.”
“Celeste, is this really the way you want to kick off syndication?” Avery knew she was drawing too much attention to this. On the surface, she always rolled with things. Begging was out of character.
Celeste sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I understand your concern, Avery, but what would you propose we do? We’ve been billing this show as THE place for country music interviews. I cannot let you go on without a second.”
“Maybe we could call in a favor and . . .” The beginning of her next excuse leaked out of her mouth.
“The time to express your concerns was last night when I emailed you,” Celeste said, cutting her off and effectively shutting down the conversation. “Ask your standard interview questions or go with the fact that you knew each other as kids. I’m not sure what the big deal is, Avery.”
Avery fingered the soft spot at the base of her neck and nodded. Celeste had spoken. Continuing to argue would be fruitless. “Give me a minu
te.” She walked toward the door that Matt filled. He no longer possessed the body of a boy. Or a mortal human. Clearly, she had missed the fact that he shared DNA with Thor.
He reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder. A surge of awareness shot through her. Nine years and her traitorous body still recognized his touch.
“Mac,” he breathed.
Her eyes ricocheted from his hand to his eyes. Suppressed memories threatened to burst forth. She pushed them back into the box she’d kept them in all these years—unable to let them go but unwilling to revisit them.
“I need to collect a few things from my desk,” she forced out. Everyone in the room, except Matt, would know it was a lie, but she didn’t care. “Please move.”
He turned sideways, letting her exit, and the pressure of his gaze sunk into her back as she moved down the hall, away from the studio.
This was cosmic penance for her sins. It was the only explanation.
Matt’s eyes stayed fixed on the door. The studio fell silent if one didn’t count the way his heart hiccupped in his chest.
He pressed his lips together. Though he was pretty sure that wasn’t a good idea because he’d been holding his breath since he’d locked eyes with her.
He couldn’t believe it.
Amy-Lynn McWilliams was country radio superstar Avery Lind.
That explained why all his Google searches had come up empty.
He forced out a breath and wheezed a ragged gulp back in. Until Andrew’s proposal, he’d kept thoughts of her locked away—except on melancholy nights when he’d had a little too much to drink or the occasional cold pre-dawn hours when the lonely silence sucked all other thoughts from his mind.
He’d tried to do his homework. He really had. Last night, before falling face first into bed, he’d pulled up the station’s website. He’d clicked on her bio. It was all about the show, nothing about her past, nothing that would have tipped him off. Her profile pic showed a woman laughing into the microphone. With the angle of the image, the bright raspberry colored hair, and the pierced nose, tired or not, he wouldn’t have recognized her with a cursory glance. It was her eyes that gave her away. Eyes that were shadowed in the photo.
Everything in him told him to run. Run from the memories. Run from the pain. Run before he failed spectacularly. And he could do it. Before she returned. Feign a sudden migraine. Who cared if it made him look like an ass?
He sighed. He did. He cared. She’d taken everything from him once before. Matt straightened and fought to channel his rising righteous anger. She left you. With a bogus excuse. And then refused to take your calls or respond to your texts. She shut you out, not the other way around.
He wouldn’t let her take this opportunity from him.
He could do this. He just needed to focus on the band, what this would mean for them—and for him.
“Matt?” Celeste said, breaking the silence.
He gave his head a shake, making sure not to dislodge any bit of the anger, and re-focused his attention on the diminutive station manager. “Is there anything else I need to know before we go on?”
Celeste’s eyes flitted back to the door. “Ajay”—she pointed at the man hovering in the back of the booth — “will get you set up with headphones and explain what all the lights mean.”
“I’ve been on the radio before.” He wasn’t a rookie—at interviews or at hiding his emotions. After years of practice, both came naturally.
“Great, great,” she said absently, backing out of the studio. “I’m going to see if Avery located what she needed. Ajay, you’re up.”
The producer nodded to his boss and turned narrowed eyes on Matt. As soon as Celeste walked out of earshot, the man turned to him. “Do not mess this up for her. I don’t know what your history is, but it doesn’t take a genius to see it wasn’t good—or didn’t end well, at the least. She’s worked her arse off for years and this is her big shot.”
Matt bristled. “I can play nice for one show. Can she?”
Ajay’s eyebrows climbed his forehead. “One of you is a nine-year veteran of the industry. One of you is not.”
Matt held his gaze. “And one of us fled the room and one of us did not.”
Ajay pulled out the chair opposite Amy-Lynn’s and spun it toward him. “Sit.”
Matt bit back a retort and lowered his frame into the chair. Ajay swung it back around a little too quickly and placed the headphones over his head, letting them slap over his ears.
“Easy man,” Matt said, pulling the ear cup off his right ear.
“Don’t screw up,” Ajay said again, as if Matt was witless and needed another reminder.
“I’m not about to let my band down by making an idiot of myself.”
Ajay left the room, only to reappear on the other side of the glass. He shot another glare at Matt before turning to his computer.
Matt ran his hands over the desk and stared at the empty chair across from him. Four hours of surface-level chatter. It was only one show, and then she’d slip back into the ether.
Brad was right. The promotion gods had dropped this in their lap, and if he wanted to prove he was more than a pretty face, this was the perfect place to start. He’d be witty and fun, like always, but even more, he’d be smart and articulate and show everyone the man underneath the ‘million-watt smile.’
No matter the person sitting across from him.
Chapter Three
Avery faced her reflection in the ladies’ room mirror. She’d changed everything about herself. She’d packed up that small-town Oklahoma girl and reinvented her into a ball-busting, take-no-prisoners professional. She struggled and pushed herself to one of the top names in country music radio. She’d proven that women could survive—and thrive—in this male-dominated profession.
And for what?
To have her past run straight into her future on the biggest day of her life?
She shook her head. No, this was her world, and he was just a visitor here.
She straightened her spine, shook out her hands, and drew a steadying breath. “Amy-Lynn McWilliams is your past. Avery Lind is your future. You created her. He can’t take her away,” she whispered, reassuring her reflection.
If only that single, casual touch hadn’t immediately obliterated the last nine years. An electric current arced between them, illuminating a flood of memories—recollections that all led to the same conclusion—that he was her forever.
But life had other plans.
“Avery?” Celeste stood just inside the door, taut lines of concern and grim determination co-mingled on her face. Her boss stepped up to the sink, studied her reflection in the mirror, and ran a hand over her blunt, black bob. If there was a hair out of place, Avery couldn’t see it.
She wiped at the corners of her mouth assuring no lipstick had dared escape her perfectly lined lips. “I’m going to take a wild guess and say Matt Taylor was far more than a childhood acquaintance.”
Avery titled her chin up. “Why do you say that?”
Celeste raised a single, perfectly arched eyebrow. “Because you are hiding in the bathroom and he looks like he’s seen a ghost.”
A ghost. Something you thought was dead.
She pulled her fingers into a fist to stop from rubbing the burning spot on her chest. “Fine. Yes. We have a history. But that is exactly what it is, history. We haven’t spoken in nine years. It’s not an issue.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course.” As far as lies go, that’s a whopper. “Just surprised, that’s all.”
“You’ve thrown me for a loop, Avery. I’ve never known you not to read an email. Or flee to the ladies’ room.”
“You have nothing to worry about.” Avery squared up her shoulders. “Nothing is going to stop me from making this the best show we’ve ever done.”
“I believe that . . .”
“But?” Avery asked.
“But nothing.” Celeste met Avery’s gaze in the mirror. “Do you know why I
hired you?”
“Because I never ask for overtime pay?”
Celeste snorted. “I have always appreciated that about you. But no. I hired you because I knew you wouldn’t stop until you got here.”
Avery bit back a glimmer of a grin. “Here? You mean the bathroom?”
“To the top of the industry. I knew you would never let your personal life compromise your professional life.”
That’s because I don’t have one.
“We have that in common,” Celeste added.
Avery studied her boss’s reflection. She’d always admired her. Celeste was fair, kind, and just tough enough not to take bullshit from anyone. She recently joked with Momma that she wanted to be Celeste when she grew up.
“Avery?”
“Hmm?” Avery said, her eyes popping up to meet Celeste’s.
“I’m proud of you. You’re one of the youngest women to make it to this level. This show puts both of us on the map. We’ve both worked our entire careers for this opportunity. Chances like this usually don’t come around more than once in a career.”
With a shaking hand, Avery pulled a paper towel from the dispenser and wiped it over the sprinkle of water droplets dotting the counter. “Great. No pressure.”
Celeste placed her hand on top of Avery’s and squeezed. “No pressure. Just go knock it out of the park like you’ve done every day since I hired you.” Celeste crumpled up the towel Avery had been pushing around and threw it into the trash. “We good?”
Avery nodded. “Yes. We’re good.”
Celeste laughed softly, shaking her head. “I’m glad to hear that. I didn’t have a plan B. I wasn’t sure what else to say.”
People often didn’t know what to say to her. Because few people knew the real her. The one that battled unease, fear, and doubt every day. Only one person knew all of it. But Matt Taylor knew Amy-Lynn McWilliams, he didn’t know Avery Lind. And that’s how it would stay.
Don't Let the Music Die (The Storyhill Musicians Book 2) Page 2
