CHAPTER 48 (2)
“Not a work call. Boyfriend, then. Wonder if he knows you’re ducking him.”
The casual words drag me back to the past.
The first time we broke up, when he left me after high school, it was a rip. A violent tear.
The second time was a loosening, little by little. Day by day. My heart wasn’t ripped from my chest; it was pried—with a blunt, persistent instrument—worked under one edge at a time, until nothing remained to hold it in its place.
Unreturned phone messages thanks to demanding rehearsals. Half-hearted texts after long flights. Two months of slow descent, the beginning of the end.
But it was what I wanted when I told him to take that tour. For his life to go on, and mine too.
We’ve both moved on. I resist the urge to rub at my chest, the dull ache there as my fingers rush to finish what I started so I can get out of here, get relief from the way his presence affects me.
The cord finally clicks into place, and I grunt with triumph before I rock back on my heels to take him in.
“What about you?” I challenge, thinking of how I walked in on him yesterday. “Is that why you never post on social—so you can keep a bunch of women in different cities who want to think they’re the only one? It’s not original, but it’s effective.”
Timothy drops into the task chair. He props an elbow on the armrest, displaying the threads of ink that wind up his arm. I swear there are more than there were two years ago. I try to ignore the fact that his perfect denim-clad hips, those strong legs, are at eye level.
“I don’t post pics with women because it’s not my ‘brand’.” The self-mocking in his voice and the air quotes make me blink. “Marketing sent me a sheet with these adjectives about how the label thinks I should appear.”
I stand, then sink my hips back against the desk. I realize too late I’m still practically in his lap. “Let me guess—you’re mysterious but earnest. Intense. Maybe even repressed, except when you’re on stage.”
“How’d you get a copy?”
I can’t help laughing, and Timothy grins too. The familiarity of it washes over me.
“I didn’t. But I know you. I know how you are on stage and when you’re alone in a room. I know why fans go crazy for you, and I know the things they’d go crazier for if they knew.”
The laughter in his eyes fades at the intimacy of my words.
Okay, acting civilized is one thing. Don’t let this get weird, I chastise.
“So when are you heading back to LA?” I ask, dragging a finger along the surface of the desk for somewhere to look that’s not his handsome face, the lines of his strong arms, or the hand covered in scars and new ink.
My gaze snaps to his. “You’re not staying at the house.” The horror in my voice would be funny under other circumstances.
“I have a hotel.”
Relief has me sagging against the desk. “I might be sticking around a couple of weeks, too.”
Those chocolate eyes spark so fast I almost think I’ve imagined it.
I’m here to clear my head for work and help Haley.
Timothy could be a distraction.
You think?
I can handle being around him for a few days. I’ll probably barely see him.
It’s not like high school, where we were bumping into each other in the kitchen, by the pool, every day in class.
“This place is pretty epic,” Timothy notes, looking around.
“Right? It’s so new. Haley told me they stripped it down to almost nothing before rebuilding.”
“Not nothing.” Timothy nods toward the ceiling.
I crane my neck to look up, spotting the same thing he has. “The rafter.”
One of the beams from the original pool house is still visible, painted to match the white ceiling and spanning this office and the next one.
“You can always start over, but you can never erase the past,” I murmur.
“Do you want to?”
I look back at Timothy, one brow lifted under a fall of dark hair.
Those words have me thinking of us again. How we might have grown up and moved on with our lives, but we can’t forget what we were.
“No,” I say at last. “I don’t.”
Timothy tugs at a drawer, which glides open to reveal nothing except a container of paper clips. He pulls out a paper clip and unbends the end of it. “This Ian of yours. He meet your dad and Haley?”
I frown at the sudden change in subject. “No.”
Timothy moves the chair toward me an inch, two, then hooks the end of the paper clip in the belt loop of my jeans. “A real man meets his girl’s parents.”
He’s close enough his scent invades my senses. It’s the sunshine and cedar I remember, with a smoky edge.
“Does a real man sneak out her window so her parents don’t find out he spent the night?” I counter, thinking of prom, when he took Carla to the dance—when I slept in his arms after and made him promise not to leave.
Timothy’s gaze narrows.
If I didn’t know it was crazy, I’d think he was worked up about Ian.
I don’t need to tell him we’re broken up, because that’ll only invite more questions when it’s none of his business and I really don’t want to talk about it with Timothy.
He rises from his chair, leaning in to murmur at my ear. “The next time I visit your room at night, I promise I’ll use the door after.”
He walks out, leaving the paperclip dangling from my shorts.
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