She released a long-suffering sigh but then smiled triumphantly. “Then it looks like we’re both getting what we wanted.”
“Thank you.” I threw my arms around her and hugged her tightly. “I really, really appreciate it.”
She waved me off, careful not to swipe the red polish brush through my hair. “I know. Now, get back to your shop so you can make some money and let me get back to doing poor Lucy’s nails.”
“Sure thing.” I grinned and waved goodbye to them as I headed out of her shop. As soon I was back in the familiar comfort of my own, I pulled out my phone.
I hadn’t really been expecting to have heard anything from Callen yet, but there was a message waiting for me when I unlocked my screen.
Unknown number: Thought my girlfriend should have my number ;-) See you on Saturday, gorgeous.
My heartbeat morphed into an irregular rhythm. Gorgeous? Surely, that had to have been a joke.
It made me smile anyway, though. Two could play this game, and it was going to be considerably easier for me since I did actually think he was hot.
Tiffeny: Thanks for the number, sexy beast. I’ve got the babysitter covered for Saturday. Can’t wait. X
I deleted the kiss before I sent the message, then replaced it with a smiley face before I hit enter.
As crazy and impulsive as the whole thing had started off, I was starting to have a feeling that it might also just end up being really fun.
Chapter 13
Callen
“Julia is going to stay with you tonight,” I told Winter as I rolled up the cuffs of my sleeves. “Do you remember Julia? We met her in Tiffeny’s shop a few weeks ago.”
Winter’s head dipped where she sat cross-legged on my bed, watching as I smoothed out my button-up shirt and gave myself a last once-over.
“I think so. She has red hair.”
“Yeah, she does.” Red hair and love for my former band. Enough love that she’d recognized me and told Tiffeny Kraken was one of her favorites.
I was a little uneasy leaving Winter with her for that reason. Having a fan in my house, alone, looking after my little girl was unsettling.
But she wasn’t just any fan. She was Tiffeny’s best friend. Plus, she was the only person around here Winter had at least met before. I wasn’t about to leave her with someone neither of us knew at all.
It was also only going to be for a few hours. Even if she did go digging through my stuff once Winter went to bed, there wasn’t all that much for her to find or to take so she could sell it to other fans online.
She’s not just a random fan, I reminded myself for the umpteenth time. She’s not gonna steal a spoon or my toothbrush as a souvenir.
I’d seen and heard of fans doing some crazy shit before, though. I’d never personally been a target of anything really weird or disconcerting, but I’d also never left a fan alone in my home before.
Logically, I knew the probabilities were highly stacked in favor of nothing weird happening, considering who she was, but I’d have been naive if I hadn’t at least thought about it.
With all that in mind, I’d decided I’d see how she interacted with Winter when she arrived, and if I got any uncomfortable vibes off her, I’d ask Tiffeny if Winter could come to dinner with us.
A knock at the front door told me my time for all the back and forth over the date, leaving Winter with Julia, and wondering if I should feel guilty was over. They were here, and I was going on a first date again.
A fake date, but it was still a date.
Blowing out a breath, I turned and motioned to Winter to walk with me. “Let’s go say hi to Tiffeny and Julia.”
“I like Tiffeny.” She smiled as she hopped off the bed and slipped her little hand in mine.
Thankfully, she was still too young to question me much about what I was going to do with Tiffeny tonight. She didn’t understand we were going on a date or any of the possible implications of that.
“I know, sweetheart. So do I.”
When I opened the door, Winter let go of my hand and went to stand behind my legs. She was always a little shy at first when people came over.
My next breath got stuck in my lungs as my gaze landed on Tiffeny, wearing a black dress that was much tighter than anything I’d seen her in before, black heels, and with her hair loose and tumbling over her shoulders.
Dark liner around her eyes emphasized them and made them seem bigger, while the hemline of her dress hit just below mid-thigh and made her legs look like they went on for miles. Damn, this girl really does have curves like a goddamn scenic railway pass.
“Hi,” she said when her eyes had raked down every inch of my body in a perusal every bit as intense as mine had been of her. She swallowed, then cleared her throat and lifted her gaze to mine. “You remember Julia, right?”
“Right.” Still feeling the aftereffects of her eyes taking me in so intently, I tried to ignore my stiffening dick and looked at Julia instead. She was, after all, the one I had to be focused on right now. “It’s nice to see you again. Thanks for agreeing to watch Winter for me.”
Julia’s brown eyes slid to Tiffeny’s for a moment. Then she smiled and nodded at me. “Of course. We’re going to have some fun tonight, us two girls.”
To my surprise, she dropped down to her haunches and dug around in her bag. When she extracted her hand, she had three bottles of nail polish in it. She held them out to Winter and tilted her head.
“Hey, Winter, you wanna come out from behind Daddy’s legs real quick?” she asked. “I brought these with me. I thought we could start our girls’ night in with a manicure. What color would you like?”
I glanced down in time to see Winter release the hold she’d had on my jeans, stepping around my legs to pluck a bright pink bottle out of Julia’s hand. “I like pink.”
Julia nodded decisively and stuck the other options back into her bag before straightening up and offering Winter her hand. “Pink, it is. I’ve also brought along DVDs of my favorite princess movies. Want to come check them out and choose what to watch while you’re getting your manicure?”
“Yes,” Winter said, a hum of excitement in her voice. She took Julia’s hand without hesitating. “Do you know the songs in the movies?”
“Every word,” Julia promised solemnly, following Winter deeper into the house. When they reached the arch leading into the living room from the entrance hall, she stopped briefly to glance at us over her shoulder. “Well, what are you waiting for? Go. We have stuff to do.”
Tiffeny laughed and mouthed “thank you” while I took a deep breath and accepted that there wasn’t even a small part of me that was still uncomfortable with this arrangement. Julia clearly had a way with Winter, and my little girl only gave me a wave, too excited to get on with the night Julia had planned for them to bother sticking around to give me a hug.
“Yeah, okay,” I said. “Thanks again. Her bedtime’s at eight and there’s dinner for both of you in the fridge. Don’t let her con you into staying up until nine because that’s her very latest to be asleep. Not to only get into bed then.”
Winter mumbled a protest, but Julia nodded and winked at us. “We’ll both be asleep by nine. Girls need their beauty sleep, you know? Us smart girls also need to give our brains time to rest, so we won’t stay up too late.”
Winter nodded along, gazing up at Julia as if she was now the one who knew everything. I gave her a grateful smile, knowing she’d just given me a line to use again and a foundation to work on from here. Then I closed the distance between us and kissed the top of Winter’s head. “You be a good girl for Julia now, okay?”
“I will, Daddy.” She waved at us again before grabbing Julia’s hand and leading her away. Julia tossed her hand up in a wave too, not turning to look at us again.
“You ready to go?” Tiffeny asked from the door. “They’ll be fine. Julia has a real way with kids, even if she won’t admit it.”
“I can see that,” I said quietly, taking another d
eep breath before turning to face my gorgeous date. “I was a little nervous about leaving her with Julia, but I think they’re going to get along just fine.”
“They will.” She gave me a tentative smile, almost shy. “You know it’s not too late to back out of going to dinner with my parents, right? You could just take the night off and go see a movie or something.”
“Nope. I made a promise. I’m not bailing on it.” I patted my pockets to make sure I had my wallet, phone, and keys. Then I pulled the keys out and inclined my head toward the garage. “I’ll drive if you’ll be my co-pilot and tell me where we’re going.”
“Co-pilot.” The shyness melted out of her smile. “I like that. It makes me feel like less of a damsel in distress and more like I’m actually part of a team.”
“Guys make you feel like a damsel in distress when they drive you on a date?” I asked as I opened the door to the garage, letting it swing open and flicking on the light.
Tiffeny walked in behind me as I rounded the hood of my car to open the passenger door for her.
“What about opening doors?” I asked. “Is that acceptable?”
A laugh bubbled out of her as she climbed into the car. She waited until I was in the driver’s seat to answer. “Maybe damsel in distress wasn’t exactly the correct term to use, but I guess I prefer to feel like I’m part of a team when I’m dating someone and not like they just have to do or plan everything while I go along for the ride.”
“That’s an interesting way of looking at it,” I said as I backed out of the garage, one of my arms on her seat as I twisted to get a look behind me. “I’ve never thought about it that way before. What about the door thing, then?”
“Opening doors is perfectly acceptable, so long as you don’t do it with that arrogant air that says ‘look at me being a gentleman even though it’s totally fake.’”
I let out a surprised laugh as we waited for the garage door to close. “Guys really do that?”
“All the time.” She sighed, but there was a soft smile playing on her lips. “There’s a big difference between performing gentlemanly acts because you are an actual gentleman or because you feel like you have to, in which case, eww. Just leave it. I can open the damn door myself.”
“I think I get where you’re coming from. I have similar thoughts about the way women act sometimes, and men too, for that matter. Whatever you do, just be real about it and we’ll have no problem. Faking things to elicit a particular reaction from another person makes me sick.”
“Ironic that you’d be saying that while we’re headed to my parents’ house for dinner to introduce you as my boyfriend when you’re not.”
I chuckled, shrugging. “Fair enough. Maybe I’m a hypocrite, but our situation feels different to me.”
“Yeah, same here.” She turned in her seat to look at me, then spent the rest of the drive alternating between giving me directions and warning me about her mother and the inquisition I was about to face from her.
When we arrived in front of a sprawling manor type house with about a thousand windows, fountains lining the driveway, and a person who appeared to be an actual valet waiting in front of the wide double doors, I turned to her with my eyebrows at my hairline.
“You didn’t tell me you were rich.”
“I’m not,” she said grimly. “My parents are. Is that going to be a problem?”
“Nope.” I grinned and pointed a finger at my jeans. “But you could have told me to wear a suit.”
Motioning for her to look down might have been a bad idea, considering that her eyes had fallen to my crotch and were lingering there. My dick stirred immediately, but I clenched my jaw and shut the fucker down. This is so not the right time, but fuck me, I like it when she looks at me like that.
“Shall we go inside?” I asked finally, my voice slightly hoarse from the truckload of lust that had just been dumped all over me.
“Yeah, sure. Don’t worry about the jeans. She’d have told me if she expected a certain dress code for this dinner.”
My eyebrows lifted again. “Your mother has dress codes for a family dinner sometimes?”
She shrugged, her lips pressing into a tight smile before she climbed out of the car when the valet opened the door for her. I followed, sliding my hand into hers as we ascended a short staircase to get to the front doors.
Bolts of electricity shot up my arm from where our palms were connected. They flew down my spine and hit me in the crotch, making me want her all over again.
Jesus. The chemistry I felt with this girl whenever I touched her was off the fucking charts. I didn’t have much time to think about it, though.
Mrs. Hurst was waiting for us in the entrance hall with one arm raised as she checked the time and her foot tapping against the marble floor.
“You’re late,” she snapped as soon as we walked in. Her lithe body was wrapped in a blood-red dress that seemed far too extravagant for a dinner at home.
Tiffeny didn’t react to her mother’s harsh tone, other than the slight tightening of her fingers on mine. “Only by seven minutes. Where’s Dad?”
“At the office,” she said. “He’s not going to make it.”
“Surprise, surprise,” Tiffeny muttered under her breath, then offered her mother a polite smile. “Since we’re late, I’m guessing we’re behind schedule.”
“Yes. The appetizers are being served in three minutes.” She spun on her heel and, obviously expecting us to follow, didn’t check to see if we actually were.
“She was only going to give us ten minutes between arriving and appetizers?” I whispered as we walked down a wide corridor with expensive-looking paintings on the walls and a thick carpet beneath our feet.
Tiffeny rolled her eyes as she smiled up at me. “But of course. Time is money and no one pays her for small talk with her daughter.”
I chuckled, but my heart hurt for her at the same time. My parents hadn’t been supportive of my dream, but at least they hadn’t been made of ice.
Mrs. Hurst sat down at the end of a long dining table that seated at least sixteen people. It looked a little sad with only three places set.
Heavy silver candlesticks had been placed between a plethora of cutlery and crockery, but at least I knew what to do with it all. Tiffeny took the seat across from mine, her feet almost immediately hooking around my ankles when I sat down.
I arched a brow at her in surprise, but she simply gave her head an almost imperceptible shake in return. Right. Ask her about this later.
“So, you’re dating my daughter,” Mrs. Hurst began as a server filled our glasses with red wine. I was starting to realize Tiffeny really had a point with the not wasting time thing. “How long has that been going on for?”
“Not very long,” I said, trying to be honest while also omitting to telling her the whole truth. “We met, had an instant connection, and decided to see where things went.”
Surprisingly, even that wasn’t a flat-out lie.
Mrs. Hurst’s eyes narrowed, but eventually, she nodded and her expression smoothed out again. “I see, and where are you from? I don’t recall having seen you around before.”
I didn’t bother pointing out how many people lived in this city and how she couldn’t possibly have seen them all before. I was aiming for charming here. “I actually just moved here a while ago from Los Angeles.”
“LA, huh?” Curiosity crept into her gaze. “What were you doing for a living there?”
“I’m a singer and a songwriter,” I said, seeing the disgust curl the corners of her lips down. “I’m on a break right now, so I decided to move over here to see how things went.”
“You’re not much of a planner, are you?” She pursed her lips and pressed the tips of her fingers together in front of her mouth. “Everything seems to be a ‘see how it goes’ situation.”
I didn’t argue with her. I couldn’t. All my plans had gone to shit and I honestly hadn’t had it in me to make too many new ones yet. “Yes, ma’am. M
y life has been pretty well planned to this point. I’ve been on a hectic schedule and now I’m just trying to take things as they come.”
She cocked her head, bringing her fingers to her lips in thought. “A singer/songwriter from LA who’s been on a hectic schedule. Have you done well for yourself?”
I shrugged. “It depends on what you define as having done well.”
“Have you made any money?” she asked, not a hint of shame in asking directly.
“Some,” I replied. I wasn’t the type to brag, and the amount of dollars in my bank account didn’t have anything to do with anyone but me.
Mrs. Hurst pressed her lips together tightly, obviously assuming that my answer meant I was a struggling musician. Good. Let her think that.
“I’m not going to beat around the bush here, Callen,” she said, which was when it clicked into place that Tiffeny had obviously gotten her trait as a straight shooter from the woman sitting in front of me. I had to respect that.
“No, ma’am, let’s not beat around the bush,” I said because I appreciated not being bullshitted or pandered to. Lord knew I’d had enough of that these last few years since we’d started making it big.
She leveled her gaze at me. “You’re not much of a planner, you’re between jobs, and you’ve just moved here. That doesn’t sit well with me. My daughter is twenty-seven and she isn’t getting any younger. All that being said, have you two discussed the future at all? Marriage, having children? Do you even know if you’re on the same page concerning all that?”
The very thought of marrying again used to make my balls shrivel up, but while it wasn’t anything I was near ready for right then, I couldn’t deny the possibility of it ever happening again anymore.
As for having more children, I loved Winter, and if I ever found someone I felt as deeply about again as I had with Alice, I wouldn’t be opposed to discussing the possibility of more of those either.
Both of those things were hypothetical for me at this point, something that might be considered in the very far off future, but I could answer Mrs. Hurst at least partially honestly.
Keeping Secrets Page 9