Yet for some reason, Nick seemed to want to stay in touch with her. At first, she hadn’t responded to the calls, texts, and e-mails at all. But now that her anger and shock had died down a little, she occasionally wrote him back, keeping her communications brief and devoid of emotion. Maybe it was just her pride, but she didn’t want her ex to think that he’d utterly destroyed her. No one would have that power over her. Never again, anyway. So when he’d write her three paragraphs, she’d respond, but usually with a single sentence, sometimes even a single word.
For the first time, she reflected on how badly she did not want Nick to know about her current gig. Her life would get complicated in a hurry if he, the biggest Marcus Troy fan she knew, found out what she was up to (he’d tried her the night before, but she’d missed the call, and wouldn’t have picked up, anyway). First of all, Nick was a total blabbermouth, and he would tell everyone he knew. And secondly, he’d probably call her ten times a day, wanting information, any information, about what his hero was actually like, in the flesh. She knew her ex well, and yes, he was that insensitive.
I really did sleep twenty feet away from Marcus Troy last night, though, Ryan thought to herself, and giggled with the oddness of it. Just because Ryan was guarding her privacy didn’t mean sleeping in such close proximity to Marcus didn’t have an effect on her. As a kid, she’d sleepwalked a few times. What if she sleepwalked right into Marcus’s room, dipped the key into the slot, and slipped into his bed without a sound? She’d been thinking about him more and more. He wasn’t just incredibly sexy; he seemed to be a decent guy, a kind and loving father. Plus, he was fun, and funny, and so cute. What would it feel like to have those sexy biceps of his wrapped around her? What would it be like to kiss him, touch him…taste him? The man did something to her, pure and simple. She could suppress it, but she couldn’t deny it.
So instead, Ryan got up and did the only thing she could to banish these daydreams of her employer from her mind: she went for a run. She was an avid runner, going out four to five days a week for anywhere from four miles to eight or ten. She’d loved her first half-marathon, back on a wintry April day in Kalispell, and she was struck with the thought that, if she had time to herself like this on a regular basis, maybe she’d use the summer to train for her first full marathon in the fall.
She’d never run in a new city before, so she’d Google-mapped the area around the hotel and plotted a route she hoped would be a fun one. The hotel was just off Waterfront Park, so after a few minutes of stretching, she set off on Alaskan Way, hugging the coast so she could take in the breathtaking view of the bay. Note to self, she thought. Move to Seattle!
Just as she was starting to get comfortable, a middle-age, totally out-of-shape man blatantly checked her out. Did men really think women didn’t see those sidelong, sneaky glances at women’s bodies on the running path, on the bus, in classrooms and offices? She would never be with a man who checked women out like that—so gross.
She couldn’t help but notice that Marcus didn’t seem to do it, though. He’d been very gentlemanly around her, hadn’t checked out her butt or her boobs when she wasn’t looking. And yet, his eyes seemed drawn to hers in spite of himself.Was she making it up, or was it true? For a gentleman, not to mention a famous rock star, like Marcus to be unable to keep his eyes off her? Getting the attention of a sexy man like him, a man who could almost literally have any woman in the world—now that was hot.
On the way back to the hotel, Ryan stopped by Pike Place Market, the only Seattle landmark she knew to look for. Once inside, she was entranced. She had thought Pike Place would just be a place for food shopping, but there were lots of arts and crafts, too, and all kinds of artwork. Ryan had yet to receive her first paycheck, but it was challenging not to whip out a credit card and at least buy something nice for her mom.
“Ryan!” cried a voice behind her. She turned to see Miles, followed closely by Charlotte and their dad.
“Oh, hi guys!” said Ryan, shooting for enthusiasm, but feeling embarrassed in her sweaty (and skimpy, she suddenly realized) running outfit. The three of them were coming straight for her.
“You run?” Miles asked her in front of a store selling Polish savory pastries called piroshkies.
“Yeah, does that seem weird?” Ryan asked, brushing the boy’s hair out of his face. The kid may as well have asked Ryan if she could fly, he seemed so amazed.
“Dad runs, too,” Charlotte said by way of explanation.
“Oh yeah?” Ryan said, looking up at her boss, trying not to meet his blue eyes too deeply or soulfully.
“A few times a week, yeah. We should go together some time. I haven’t had a running partner for years.”
Ryan gave him the once-over. Marcus was wearing jeans and a tight-fitting, perfectly tailored white T-shirt. Actually, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the T-shirt; it was the man wearing it, the one with muscles like Michelangelo’s David, who was just stupid sexy. Ryan thought Marcus might actually be a bit too developed for a runner––the most serious ones were usually super-skinny––but she couldn’t help but imagine him in workout mode, sweating, grunting, trying to beat his personal best. She wondered whether she could take him on in a one-on-one race. The extra muscle, as mouth-watering as it was, could definitely be a disadvantage. Rock star or not, she decided, Marcus Troy would eat her dust.
“We could come, too,” said Charlotte hopefully.
“Yeah!” said Miles. Then, out of nowhere, he touched her waist and said, “You’re pretty.”
“No, I’m not, I’m all sweaty,” she protested, thankful that there was probably enough color already in her face to hide the fact that she was blushing. A good night’s sleep had apparently caused Miles to fall madly in love with her.
Marcus said to his son, “Miles, a woman can be pretty and sweaty at the same time.” He smiled at Ryan and shrugged, as if to say, Kids and the crazy things they say. But Ryan wasn’t used to being scrutinized by a hot guy and his kids at the same time. The rock star’s nanny thought she might pass out if she didn’t sprint out of Pike Place Market right away.
“You think Ryan is sweaty and pretty, Daddy?” asked Miles.
“Shhh, stop it!” Charlotte said, jostling the clueless Miles’s shoulder.
Misunderstood Miles looked like he might cry for a moment, while Marcus, not answering his son, gave Ryan a dead-sexy look, those blue eyes seeming to silently agree that yes, she may have been sweaty, but she was very pretty indeed.
Ryan’s blush had faded, but with Marcus’s eyes on her, she somehow couldn’t form a proper sentence. Had a man ever looked at her so directly, so confidently? Guys in their twenties had never gazed at her like that, and she didn’t know if she could handle it. She walked a few steps down the aisle, and Marcus and the children followed her. “Have you ever seen such beautiful produce?” she said, nonsensically picking up a head of lettuce and feeling like some kind of half-assed Rachael Ray.
“I know,” Marcus said, rescuing her. “Look at these heirloom tomatoes. It’s like they weigh about three pounds each. Maybe I’ll pick some things up,” Marcus said, “and we could make the kids a salad for dinner.”
We? Dinner?
“You like to cook?”
“Yeah, sure,” Marcus said. “I mean, nothing fancy. But I know my way around a kitchen. Why? Is that so weird, a guy who cooks?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just…do you really have time on tour? Your schedule seems crazy.”
“Which is exactly why I need to break it up every once in a while, try something different—”
Miles interrupted. “Dad, come on, let’s go.”
Charlotte shushed him, and Ryan noticed that the girl was hanging on their every word. Seeing her there, the little girl she was supposed to be caring for, snapped Ryan back to reality. She couldn’t be making salads with this man, or flirting over fruit. She was supposed to be the nanny, and just the nanny. Salad could lead to dinner, which could lead to…
dessert. No, there would be no salad.
“Hey, don’t you have soundcheck in an hour?” Ryan asked.
Marcus pulled out his phone and checked the time. “More or less,” he said.
“Well, if you’re handing them off to me before then, I’d better go get changed.”
“Sure,” said Marcus, and when she looked at him again, the sexy intensity in his eyes had disappeared. “I’ll see you in a few.”
With that, Ryan said a quick good-bye and set off like she was trying to break the world record for the 100-yard dash.
“Don’t forget to take a shower!” Miles yelled. “To take the sweat off!” Ryan didn’t turn around, but she could hear Marcus laughing behind her. She was going to have to stop somewhere and buy a big, bulky tracksuit.
…
Marcus was trying something a little different for this tour. He would play all the crowd favorites, as usual, because that’s what people were paying money to see. Marcus knew that––he wasn’t an idiot. But he was also going to try out some material that was different from anything he had ever written before. No band, either. Just him and his guitar. It was going to be interesting. These songs were darker, more intense than anything in Marcus’s catalog, perhaps more appropriate for a smoky club that fit a hundred people rather than the 10,000- to 20,000-seat arenas booked for the tour. But Marcus didn’t care.
When he’d started off in music, he hadn’t been a father; he’d been nothing more than a kid himself. Now, the responsibilities and challenges of being an adult had changed him. He wasn’t the same man anymore, and he wanted his music to reflect it. There was a new side to Marcus now, and he was going to show it to the audience, whether they liked it or not.
The first show of a tour was always a little creaky, and tonight was no exception. On lead guitar, Smitty was as reliable as ever. But although the bassist and drummer were the same ones he’d used on his most recent album, Marcus had never brought them on tour, and the four of them hadn’t had a chance to gel yet. Sure, they’d practiced for a few weeks in Big Fork in May, but being in front of an audience was totally different, and they weren’t firing on all cylinders, not yet, anyway. Marcus was going to have to make up for it by sending extra passion and energy to the very back row.
During the first five or six songs, though, Marcus was distracted. His thoughts kept drifting to Ryan and their chance meeting at Pike Place. To his mind, there was absolutely nothing sexier than a woman who was beautiful and athletic. Of course, like any guy, his head turned when a gorgeous chick walked by, whether she was a wallflower or a marathoner, but over the years he’d become less interested in women who were simply beautiful. And when it came to Ryan, it was more than just her “pretty and sweaty” body, as Miles had so hilariously put it, that got Marcus thinking. It was little things, gestures, facial expressions, that stuck with him. Like how embarrassed she got when Miles had complimented her. She’d turned as red as a beet, and Marcus wondered why. Could a girl as sexy as Ryan possibly be unused to getting singled out for her looks? No way. Impossible.
Could she not take a compliment? The jury was still out, but the way she had turned and blushed in the market, smiling and brushing her hair back, made it seem like she wasn’t used to being admired. That kind of modesty, that natural innocence, was something he hadn’t seen in a woman in years, and Marcus couldn’t get the idea out of his head. Ryan was not only sexy and smart, but so, so real.
Smitty was soloing. Sending off a flurry of notes, the guitarist gritted his teeth, then cackled to himself as he turned his instrument toward his amp to spark a squawk of piercing feedback. Marcus thought it almost sounded like the Smitty Angel on his shoulder, warning him…Don’t! Go! After! The! Nanny!!! He spat the next line into the mic with more intensity, partly feeding off of Smitty, but also willing himself to be in the moment, the way Smitty always seemed to be. If Marcus knew what was best for him, he needed to spend less time obsessing about Ryan’s rocking body and soulful spirit, and more time rocking this capacity crowd of concertgoers.
Midway through the set, Smitty and the rest of the band left the stage, and a roadie brought Marcus his old, beat-up Martin guitar. It was his favorite instrument, but this was the first time he’d ever played it live, because this was the first time Marcus was attempting to play the kind of intimate, intense acoustic music he played at home when there was no one else around. As a single spotlight shone down on him, he felt, for the first time in years, nervous.
“Okay, guys, as you can probably guess,” he told the audience, “I’m going to slow things down a little bit now.”
The audience screamed, which didn’t mean much. Once audiences got this big, they screamed at just about anything Marcus said. He had learned not to take the audience’s adulation too seriously.
“I hope you like this one. It’s brand new.” More screams.
Marcus began singing “I Lock The Door,” the first song he’d written after his divorce with Bianca, but which the record company hadn’t wanted included on his album. The song wasn’t really about Bianca, though. It was about the deepest sadness he’d ever known, after a court of law had told him he couldn’t wake up every day in the same house as his own children. It was about a loneliness he’d never known before he’d been separated from them.
I lock the door upon myself
Because that is the only way
I’ll get my rest today
I turn the latch and I draw the shades
And I wait until the evening’s last light fades away
Into dark nights of the soul
And the tone of my bedroom is blacker than coal
Yeah, it wasn’t exactly a party anthem, but Marcus loved the song. He played a short instrumental break before the second verse. The crowd was dead silent. Maybe they were loving the song. Or maybe they hated it so much, they were sitting on their hands in protest.
He didn’t care.
I lock the door upon myself
Because as the day brightens,
Something in my chest tightens
Ventricles bubbling, panic attacks
Only in my solitude can I relax
Please don’t judge me when I stay inside
‘Cause I know in this world there are no free rides
As Marcus continued, he took a glance stage-right, hoping Charlotte and Miles would be there, cheering him on. The truth was, he needed the assurance of seeing them, because he was feeling the song deeply, and he needed to remind himself that, today anyway, his kids were right there with him.
Sure enough, there they were with Ryan, and they both waved broadly, huge smiles on their faces. Thank God they don’t understand these sad-sack lyrics, he thought, smiling back. And thank God Bianca hasn’t turned them against me.
It was normally quite dark backstage, but a mirrored panel from the stage floor was reflecting light directly on the three of them, spinning across their faces like a kaleidoscope. The effect was beautiful and otherworldly, and Marcus didn’t break eye contact, not just because of the kids, but because of Ryan, who had an arm around each of their shoulders. She had to be more than twenty feet away, but Marcus could see the unreal green of her eyes perfectly, and her beauty sent a shock through him.
Suddenly, he had no idea what the next lyric was. Something about a vent, and a fire escape? But the words were just not coming to him, and he had to stop playing to gather himself.
“Oops, I told you this was a new one, right?” Marcus said to the audience. “It’s so new, I guess I haven’t even memorized the words yet!”
Some awkward tittering, and a few encouraging cheers. Then some doofus yelled, “Play ‘Love of My Life’!”
“I’ll get to that one,” Marcus said. “Promise.” He was thinking, Shut up, dickweed. He was so tired of playing “Love of My Life.”
And he recovered quickly enough, launching into the final verse and chorus of “I Lock the Door” before reverting to acoustic versions of some of his most beloved songs. T
he audience hadn’t responded to his new, darker direction, but he didn’t care. All he was thinking about was Ryan, that perfect vision of her standing aside his children. The image of her, with Charlotte and Miles, made him feel strong. And for the first time in too long, alive, fully alive.
Chapter Seven
A Glimmer of Light
On the bus ride to Portland, Ryan struggled to keep her eyes open. She was exhausted, which wasn’t very convenient, given the fact that Miles was going bonkers, running up and down the aisle, while Charlotte kept pestering her with precocious questions. Sometimes being a nanny felt like being in combat, stuck in the trenches with two tiny soldiers who either didn’t know, or simply disregarded, the rules of engagement.
“Were you ever married?” Charlotte asked.
“No.”
“Have you had lots of boyfriends?”
“Not really. Just one serious one.”
“What was his name?”
“Charlotte, that’s really kind of personal.”
“Come on, please…” The girl looked as steely and unmovable as the toughest of the journalists who, Ryan had seen first-hand, followed her father around with the sole intent of pulling out of him some unknown detail from his past. “Just tell me.”
“His name was Nick.”
“And why aren’t you with him anymore? Did he stop loving you, like Bianca stopped loving Daddy?”
Ryan still couldn’t get her head around the fact that Charlotte called her mom by her first name (Miles still called her Mommy, thank God for him).
“It was more complicated than that,” Ryan said.
“What do you mean? If you still loved him, and he still loved you, you’d still be together, right?”
“I guess.”
“Did he just stop loving you, then? Did he start loving somebody else? That’s what happened with Bianca and Daddy.”
Love Songs for the Road Page 5