by Rayne, Piper
“But dinner,” I say.
He pins me with a stare.
I sit down next to him. His cologne is all I can smell.
“Are you a singer, Phoenix?” he asks.
“I can sing,” I answer, dodging the question.
He raises his eyebrows. His dark eyes are so pure and honest, demanding the same from me. “That was you on that recording?”
“And my brother.”
He takes a moment before speaking again. “I need to ask you a question.”
I say nothing, because although I don’t know Griffin well, I can tell he’s concerned about something.
“Did you take this job because you wanted me to discover you?”
There are so many ways this could go. I could put my whole life out on the table for him. All the failure that’s come with trying to become a success. But when I accepted the nanny position, I did it for the money.
“I took the job because you’re paying me well. That…” I want desperately to tell him that after the summer, I plan on heading to LA, but then he’ll probably replace me before I’m ready. Crossing my fingers and tucking them under my thigh, I’m as truthful as I can be. “The money is the reason I took this job.”
He nods. “So you have no ambition to become a singer?”
Why, oh why does he have to keep digging?
I clench my fingers over one another harder. “Sure, I do, but I’m not so stupid to think they’d ever come true.”
“You know I’m out of that scene now. I can’t help you.” His honest eyes from moments earlier now appear skeptical. What happened to him to make him so untrusting? This probably isn’t the time to ask him since I’m only telling half the truth in order to stay employed. “And when Van and Trey come, I’d appreciate you not hanging your hopes on them.”
I shake my head like I didn’t hope maybe they heard me singing in the shower or something. “I’d never do that.”
He nods. “Now that that’s cleared up. Can I hear it again?”
“Why?”
He sits up straighter. “Because you have a good voice from what I could hear.”
I press Play and rest my phone on the coffee table. My stomach twists with nerves.
Griffin leans over, his long fingers pressing down on his jean-clad legs as he gets into the tempo and rhythm. I watch him, the song almost becoming background noise as an imaginary spotlight casts over Griffin while he’s doing what he’s so talented at. From an outsider’s perspective, I’d say he still loves it.
He listens to the song in its entirety, and after what feels like an eternity, he picks up my phone and hands it to me. “Thanks for sharing that with me. It’s good. Can’t wait to listen to it live.” Standing, he looks at me. “I have something to do before dinner.”
He disappears upstairs, and I sit on the couch as the doubt settles in. Maybe there is a reason I never made it in LA. Maybe it’s because I suck. Perhaps it’s time to think of a Plan Z.
Twelve
Griffin
I pace my bedroom floor, Phoenix’s singing voice running through my mind. There’s something there that can’t be mimicked and can’t be taught. If I was in LA and heard her, I would’ve invited her into my studio and spent an entire week working with different sounds and different styles, figuring out where she fit best.
The song she played me doesn’t allow her to belt it out like I’m sure she can. She’s carrying her brother, but he’s not that bad.
Which brings up the fact she could’ve lied to me downstairs. She could’ve taken the nanny job for the sole reason of getting access to me. There’s nothing I hate more than when people use my kid to get to me.
But then again, I approached her, not the other way around. So I’m not sure what to think. My history dictates that I shouldn’t trust her, but the way this all came about and how she was obviously doing her best not to let me hear her sing at the parade make me think my instincts are off.
Ten minutes later, I’m still going back and forth in my mind when Phoenix texts me to say dinner will be ready in fifteen.
I sit on my bed and put my head in my hands. I know who I need to talk to in order to sort this out, so I pull out my phone and dial Van.
“What’s up, mountain man?” he answers, and surprisingly, it’s quiet in the background. The guy has the social calendar of the President.
“Where are you?”
“Office. Why?”
“It’s usually never quiet wherever you’re at.”
He chuckles, and the flick of a lighter and his deep inhale says he’s lit a cigarette. “Well, we just lost one of our money-makers. I’m wallowing with a drink and a smoke.”
“Who left?” I ask.
“Thought you didn’t want to know about the business anymore?” There’s a teasing lilt in his tone because he knows how hard it’s been for me to leave work completely behind. Especially in my head.
“I care about your business.”
“Uh huh. Well, it’ll be in the press soon enough, but you don’t talk to anyone else anyway… LK left.”
“Shit. Seriously?”
Aces High made LK’s career. Signed him when four other labels said no, gave him a say in his creative, pretty much made him what he is today. But I know there have been a few problems over the years as a result of his entourage.
“Yeah. You know that asshole who likes to act like his manager?”
“Will or something, right?”
“Yeah. He’s starting his own record label and LK’s going to invest, which means his catalog will go with him. He gave us the runaround when his contract came up for renegotiation. We rolled the fucking red carpet out for him too. I’m starting to understand why you ran to Alaska.”
I shake my head and look at my bedroom floor. “I didn’t run.”
“You sorta did,” he says.
There’s some truth there. I could’ve ignored the bullshit from that article. I had enough people to support me. I could’ve stalked Third Street Promenade for a new voice or sound. Instead, I decided to put it all behind me because I was so tired of fake people with fake agendas and fake motivations.
But the itch Phoenix’s voice has given me tells me that no matter how far away I get from LA, music will probably always be a part of me.
“I have different priorities now,” I say in my defense.
Van sighs. “Yeah, but you could work out there. There are lots of artists who’d go to Alaska just to work with you.”
Which reminds me of the reason I called. “I have a predicament.”
He inhales and exhales—taking a drag off his cigarette, I assume. “Please. Get me outta my head before I decide to put a hit out on LK.”
I chuckle because Van would never. He’s a teddy bear tucked into the skin of a bastard. “My nanny can sing.”
“Convenient.”
I nod even though he can’t see me. “I know. She says I’m not the reason she took the job.”
“Did you think she’d just out herself?”
We’ve both been used and abused by multiple women who didn’t like us for us but wanted us for what we could do for their careers. Get close to us somehow, then suddenly they’re singing in the shower or leaving demos on the nightstand after our night together. Phoenix might be one of those women too.
“I don’t know what to think. But the bigger problem is that she’s good. I can’t stop hearing her voice in my head and wondering what I could do with it.”
“Like Cammie?”
“Yeah,” I say, defeated at the thought of putting all that work into someone. “But… better.”
“Better?” The high pitch of his voice says he won’t believe me until he hears her. “Are you fucking the nanny, Grif?”
Phoenix’s ass comes into my mind, as does the way she licks her lips when she’s packing Maverick’s lunch in the morning. Or how when her long dark hair is pulled back into a ponytail, the length of her neck is on display. “She’s hot, but no. She’s mor
e than a decade younger than me.”
“So? Nothing wrong with that.”
“There is when you’re friends with her brother and she’s looking after your kid.”
“Yeah, yeah. So you’re telling me it’s not her body making you hear something that’s not there?”
“I’m telling you, she’s good. And if I worked with her, she’d be amazing. But I’d probably lose a nanny. And besides, that isn’t what I came up here to do.”
“But you could put your name on her and maybe…”
If I’d known LK left Aces High before I called, I might not have called. Van is going to think Phoenix might be his new artist to replace LK.
“I said she was good, I didn’t say she’s ready to go.”
“You and your perfectionism.”
I laugh, because he’s not wrong.
Competing thoughts about what I should do rush through my head. Ignore the fact that talent is sleeping under my roof? Let all that talent waste away in small-town, Alaska? I could refer her to an old colleague. There are bound to be lots of producers who would want to work with her, but most of them would use her up then dump her when the next best thing came along, rather than trying to develop her talent and her career.
“She’s a young girl from a small town in Alaska. Work with her a little and go from there. It’s not like down here where you have to nail someone down with a contract right away.”
I run a hand through my hair. “I said I was getting out of the business.”
“And you are. So you found a side project to keep you busy. Music is your passion. Did you really think you’d move up there and not have the urge to create music and nurture talent again?”
I did. And I see now how unrealistic I was. “I guess. There’s this parade, and she has to sing on a float next weekend—”
“Fuck. Where the hell are you getting me into when I’m up there? A float? A parade?”
“We’re gonna get you donuts, so shut up.”
“Donuts?”
“Just wait and you’ll see what I mean.”
He chuckles. “All right. You got your head on straight again?”
I nod but don’t answer, still thinking it through.
“I can see I lost you. Listen, don’t overthink this. You might work with her and see she’s tapped out on talent.”
“True. Okay, thanks. Talk to you later.”
We both hang up, and I pocket my phone and walk to the top of the stairs to head down for dinner. Hearing the laughter from Phoenix and Maverick in the kitchen makes me smile. Even if she did come here for the wrong reasons, I can’t deny how good she is for Maverick.
When I reach the kitchen, she slides a plate my way from where she stands on the other side of the island. “Hopefully, it’s good.”
“I’m sure it is.” I side-glance Maverick, who’s halfway done with his dinner. “So tell us about this Founder’s Day Parade.”
Her cheeks redden, but she slides a stool over, her own plate in front of her. “Well, my family owns Bailey Timber Corp, and they do a big Founder’s Day party every year.”
Her words are simple, but there’s something that doesn’t seem so simple in her eyes.
“Do the floats pass out candy? Dad took me to the Rose Parade one time, and it was like Halloween!”
I smile at Maverick, happy he remembers that day so well.
“Yeah. In fact, my grandma just made it official that my family float will be throwing candy.”
Maverick’s eyes widen and he looks my way. Who knew the kid would get this excited over a Tootsie Pop?
“The parade isn’t anything much. But it’s sentimental to me,” she says with a shrug.
“You said this morning the parade was boring,” I say.
She smiles and forks a carrot into her mouth. Maybe she wasn’t lying to me. Maybe she doesn’t want to be discovered. If she didn’t want us to go to the parade, she didn’t want me to find out she could sing. That shouldn’t make me want to ask her to stay up late and work on a few things, but it does.
When I met Cammie, she thought she was nothing more than a singer who could sing a song for her sister’s wedding day. Fate had me at that wedding. I’ve always believed that. But things were different with Cammie. I wasn’t already Griffin Thorne. I was Griffin, college friend of her new brother-in-law who happened to move to LA to try a career in music production. We were both young and had nothing to lose. But that situation ended badly, and I don’t want another repeat.
The stakes for Phoenix feel greater. She’s my nanny, my buddy’s sister, and if she has no interest in pursuing singing as a profession maybe I should leave it alone.
“It’s very much about my family and I tend to be embarrassed when it comes to them. There’s a float as a tribute to my parents’ wedding song too.”
“That’s nice.” I slide my potato around the gravy. “Do they sit on that float?” I shove the forkful in my mouth.
She tilts her head and eyes Maverick. “Denver’s never told you?”
For some reason, it’s difficult to swallow my mouthful. I’m obviously missing something. “Told me?”
“Our parents died when we were young.”
“Fuck.”
“Dad!” Maverick puts his hand out for the money I owe him for swearing.
I push it down because now’s not the time. “I’m sorry, Phoenix. I had no idea.”
She takes her plate and dumps her barely touched dinner into the trash before turning back to us. “Thank you. It was a long time ago.”
“How long?” Maverick asks.
I shake my head at him.
“Fourteen years ago.” Her shoulders slump. “I can’t believe it’s been that long.”
I abandon my meal and put my hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
She nods and slides a smile onto her face. “Sometimes it just sneaks up on you. But anyway.” She turns and my hand falls off her shoulder. She directs all her attention to Maverick. “They show a picture of my parents on their wedding day and play ‘Sea of Love’ by The Honeydrippers the entire float ride.”
“Great song,” I say.
She smiles. “Yeah.”
“Can I hear it?” Maverick asks.
“Only if you’ll dance with me.”
“Never mind,” he mumbles.
She grabs his hand and pulls him off the stool. “Come on. No one is around except your dad. Has anyone taught you how to dance?” Phoenix’s devilish smile finds me over her shoulder. “Will you find the song?”
I grab my phone from the counter and hook it up to the Bluetooth speaker. The song begins, and Phoenix holds her hands out for Maverick. He begrudgingly clasps his hand around hers. She positions his hand on the lower part of her back and they sway.
“See how easy this is?” she says.
Maverick looks at me like ‘please make her stop,’ but I lean my hip on the counter, watching them and admiring the connection she’s made with him already. If I’d asked him to do this, he’d have shot me down without question.
Then she starts to sing the song, and I’m not even sure she’s aware she’s doing it. She sways, the lyrics falling out of her mouth easily, her eyes closed like she’s lost somewhere in her mind.
Mid-song, Maverick pulls away from her. “That’s enough for me.” He runs upstairs, presumably to his room.
Phoenix turns to me and laughs, shaking her head. “Lasted longer than I thought.” She picks up his dish and takes it over to the garbage.
My hand falls to hers to stop her, taking the plate and placing it on the counter. I grab her other hand and lead her to the open area where she was dancing with Maverick. She sucks in a breath when I draw her close and tuck our hands between our bodies. I lead her around, and I’m rewarded by her singing quietly in my ear.
When the melody of the song slows and comes to an end, I hold her for a few seconds longer than I should. She draws back, and even though my brain is telling me not to do it, I can’t hel
p myself.
“Let me work with you on the song?”
“Okay,” she says easily.
Thirteen
Phoenix
Griffin’s playing the guitar that’s been on a stand in the great room since they moved in. He’s sitting on a chair, strumming the chords to the Brantley Gilbert and Lindsay Ell song.
“Can you send me the recording?” he asks, never looking up from his fingers.
I retrieve my phone from the pouch of my sweatshirt and send him the recording I took with Kingston. The screen on his phone lights up and he stops playing, taps his phone a few times, then my voice starts over the speaker. I cringe.
“You lack control,” he says matter-of-factly. “You need to be careful when you’re changing pitch. And it’s like you’re not feeling the lyrics, you’re thinking about the next note you have to hit.”
I sit on the couch.
“And your brother needs to find the timbre to pull this off since you two are flipping parts. You can hear that he feels the words though.”
“Okay,” I say.
He looks up and puts down the guitar. “Sorry. I can get excited and forget that you’re new to this.”
I shake my head. “I’ve heard criticism before.”
He stops the song from playing. “I’m not a sugarcoat-it kind of producer. But you never asked for me to help you and here I am just telling you exactly what I think.” He stands, setting the guitar on the chair, and runs his hands through his hair. “Have I overstepped?”
“No. I just didn’t know we were gonna start right away.”
He comes over and sits next to me on the couch, his fresh scent wrapping around me like a vise-grip. I hate to admit it, but I’m worried about working so closely with him. Half the time, my libido says to be the naughty nanny—especially at night when we don’t have Maverick as a buffer between us. It makes him hard to resist.
“That’s my fault. I can be obsessive when I get my mind set on something.” He glances around the room. “When I decided to leave LA, I hired an architect and had the plans for this place drawn up in four weeks. So if this is too fast, I understand.”