by Taryn Quinn
“Fee.”
I turned toward his husky voice. He was dressed again and his hair was scraped back into a messy tail, but his eyes…his stupid, perfect blue eyes were full of too much. Everything.
How dare he come back here and stir stuff up?
His gaze raked over me, landing on the button on my shirt that was ready to bust before lifting to my face. “Ready?”
I didn’t want to look down at the button or my nipples that still hadn’t relaxed after all the abrading and sucking. Ugh.
His Adam’s apple bobbled once before he disappeared down the hallway. When I got into the living room, my bags were picked up and the room no longer looked as if it had been tossed. Myles had brewed a few to-go cups for us and left mine on the counter.
Dammit, why did he have to be thoughtful?
As amazing as he’d always been, there had been a careless guy in the best friend I’d loved for so many years. Again, this Myles was just a little different. Thoughtful, exciting, a little jagged.
I huffed out a breath and grabbed my purse and the travel mug, following him out the door. I expected a hot car. Seemed to fit a rockstar of his caliber, but instead there was a huge pewter-colored Silverado at my curb.
What the hell did Myles need a truck for?
The truck bed was uncovered and something lay under a tarp near the cab of the truck. Before I could steal a peek, Myles opened the door.
“Up you go.” He held out a hand.
I ignored him, handing him my coffee then climbing into the cab under my own steam. I reached out for my coffee then he slammed the door with a shake of his head. I took a deep breath during the minute I got to myself.
It wasn’t nearly enough to calm me.
Nerves I’d never had around Myles were now alive between us. He gave me a tight smile before pulling out of the small complex my sister lived in. It was slightly rundown as the neighborhood was deciding between gentrification and decay.
For my sister’s sake, I hoped for the former.
“Where are we going?” I asked, placing my mug in the cup holder.
He took a left and headed for the highway. “Not far.”
I played with my necklace. “I’m sorry about earlier.”
His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “About what?”
“About making it weird.” I forced myself to relax my hands on my purse. I wanted the coffee, but I wasn’t sure I should add caffeine to the jitters I was carrying around.
He tucked a stray strand of hair behind his ear and turned those ridiculous eyes on me. “Not every day you go over to your best friend’s place and get naked, Fee. Shit’s gonna be weird for a second or two.” He reached for my hand and tangled our fingers. “Hopefully, more good than weird.”
For a minute, I didn’t know how to touch him. I mean, I knew…hello, we’d just gotten seriously naked, but our fingers didn’t work like they used to. I let out a frustrated breath and shifted, then my thumb slid along his and our fingers seemed to fall into their natural grooves as warmth and connection fused between us.
The only kind of connection I always understood.
His lips twitched.
“What are you smiling about, Vaughn?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s something.” The mustache of his beard wiggled and I couldn’t stop a laugh. “Right there. Is that a smug smile brewing?”
He gave me some serious side eye. “I did make you scream my name approximately four times. I think I’m allowed to be a little smug.”
“I’ve been in a dry spell.”
Myles huffed out a breath. “Sahara?”
“Shut up. I suppose that was a regular day ending in y for you?” My words were tight. I didn’t want to be judgy, but there had to be a ton of women in his past. Women that weren’t me. How many since…
No. Do not go there. That was the road to Bitchville. I didn’t like that zip code and didn’t want to be that girl. I hadn’t been an angel while he’d been gone.
I’d tried like hell to forget him. Maybe too hard for a few months.
And now I didn’t know what I wanted. I thought I’d been so sure. Go find myself and then find Myles. Repair friendship. Not lose panties and have spectacular orgasms. Those were not on my to-do list.
“Fee, nothing has ever been like today.” His thumb traced circles over the top of my hand. “I know it might take a little time to make you see that. And obviously, it’ll take longer to make you truly understand it, but I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“What the hell does that even mean?”
“I’ll tell you everything, just wait until we get where we’re going.”
I exhaled and we drove in silence. We headed into the more affluent area of Baltimore. The outskirts of city and suburbia, where houses were way out of my purview. When I saw signs for Phoenix, the air left my lungs. “What are we doing out here?” Places out here had the word “million” in their listings.
There weren’t any restaurants or social places. It was houses.
Moneyed houses.
He lifted my hand to his mouth. “Your hand is cold.”
“I’m confused.”
He let my hand go for a moment and tapped something into his dash GPS. I tucked my hands under my purse. He was damn right they were cold. And it wasn’t the cool spring day that had caused it.
My heart raced and I tried to hold myself together as we climbed a winding road where a stash of houses were tucked into woods. There was actual land between the houses along with many, many trees. Way more than any park I’d ever been to. Lawns were cut by professionals. No puttering push mowers operated by acne-scarred teenage boys like on my block.
It wasn’t pretentious. At least there was that.
Myles pulled into a long drive that led to a house full of windows and brick. It actually wasn’t massive like some of the ones on the block. But it had huge, black-framed windows and wrought iron accents framing out a patio of wide tile. Dozens of pots full of greenery were staggered around in a charming container-garden style. Plants struggling out of winter hibernation were interspersed with brand-new ones obviously from a nursery to pretty up the struggling landscape.
There was work to be done.
I wasn’t sure why that made the breath trapped in my chest suddenly release. It wasn’t perfect, but it was magnificent. As we got closer to the property, Myles stopped at the black gate. He tapped a code into the box and the gates swung open silently.
He drove through and followed the wide, pressed-stone driveway. He parked at the edges of a circular drive, then got out. I was still frowning when he opened my door and helped me out of the truck. He linked our fingers again and tugged me up to the door.
The front porch had a few more of the potted plants and an impressive black double door entryway. He pressed another series of numbers on a little lockbox.
The kind that realtors used.
I swallowed down the panic bubbling in my chest.
The foyer was warm tile in a toasty color with a spacious living room off the front and a view out the back. Acres of land and trees. For God’s sake, even a deer was grazing in the distance.
A freaking postcard of perfection.
He dragged me farther into the room where a fireplace dominated one wall. It was two-sided, leading into an open plan kitchen with more windows and views to die for. The kitchen was modern and bright. Instead of the typical stainless-steel appliances, everything seemed to be built into beachy gray cabinets with antique bronze fixtures.
All the spit in my mouth dried.
It was exactly what I would have chosen for myself if I had a dream kitchen. I didn’t have much time to cook or bake with my schedule, but there had been many years when Myles and I would bake for Christmas or picnics.
Cookies, pies, endless versions of a cheesecake we’d tried to perfect. Pots of cheap spaghetti sauce doctored up to feed the band during their rehearsals. How many nights had we spent stand
ing over a pizza on the island in my kitchen at my parents’ house?
“What do you think?”
“It’s gorgeous.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet.” He tugged me off the hallway to a staircase and up to a bedroom.
Actually, bedroom wasn’t quite the right word. More like a suite.
The moment we went through the door, there was a huge expanse of hardwood, and a triple bay window extended the room with a to-die-for window seat decked out in plush cushions and pillows that invited you to curl in with a book. A built-in bookcase surrounded it all, with a couch made for lazing the day away.
As I turned, the rest of the bedroom came into view. A king-size bed complete with a tufted headboard took up one wall and a lush bench sat at the foot. It didn’t look real. The furnishings were the kind you’d find in Architectural Digest, for God’s sake. This wasn’t a house for normal people.
His face was split with an excited smile. “You can fucking swim in this tub. You gotta see it.”
Numbly, I followed him.
He twirled—yes, twirled—in the massive bathroom. “A steam shower—always wanted one of those. After I pound on the keys—” He seemed to falter a little. He cleared his throat. “After a long day, it’s a great way to recover. And right there is a tub. No, it’s practically a freaking swimming pool.” He jumped up on the tiled surround then stepped into the bathtub that could easily fit a family. “Imagine what we could do in here?”
I folded my arms over my stomach. “It’s gorgeous. Whose is it?” I was afraid to ask. I really wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
“Mine.” He blew out a hank of hair from his eyes before he met my gaze with a huge smile. “Maybe someday…ours.”
10
Myles
Her huge brown eyes went wide, then she stumbled back and fled the bathroom.
I clambered out of the tub and after her. “Wait, Fee.”
“Are you insane? We slept together one time. One.” She gripped the back of the couch by the windows.
“I said someday. You have to know that I came home for you, Felicity.”
“Yeah, let’s talk about that. What are you doing here? According to the tour schedule on your website, you should be in Chicago tonight. Why are you here?”
My heart thundered in my ears. I hadn’t exactly explained what was going on, but she’d shared an important piece of information. Something that gave me a little hope. “You know my schedule?”
“That is not the point.” She folded her arms. “You aren’t supposed to be here. Why are you here, Myles?”
“I told you—”
She sliced the air with her hand. “Oh no. You aren’t saying that again.”
“What?” I crossed the room to her. “I’m here for you.”
“To what? Win me over then go back on tour? Isn’t that why you screwed up our friendship in the first place?”
I swallowed and jammed my hands into my pockets. “Not exactly.”
“Then please let me know exactly why you’re doing this?”
I rocked on my heels, then tangled my hands in my hair, dragging the rubber band out to rake my fingers through the curls so I could think. “I’m back. That’s the only important part here.”
“No.” She came around the couch, then stabbed her finger into my chest. “You don’t get to do that.”
I caught her finger and pressed her palm to my chest. “I left something behind the last time I was home.” She tried to pull her hand away and I held her tighter. “I love you, Fee. I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember.”
Tears hovered on her eyelashes. “Myles,” she whispered.
“I left the band. It wasn’t working. Nothing was working. Everything was just too hard, too wrong. The music didn’t speak to me anymore. It hasn’t for a long time. So I’m home. To stay.”
She shook her head. “No. You love music. You worked so hard for this.”
“I’m officially retired. I signed the papers to dissolve my part of the partnership with the band. I still get royalties, of course, but I have enough money for three lifetimes. I can take care of us. We can be together.”
She pulled her hand away.
I took two steps forward to try to pull her in closer, but she ran from the room and down the stairs.
“Dammit.” This was not how I’d hoped this would go. At all.
I chased her down the stairs, but she was already out the front door and on the porch.
“Felicity, stop.”
She halted on the stairs to the driveway, but she didn’t turn back to me. “You can’t expect to waltz back into town and think I’m just going to play house with you.” She finally whirled around. “I had plans. I have plans.”
“Plans to do what?” I swallowed against the panic creeping up my spine, threatening to crush my shoulders and break my damn brain. “You told me you couldn’t leave here. When we talked about our futures over pizzas and endless gallons of ice cream, you said this was your home. I want to be your home.”
“That was two years ago. When you walked out—”
“I didn’t know how to do this.” I ran down the stairs to her. “Now I do. I don’t want to rush you. I’ll wait as long as it takes. I just want to make sure you know this is where I’m at.”
She turned and looked at the house. “What part of this is slow? You have to know this is absolutely nuts. We’re just friends. You made sure of that.”
“You know we aren’t. Not after today. Hell, before today—for years we’ve known it. I was just too stupid to grab for it. Never again.” I reached out and cupped her face. “Us. It’s the best part of me. It’s always been you, Fee. Always.”
“What about me? You came here with a whole plan in your head. But is it really a plan? Or are you just here to hide?”
I dropped my hands. “No.”
“Isn’t that it?” She pointed to the big house behind us. “You bought this huge suburban beast of a house out of nowhere?”
“I bought it to take care of you. To make a home with you.”
She cupped her hand over her mouth, her fingers trembling. Finally, the tears that had been trapped in her lashes overflowed. She dashed them away with the back of her hand. “I couldn’t do that to you. You’d die here. Music is everything to you.”
“You’re everything to me. I only figured that out when I was on the road.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Of course I do. Do you think we could have made love like that if I didn’t?”
She shook her head. “We were always heading to that. It doesn’t mean we’re two-point-five kids and a minivan.”
“We could be.”
“You’re insane. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you know that’s not what you really want.”
“You don’t know anything about it. About what it’s been like. All the nights I’ve spent in a coffin-sized bunk with guys snoring around me.” I paced away from her. “Doing the same songs over and over again. The venues were different, but the setlist never wavered.” I stalked back to her. “No matter how I begged to throw in a cover song, or a new song—they wouldn’t even consider it.”
I laughed. It sounded manic to my own ears, but I didn’t stop. “The light show can’t be changed, Myles. The setlist is the perfect length. When we do a cover, we lose the fans and have to build the show back up.”
She grabbed my arm. “Oh, Myles.”
I shook her off. “There are so many reasons why the band didn’t work for me. If I had a wild hair to play a Frank Turner song, a Beatles song, or even one I’d been working on with one of the guys… There was no room to grow. No room to experiment. There was only the setlist, and let’s not even talk about the schedule. Do you know the last time I had a day off?”
“You need a break.”
“I quit, Fee.” I crowded into her and grasped her shoulders. “There was no time off because we were selling out stadiums and arenas. And there won’t
be for a damn long time.”
“Didn’t you take time off for your bandmate’s baby not all that long ago? Maybe just a little more time and you’ll feel different.”
“No.”
She put her hands on my chest, her fingers twisting into the chains I wore. I didn’t want her touching me right then. Not with all this in my head. She had no idea how much I’d agonized over this decision. Everything was gone.
There was only her.
I stepped back and one of my chains snapped.
“Myles, wait.”
“I came back here to tell you I love you. You think what happened today is just sex? I’ve fucked dozens of women.” She flinched, but I kept going. “I’ve only made love to one woman. You.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks unchecked. I knew she loved me too. I could see it in her eyes and the way she swayed to come closer to me. Why was she pushing me back?
“You’re ruining everything,” she whispered.
“I’m not. I’m seeing clearly for the first time.”
She shook her head. “You’re saying all the things you think you should say. You’re twenty-eight years old. There’s no way you can retire. You’d wither and die here. I could never be the reason that happened.”
“This isn’t now.” I waved at the house. Spots danced at my periphery. “This is the future. We can get to know each other again. Get to know how we are as this.” I dragged her against me and dropped my mouth to hers. I kissed her through the tears mixing with our taste.
She reached up and stroked my beard before stepping back. “I’m leaving tomorrow.”
That didn’t make sense. I frowned down at her. “What do you mean leaving?”
“You saw my bags. You know yesterday was my last day at the bar. I have a train ticket to Louisiana.”
“What the fuck is in Louisiana?”
She shrugged. “New Orleans. The first stop on my trip across the country. I’ve been working my ass off to get out of here. I have my own business. I put my degree to good use and pulled all-nighters to build up a clientele that would allow me to be my own boss, but also travel. To actually see the United States, maybe even the world someday.” She brushed away the last of her tears. “But you didn’t ask me. Didn’t even think that maybe I wasn’t sitting here waiting for you.”