His aforementioned dick twitched at her casual shout-out and Bran tried to quiet that urge. She inspired something more valuable in him, but maybe he could turn this around and satisfy them both. He was aware of the night stretching before them, long and cold.
He had to grip the back of her seat to stop himself from sifting his fingers through the bottom inch of her hair. When Nelle coasted a hand through the waves, Bran swayed forward to inhale. Her hair swung over her shoulders, falling over the back of Bran’s hand, and he had the sudden sensation that he had slipped, the stomach lurch of losing your footing.
Black like ice, queen of light, she turned midnight.
The line flickered through Bran’s mind and he resisted the impulse to pull out his phone and type it into his notes. That would look like texting—and definitely not help his case. His fingers tensed at his side. He repeated the words in his head, trying to combat the anxiety of losing them, unaware of how the desire tethered itself to the woman sitting next to him.
Nelle pressed forward, still hunting down answers. “What is it then? A New Year’s resolution—a quarter-life crisis?”
“More of a clarity thing.”
“Pussy clouds the mind?”
A smile tugged at Bran’s mouth. “They’re wrong about you. You’ve got an edge.”
“Because I said pussy?”
“Because you pursued me while I was with someone else.”
Now he wished for blaring sunlight, to see for sure that her face had gone pink with a blush of his making.
Andre arrived with a second cocktail, and Nelle swiveled towards him with another practiced smile. “And we’re gonna split a burger.” She glanced down before meeting Bran’s eyes again. “I should apologize for that.”
“But?”
“I wouldn’t mean it.”
A soft silence settled between them, the thick snow outside muffling the sounds of the city. Her mouth curved, finally for him, and an uptick of tempo thumped in his heart.
The candle across the room winked again. Bran touched her elbow, the fabric of her sweater soft, thinner than he’d expected. “You’re sure Andre has your back with the paps? I can’t help thinking they’d kill for this.”
She recrossed her legs, her feet tangling momentarily with his. He widened his thighs, making room for her to fit the V of her stacked knees between them. “If this were happening—they’d be all over us in a minute. Reporting our breakup while speculating that we’re engaged—contrasting headlines over a photo of us buying groceries and holding hands—”
“That’s why I have a no-hand-holding policy. Makes it too easy for them.”
“And if I eat one gyro too many: bump watch.”
She was right. That’s exactly what they always did. Take any scrap of his life they could find to churn out stories he barely recognized as his life. Soon they’d have more than fragments to work with, soon they’d have every detail that made Bran Kelly who he was. The private stuff that made him feel like a real person.
And he didn’t know how to stop it.
“Everything they can find, sold to the highest bidder.” He moved his hand from her sleeve before his grip tightened. He shouldn’t be talking about this. Not when he was trying to focus on Nelle, let her be the distraction from his other problems.
But she was nodding, rebalancing the metal toothpick across her glass. “Better than making things up.”
His response arose from the ease of talking to someone who really understood. “Does it bother you more when they’re wrong or when they’re right?”
“It bothers me that I can’t have any secrets.” She gave up on balance and let the lemon peel splash back into her drink. “It bothers me that I don’t think I can keep any.”
“Then you need a tighter circle. Or a smaller one.”
“Is that what you do? Keep a circle so small and tight you suffocate inside it, your secrets preserved as your body rots?”
“You’re pretty dark for a pop princess.”
“You’re pretty chaste for a rock god.”
A second line flared in his mind, warm with the possibility of what it could become, and he tried to burn it to his memory.
The French fries arrived in a paper cone with a little dish of pale aioli. The smell filled Bran’s nose and his mouth watered. That numbness had kept him from registering how hungry he’d gotten.
Nelle had a crispy golden strand in her hand before Andre had managed to set the plate down. “And you know how they call you Bran and Fran? If we got married they’d call me Nelly Kelly.”
Bran froze, hot fries searing his fingertips. “Would they?”
This time it wasn’t a lyric rising in his mind. But an idea that only a man as blindly desperate as he currently was would consider.
She nodded with confidence. “Of course they would.”
Even if he was in straits dire enough to come up with a scheme like that, Nelle certainly wouldn’t accept. She was a catalyst, and he was reacting too quickly. Besides, she didn’t need a last name. Why would she take his?
So Bran filled his mouth with fries and swallowed the idea with them.
Chapter Two
“Do you have a pencil?”
“No. I’ve got a pen.” Nelle searched through the Birkin that hung under the bar. “Inspiration deserves ink.”
“Is that a saying I should know?” Blue eyes hit hers as she handed over the ballpoint and she almost forgot to let go.
“I don’t like my handwriting in pencil.” It always looked sloppy, like she’d lacked conviction while writing it.
Light glinted off Bran’s black-and-gold watch as he scribbled across the back of the thick coaster that used to rest under his drink. He paused to hum, too low to hear, but Nelle absorbed the vibration. Fingertips brushed rhythmically on his thigh—up, down, up—silently strumming the notes he’d pair with the words. Curiosity drew her forward but he turned to slip the coaster into a pocket of the fleece-lined jean jacket that he’d slung on the back of his chair before she could read what it said.
Disappointment was the two clear notes of a cardinal call waking her in the middle of a good dream—first the high, followed by the inevitable low—and Bran Kelly had a knack for it.
He was different from how she expected him to be when he’d arrived, shrugging out of that coat and training his eyes on the bar. She had readied herself for an instant spark, undeniable interest, mutual curiosity. Prepared to feel him searching her out, pursuing her like she was the fox and he the hound. But there had been nothing flirtatious about him—there had barely been anything present about him. His indifference in fulfilling her expectations was an arrow through the balloon of excitement that had buoyed her here.
This was supposed to be fun, the kickoff to the Christmas present that she’d bargained for from Max and Mina, her management team: time for herself. A month off before preparing for tour. A month to do anything she wanted—mostly. Within reason. As long as she checked in. After she’d heard from Bran that afternoon, she’d even told her parents not to drive in for the show. She’d picked the night with him instead. If he made her regret that, he’d earn every diss-track lyric she penned about him.
She swirled a fry in aioli. “I don’t think you’re supposed to take those.”
“I’ll tip extra.” He resettled his arm across her chair.
“You were going to anyway, right?”
“Good Midwest boy, remember?”
“No, I’m the good Midwest girl. You’re the morally compromised bad boy.”
“I save that for hotel rooms.”
Bran grinned and Nelle pressed her knees together, her fabric-clad legs between his dark grey slacks.
Bran Kelly was here now.
And that. That was the sort of uncontainable male verve that was going to get her into trouble. She should h
ave left when he was being sullen and unbearable. When she had half a chance.
Benj had tried to warn her, brushing highlighter up Nelle’s cheek. “I don’t think you should go. You’ve liked him too long. Better to just keep liking him, than find out how much he really sucks.”
“He doesn’t suck.”
“That’s not what they say on Reddit.”
“People say he’s rude?”
“Oh no, sorry—people say he gives good head.”
“Benjamina!”
“What? You know all the words to ‘Pie in the Face.’ And that is the only reason I’m making you look this good. Because you need some head. And even if he sucks, like personally, you’re still gonna sleep with him.”
They’d locked eyes in the mirror and Nelle hadn’t been able to dispute that fact. He was Bran Kelly. Of course she wanted to sleep with him. He was the entire dream guy section of the vision board she’d made when she was sixteen. And everything else had come true. Why not this? Seven years later and they were on an even playing field—she wasn’t an anonymous fan girl waving a sign at his concert asking him to choke her. She was Nelle now.
Benj had given her a knowing nod. “Okay, so what are we doing with this hair?”
“I’ve been thinking about bangs.”
“Do you have clearance for that?”
“Clearance from who? It’s my hair.”
Benj had lifted a lock, her mouth pulled in a skeptical line. “Oh girl, no. It’s not yours. It’s part of your brand. It’s probably insured. I’d lose my job if I did that without approval.”
“Your job is being my best friend.”
“I don’t actually get paid for that. It’s more of a public service.” Benj had looked down to plug in the fattest curling iron in her arsenal, her platinum hair covering her face. “And I can’t not get paid.”
Nelle’s stomach had twisted but she’d smiled when Benj met her eyes again. “Are beachy waves out?”
“Not if you’re still wearing them.”
The perks of being a trendsetter.
Bran spilled the remaining fries out of their paper cone. Imagine Benj’s face when she told her how hot that was. Just him scattering fries across the plate. “Or,” Benj might say, “you’ve got issues.”
It was the way he wore his skin. That top layer of Bran Kelly—bold, confident. Even in a faded Repeat the 3-peat T-shirt—authentically old, with two small holes she had to ignore, lest she poke her fingers through them searching for skin—he oozed effortless style. It was probably the details, the cuffed sleeves, the suede shoes, that fancy watch. Or maybe it was his face. Being that handsome your whole life had to have an impact on a person. Imagine looking in the mirror and seeing it every day: the merest hint of a chin dimple in his box of a jaw, covered now by a rough layer of scruff. Sharp blue eyes, the kind that didn’t lose color at any distance. And his hair—that signature shock of wet sand that pushed up and leaned slightly left, with one wisp separated from the rest, hanging over his forehead. A strand of hair that had its own devoted following on social media.
Nelle eyed Bran’s jacket again. Hanging behind him like this was some local dive, not a place with a coat check where he’d get it back with an extra slip of paper in the pocket from some enterprising waitress. Not that Nelle was judging. She’d basically pulled the same move at the Note Awards, encouraged by a flurry of get-it-gurl gifs from Benj and four glasses of Dom. The world had become her oyster and Bran Kelly was the shell she’d wanted to crack. It had been the last thing she’d done carefree, without her dad’s health scare hanging over her.
She hadn’t regretted it until about ten minutes ago.
But he was rallying now. And jotting down a song idea in her presence? Yeah. That was a closer. And if it was a move, it was way better than that celibacy line.
What had he written on that coaster? She’d find out one day, along with the rest of the world—his voice rich and clear over some ridiculous guitar riff he made look easy as—don’t think about pie.
Nelle rolled her shoulders back before reaching for her French 75, the jolt of it strong and sour on her tongue. “Are you in town for the holidays?”
Bran shook his head. “Are you?”
“Heading home tomorrow night.”
“You have a place in LA?”
“No, I was thinking about it last year before... But I hardly see my parents as is. I’m heading home home. After the Jingle Jam. We released a new single off the next album—”
“I heard it. It’s great.”
She brushed her salty fingers on the thick napkin in her lap. “I heard you might be playing—”
“I haven’t decided.” He wedged three fries together and crammed them into the near-empty aioli dish. “I’ve been—had a cold. Couldn’t commit.”
“You sound fine now.”
He raised his eyebrows and tipped a measured splash of beer into his mouth. “Well. We’ll see.”
“It’s nice to be home though, right?”
He grunted noncommittally, which only made her want to press the issue harder. But if listening to “Fly Free” on repeat for a year had taught her anything it was that Bran Kelly didn’t like a corner he couldn’t get out of. And knowing that, she felt like she knew him. Because that was the thing about his music—the words he’d written and shared and felt. A part of him was in those songs—it couldn’t not be, the way he poured himself into the work—and it resonated, in her and anyone touched by the sound. She understood the urge to break him open, sort through the rubble, and keep a broken piece for herself. But she also knew what it was like to feel those millions of little hammers chipping away at you. Still, he kept opening up in his music, willing to offer himself to the clamoring crowds.
“How was tour?” she asked.
“Good.”
“When did it wrap?”
“October.” He’d started shutting down on her again.
Nelle recrossed her legs, the toe of her boot connecting with his shin. “So you’ve been free, mostly, since then?”
Bran rubbed at the spot before leveling his blue eyes on her face. She willed him to say more, to give her a reason to stay. He blinked. “I’ve been—when tour ended. That one was different. Lonely.”
“Because of the celibacy?” She couldn’t keep the tease from her voice.
He pinched the napkin in her lap, wiping his hand. A move as cheeky as when she’d taken a sip of his beer. If this was a game, they were both playing now.
“No, I hadn’t come up with that yet. It was a different lonely. I’m not used to touring without Arlo and Cormac.” The other members of Judith From Work. The band had split amid rumors that Bran was hard to work with. One magazine even claimed he was a pill-popping addict, prone to fits, and the band had broken up after a failed intervention. They hadn’t been photographed together in over a year, which lent some credibility to the story.
Bran ate the last fry. “The backup band was top. And the audiences were unbelievable—we all really wanted to be there. But when it was over, it caught up with me, I guess. And then last week my—”
He cut off as Andre returned, sliding a white plate across the bar. Nelle waited but Bran didn’t resume whatever he’d been about to say. She cut through the burger with a steak knife even though it was so tender she could have used a spoon. Juice speckled the blank china and she pulled the halves apart, picking one up and pushing the plate towards Bran.
“Thanks, I forgot lunch.” His mouth closed over the burger and he released a soft moan.
Nelle bit through the eggy bun, into the meat, her tongue registering salt, fat, and something smoky-sweet. She watched him finish his half in three bites, chewing roughly. “That bacon jam, right?”
He nodded, reaching for his napkin.
“Are you working on new music?”
Hi
s arm stiffened behind her. He’d done everything one-handed since stringing it across her stool. “That’s the plan. What about you?”
Nelle dipped her head to catch his eye, making sure he didn’t retreat again. “Hitting the road in April.”
“Arenas?”
“Stadiums.”
“Big crowds.”
“I can take it.”
“Didn’t say you couldn’t.” There had been a moment before, when his focus on her had flared and she’d thought he might kiss her. Her body had zinged, snapping to life. Now, his gaze dropped unmistakably to her mouth. When he met her eyes again, they’d gone electric. “Not much feels as good, does it? As fifty thousand people singing your song back to you?”
No. Not much.
Nelle swallowed. “Why’d you do small venues, for your solo tour? You could have gone bigger.”
She wished she hadn’t said it as soon as he shifted, taking those eyes to the wide window. She’d heard that he was at odds with his label over the decision. Why make less money than you could on a tour? On a product? Mina had told her he’d had to promise them a new album by the end of the year, three months after the tour ended. Maybe that’s why he looked so tired. That timeline was insane. He must have been putting everything he had into it.
Bran didn’t look at her, focused instead on tilting the water in his glass. But he didn’t withdraw either. “Because it feels even better when you can find the voice singing your song back to you. See it in someone’s face, how they connect to it. How they connect to you.”
Nelle licked the last drop of grease off her thumb and folded her napkin over the empty plate, sated. At least partially. “You wanted something intimate?” She leaned over the corner of the bar to brush back that one loose curl of his, letting the satin strand slip across her knuckles. It fell right back into place. Stubborn. “You’re not really going to be celibate.”
“Why not?” Grazing his forehead had brought an intensity to his face that warmed Nelle’s gut like she had chugged the rest of her drink.
“Your fingers are in my hair.” His hand stopped midtwirl, as if he was surprised to learn she’d noticed the gentle twists and tugs behind her back. “You don’t seem to be thinking about celibacy very seriously at all.”
All the Best Nights Page 2