“What do you mean you don’t know how the recording sessions are going? Aren’t you supposed to be keeping tabs on him? Making sure he has everything he needs? Is this job too much for you, Matthews? Do I need to put someone else on Jennings?”
Xavier’s words run on repeat through my mind. His barked words through the telephone that I luckily answered, even though I was in the middle of a spin class.
The one and only spin class I’ve been able to make in the last month and of course, my boss interrupts it, once again reinforcing how much of a life I don’t have. He thinks mine should be lived solely for him.
But I asked “how high” to his proverbial command to jump. Of course, I did because I’m standing at the door to Bellinger Studios where Vince is supposedly inside. I didn’t know the answers to Xavier’s questions because I’ve been avoiding Vince.
Not exactly an easy feat when I’m supposed to be tending to him, but a few doses of my own reality—Jagger falling off his bike and skinning his knees, a professor telling me that he expected more from me on the paper I turned in, my car acting up so much that I’m afraid of what the mechanic will say when I take it in—were all the reminder I needed. This is my life, and Vince’s is the polar opposite.
The question is, what do I intend to do before that day happens?
“Here goes nothing,” I mutter to myself and pull open the nondescript door to the building in front of me, hoping like hell I’m in the right place.
The walls are dark and the lighting dim, and there is no one manning the front desk. Nor does it look like anyone has manned it in some time by the large stacks of various things covering its surface.
Fearful of calling out and messing someone’s recording session up, I stand there for a few minutes debating what to do. I could always text Vince and let him know I’m here, but then that would give him my cell phone number and I’m not certain I want him to have that yet.
Ridiculous, I know.
Standing in indecision, I startle at the sound of a door opening, closing, followed by footsteps down the hall.
“Hey. Hi. Who are you here for and do they know you’re coming?”
I flash a smile despite feeling way out of my element. “I’m Bristol Matthews with McMann Media. Here to see Vincent Jennings and no, he doesn’t know I’m coming.”
He angles his head to the side and narrows his eyes as he studies me for a beat before breaking out in a slow crawl of a smile. “Maybe you can put that surly fucker in a good mood for once. Fuck, man. All I’ve been getting is Asshole Vince. And I can deal with Asshole Vince, but it sure would be nice to have Normal Vince back for a while.”
“That bad, huh?” I ask.
“Down the hall. Last door on the right.” His pat on my back and chuckle are the only answer he gives me. “Good luck. I have to pick up my daughter from school. I’ll be back.”
“Wait, you’re leaving me alone with him?”
His laugh is even louder as he pushes the door open and steps outside.
Surly.
Asshole.
Great. At least I know what I’m walking into.
When I open the door to the darkened room, there’s a glass window in front of me, soundboards at the bottom with all kinds of buttons and toggles lit up. I hear someone fiddling with a guitar, the same string over and over, followed by a barked out and very frustrated curse.
And there he is.
I involuntarily suck in a breath when I see Vince. He’s in a room—white walls lined with industry recognition—sitting on a stool. His guitar is resting across his lap, his back hunched over, and his fingers are on the frets. His eyes are closed, and some of his hair is falling over his forehead that’s scrunched in concentration.
Sure he’s a devastating package to look at, the kind of man who makes you stop to look twice and try to figure out if he lives up to the bad-boy vibe he exudes, but when he opens his mouth to sing, he’s heart-stoppingly beautiful.
At least he always has been to me.
I stand there mesmerized as he works through guitar chords and mumbled lyrics. They don’t make any sense but somehow still have a rhythm to them that causes chills to chase over my skin and my body to sway back and forth.
During my brief time in spin class, I had made the determination that I was not going to let Vincent Jennings wear me down in any way, shape, or form. No catching up over coffee. No reminiscing about how good we used to be together. No kissing just once for old times’ sake.
Complete and utter self-preservation.
And yet standing here, watching and listening to him, I hate the old feelings that are being stirred up like dust particles. The kind that dance in the stream of sunlight so you can see them, so you can study them, so you can wonder where they came from when you never realized they were there in the first place.
The same dust particles you never notice when you’re in the dark because they no longer seem to matter.
The question is, do I leave them settled in the dark or stir them around and bring them to light for a bit?
And right now, they’re in the dark. Do I stay here and phone it in to Xavier that Vince is doing what he should be doing—working on his new album—or do I step into the light and let Vince know I’m here?
Still undecided, I stand and watch Vince without him knowing. He’s where he belongs—in a studio with a guitar on his lap and a beat as much a part of him as the blood flowing through his veins.
“Noah? You still there?” Vince calls out seconds after the music stops, and his hand taps over the strings to stop them.
Keep them in the dark or bring them to light, Bristol? What will it be?
I open the door into the studio, my mind suddenly justifying my actions by acknowledging the recording studio is dim, and therefore, I’m not exactly making a concrete decision yet.
“Noah’s gone. Went to do the school pickup thing even though he doesn’t look much older than twenty.”
Vince lifts his head slowly, that lopsided grin doing nothing to abate the intensity in the depths of his eyes, but it definitely brightens up the room.
“Forty, but yeah, you’d never know,” he says as he sets his guitar down, folds his arms, and leans back in his chair. He studies me in that disarming way he has. The way he did when I met him during my freshman year that feels like his gaze is scraping over every single inch of you. It makes you stand a little taller and hope he likes what he sees. “This is a nice surprise. I thought you were ignoring me at all costs.”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to. You forget, I know you.”
“You knew me. Past tense.”
I have just enough time to catch his nod before I turn to take in the room. His chuckle follows me as I do. It’s a gentle rumble that I swear I can feel in my chest even though that should be impossible.
“You can say it all you want, Shug, but that doesn’t mean either of us is going to believe it.”
I tickle my fingers over the keys of the piano then move to the drum set on the far side of the room and tap my fingernail against it.
Vince has moved from his seat because I can feel him behind me—watching, following, waiting.
“I’ve been summoned to provide an update on what you’ve been doing and how the songwriting is going. McMann needs to be kept in the know.”
When Vince doesn’t respond, I turn to find him a few feet from me, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, shoulders resting against the wall at his back.
“What?” I ask.
“You don’t have to lie to get in here. It’s okay to admit that you miss the shit out of me and needed to see me again.” There’s that grin as his eyes draw down the length of me again.
“Yes, that’s exactly it,” I say wryly.
“Well, let’s see. You could have picked up the phone and called or texted to get your answer, but you didn’t. You came here instead.” He shrugs. “That indicates a whole hell of a lot to me.”
“Yes, because the last thing I wanted to do today when I finally had a few moments to myself was leave my spin class twenty minutes in and run over here to babysit you.”
“We’ll get back to that in a second.”
“What does that mean?” I ask, already irritated by his nonchalance.
“You could have told good ol’ McMann if he wanted to see how I was doing, he could have come here himself.”
“Then there would be no need for me and my job, so not the best advice.”
We stand a few feet apart and simply stare at each other, almost as if we’re preparing ourselves for a war that is coming but that we’re unaware of.
“True,” he finally says. “But I have better things to talk about than Xavier McMann. Like that spin class of yours.”
“What about it?” It’s my turn to laugh now.
He pushes himself off the wall in his signature unhurried way. “That’s a good look on you.”
“What is?”
“The leggings. The tight top.” He emits a feral groan deep in his throat that erases every ounce of my self-consciousness. “Jesus, are you trying to kill me?”
“Whatever,” I say with a wave of a hand and a blush of my cheeks, more than thankful that today of all days, I decided to wear my super support leggings that hold everything where it should be.
But that doesn’t make me feel any less self-conscious with his eyes assessing my every inch and what I feel are flaws.
“Not whatever,” he murmurs. “You always could knock a man to his knees. Good to see some things haven’t changed even though you keep saying they have.”
“Flattery won’t get you anywhere.”
He chuckles again. “That remains to be seen.”
I have a dozen quips on the tip of my tongue, and yet they all seem to have died just like the dust particles left smothered in the darkness.
The silence settles. Electricity snaps between us like it’s a live wire. If I can feel it, then I sure as hell know Vince can. The look on his face—the muscle in his jaw ticking, eyes narrowed, lids heavy—tells me as much. Nerves dance with the goosebumps that seem ever present when he’s near.
How silly was I to think the dim light would allow me to stay in limbo over what to do when it came to him?
I clear my throat. “Look, I’ve been thinking a lot about this.”
“About what?”
“About how we can work together despite our history.”
“I didn’t know our history was a problem.”
“It’s not. It is.” I hang my head and draw in a deep breath before meeting his eyes and holding my hands up. “I call a truce.”
“A truce?” His eyebrows lift. “I wasn’t aware that we were fighting.”
“We’re not . . . it’s just . . .”
“It’s just that you still want me, and this is your way to justify why you’re angry at yourself for depriving yourself of me.”
“It’s not always about you,” I bark, frustrated before I regroup. “We have a habit of falling right back into what we were—”
“Just the once.”
“It’s the only other time we’ve seen each other since high school,” I say. Just the once. “This has to remain professional. I have a job to do.”
He nods with humor alight in his eyes that only serves to frustrate me more. “So there will be no wearing you down? No pressing you against the wall and kissing you breathless? No seeing if you still like being kissed on that spot on the inside of your thigh? No getting to know the current Bristol Matthews? No nothing?” he asks while I shift my feet. “Just a simple truce.”
“Yes. A working relationship where we mutually benefit each other.”
He snickers.
“Professionally,” I warn despite my mind flashing back to that night we were together. “I need to give my boss an update.” He just continues to stare and smirk as if he knows where my thoughts are, so I turn and study the gold records lining the walls because they’re easier to look at than him. “How the writing is going? If you’re having any trouble or have any requests for Will and Jasmine? If you’ve seen the rough cuts of the Heart of Mine video and have any feedback?”
“I love it when you’re all business.”
“I’m all business because it’s my job to be.”
“Do you know what this reminds me of?”
“No clue.” I read the names on the placards of each record. A pop princess. A Latin superstar. A boy band who’s endured.
“Tutoring. Your freshman year. My sophomore. I could care less—”
“Couldn’t care less.” I chuckle. “Clearly I didn’t do a good job tutoring you.”
“No, you did, but like I told you, when was I ever going to know the periodic table or the correct use of past participle or whatever it’s called? It’s just that I was more distracted by my pretty, strait-laced tutor. She sat there every day trying to help a kid who couldn’t focus because he was too busy trying to figure out how to get her to notice him.”
His words cause a smile to spread on my lips he can’t see.
“I never charged my computer so I was forced to sit next to you and use yours. I may have flunked a few tests on purpose so I had to keep seeing you. I might even have driven you crazy playing a beat on the table with my hands so you’d be forced to reach over and grab my wrists to stop me.” He laughs. “And that touch might have made this sixteen-year-old hard as a rock under the table where we were sitting together.”
The memories are bittersweet. The fact that he remembers them even more so. And despite all that has happened, they were such good ones.
“Then one day over The Catcher in the Rye—”
“To Kill a Mockingbird,” I correct.
“I leaned over and kissed you.” His last words are whispered in my ear from behind. The warmth of his breath tickles my cheek. I have to actively restrain myself from leaning back against him as the good memories assault me.
I stay focused on the gold records in front of me. A rock icon. A jazz singer.
“We were good together, Shug. What happened to us?”
“You left. Remember?” I try to keep my voice light, unaffected, but I’m anything but.
A hip-hop artist.
“No, not after high school. I mean the last time.” He puts a hand on my hip. His guitar-roughened fingers tickle ever so gently as they rest on the strip of skin between my top and leggings. The heat of his body is at my back.
Focus, Bristol. Get the answers McMann wants. Leave promptly. Save yourself the heartache that is Vince.
“How’d we let that escape us? How’d we walk away from us?”
“I wasn’t aware there ever was an us?”
A rock band named Bent. A picture of the four of them—Hawkin, Vince, Rocket, and Gizmo—beside the platinum record in the frame.
Remember how bad he hurts.
“Why’d you leave the band?” I ask, grasping at straws, at my sanity, from giving in to his seductive voice and the feelings I can’t erase.
His hand tenses on my stomach. It’s brief, but I feel it. “Why do I make you nervous?”
“You don’t. And I asked you a question.”
“I do, and I asked you first, but you’re avoiding this discussion. It seems that’s something you’ve mastered.”
“Hey—” But when I spin around to face him, to argue, I flinch, because now we’re face-to-face and well within each other’s personal spaces.
Kiss me.
The minute the thought hits my mind, I take a huge step back as if to chastise myself. Vince reaches out to prevent me from falling against the wall. I immediately shrug out of his grasp.
“Don’t touch me.” It’s my only line of defense—and it doesn’t work because his hands are back on my biceps and his mouth is inches from my lips. “What are you doing?” I ask when he doesn’t move.
“I’m letting you get used to the idea that I’m going to kiss you. It’s inevitable, isn’t it?” He leans forward and brushes his lips ever so slightly against mine. It’s the faintest of touches, but there’s beauty in its simplicity. Tenderness that is so unexpected from a man who is all or nothing. An undercurrent in both of our unsteady breaths that follows it. A burning through my body to want more, to take more, to have more.
“I can’t—we can’t do this,” I manage to get out. My mind races a million miles an hour while my feet don’t want to move. “We called a truce. We agreed—”
“You called it. I didn’t agree to shit.” He reaches out and tucks an errant piece of hair behind my ear. “You always were addictive, Bristol, and that’s a bad thing for a man with an addictive personality like mine. One taste is never fucking enough.”
Take a step back.
“It’s going to have to be.” My jaw is clenched. My resolve is front and center. Truce. Truce. Truce. Dodge. Divert. Deflect. “Why’d you leave Bent?”
