Текст книги "My Soul to Keep"

Автор книги: Kennedy Ryan

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THIS MOUSTACHE ITCHES.

I focus on the sticky caterpillar on my lip so that damned scent of Kai’s doesn’t take me under. What is that? I can’t just spend the fifteen-minute drive to her apartment sniffing the air. Like she doesn’t think I’m weird enough showing up at her job wearing one of my disguises.

“So I guess you do have at least one friend besides Grady and San?” I peel the moustache off and toss it in the backseat.

“Who?” Kai turns a little to face me, eyebrows bunched.

“What was her name? Misty? The waitress who asked if you were really going home with the old guy?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Kai’s husky laugh permeates the interior of my car. I want to make her laugh my ring tone. Who am I kidding? Friends?

“So . . . friends?” She tosses the question out clairvoyantly, her voice tentative.

Okay. This is tricky. Start the way you mean to go. I should be honest with her.

“Yeeeeees.” I draw the word out, pulling apart the letters, exposing all the “maybes” hidden in the crevices. “I’m willing to try.”

“Try to be friends?” Kai turns her head to look out the passenger window. “That’s kind of the only option, Rhys. It’s friends or nothing.”

She looks back at me, her tilted eyes picking out my features in the semi-darkness of the car.

“I can’t give you anything else,” she says. “Is this a real friendship you want to have or just . . .”

I know what she’s thinking. She’s not stupid. I’d be thinking the same thing.

“Or just a path to the pussy?” I’m only voicing what crossed her mind.

Her mouth drops open and then twists with an astonished laugh.

“I can’t believe you just said that to me.”

“Hey, that’s how I talk to my friends.” I grin, considering for the first time that this might be part enjoyment, not one hundred percent needless torture. “You’re just one of the guys now.”

Kai nods with a small smile left over from the laughter. I think she means it. I think she does want friends she can trust. Grady says she’s been through a lot, and it shows. I know a guard when I see one. I don’t just live with my guard up. It’s padlocked and on motion-sensored lockdown. With good reason, I don’t trust many with much, but there’s something about Kai. And I suspect, for her, there’s something about me. She could use a friend, and I . . . well, I just want to know her, and since that’s all she’s allowing me for now, I’ll take it.

“Hey, good buddy.” I take my eyes off the road long enough to tease her with them. “Could you reach back there and grab my food? I’m starving.”

“Why didn’t you eat at the restaurant?” She unfastens her seatbelt just long enough to grab the Styrofoam container with my burger.

We aren’t there yet. I don’t know if we’ll ever be. No one knows why I don’t really eat in public. Come to think of it, no one ever notices. Not going there tonight for sure.

“Can I have a fry?”

I lean over just enough for her to meet me in the middle with a

French fry. About fifteen French fries later, we’re at her apartment. That went too fast. She told me more about her shitty night waitressing. I told her about my day, which pretty much consisted of sleep, since I’d been in the studio until three A.M. I thought we’d have more time to talk and figure things out. Though it seems she already has it figured out. I’m squarely, immovably in the friend zone, and Kai intends to maroon me there.

“Well, guess we’re here.” I start tapping out on the steering wheel the bass line for the track we laid last night. “I guess—”

“You wanna come in?”

My eyes snap to her face. Her teeth toy with her bottom lip, and she’s blinking a lot.

“I mean, you’re hungry.” She gestures to my Styrofoam container in her lap. “I don’t want you driving and trying to eat this bison burger. That’s just not safe. You could, well, you could . . . eat in my kitchen real quick.”

You’d think, considering that my parents eat their young, and I barely survived it, I would have evolved out of these damn qualms. But no. That dumb voice in my head is qualming away.

“Are you sure you want me to come in, Kai?”

We look at each other, and I imagine the dim parking lot lights aren’t showing Kai much more of my face than they show me of hers, but I see everything. I’m not the only one fighting the attraction between us. Kai has her reasons, and even if I don’t get them, I want to respect them.

She blows out a long breath, tips her head back, and closes her eyes before looking back at me.

“I guess that depends.” She shifts, pressing her back against the passenger door to study me closely. “Do you mean it when you say we can be friends?”

“I mean it as much as I can mean it.”

Her left eyebrow is the only thing on her face that moves, lifting just a bit.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m not going to lie and say I’m not still attracted to you.” I reach over and grab the small hand clenched on her knee. “But I’ll try, if it means we can get to know each other better.”

I’ve gone as far as I can with that unless she wants me to outright lie. And I guess she’s gone as far as she can, still seeing me but knowing I’m not completely feeling platonic. Maybe somewhere in the middle, there could actually be a great friendship. At this point, it’s her call. I took a step in her direction tonight. She’ll have to come the rest of the way.

She lifts my hand away and turns to reach for the passenger door handle. She stands outside for a second, leaning her head against the door and watching me watching her. Those exotic eyes have lost some of their sparkle now that we’re past midnight. The ponytail is barely hanging on, drooping around her neck, strands of dark hair escaping and brushing the pale gold of her cheeks. Her lips, maybe from all the nervous biting, are bee-stung, red and wet. If she’d let me kiss her right now, we’d never make it to her apartment.

Who am I kidding? I can’t be this girl’s friend. I’m about to call the whole thing off when she screws with my scruples again.

“Well, come on in then.”

I grab my burger and follow her into her place before she changes her mind.

SO RHYSON GRAY IS IN MY apartment. I see everything with fresh eyes, and wonder how our tiny two-bedroom apartment with its flea market refugee furniture compares to the mansion I’m sure Rhyson will head home to when he leaves.

“Here’s the kitchen if you want to sit down to eat.”

I point to the simple wooden table and three chairs in the little nook where San and I eat our meals. There’s a fourth chair somewhere forever separated from its family, but I can’t feel sorry for it. I haggled the guy down a few bucks when he couldn’t find chair number four at his garage sale.

Rhys sits down in a chair. Thank goodness he chooses the non-wobbler. I grab a plate and transfer his burger to it.

“I can zap it real quick if you want.”

“Yeah, that’s cool.” He glances around the tiny, linoleumed space. “Thanks.”

I pop the plate in the microwave, reach for one of the Mason jar glasses I confiscated from Glory Bee, and rub it between my sweaty palms. I’ve kind of been nervous ever since he showed up at the restaurant, but my body is just now alerting me how bad it is. Rhyson’s in my house, like a poster on the wall come to life.

“Water? Juice?” I croak before clearing my throat. “Diet Coke?”

“Water’s fine.”

I get him some of our filtered water and plop the glass down in front of him, spilling a little . . . again.

“I keep spilling things, don’t I?” I pull off a paper towel to clean up.

“Am I making you nervous?” Rhyson frowns, glancing from the spill to my face.

“I guess it’s just kind of strange.” I toss the paper towel and sit across from him, set my elbows on the table, and rest my chin in my hands. “I didn’t think I’d see you again after our last conversation, and then tonight was just . . . unexpected.”

His opens his mouth to speak, but the beeping microwave interrupts. I spring to my feet to get his burger. When I set the plate in front of him, he grabs my wrist.

“Hey.” His slow, easy, slightly tilted smile releases a fall of feathers in my belly. “Calm down. Sit down.”

I heave a breath and sit across from him again. Why did I invite him inside? He was all set to go, and my crazy . . . heart? I don’t know what part of my body or mind thought it was a good idea to invite him in . . . but it is in direct defiance of my common sense. He’s eating his burger like this is normal. Like for him to be in a tiny kitchenette with a girl he barely knows is everyday behavior for him, when I know it can’t be.

“I saw San today over at Grady’s,” Rhys says between bites. “Cool guy.”

“Yeah.” Just the mention of my best friend’s name soothes me some, like he just walked in the door and started one of his legendary neck massages. “He told me he saw you.”

Talking about San forces my mind back to the conversation we had before work. I blabbed details about Rhyson that I probably should have kept to myself.

“I actually wanted to confess something, Rhys.”

He glances at me, both brows airborne.

“Confess?”

He may regret coming here after I tell him this. I don’t know, but I’ll tell him in case I divulged something that was supposed to be kept quiet.

“I told San that Grady is your uncle and that he’s your dad’s twin brother.” Before he can respond, I rush on with the rest. “It may not be a big deal, or maybe you wanted it not to be public information, I’m not sure.”

“Kai, it’s—”

“I know how hard it was for you after you emancipated from your parents. How the media hounded your family.”

“Yeah, but—”

“And I know you don’t share a lot of personal information, but you shared that with me, and I don’t want to betray your trust when we’re just now becoming friends, so . . .”

I trail off because he’s looking at me across the table with soft eyes and a small smile curving his full lips.

“It’s fine, Pepper.”

No, he didn’t.

“What’d you just call me?” I narrow my eyes and lean across the table.

“You heard me, Pep.” He chuckles a little, his broad shoulders shaking.

“We talked about this.”

“We did, and what you said went completely in one ear and out the other.”

He grins at me, and I accept my fate as Pepper. That grin, those mist-grey eyes, and the messy, burnished hair, recently freed from the wig—how am I supposed to fight that? Before I formally admit defeat, not that he’s waiting for that, the front door opens. San walks in, stopping short when he sees Rhyson finishing up his burger. He blinks and glances at the number on our apartment door, exaggerating his surprised expression before walking farther into the room.

“Had to make sure I was in the right place.”

I laugh, but Rhyson doesn’t.

“You two live together?” There isn’t a smile in sight now, Rhyson’s mouth hardened into a rough line. Eyes narrowed on my best friend.

San laughs, unmoved or unaware of the sudden chill in Rhyson’s words, but I feel it.

“Yeah, where’d you think I lived?”

“In your own place?” Rhyson gets up to put his plate in the sink. He keeps looking between San and me like any moment we’ll start making out in front of him.

“Dude, chill.” San’s words prove he’s not oblivious to the cold front that rolled in with him. “She’s like a little sister to me. We’ve been best friends since elementary school.”

Rhyson’s frown eases, but San’s not done. Oh, no. There’s more.

“I mean, unless you count that one time I took her virginity.”

My head drops to the table, forehead to wood in a classic face-plant. I look up to find Rhyson squinting at San like he can’t see him properly, his mouth tilted to one side like he’s not sure if it’s safe to laugh yet.

“Is that a . . . a joke?” Rhys asks.

“No, just a really long story.” San heads off in the direction of his bedroom. “I’ll let Kai tell you. I’m beat. G’night, guys.”

Why that little . . .

Cheeks ablaze, I face Rhyson with an over-bright smile, silently promising San I’ll smother him while he sleeps.

“I didn’t know you and San lived together.” Rhyson slides one hand into the pocket of his jeans and runs the other over the back of his neck.

“Yeah, I heard that.” I sit back in my seat and calm the hell down. Rhyson and I are just friends. I shouldn’t have to explain anything to him. “Is that a problem?”

He opens and snaps his mouth closed, tilting his head down before returning a small, forced smile to me.

“None of my business, good buddy.”

“We are just friends. San and me, I mean.”

Whatever happened to not explaining?

“I wish I’d known you sleep with your friends,” Rhyson says. “I would have accepted the hand of friendship the first time.”

A silence thickens between us as we feel each other out. I can’t tell if he’s actually upset. I have no idea what he’s trying to figure out about me.

“It was senior year, and I was still a virgin.” I cannot believe I’m telling him this. “So was San, for that matter, if you can believe it. My mom had just been diagnosed, and everything in my life flipped upside down. I just . . . I didn’t have time for much anymore. One night before he left for L.A., San and I snuck into the diner’s liquor stash, got plastered, and popped each other’s cherries in the storage closet on a big old sack of grits.”

“That sounds very . . . memorable.” Rhyson’s lips twitch. I think he’s starting to see the funny side of things. I hope so. “I feel for anybody who ordered grits the next day.”

“We were both disgusted the morning after and could barely remember a thing. It was a distant, not-so-clear memory by the time we recovered from our hangovers.” I shake my head and chuckle a little under my breath as the air in the kitchen, which was thick and tight with tension moments ago, starts clearing. “San went on to screw the whole cheering squad and a few softball players.”

“And you?” Rhyson’s smile falls away little by little, and his eyes don’t waver from mine. “Who’d you go on to screw?”

I squelch that little spark of panic I get in my chest every time I think of the last man I slept with. It’s pathetic. I can count on one hand how many guys I’ve slept with but can barely remember two of them. That ill-advised night with the other rock star will come back to haunt me one day. I just know it, but not yet. Not tonight.

“No one you’d know.”

He’d probably know the guy on sight, even though I wouldn’t remember his face if he weren’t on television every once in a while.

Rhyson jiggles his keys in his pocket, studying his boots before looking back up at me. His expression is close to normal, and I think he’s past the shock of San being my roommate . . . and my first.

“I’d better get going.” He walks over to stand right in front of me, the heat and scent of his body enfolding me. He’s lean and tall and strong, a tower of handsome male. The only thing I can think is that I would have to rise up on my tiptoes to reach his mouth.

These are not the thoughts of friends, so I shake them off.

“Thanks for the ride home.” My throat is tight around the words.

“Can I have your number?”

He proffers his phone and reaches into my back pocket, taking his time retrieving my phone. I freeze, because the thought of him actually touching my butt without a thin layer of denim separating us could provoke me to some reckless behavior. Our eyes lock and hold. Everything above my belt floats, and everything below it clenches. Does he have any idea how the slow slide of his hand is building a fire in my belly? That the smoke rises through my chest and I can barely breathe?

I blindly enter my number into his phone, transposing the digits a few times before getting it right.

“I’ll call you . . . friend.” He heads for the door with one last look over his shoulder. “Or call me if you need a ride home or anything. I don’t like the thought of you on the bus late at night alone.”

I just nod. I didn’t anticipate his sweetness. I figured him for snarky. Cynical. Arrogant. And, really, he may be all those things. But that’s just the surface few get to scratch below. Maybe even a defense he erects to protect himself from what he’s experienced in the past. But with me, he’s been downright sweet.

Now that I’ve spent some time with Rhyson, I really want to be friends. When we were together tonight, he may have made me nervous, but I barely thought of him performing, or on television, or his fame at all. It was just him. Just laughing and conversation, this connection between us so tangible, I could almost wrap my arms around it. It feels more real than anything I’ve had in a long time. Even if it is just the beginning of a beautiful friendship, I want it to start and to see how far we’ll go.

“KAI, THAT OLD GUY IS BACK.”

Misty’s words, dumped on me as she’s entering the bathroom and I’m leaving, stop me in my tracks. That has to be Rhyson. He told me he would call, but I haven’t heard from him in a week. We’re not dating. We’re not sleeping together. We are tiers below all of that. We’re just friends. That’s my decision, and it’s the right one. He respected my wishes and backed off, which makes my disappointment when he didn’t call all the more irrational.

It’s near the end of my shift. I started with only cherry chapstick and mascara, so not much to do there. I turn back toward the bathroom, thinking I’ll just freshen up, but stop myself. No. I’m not fixing up. If it were San, I’d go out just as I am. I’ll treat Rhyson the same way.

If San were in my section though, my heart probably wouldn’t be pumping high-octane rocket fuel into my veins. My palms probably wouldn’t be damp. And we probably wouldn’t be looking at each other for seconds without speaking like the place isn’t packed wall-to-wall with customers. Like we’re the only ones here.

Other than that, just like San.

“Hey,” He speaks first and flips the napkin-wrapped silverware roll back and forth between his hands. “What’s up?”

“Hello, sir.” I hand him a menu. A smile buds somewhere inside me and blossoms on my lips before I can stop it. “Can I interest you in our senior special tonight?”

His eyes smile back at me for a second, and then his mouth curves under the greying moustache.

“No, but kind of you to offer, young lady. I already know what I want.”

He just looks at me for a few seconds, the smile falling away. His eyes go smoky grey, and a girl could be fooled into thinking he’s not just talking about food. I snap the live wire crackling between us by dropping my eyes and reaching for the order pad in my back pocket.

“So what’ll you have?”

“A friend recommended the bison burger. I had it last time I was here.”

“And was it good?” My grin is back, stretching between my cheeks.

“It was perfect.” He hands the menu back to me without glancing at it. “Let’s do that again.”

“Fries with that?”

“Sweet potato fries, please. I heard they’re a little better for me. When you get to be my age, you can’t be too careful.”

“I can imagine. Excellent choice.” I nod and turn to leave.

“Miss?” Rhyson’s voice stops me, and I turn back. His eyes fall to my name tag. “Kai, is it?”

“Some of my friends call me Pepper.”

That’s flirting, Kai, the annoying voice of reason warns me.

“Some?” One brow rises, taking the left corner of his mouth with it.

“Well, just one.” I definitely wouldn’t flirt with San like this.

“Ah, just the one.” He nods and holds his lips back from a full-on smile. “Well, Pepper, you didn’t take my drink order.”

“Oh.” I can never get this waitress thing right with him, and I’ve been doing it since I was twelve. “So sorry. What’ll it be?”

“You’ve got a great selection of beers, but just water.” He picks up his phone and starts a text. “I’m driving a friend home after work.”

And that’s how I came to be sitting in my apartment again while Rhyson eats another leftover bison burger.

“Sorry I didn’t call.” His voice is pitched low and confined to my tiny kitchen. This voice crooned to me from the radio earlier today, and now I have it all to myself. It’s intimate and outrageous. “Meetings. Sessions. We’re gearing up for a world tour. My first. Well, since I was a kid, at least. My last world tour was when I was fourteen. That was piano though. Very different from this crazy production my team is planning, even though it’s not that big. Just six weeks next year.”

“It’s fine.” I squirm in wobbler seat number three. “How’d you know I needed a ride?”

He chews and clears his throat for one word.

“San.”

“He was at Grady’s?” I run through what I remember of San’s schedule, and don’t remember a session with Grady. Matter of fact, now that he’ll be working as a Spotted correspondent, I think he’s abandoning voice lessons altogether.

“No, I called him to see if you might need a ride tonight since I wasn’t sure you’d tell me if you did.”

I can’t find words to respond, so I don’t. I can only imagine how full Rhyson’s life must be. For me to be on his mind . . . for him to ask San about my schedule . . . for him to come get me from work . . .

“That was sweet.” I focus on the circles I’m tracing on the wooden table with my fingertip. “Thanks.”

Over the last week of radio silence, my curiosity about him has fed on itself, and a dozen questions line up in my mind. Not all the things I could Google to find out, but the things only he can tell me. I don’t want to go all Barbara Walters on him. This should be a conversation, not an interview. He said he wanted to get to know me, and I want to get to know him, not through what everyone else has said, but from him.

“Can I ask you something?” I brave a glance at him, and he leans back, linking his fingers over his flat stomach.

“Shoot.”

“How does it feel to be . . .” I stop the word that almost came out. It feels like a fangirl word. Or like I’m writing a piece for Vanity Fair instead of chilling with a friend in my apartment.

“How does it feel to be what? Just ask, Pep.”

“A genius.”

His laugher startles and embarrasses me. Total fangirl. I knew it.

“I can’t believe that’s your real question.” His smile fades a little, but vestiges of it linger in his eyes. “I’m not, you know. A genius, I mean.”’

“You were playing Mozart at three years old, Rhyson. I’m pretty sure most toddlers aren’t doing that.”

“Well, I can’t do that body roll thing you did in your class. Or any of those moves.”

“That’s different.”

“Exactly. It’s just different. It’s my thing. Something comes naturally to everyone. Music’s mine.” The look he gives me is careful and searching. “For example, I have synesthesia. I didn’t ask for that, or do anything to make it happen. I know some people think it’s a load of crap, and it is rare, but it’s real.”

“Isn’t that the thing where you see colors when you hear music?”

“Well, that’s how it manifests for me, yeah,” he laughs. “They used to call synesthetes insane, but I think the kind of hyperfocus required of great art calls for some madness. You have to be a little crazy to be as obsessed, as consumed by music as I’ve always been.”

I think of the long hours I’ve devoted to dancing, singing, and performing, chasing that high; needing to create and add something beautiful to a grimy world. With Mama gone, it feels like all I have left—the thing that keeps me pushing forward. The reason I can’t stop.

“I get that,” I say softly. “I was always shy as a little girl, but as soon as I hit the stage, Mama said it was like another person took over. Like an alter ego stepped in, always ready to perform.”

“Exactly, and you didn’t ask for that. It’s just there. That drive, that need. That’s how it is for me. It’s just there. Some folks pick up languages—Italian, Russian, French—like it’s nothing.” He shrugs. “I pick up instruments.”

“And how many instruments do you speak?”

He squeezes one eye shut and pulls his bottom lip between his teeth.

“Like eight, I think. Piano is the only one that felt like I knew it before I learned it. The others I had to learn, but they were much easier for me than for most, I guess. And I had to work hard at piano, too. I just had this head start.”

“Is there an instrument you’ve wanted to try, but haven’t yet?”

Okay. I’m Barbara Walters, but I can’t help it.

“You’ll laugh.” He’s already laughing a little at himself. He moves across the apartment to sit on the living room floor, back propped against the couch. “The harmonica.”

“The harmonica?” I couldn’t have heard him right. “You’ve never played?”

“Just never tried. I mean, I could pick one up and start, I’m sure, but I never have.”

“Wow. That’s funny. A classically trained pianist who plays eight instruments and yet longs to learn the harmonica.”

“I did not say ‘longs.’” He levels a mock-stern look at me. “Just said I’ve never played it. I think things come easier for me once I have the general mechanics because I have a phonographic memory.”

“So you’d be horrible in an argument because you’d remember everything I said.”

“It’s not like that. It doesn’t translate to everything, but to music and a few other useless things. For instance, I’m slightly encyclopedic with movie quotes.”

“Now I got you there.” I blow on my nails like I’m all that. “I don’t even have a fancy phonographic memory, but I’m pretty sure I could out-movie quote you.”

He looks at me with great pity.

“Uh, I doubt that, Pep.”

I’ve never backed down from a challenge

“‘Just when I thought I was out,’” I say, stretching my arms in front of me and then bringing them back toward my chest. “‘They pull me back in.’”

“Don’t insult me, Pep. That’s from The Godfather.”

“I’m gonna need you to be more specific, Mr. Pornographic Memory.”

He lowers and shakes his head, a silent chuckle moving his shoulders.

“That’s phonographic, you little shit. And it’s The Godfather, part three.” He gives me what probably passes as his “game on” face with lesser movie quoters. “‘Shake and bake.’”

“Now who’s being insulting? Talladega Nights. ‘Motorboat.’”

“Wedding Crashers. ‘You can’t get me, thunder, ‘cause you’re just God’s farts.’”

“I can’t believe you even . . . come harder, Gray. That’s Ted. ‘I could see your toner through those jeans.’”

“Pitch Perfect.”

Whoa. Unexpected. Didn’t think he would know that one. I’ll dig deeper into my girlie movie bin.

“‘So you bend and snap.’”

Rhys frowns, eyes fixed on the ceiling as he trolls around in that clever brain of his for whatever phonographic file this quote should be retrieved from. I can already see it. Triumph builds from my feet up, and the smile pops out on my face.

“Before you start your celebration—premature celebration, I might add,” Rhys says. “Give me a chance to . . .”

He finally side-eyes me and slumps his shoulders.

“I got nothing. What movie was that?”

“Legally Blonde.”

Rhyson’s outrage drops his mouth wide open.

“You have got to be kidding me! Even a phonographic memory can’t prepare you for movies you’ve never seen, and I wouldn’t be caught dead watching Legally Blonde.”

I’m up on my feet, doing the running man around the apartment. It then devolves into Hammer time. I’m fully aware I’m making a total dork of myself, but I can’t contain it. This is the best I’ve felt in . . . forever. If muscles have memory, my heart has forgotten this feeling. I’d forgotten how to have this much fun.

“Next time, we’ll put money on it.” I slide down to the floor beside him, resting my back against the couch and stretching my legs out beside his. Either I’m really short, or he’s really tall, or a little of both.

“I don’t want to take your money.” Rhyson grins and gives me a gentle shoulder nudge.

“Well, if round one is anything to go by, I’ll be the one winning.” I remember the past due notices under my jewelry box, and the thought deflates my good humor. My smile slowly leaks off my face. “And believe me, I’d take your money.”

“Why do you work so much, Pep?”

Rhyson’s voice, deep and soft, drifts over my skin, coaxing up goose bumps. Great. Every part of me is exhausted and wants to shut down, but my arms manage to produce goose bumps.

“I know you’ve never had to worry about it, but some of us have bills to pay,” I say. “Some of us have to figure out how to survive.”

I regret the waspish words as soon as they leave my mouth and contaminate the air. He doesn’t respond, but turns his head to look at me, all the laughter dissolving into the disappointment I see in his eyes. We’ve been lowering our guards all night, and I just threw mine all the way back up.

“I’m sorry.” I pass a hand over my tired eyes, wishing I could take the words back.

“It’s okay.” He focuses his attention on fibers of his jeans, giving me space to get this out.

“It’s not. I . . . I don’t talk about this much.”

“So it’s not as simple as bills to pay?” he asks, studying me closely.

“It is, but it’s not just utilities and rent.” I give him a weary smile. “A lot more, but I can handle it.”

“What is it?”

Just thinking of the black cloud of debt constantly hovering over my life wraps a steel band around my chest.

“My mom’s medical bills.”

“Are children responsible for their parents’ debt?

“Well, typically debtors would just take it out of the parent’s estate.” I laugh, but it’s a little sour. “Mama didn’t have much of an estate. Just Glory Bee, the diner she and my Aunt Ruthie built from the ground up. I’m not standing by and watching Aunt Ruthie lose everything too. We made special arrangements with the hospital collection agency. Aunt Ruthie and I are paying off the debt together.”

“They let you do that?”

“Oh, it took some convincing.” I heave a sigh, remembering that fight. “But we finally brought them around to our way of thinking.”

“You’re a stubborn little thing, aren’t you?” He smiles and slides his leg over to bump mine.

I grimace, sliding my leg away and clasping my arm around my knee.

“So I’ve been told.”

“I kinda like it.”

“Ha! Yeah, it’s real cute,” I say with a grin. “Until you want something I won’t give you.”

He delivers a teasing sideways glance.

“I already want something you won’t give me.”

I would move if those beautiful grey eyes would let me go, weren’t pulling me in and holding me.

San walks in, saving me from becoming a slutty puddle at Rhyson’s feet.

“Hey, guys.” He offers us a weary smile and drops his saddlebag down by the door. “Am I busting in on something?”

Rhyson gives me one last grin before standing and extending his hand to pull me to my feet. I come up faster than I anticipated and slam into his chest. It feels good. Him towering over me. Me pressed to his broad, warm chest. I don’t step back right away. When I look up, his eyes aren’t teasing me anymore. There’s a tinder between us, waiting for just a spark to ignite to full-blown flame. The connection is always there, latent or alive, but right now, so close with our bodies touching, it burns through our clothing and heats my skin.