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Eight
The next morning Presley was downright chipper. The day was warm and sunny, the sky blue and clear. She practically skipped downstairs in her white gauzy cover-up, her bathing suit underneath.
After her run-in with Cash yesterday morning, she had retreated to the sanctuary of her laptop. The article about him was her priority, but the rest of her work hadn’t magically stopped because she was here. She’d kept busy answering emails, writing blurbs and wrangling cute GIFs to post online celebrating a Legally Blonde remake. Thankfully, the assignments didn’t require too much brainpower.
She and Cash had silently agreed on a truce and had reconvened by lunchtime. Will and Gavin stopped by to talk business around the same time Cash had opened the fridge in search of food.
Gavin had mentioned he was excited about a potential sponsorship for Cash, but Will’s focus had been solely on the progress of the album.
Watching their interaction as an only child had been a little overwhelming. While her parents doted on occasion, they were in no way as involved in her life as Cash’s family was involved in his. Though he seemed to take their presence in stride.
Cash and Will had then filed downstairs to the studio, where Cash practiced a new song. Presley had been invited to watch but she’d made an excuse about needing to work. Which was true, but still an excuse. His singing on the deck had caused a full-on flashback, and she wasn’t anxious to experience another one of those.
Cash also had a way of making her defenses climb sky-high. Being defensive tempted her to argue about the past, which would derail her goal while she was here. She hadn’t come here to argue with him about the past. What was done was done.
Or at least it should have been.
As the practice sesh stretched into evening, pizzas arrived for dinner. She and Gavin had eaten upstairs. She’d asked a few softball questions about Elite Records and Gavin’s star client list, typing notes into her laptop in between bites of her dinner. Cash hadn’t emerged from the recording studio. She’d seen Will for a few seconds when he grabbed one of the pizza boxes, but he’d taken it downstairs.
Once Gavin left, Presley had retired to her room. She’d dozed off, waking around midnight when she heard Cash open and shut his office door, which was near the guest room on her side of the house. By then she’d decided to enjoy her stay here at Chez Sutherland, and stop worrying so damn much.
As work vacations went, she could do far worse than a luxurious mansion perched on a lake, even if said mansion came outfitted with a surly musician.
That brought her to now, where she skipped to a stop in a kitchen. Cash stood at the countertop, his hair mussed, sleepily watching the coffeepot.
“Rough night?” she teased.
“Very funny,” he replied, droll. “How’d you sleep?”
“Fine,” she said, rather than tell him she’d heard him clattering around in the wee hours.
“Heading over to Elite in a bit if you want to come with.” He sent a slow, thorough glance over her sunbathing attire. He still managed to make her skin sizzle with just a look. That was unfair. “You might want to change first.”
She crossed one arm over her waist and bit down on her lip. The awareness permeating the air between them sure was inconvenient. “Are you sure you want me there?”
His head jerked on his neck, bringing his gaze to hers. “Why wouldn’t I want you there?”
“Thought you liked to ‘write alone,’” she repeated his words from yesterday.
“Write, yes, but I’ll perform in front of you anytime, Pres.”
The offer shouldn’t sound nice, but it did. He was exhausting and she hadn’t been here twenty-four hours. She was supposed to be wearing him down, not the other way around. “So you’re recording today?”
“Yeah. Will and I eked out what we think is a workable song last night.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
He lifted his shoulders into a tight shrug. “Nothing feels right lately. There’s usually a moment when everything clicks. When the words and the music come together. Sometimes that pours out at the beginning, other times not until the seventh or eighth time I lay down the track.” His smile was almost sheepish. “That probably makes no sense.”
“It does, actually. My articles don’t come out great the first time, either. My boss, Delilah, says the magic is in the editing process.”
“Do you agree?”
“Sometimes. Other times it’s like you said, it pours out at the beginning.”
He pulled two mugs from a cabinet and filled them with coffee. “Still take cream and sugar?”
“No sugar.”
