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Four
No wonder the man won awards.
Presley was sitting at a high-top table with Gavin and a few of his friends, trying not to stare at Cash. She failed when he performed his signature song. And she wasn’t the only one who couldn’t tear her eyes off him. A reverent hush fell over the crowd and goose bumps chilled her arms as he sang “Lightning.”
Cash had been the one to encourage her to follow her dreams of becoming a journalist and traveling the world. She should probably thank him. Once he’d left Florida, she became focused entirely on her schoolwork. She’d put relationships on the back burner, spending more time with her laptop than she ever had a boy. In a way, losing Cash had galvanized her. She’d become bulletproof since. Or so she’d thought before he sang the knife-twist final line of his biggest hit.
How I wish, oh how I wish, lightning struck twice.
There was a sacred pause between the strum of the last chord and the audience erupting in applause. Slightly stunned, she joined in and clapped, as well. That hour had flown.
“What now?” one of the women at their table asked. “Do we rush the stage and tear his clothes off?”
Gavin laughed. “I’d love to see you try. Go for it.”
The woman and her friend laughed and then dared each other to do it. Presley’s stomach twisted into a knot. She wasn’t sure if she was feeling melancholy that she’d had access to quite a bit of Cash’s body back in the day, or jealous that other women had access to it now.
“You okay, Pres?” Gavin asked, and she remembered that she was supposed to be.
“Yep! Does he come out and mingle now?”
The crowd was small, but there were enough drooling women to form a mob if they banded together. Currently, one woman was begging for a peek backstage while the burly security guy’s head swept left and right like a pendulum.
“Not usually,” Gavin answered. “Even an intimate crowd can be rowdy. Women go nuts for him.”
“Yeah,” Presley mumbled, disappointed to learn that her reaction to him was far from unique.
“He’ll come out after a majority of the crowd has dispersed. Usually we meet up in the VIP lounge. Luke’s probably already back there. Will and Hannah were planning on coming out, too.”
“Hannah Banks. Right.” Country music megastar and a surprising match for the most serious of the Sutherland brothers. “I look forward to meeting her.”
“You’ll like her. You know, you’re good with fame.” Gavin sounded amused. He sipped from his lowball glass. “Is it because you knew Cash from way-back-when, or does your line of work make fame commonplace?”
“Bit of both.” She shrugged. “Celebrities are people. And you can’t be a blithering idiot if you want to interview them successfully. You have to play it cool.”
She nearly burst out laughing at herself. Yes, she’d played it soooo cool when she’d slipped into an elevator with Cash and then tangled her tongue with his.
Anyway.She cleared her throat.
“Let’s go to the VIP lounge now and ditch the masses,” Gavin suggested. “You down for some gourmet fried appetizers?”
Fluttering her lashes, she touched her décolletage. “You had me at fried.”
They sidestepped a cluster of people who were pressing toward the stage, drawn in by Cash’s ridiculously universal appeal. She passed two women who were crying and saying they’d “give anything to meet him.”
Been there. Done that. Burned one of his T-shirts.
She hadn’t known what she was walking into when she’d dated him years ago, but she did now. At one point she’d given up an internship to New York City to stay close to him, something she’d grown to regret. Leaving him had been unthinkable. He hadn’t shared her feelings.
Well, it wasn’t like she had come here to rekindle their relationship. She was here to find out who “Lightning” had been written about, and then share that news in an exclusive article that would go so viral Viral Pop would be tempted to name the company after her. In other words, she had a job to do and she intended to do it well. Being distracted by Cash’s incredible...everything was not on the agenda.
In the VIP lounge, Gavin led her to a roped-off area where Will Sutherland stood, his nose in Hannah Banks’s blond hair. She was more gorgeous in person, especially since she was grinning ear to ear. When Will emerged from her locks, so was he.
Ah, love.
At one point, Presley had thought she was in love with Cash. Now she knew better. What the women in this crowd—and at least one guy—felt for the singer was adoration, and had nothing to do with “love.”
She understood now that she’d been caught up in adoration, too. Cash had been an incredible quarterback who could play the guitar and sing any woman into an orgasm. He had an irresistibility about him that, unfortunately, hadn’t gone anywhere.
But resist him she would.
Once upon a time, he had been singularly focused on his own career and damn the consequences. Now it was her turn to nurture her career and leave him in the dust. Granted, she wasn’t very good at being selfish, but hey, maybe Cash could give her a few pointers while she was here.
