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“Punch the button for me, will you, before he hangs up?” he says, battling his headset.
“Yes,” I say, turning down the radio for him, “but take the next right and it’s going to be about five miles before we turn again.”
“Got it,” he says, and I hit the button to answer the call, then face forward, sinking into my seat. I feel as if I’m intruding on his world now, when really, I haven’t even searched him on the internet or otherwise, as he has me. It’s a thought that does not sit well. I really don’t want him in my world—just in my bed. I don’t want anyone in this hell with me right now. I inhale and shut my eyes, listening to him speak, and I don’t remember ever being so attracted to a man’s voice. But there is something about his deep, masculine voice that is almost musical, and judging from the warm heaviness in my body, it’s a song that plays all the right notes for me.
“No,” Nick says to the person he’s labeled as “North” in his phone. “Don’t ask him that. He’ll walk right around the topic, and you’ll alert him to what comes next.” He pauses to listen. “No. Explain your reasoning, and you’re going to need a miracle to get me to agree to this.”
As his conversation continues, I’m struck by how certain Nick is about everything he says and does, wondering how long it’s been since that was me. And it was. There was a time when I was young and thought I could rule the world with a paintbrush, back when I was as confident as he is today. When I’d thought big dreams and hard work would get me to the level of success Nick is at now. But I wasn’t Nick. I wasn’t hard enough. Life chipped away at me, and right now, that makes me feel more of that anger I’ve been feeling. Only I realize it’s not really my mother’s fault at all. She did what she did, but she didn’t make my choices for me. I did. I chose how I let me handle me.
“And I’m off,” Nick announces.
“And all is well?” I ask.
“All is well when I finish a deposition with a settlement.” His brow lifts, and he surprises me by turning the radio back up and testing my musical knowledge. “Do you know this one?”
“‘Dawn’ fromAlso sprach Zarathustra, Richard Strauss. Did you know that this is the opening to the movie2001: A Space Odyssey?”
“Didyouknowthat Elvis used it for his entrance to concerts?”
“I did,” I say. “Mostly because I had an art teacher who not only thought painting to classical music gave the work depth, but she was also insanely in love with Elvis. Painting to Elvis gave the work sexiness.”
He laughs, a deep rumble that feels real to me when not much else has lately. Maybe that’s why I need this man so much. That lust we share can’t be faked. It’s real. “Is that art teacher the reason you know classical music?” he asks, pulling me back to the present.
“Oh yes,” I say. “That’s how I know classical music and every word to every Elvis song ever recorded. Doesn’t everyone know the words to every Elvis song ever recorded?” I laugh, his lighter mood lightening mine as well.
That is until he asks, “Do you still paint to classical music and Elvis?”
I am instantly thrust back in time, to the excitement I once woke up to every day to just hold a brush. “Sometimes I’d just turn on the music and let it run through songs until one inspired me.” Except today, I think. He was my inspiration.
“Why was that statement past tense?”
“It’s complicated.”
“I think I’ve made it pretty obvious that I’m good at complicated,” he counters.
“I’m not. And take the next right. You’ll go down about a half a mile and then turn at the white gate. That leads to my property. You can park in the driveway. I left the garage door opener in my car, and the door sticks half the time anyway.”
“Back to complicated,” he pushes.
My phone buzzes with a text, and I lift his jacket, searching for my purse under the sea of cloth. By the time I have it in my hand, my phone buzzes again, and I unzip my purse, digging it out to glance at a text from Josh:Where are you? Your car’s still here, but I can’t find you.
“Oh no,” I murmur, “I didn’t say goodbye to Josh.” I turn to Nick. “What was I thinking? He’s my agent, and I said nothing to him.”
“Text him, sweetheart, or we’ll never get to those morning-after pancakes.”
“Who says you’ll be around for pancakes?”
“Me.”
“You know, I don’t like arrogant men.”
“Since we both know I make a living being arrogant, what’s my appeal? My money. My good looks.” His lips curve. “I’m just so damn polite that you can’t help but lose your panties?”
“You’re bad.”
“Dirty. And bad. So, is that the appeal?”
“It’s definitely not your money,” I say while he pulls us onto the driveway by my house, dim lights casting us in a glow.
