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“Being smart is overrated,” she says without missing a beat.
He’s trying not to indulge her flirting, but the speed of that line gets a laugh out of him. The corners of his eyes crinkle and his shoulders shake. If he’s hot when he’s mysterious and broody in the shadows, he’s absolutely gorgeous like this. At ease and amused under the bright track lighting.
She tries not to stare. She fails. And he takes the opportunity to change the subject. “You a musician, Lily?”
“Five years of violin lessons and I hated every minute. And I sing in the shower.”Which you are welcome to discover for yourself,she doesn’t add. Instead, she comes around the counter and starts filling up the pasta pot from the farmhouse-style sink. “But I do love music. Classic rock. Pop.” She picks up the thread of conversation once the water is set to boil on the stovetop. “My best friend and I saw Devon Show do a private club gig a few months back in LA.”
She braces for a dismissal of her taste from a rocker of his generation. But Mick just nods as he puts a pan on the opposite burner. Moving with her like they’ve shared cooking duties for years. “Show is a good name for him. He knows how to put one on. Has a whole brand and a vision for himself. When I was starting out, they’d just shove you onto a stage with your blue jeans and your t-shirts and let you sink or swim.”
There’s an old clipping in one of Sheila’s scrapbooks of Mick in a print ad, declaring nothing comes between him and his Calvins. Some throwback-to-the-1980s campaign. His blue jeans and t-shirts were pretty lucrative there for a minute. She wisely keeps that observation to herself. “Not everyone can be Bowie or Prince, huh?”
“I was never the kind of talent they were,” he acknowledges with a note of obvious reverence. “Not that kind of showman either. And no one expected me to be. Good thing, too, because I looked terrible in high heels and assless pants.”
“You should let me be the judge of that.” She waggles her eyebrows, which makes him laugh again.
From what she remembers and what Wikipedia has to say, Mick’s part of that quintessential 1980s-1990s Americana rock era that included guys like Springsteen, John Mellencamp, and Richard Marx. She thought Richard Marx was just some guy with a really popular Twitter account.Who knew?But Mick has no social media presence beyond official accounts run by his people and a website that gets updated once every few months. Not that it matters. His popularity is still the kind that can fill arenas, even though he doesn’t tour more than once every few years now.
He might not be David Bowie, but Mick’s still a legend. Still a star. To more than just her mom. And here she is standing barefoot in his kitchen with every intention of getting him into bed. She’d say she’s bananas for even considering it. Except she’s pretty sure she’s going to succeed.
###
Michael makes a mentalnote to wring Jimmy Pike’s neck for telling Lily where he’s staying. She can be as cagey as she likes, but there are very few people he and her mom still have in common. And what Pike could possibly have to gain by setting Sheila’s kid on him, he doesn’t know. Maybe it’s for kicks. Or maybe Lily turned the same big-eyed stare on him that she’s using on Mick now. Like she’s utterly fascinated by how he makes spaghetti. He’s got more platinum records than he has Michelin stars, but you wouldn’t know it by how she plays sous chef. Putting the noodles on while he cooks up the gravy and just waiting to say “Yes, Chef!”
“You call it gravy?” She frowns at him, cute little lines between her eyebrows. “I thought it was sauce.”
“No real Italian calls it sauce,” he assures. “My ma would kill me.”
Her eyes light up, and she parks her elbows on the counter, folding her hands beneath her chin. “What’s she like, your mother?”
He can’t remember the last time anyone asked about his family. It’s always his last album or his next album or his next tour. His ex-wife’s latest season judging that modeling competition show. Maybe if he’s seeing anybody. Talking about Ma is a nice change. “Eighty-three and feisty as hell. She’d kill me for saying that, too,” he laughs. “I tried to get her to move out to Alpine with me—hell, it’s only forty-five minutes away. But she lives in the same brownstone she and Pop raised me and my sisters in. Goes to the same church for Sunday Mass.”
Lily shakes her head, her smile full of dimples. “Tell me you at least bought the building.”
She’s teasing, but he did. He bought the brownstone and installed his niece Natalie on the top floor to keep an eye on Ma and the property. He poured money into local park and school development, too. Sometimes he goes back and does a little show for his old high school. Once, he even sat in with the jazz band.
They set plates and wineglasses on the dinette just off the kitchen. A “breakfast nook,” the owners told his manager. The recording studio in the basement is the real selling point, but he can see the appeal of the floor-to-ceiling windows that look out across the back of the house. There’s a gorgeous view of the woods and the mountains. And the view across from him’s pretty fucking stunning, too.
Lily didn’t come dressed for seduction, he’ll give her that. Maybe she knows she’s seductive enough already. She’s not showing all that much skin, but every bit bared looks obscene somehow. Her wide-neck t-shirt’s slipping down one shoulder. He can’t stop staring at her legs in those cut-off jeans. She takes a sip of pinot noir and a drop clings to the corner of her lips. Michael wants to lick it almost as much as he wants to lick her pussy. The need is sudden and sharp. And he could blame not getting any for a while, but he won’t.
She wants it, too.Bad. Fuck.“You literally just said it’s easier to accept the inevitable.”All that challenge in her saucy voice and sparkling eyes. She’d spread for him on this table if he let her. And he can’t let her. He can’t let himself. She’s young enough to be his daughter—apparently all Sheila ever wanted for her—and he just has to let her curiosity run its course. Too bad that doesn’t help one goddamn bit with his own.
Michael stays downstairs for as long as he possibly can after dinner. Locked in the studio, going over simple vocal tracks he’ll play for the session musicians and PJ when they get here in a month or so. Like that’ll drown out his imagination. What Lily might be doing to get ready for bed. Pulling that t-shirt up over her head. Dropping her shorts. Showering. All that water stroking her sweet, soft, skin. Jesus, it’s more pornographic than whatever he last beat off to.
He slouches in the leather chair, pulling off his headset and giving up any pretense that he’s not thinking about her. About everything she has on offer. There’s that excuse again of being alone for too long. But he’s had plenty of dry spells since he and Teri divorced. Months of solo time without any female companionship. Without turning into a dirty old horndog over someone not old enough to recognize “Let’s Stay Together.”
Goddamn.He grabs his phone off the soundboard and finds the number he should’ve called right after Lily showed up today. “What the fuck were you thinking?” he barks, because who needs greetings?
Pike’s sleepy laugh answers him. “Hello to you, too, Lange.”
“Don’t ‘hello,’ me,” Michael barks back. “Why is Lily DeSilva here?”
The smug smile that’s got to be on the other man’s face is practically audible. “You needmeto tell you that? Didn’t she make it obvious?”
Jesus Christ.It’s not like she showed up wearing a trenchcoat and a smile. “Jim.”
A sigh as loud his own comes across the line. “I’m not trying to fuck with you. I...I thought it’d be good for you both.”
“How?” He drags a hand through his hair, trying not to sputter and hem and haw and tack on every swear word he knows.
