“You seem so excited!” She was surprised. He hadn’t been this into the honky-tonk until now.
“Seeing it all done in that presentation…” He shook his head. “Lit a fire under me, Lily.”
When he said “fire” it sounded like “fahr” and made her want to kiss the accent right off his lips. His phone signaled. He reached into his pocket and silenced it without even looking. “Dang thing’s been goin’ off all mornin’,” he said. “Listen, I have an idea for the name.” A power tool started growling, then. Lily took Ethan’s arm and pulled him into the kitchen, where it was quieter.
“You should probably check your phone,” she said.
“In a minute,” he said. “I want to call the place Two Lilies.”
She blinked and repeated the words back to him. “Two Lilies?”
“Yep. I been thinkin’ and thinkin’ on this, hear me out, okay?”
“Okaaaay.” She really had hoped he’d want to talk about something else, but…he was wound up, wasn’t he?
“First, because I can see your heart is really in this place. And I don’t have the kind of vision you do, and it’s…it’s you. Second, to bring a little bit more of your mom down here to Texas. And third, it’s a nod to the fact that there are two unique Lilies, not two versions of one. And even if we’re the only two people who read it that way, I figured…” He trailed off with a shrug, watching her face.
She lowered her head because tears sprang into her eyes and she didn’t want him to see them. “I love it,” she said. “But it seems like your name oughtta be in there somewhere too.”
“Two Lilies can be Two Lilies forever. I mean, if you’re okay with it. On the other hand, Ethan Brand’s would have to be changed, you know, if I decide to sell the place.”
The sentence was a gut punch. Wow. Okay, so she was right when she’d said that nothing had changed. Not for him, anyway. Good to know.
He met her eyes quickly, reminding her he was pretty good at reading her. “Is somethin’ wrong?”
She pasted on a smile and wondered why it hurt so much. She’d been very clear with herself, hadn’t she? She’d decided that having sex with him wouldn’t change anything, that she wouldn’t let it change anything. But it had. At least for her, and she hadn’t meant it to, but it had.
“Lily Ellen?”
Spine straightening, chin rising, she said, “You should really check your phone.”
“Why? You know somethin’ I don’t?”
She raised her eyebrows and nodded hard. He pulled out his phone and its screen was a solid column of notifications. He started with the text messages, she noted, leaning up to look. His manager, all caps, lots of exclamation points.
Ethan looked up, his eyes round.
“Don’t look so surprised,” she said, burying hurt under her happiness for him. “It’s a great song. You’re a great artist.”
“I’ve just been stuck for so long…”
“Maybe now you’ll be unstuck.”
“Maybe I already am,” he said. “I’ve had to stop to jot down lyrics three times this mornin’.”
She smiled and it was genuine. If his block was gone…then being with her must’ve helped, right? Or maybe just the excitement of the work on his honky-tonk finally getting underway.
“My mom used to say that sometimes getting away from a job for a little while is important. You’ll either realize you miss it and go back with more passion, or you’ll realize you’re happier without it and find a new path.”
“Which of those has happened to you, Lil? With your job at the hospital?”
She looked around. She loved working with Ethan, but she was in love with him. She loved being with him, regardless of what they were doing. But she also loved working on this project and she was good at it. It was hard to tell which was influencing her feelings about it more.
“You’re taking too long to answer,” he said. “Do you miss your job as a nurse?”
“I don’t miss my old job, no. I still feel bad that I failed at it, you know?”
“You didn’t fail, you chose to leave.”
