I sighed. “I can’t do it until after Wednesday. If Mom knows I’m leaving Cass, even for a day, she’ll never get back on the plane to Ireland.”
“I’ll set it up for Thursday then. Tell me some more about this guy and what’s going on.”
I spent the next thirty minutes catching Lee up, and by the time I was done, he was growling into the phone himself. “Okay. Let me find some resources for you for the restaurant idea. I’m not sure I can help you with the music store, but maybe bringing in enough money from the festival will help keep the foreclosure from happening. I’ll ask Alice if she can come out and help with it, maybe give us some ideas on how to make it a bigger event than is already planned. There’s got to be some way to eke some more cash out of it.”
I flicked my leather bands. “Thanks, Lee. I mean it.”
“You’ve never asked for us to go to bat for you like this, Brady. None of us. And we’d all do it in a heartbeat. We see what you do for everyone else. If we can help, let us.”
It choked me up, emotion sitting in my throat, squeezing against the walls so that I could barely breathe. I couldn’t respond, and when I didn’t, Lee filled in the void.
“We’re on it. I’ll get back to you in a little while.”
And he hung up.
I was damn lucky. Lucky to be surrounded by a team who believed in me. Who supported me every step of the way, no matter how off the beaten path I seemed to stray. If only my parents could see around my past screwups enough to trust me as well. To see that I wasn’t going to repeat them.
I manned the counter for the rest of the day, but very few people came into the store, which was probably a good thing in hindsight. I hadn’t even considered what it would look like if someone walked in with Brady O’Neil working the counter.
As the light started to fade, Tristan came down the stairs with her purse thrown over her shoulder. I watched every move she made until she got to the bottom step.
I didn’t know what it was about her, but she drew me every time she entered a room. As if my body couldn’t stand to have even a few feet between us. As if the call of her was stronger than any call the night had on nocturnal creatures. So, it wasn’t a surprise when I met her at the foot of the stairs. It didn’t even seem to surprise her.
I took her in as if it had been days instead of a few hours since she’d gone up to work on the mural. She had a splash of maroon paint on her cheek. I moved my finger to rub it off, and the softness of her skin stilled my hand on her cheek.
“Brady…I…” She trailed off, swallowing hard. “About this.”
I didn’t need to ask what “this” she meant. She meant us. The two perfect kisses. The stolen moments. The attraction pulling at us so beautifully and painfully.
“About us,” I said, my voice going down to a level that I barely used in my songs.
She closed her eyes. “I just…I’m not sure…”
“You’re not sure you’re ready,” I said. It wasn’t a question because I knew it was true.
Her eyes opened, the golden flecks sparkling in the antique lights. “I know, to most people, four and half years seems like long enough.”
I was already shaking my head. “I can’t imagine any number of years being enough.”
She inhaled sharply at my words, and I felt nothing but regret for causing her pain when I’d meant to ease it.
“I’d like to be brave,” she said. “Like the waitress who left you her name on the cocktail napkin. I’d like to just say, ‘come home with me.’ But I can’t just do a fling. I can’t, because even if I tried to keep whatever this is from Hannah, you’re already in her life, and I couldn’t have another person leave her when you and I were over. It’s bad enough she’s going to miss you when you aren’t teaching her anymore.”
“Who says I’m going to stop teaching her?” I asked.
She laughed as if I’d said the funniest thing in the world, and when I didn’t join her, she frowned. “Brady, you don’t really live here. Wheredoyou even live? Plus, you’ll be back doing your whole country-rock-star thing when summer hits.”
It had been my plan: stay until Mom and Dad were home, then go back and record my fourth album, release it, and go on tour again. But now, I was buying a restaurant and building a relationship with my sister. I didn’t know that I wanted to leave anytime soon. I didn’t know that I wanted to go back to my loft in New York where I was alone except for the people who came in and out to help me. Cooks. Cleaners. Personal shoppers.
It was no wonder my music had become stale.
Visiting with Lee a few hours a day, or any of my team, wasn’t the same as having your entire world shared with someone else.
“I’m not asking for a fling,Cari,” I told her, and thenickname made her eyes flicker with longing. Longing for the things I also hungered for. I could feel it in her—the need to be someone’smoreagain.
Could I be that for her? I wanted it. Tristan made me want to stop flirting altogether, and I’d never experienced that before. I didn’t want to just flirt with her because I didn’t want the feelings to be a temporary flash in the dark. I wanted them to last much longer. I wanted it not just for me, but for her. I knew if she shoved me out of her life right now, I’d never get any of those feelings back.
“I want to get to know you. To know Hannah. I don’t want to kiss you and disappear. I’d really like the chance to be a part of your lives,” I said it and meant it with every single particle of my being.
