Blurring the Lines (6 page)

“I think I should be asking you that question?”

He breathed in the sweet, spicy smell of his drink and wished he knew what to tell her. “I know you’re a private person, and you’ve made it very clear that you’re not interested in us being friends or getting to know each other. I’ve shown up at your house, I’ve invaded your privacy, and by sitting in this comfortable room and holding this cup of tea you’ve made for me, I feel like… I think I chose wrong.”

“Set that aside for a moment.” She took another sip of her tea. “Does this feel like where you should be right now?”

In a strange sort of way, it did. It was so removed from his life to be here, that it did feel like where he should be. Chris didn’t rush his answer, but instead took a long swallow of the hot milky tea and thought.

“I hoped to stick around. I’d like to be here, around you, and not feel hopelessly pathetic. I guess I’m hoping that spending more time with you will rub off on me and I’ll be able to keep writing. I don’t want to give up on my solo career before it’s even started.”

She rested her hand on his arm, still hot from her mug. “You’re in the right place then, but Chris…”

He wasn’t sure how he’d handle it if she told him to go. “No buts. Please.”

She laughed softly. “I’m private. I just am. I have to protect myself. I work odd hours teaching yoga. Jonah lives here. When I’m not teaching yoga I’m cutting wood or helping my parents who are endlessly clueless about simple things like sending email and my friend Heather drops in unannounced often.”

He breathed in the smell of the tea and the woodstove and some kind of earthy spices that were probably a permanent part of her house. “Thank you. I’ll leave you for tonight, and find myself a room in town, but I’d love to get together tomorrow. I don’t know. I’ll work around your schedule. Anything. And I’ll pay you. Whatever you want.”

“I know you’ll be fair with the money, though I have no idea how to even begin charging for this…” She shook her head as she held in her smile. “I’m ill equipped here, but town is even worse. It’s one of the reasons I’m here. Besides, it’s a bit of a drive, and it’s late.”

His heart jumped at the thought of staying in this small haven because the longer he was there the more it felt like just that. He’d grown up in a house not too dissimilar in Oregon, and everything about the place reminded him of home—except the small size.

“I sleep in the loft, but the loft has a closet I sometimes use as a bedroom. It’s tight quarters, but I
spent a lot of time on a sailboat growing up, so tight quarters don’t bother me.”

“Another piece,” he said quietly.

She cocked her head to the side. “Another what?”

“Oh.” He shifted his mug. “Another piece of Corinne. That’s all. I always…”

Just like that her face closed off. “Learn about people. I remember.”

He breathed in the warm smell of her home again and half-heartedly said, “You don’t need to put me up.”

“You can stay here as long as you keep paying me well,” she countered with a smile. “I don’t work many hours, I want to spend time with Jonah, and we both know you can afford it.”

Something about the way she offered, all business and money, told him that he should stay. That even though part of her minded, part of her didn’t. And he immediately clung to the idea that maybe him being there was okay.

It was strange. He barely knew her. The songwriting was amazing, almost as amazing as the sex, but he had no idea how to get to know a woman who had zero interest in getting to know him. “Thanks. I’d love that. Maybe you’ll be rid of me sooner. Or maybe I’ll go broke before I’m able to write again.”

Corinne chuckled and then took another sip of her tea—her smooth lips lining up with the rim of the cup. Holy hell being in close quarters with her was going to be rough.

“It’s actually fine,” Corinne said with a small smile. “You’re okay to be here.”

And in that moment, he chose to believe her.

SIX

Corinne’s head swam as Christian followed her up the narrow stairs to the open loft. Why had she allowed him to stay? Why hadn’t she sent him back into town to stay in that crap motel on the highway? More than that. Why had she let him through the front door?

It would be so convenient to say she needed the money
, but even though she couldn’t put her finger on why she’d said yes, she knew money wasn’t the whole reason.

She wasn’t used to facing someone she’d slept with. Not unless she was dating them, and she had zero intention of being with Christian Meyer again, no matter how her body reacted to his presence. Like how it buzzed knowing he was two steps behind her. How she wanted to rake her hands over his hard body and feel the strength of him wrapped around her.

They stopped in the loft. Her bed rested against the far wall—her massive closet on one side that served as an extra bedroom and her bathroom on the other side. He’d walk past her every time he went to the bathroom…

“So…” She paused in the tiny space, trying not to feel ashamed of how incredibly modest it all was. At least her embarrassment had tempered her memories. “The room I have isn’t much. More like a closet with a door.”

“Corinne. Really. It’s all fine. This is way more than you need to do.”

She spun to face him suddenly suspicious. “You’re not after more of…”

His brows knitted in confusion.

“More of…” She gestured with her hands but couldn’t force out the words. She’d
had sex with him. What kind of weird prude was she? Actually. She wasn’t. It was just something she’d never done lightly before.

A smile broke across his face making her stumble even more.

“Well. I’d be lying if I said thoughts of that night don’t cross my mind when I’m around you, and a bit when I’m not around you, but that’s not what brought me here.”

She pressed small fingers to her forehead because that’s exactly how she felt. This was not going to be easy. “I’ve just never done that before, and I—”

His laughter cut her off. “Could have fooled me. Because the way you moved makes me think you’ve definitely had practice.”

She knew she should tease him back but heat washed over her face and she stared at the floor trying to regain some amount of composure.

“I’m teasing, Corinne.” He tipped her chin with his finger until she let him pull her face level with his. “I didn’t come here for that. I wouldn’t argue if you wanted more…” His smile widened and then softened, a million little wants floating through her body that she tried to ignore.

Chris continu
ed, “I felt like… Writing was easy again with you. You’re easy to be around, despite the fact I seem to be constantly stepping on the lines you’d like drawn between us.”

With how his deep voice vibrated and how he was close enough that she could feel his warmth and that there wasn’t one, but two beds near…
All the wanting feeling from having him so close were much harder to push down.

She felt
herself lean in just as he did… Closer, closer, closer…

Corinne barked
out a laugh. They both froze. Chris smiled, shook his head and they each took a step back. Moment broken.

“I sleep here.” She pointed to the small loft space between the bedroom and the bathroom. “Bathroom there.” She pointed again. “And your bedroom is also sort of my closet.”

Chris peered in the doorway. “This is so cool. All the wood. Small. Perfect.”

“Okay.” Corinne let out a nervous chuckle. “I’ll use the bathroom real quick and then it’s all yours. The sheets are clean and all that...”

Chris shoved both hands in his back pockets. “Perfect. Thank you.”

“It’s not what you’re used to, but—”

Chris waved her down again. “The house I grew up in was very much like this, only older.”

“And probably bigger?” she asked.

He shrugged in concession.

After a few minutes in the bathroom she adjusted herself in bed, knowing relaxing would be nigh on impossible. Chris wandered from his small room, past her bed, to the bathroom. His silhouette filled the small doorway and she could see all the lean muscles and slim body. A rush of memories of his mouth trailing up her bare sides and hands on her hips as he moved against her rocked her body hard.

She squeezed her eyes tight, and hoped he went back home before she did something stupid. Like fall for him.

Some muffled banging woke Chris, but not completely. He rolled over, pulling the blankets more tightly around him, and crashed as the house went silent again. His dream was vivid perfection. Corinne’s body wound tightly around his, her lips moving down his neck, down his chest, down his stomach, grasping…

And then she was gone. And so were the blankets. And he was freezing…

Chris woke with such a start he found himself sitting in bed, clutching the sheets and shivering. He blinked for a moment, trying to figure out why he was in a tiny wood-paneled room with clothes hanging along one side.

Goose bumps spread across his arms. Right. Corinne. Washington. Not Hawaii. And the only pants he had were the ones he wore on the plane. He jerked them off the floor and shoved them on before standing up. Sweatshirts were stuffed above the hanging clothes, and the warmth was too tempting to pass up. He pulled a few down and slid on a navy blue one that seemed about his size.
He’d need to have some clothes sent up and now.

He pulled the shirt over his head, but the cold air still gripped at him. “Holy hell.” He rubbed up and down his arms a few times. She was right in that the room felt like a room on a boat. Cabinets built into the walls, but at the same time, there was a distinct closet-like feel to it. After his massive room, he figured it would feel claustrophobic, but instead it felt safe. Just very, very small. And currently frigid.

Chris stepped back into the small loft where Corinne’s bed was neatly made and sunlight streamed through the two stories of windows on the small cabin. He was still rubbing his arms as he stepped down the stairs. He remembered these damp, cool, mornings. It was one of the reasons he loved California so much—they never happened there.

He scanned the walls for a thermostat when his eyes rested on the wood stove. Was that really all she used for heat?

He jogged toward the stove, the glass window showing only a few smoldering coals. He was out of practice, but he remembered enough to know that lighting a fire from scratch was no easy feat.

He grabbed a few more logs from next to the stove and was about to shove them in when he thought about how carefully he and his brother would stack them to make sure they didn’t put the fire out.

He grasped one log and rested it over the biggest piece of charcoal left in the stove, hoping it would catch, then rested the other nearby. “This is crazy.”

This had to work. It was like hell frozen over inside the house. The floor felt like ice under his bare feet and he jogged into the kitchen
, pausing at the edge. Was he allowed to just walk in? The intrusion into the kitchen almost felt more personal than sleeping in her loft. He’d totally invaded Corinne’s house. A large yellow piece of paper was tacked to the front of the fridge.

I don’t drink coffee, but there’s tea above the fridge. I’ll be home a little after four. Tonight is frozen pizza night. Prepare to be wowed.

Chris grinned at her note, and then felt like a bit of an ass again for intruding. He fumbled for tea, and went through four cabinets before he found a mug, and then...no microwave. Finally he found a small pantry, pulled out some Rice Krispies, and sat as close to the stove as he dared to eat his cereal.

His eyes floated over the house again. He’d begged Max’s assistant for Corinne’s information. Found Corinne’s house. Her very tiny house. Where he was now sleeping in a closet and paying her to basically let him stay there so sh
e could be his muse. He didn’t mind the closet, but when the situation was all laid out… It made him ridiculous.

What the hell was he doing?

The phone resting on the counter rang and he jumped nearly spilling his cereal all over the floor and he half tripped on the couch before grasping the phone, the cord jerking the base to the floor.
Shit.
“Hello?”

And then grimaced because maybe he shouldn’t be answering the phone.

“Grace?” A panicked voice asked.

“Um… I’m sorry. I dropped in to see Corinne, but she’s…” Where the hell was she? “...not in at the moment. Can I take a message?”

His mom would be proud.

“Tell my daughter that her mother called,” —her voice was even tenser than before— “and is very much wanting a phone call back.”

“I will do that… And your daughter is… Grace…?”

“Corinne Grace. Yes. And she promised to help me email some pictures tonight.”

His mind spun and started latching on to words. Phrases. A chorus. He had to find something to write with. Now. He was writing. Corinne wasn’t here and he wanted to write. Corinne
Grace. Grace...

“Yeah… uh…” Chris spun around looking for paper, pencils, anything. “I’ll get the message to her.”

The woman said something else and then hung up.

Chris was tangled in the cord from his spinning, and had never felt so out of his element in his life. Or at least not for a very long time.
Grace...saving grace...a woman…a man…grace…

He spotted a box of crayons next to a decrepit computer, and snatched them as he stepped out from the phone cord. Under the crayons was a pad of paper that had large kid lines, but it was better than nothing.

He sat on the floor, his back to the heat of the fire, and thought about Grace and saving and love and rescuing souls. He knew before he got through the chorus that it would be the first single on his first solo album.

In that second everything clicked. This was why he’d come up. He had it back. And it was because of her. Worth every penny and every awkward moment for this. His crayons flew across the paper and then his fingers flew along the guitar. Yes. This song. This was it.

In the middle of tweaking the chorus, Chris’ phone beeped.

His sponsor.
You missed your call.

He’d missed his call?

Chris had never missed a call. From the first cup of coffee in the morning, which now lacked Daniels or Baileys, he needed those morning chats.

Chris wrote back with a quick
All’s well. Promise. Writing. Will call once muse leaves for the day.

And Iris wrote back almost immediately.
Go you.

Yeah. One night here and he’d taken about a million steps in a good direction. The trip had definitely been a good idea.

Corinne took slow yoga-breaths in as she wound her way up the long driveway to her home. Jonah chattered in the backseat about his day in kindergarten, and she listened half-detached, wondering about too many things to process.

The phone call from her mother about a man answering her phone also hadn’t gone well. The disapproval over Christian Meyer following her to Washington had tainted every carefully placed word.

The small rental car still sat parked next to the sprawling porch of her tiny log home and she released a deep breath as her truck shuttered to a stop.

“Whose car is that?” Jonah asked.

“We passed it this morning,” Corinne answered not sure what to tell him, but she had to come up with something. There was a man in her house she wasn’t sure how to explain.

“His name is Chris. I’m writing songs with him for…” They hadn’t really discussed how long, only that he was there. “...for a few days. Okay?”

“Best behavior, I know,” Jonah said. “Is he the man who was here last night?”

She stepped out into the frosty air, realizing she’d need to do something about the lack of wood in her shed, and soon. “That’s the one.”

When she and Jonah walked in the front door, she froze.

Papers littered the floor between the couch and the stove. Chris was hunched over her guitar and wearing what looked to be her ex-fiancé’s sweatshirt.

Chris spun around on the floor to face them. “Oh.” He glanced back at the mess. “Crap. Sorry. I wasn’t keeping track of time, and all I could find were crayons, and—”

“Pens are in the drawer.” The look of worry and shock on his face was enough to bring a smile to hers. “Pizza night tonight.
Jonah’s choice with the first day of kindergarten.”

He started gathering papers in the frantic sort of way a teenager would after having been caught doing something they shouldn’t. “So, you’re Grace?” he asked.

“Oh.” She stopped. “My mom wanted me to be Grace, my dad wanted a Corinne. He won the coin toss, but she called me Grace the whole time I was growing up, and Dad called me Corinne. They don’t have a typical relationship.” And then she clamped her mouth shut because that was probably way more information than what Chris needed to have.