Someone to Watch Over Me (5 page)

Releasing my hand, he coasted
up the long driveway and parked along the row of pines, nestled the
Mini between Mr. Craig’s large pickup and Em’s beat up Camry.

“Can you give me a minute? I’m
not sure what condition I left the place in.” I didn’t have much to
put away. In fact, I kept my apartment nearly spotless, but I
didn’t want to ruin the mood by tripping over a Speak ‘n Say or
stepping on a Mega Block. Total moodicide.

“You want me to wait out
here—in the dark? Jesus, it’s like the Mountain Family Robinson. I
might get eaten.”

“City boy scared?”

“Absofuckinlutely.”

“Just honk the horn if you see
a bear. They don’t like noise.”

“Great. You want me to piss it
off.”

“They’re supposed to run from
noise.”

“Supposed to. You’re running on
theory.”

“One minute. That’s all I need.
Nothing’s going to eat you. Swear.”

“Go.”

Sliding from the car, I bent
and peered in, holding up
my index
finger
. My heart did that flutter thing again, like it was
awakening after an extended hibernation. “One minute.”

“If Jason Voorhees shows up…”
He jangled the keys in his hand. “I’m driving off without you.
You’re on your own, sweetheart.
Every man for
himself.
”

Pressing out a dry smile, I
said, “I see the romance ends at chivalry.” I pushed the door
closed and trotted up the stairs, ignoring the ache in my knees and
feet.

There weren’t too many toys
lying around. I picked them up, gathered them in my arms and dumped
them in the Rubbermaid bin in the closet. Fixing the bed, I
smoothed the sheets out and fluffed the pillows, then ran to the
bathroom and removed the toys from the tub.

God, should I have felt guilty
wiping all traces of Levy from the house?

One night. That’s all I wanted.
I ran to the door and tugged it open. Tate was at the bottom of the
stairs, peering up, his hand cupped over his eyes. “Yo
, can I come up now? It’s really dark out here. I think I
just got dive-bombed by a bat or a really big moth.
”

Sni
ck
ering, I waved him up. He wasted no time, taking
the stairs two at a time. I promptly shushed him, placing my finger
to my lips. “I have neighbors.”

“They’re in REM stage now.
They won’t
hear a thing. You pick up
these things w
hen
you’re on the road with
the band.”

Grasping my waist, he pulled me
against him and began shuffling us into my apartment, kicking the
door closed with his foot. He hadn’t kissed me yet, but I could
feel his breath on my lips. We were stuck in each other’s eyes,
studying each other’s reactions.

“Do you mind if I t
ake
a minute to shower? It was a long night. I’m
filthy.”

“Nothing wrong with filthy, but
I’ll wait. Do you have anything to drink?”

“I don’t have any beer. But I
have a bottle of red.” He stopped me before I could reach for
anything.

“I can get it. Go take your
shower.”

In my head, I was inventorying
everything in my
kitchen
. Levy wasn’t on
a bottle anymore, but I had plenty of sippy cups
and Thomas the Train dishes
floating around the
cabinets
. He was going to tuck tail and
run while I was in the shower. I just knew it.

If he did, so be it.
His loss.

“Wine’s next to the fridge on
the wine rack. And the corkscrew is in the last drawer on the
right. You might have to dig for it.”

“Last drawer on the right. I
think I can find it.”

One last look and I
turned
, w
alked into the bathroom. The
shower started with a hiss, sputtering as the air
bled
from the
pipes
. By
the time I undressed, the water was running hot and moisture fogged
the mirror. I stepped into the tub and pulled the curtain closed.
Let
ting
the hot water envelop me,
I
work
ed
the
kinks from my neck and shoulders.

Squeezing a dollop of shampoo
into my palm, I lathered my hair, wondering if he left yet. Surely
he was snooping, browsing my cabinets. There were only so many
places to hide things in an
apartment
. I
couldn’t hold it against him. Hell, it’s what I would do. Run like
the devil.

Rinsing the last of the
conditioner from my hair, I shut the water
off,
r
eached past the curtain and grabbed a towel. The first went
in a turban atop my head, the second I swept over my skin, then
wrapped it around my body and tucked the corner between my
breasts.

Taking a deep breath, I pulled
the door
open
. Tate was leaning against
the jam
b
, swirling the wine in his glass.
I never told him where the glasses were. I didn’t know what to make
of that. Surely he saw stuff. So why was he still here? Who
care
d
?
I
decided.
He was still here.

“I was going to come in after
you.”

“Did I take too long?”

“Not long enough. I like
showers. You smell like peaches.”

“I can get back in.”

“No. No.” He clutched a tuft of
towel, lured me toward the sofa. “I want you to sit. Have a drink.
Maybe two.” He sipped at the wine, passed me the glass. I guess we
were sharing. I sat
, t
ook a sip.

“Are you trying to get me
drunk?”

“No, just comfortable. Drink.”
I sipped again. Almost choked as he dropped onto the
coffee table
and lifted one of my feet. He began
massaging it, his thumbs rubbing firm circles into my soles.

“What’re you doing?”

“I think that’s fairly obvious.
Drink.”

“Are you always this
bossy?”

“Not bossy, per se, but I have
standards.”

“Oh?” Standards? “Like
what?”

“I like my dates loose and
spontaneous. Right now, you’re taut as a bowstring.”

Alarms went off in my head, but
I bit my tongue. This was what I wanted. One night of no strings
attached sex. He would get me out of his veins
,
t
hen he’d move on. I’d simply be another nameless face from
his long list of conquests. It was the perfect scenario. Touching
the glass to my lips, I emptied it on one long draw, drowning out
any remaining apprehensions.

Chapter
3

L
ifting the bottle of wine from the floor, Tate
refilled my glass, pouring it generously. The bottle gurgled as it
spilled out, splashing against
the
rim as
I tried to pull my glass away. “Geez. Enough. Do I really look that
uptight?”

“No. Nervous. I can tell you
don’t do this often.”

“No. I don’t
.
”

He placed the wine back down,
keeping it close at hand. Working from the sole to the ball of my
foot, he pressed on. “Tell me about yourself.”

“There’s not much to tell.”

“That can’t possibly be true.
How did you get started singing?”

“The shower. Yes, it’s true. I
used to sing in the shower.” I held up three fingers. Scouts honor.
“On occasion
,
I still do. Anyhow, I
didn’t think anyone could hear me, but I caught my mom humming a
tune one day that I had been singing, and
the
truth
came out. She confessed
everything
. When I entered junior high, she pushed
me to sign up for chorus. It progressed to musicals in high school,
and I did a year of music at Santa Fe.”

“Only one year? What happened
there?”

“I injured my eye. Came home
for surgery. The recovery took longer than expected.” I shrugged,
hoping to pass for blasé. “Then life happened.”

“Car accident?”

“No.” I stole another deep
drink of wine. My face grew warm and rosy, a mixture of the
alcohol, exhaustion, conversation
,
and
physical contact. The alcohol, exhaustion
,
and physical contact I could handle, but the
conversation had to go. My goal was to forget myself tonight.

Forget Grant and his quick
fists.

“…you go, Cooper?”

I looked up from my glass.
Found Tate staring. “Hmm?”

“
You
disappeared on me for a second there
.” His
gaze
dropped to the foot resting in his hand. He ran
his thumb down the center
, smiled
when I
jerked my leg. “Tell me about your family.”

“It’s just my mom and dad. They
live just outside Philly.”

“Are you close?”

“We don’t see each other
often
, with work
and all. You?”

Grinning, only one side of his
mouth pulled up in a dry smile. “My life’s all over the internet.
You’re lying if you tell me you haven’t looked it up.”

I did. Totally. Half the girls
at work were watching over my shoulder. The rest of them were
running their own queries. Most of it was rudimentary. He grew up
in Seattle. Parents divorced when he was
fifteen
. He turned to music to cope. Started the
band when he was sixteen. Signed by Angeles Records when he was
eighteen. Started his own label at twenty-five.

He raced motorcycles when he
wasn’t on tour. Nothing pro, just amateur stuff from what I could
tell. He collected bikes. Had a garage full of them. Nice bikes.
Fast bikes. Crotch rockets. Ducati. Aprilia. Hayabusa. Ninja. A few
models I couldn’t remember because they were nothing but a chain of
letters and numbers. He would think my ignorance was a
travesty.

On Wikipedia, I found their
band history and the origin of their name. The girls all thought it
was a sign. Hautboy was actually the name of a wild strawberry, and
because my hair was strawberry blond
e
and
I held an uncanny resemblance to the erotic illustration of the
woman—practically making love to a strawberry with her mouth—on the
cover of his first album, they deemed our meeting was fate. I
didn’t fool myself with such delusions.

Strawberry Island was actually
the name of an Island in the waters of Deception Pass, which Ben
Ure made infamous due to his seedy occupation of human trafficking.
Ben Ure’s wife would camp out on Strawberry Island and signal her
husband with a fire, providing it was safe to bring his cargo
ashore. If not, he dumped his load of burlap bags overboard, along
with the Chinese immigrants inside them. Yeah, real romantic. At
any rate, the band originally wanted to name the group Deception
Pass, but
it was already taken
.
Strawberry Island was too feminine. So they went with Hautboy.
Story told.

The biography was vague and
impersonal. Nevertheless, it was out there for the world to
read
.
I wondered what
it was like to live with your personal life put out there on
display.

“Does it bother you
, the exposure
?”

“It is what it is. Comes with
the territory.”

“How about the
photographers?”

“They’re annoying, but you
mostly see them in L.A. or N.Y. The larger cities. But places like
this, you’ve got to deal with the fans and their cell phones.
Sometimes they’re worse than the photographers are. But I take it
with a grain of salt. As long as they don’t get too close, I just
ignore them. Besides, I have nothing to hide.”

Once again, he filled my
glass
, t
ook a sip from it. He swirled it
around, staring at the contents. “That’s actually good. I can taste
the blackberry.”

“So you’re a connoisseur.”

“No, just read it on the
bottle.” He smiled puckishl
y
and handed
the glass back. “I don’t know anything about wine. Never touch the
stuff.”

“It’s local. There’s a small
vineyard down the street. I had an hour free one day and they were
having an open house so I stopped in.
They’re
n
ice people
, d
own to earth.”

“One hour. You must have been
fraught with boredom.”

Because he was right, I grinned
over the edge of my glass. The rare times I didn’t have Levy
hugging my leg, I didn’t know what to do with myself. It’s amazing
how easily a mother forgets what life was like before children. I
usually ended up cleaning something out of sheer habit, but on
occasion, I indulged myself with some small and inexpensive
vice.

“So what else do you do for
fun, besides ice cream and wine?”

“Walk. Read. Ride.”

“Ride?”

“Horses. My landlord has a few
in the barn downstairs. I help him clean stalls sometimes, so he
lets me ride them.”

“Are you good?”

“I can stay on.”

“I’ve never ridden. There’s
something unsettling about it. Maybe because
horses have
a mind of
their
own
, and
I like to
be in control.”

“City boy.” Reaching up, I
pulled the towel from my head. Shook my hair out until it fanned in
damp, tangled strands over my shoulders. I had only meant to let it
dry, but to Tate, it meant something else entirely. His eyes
widened and then narrowed, pupils eclipsing the dark brown
irises
until they were almost completely
black in color.

"Jesus, you really are the most
beautiful thing I've ever laid eyes on."

Sliding from the ottoman, he
knelt at my feet, sliding between my knees. He pressed his lips to
mine in a whisper, holding my
gaze
. My
breath fell short, lungs constricting tightly.

"Tate, I know it's a little
late to ask, but you brought protection, right?"

"Of course."

With those two words, I lost
myself in the thrill of his kiss. Our breath mingled together,
heady and sweet. And then his tongue swept against mine and I lost
all thought completely.