Page 58 of All of You

But a soon as he’d said it, a weighty sense of dread and disappointment had settled around my shoulders. The startling thought, what if I don’t want it to end at all? had flashed through my mind. It made no sense. We’d only fake-dated. We weren’t in love.

The thing was, though… I thought maybe I could love someone like Ben. I’d never had that thought. Not with the guy I dated at Juilliard, not anyone I’d dated since getting big, and certainly not with Jamie Morris, as endearing and beautiful as he was.

Ben was the first one, and something in my mind had known it from the first time we’d talked.

There it is again.

I needed to tell him, definitely. At this point, we could laugh it off. I could just say, “Hey, Ben, this is so crazy, but one night at Black Smoke Café, I sat by you while you downed whiskey and confessed your darkest fears and pain to me without knowing it was me. And then I wrote a song about that, and it got really huge. You know the one. Cool, huh?”

Yeah. That’ll go just fine.

I’d had several chances to tell him lately, but I’d backed away. But it wasn’t a Christmas Eve conversation, was it? Clearly not.

After we’d walked to the tree and come back, then sat on my bed and ate room service, we snuggled up and watched The Holiday and laughed at Jack Black. We parted with a far-too-sweet kiss, and that was that.

Christmas day was strangely busy, and I wasn’t sure what Ben did for most of the day. Soon enough, we were back on the road, then another concert, then another, constantly in the bus, and finally in Nashville for two nights, and it was New Year’s Eve. This was the last I’d see of him until this mini-tour wrapped up. An annoying sadness descended on me at the mere thought of saying goodbye to him a full week and a half before I’d be back and the tour completed.

I had to remember this—he lived in Nashville; I lived in Nashville. We’d been able to see each other every week or so before the tour, and we weren’t even dating then. We’d be just fine.

That was ignoring the fact that his job could send him away. In a very real way, Ben could become entirely inaccessible to me. We hadn’t talked much more about his work. Last we’d spoken about it, he’d seemed unhappy and unsure. I had no idea what it looked like to get out of the Army. The one and only person I knew in the military was my cousin Reese, and he’d put in almost twenty years. He was going to retire.

Now Ben and I were at a swanky party in some fancy hotel or building or something—honestly, I hadn’t paid attention on the call with Nikki earlier and hadn’t really even noticed when Ru had pulled up to the door and Ben had settled his hand low on my back as we’d walked in.

It’d been an insane day. I was supposed to be very present this time of year, and it exhausted me, but I hadn’t been around quite long enough to just do what I wanted. I envied stars like Adele who’d established from the very start that people didn’t have access to her at all times.

Smart woman.

But Johnson liked people who were engaged, and that appealed to his desire to see his soundtracks and songs win big awards. It was also a big expectation in Country, I’d found, in a way that it wasn’t so much for others. Or maybe that was my own self-imposed ideology, but there you had it.

Ideally, I’d snag an Oscar here in another couple of months, but I had no sense of how competitive Jamie’s and my song was. That should help things, get me closer to some of the autonomy I was still waiting for in terms of being irresistible for projects I wanted and decisions I could make but usually wasn’t allowed to.

We’d been at the party for an hour already, and my feet hurt. I wanted nothing more than to head home and sleep in my own bed for the night. Preferably with Ben nearby.

“Ba-by girl, you’re looking fine tonight,” Colton Danes said as he sidled up next to me.

It was an industry party chock-full of photo ops and posing with fellow celebrities. I’d managed to evade Danes thus far, but my luck had evidently come to an end.

“Hi, Colton.” No warmth or welcome were present in my greeting.

I looked around for Ben—he’d been snagged by someone who was not likely to let him get away easily. Ben had one arm crossed over his chest and tucked under the opposite arm’s bicep, that arm hanging by his side with his drink idly swirling, his head ducked and nodding as he listened.

My heart got a glowy, sweet feeling as I looked at him. Regretfully, I turned to face Danes.

“I keep askin’, and you keep sidesteppin’ me. When’re we gonna make some sweet music together, baby?”

He tried to crowd into my space, but I literally sidestepped him to create a bit of distance.

“I’m not sure. I hate to say it, but with making up these tour dates, my schedule’s just crazy. You know how it is when the dates gets delayed.”

And yeah, he did. He’d been arrested for DUI during his last tour and had had to cancel a few dates while he dealt with that teeny tiny problem.

“Ah, I see how it’s gonna be,” he said with a smile, like he knew better. He stepped to me and put a hand on my arm, his eyes lingering on my chest. “Why don’t you let me convince you to make some time for me?”

A warm hand slid around my waist, and Ben pulled me to his side. “I’m sure Whit’ll let you know if she’s interested in working with you.”

I resisted the urge to give Ben a surprised look because I wasn’t mad he was getting rid of Colton Danes, but I was definitely not sure how he’d gotten to me, or where this side of him came from. He was so casual, laid back, and not at all possessive. Part of me liked that, though I wouldn’t have minded if he showed a little more jealousy. But in the end, that would make for a lot of useless drama because I was surrounded by people paying me compliments and sometimes literally proposing to me. For anyone I dated, they had to get that.

Ben did. But apparently, he didn’t like Colton Danes touching me, and I was certainly in agreement.

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