Page 69 of All of You

“Plans tomorrow?” I asked, hoping this wouldn’t take him too off-guard after the night he’d had. But I didn’t want to wait any longer to tell him.

“Church, but that’s about it. What about you?” he asked, his voice drowsy and low.

“I have a meeting in the afternoon…”

One brow lazily arched. “On a Sunday?”

“Uh, yeah. I was hoping you’d come over for it.”

His eyes opened more fully, not looking so tired.

“It’s uh… Jamie Morris? Remember him?”

He waited a beat, maybe for me to drop the punchline, then shook his head and looked at me like the crazy person I was.

“Yep. I remember him,” he said with a chuckle.

“So, he’s coming over while he’s in town. We’re going to run through our song because he’ll be on tour in the UK and Europe right up until the Oscars…”

“That’s a good idea.” His voice sounded totally neutral. Not one single hint as to what he thought.

I turned sideways in my corner seat, easily the best spot on a sectional couch, and let my legs cross over his. We sat perpendicular to each other, and I crossed my arms and squinted at him in an exaggerated move that had him shaking his head and hiding a smile.

“Are you expecting me to be jealous? Or… what?” He peered back at me with the same mock-suspicion.

“I don’t know. No? Or… I really don’t know what I expect. But your non-response feels like a response.” That didn’t make sense, but I didn’t know how to say what I meant, so I just kept rambling. “Or maybe it really is. Maybe you are the one and only person on Earth who has completely neutral feelings on the subject of Jamie Morris.”

More dramatic pausing, then, “More than anything else, I think the operative question here is, what are your feelings on the subject of Jamie Morris? Because those are the feelings that will inform my feelings.”

His arms were crossed now, and he’d given me a wide-open opportunity to tell him if I wanted Jamie or had any other thoughts on the matter.

I hid a grin I couldn’t stifle by ducking my head and pressing the back of my hand to my mouth to buy me time. “I feel friendly feelings toward him. Sometimes when I’m being petty, I feel jealous feelings toward him. Sometimes, I feel pity for him.”

The question flickered across Ben’s face at that.

“He’s kind of your typical tortured soul musician. It’s not an act. The miraculous thing about him is he isn’t a jerk, and he isn’t a user. But he’s pretty unhappy, and that gains my sympathy. I think that’s why we tried to date—to fill each other’s gaps. But we’re friends, nothing more. I’m sure you’ll see that reflected in our dynamic together, and I honestly think you’ll like him a lot when you meet him, if he’ll let his guard down with you.”

Ben’s gaze slid over my face, taking in my no-make up and messy ponytail, dipping to my T-shirt for just a moment before he jerked his eyes back to mine. “I’ll be here.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Ben

What a weird thing, knocking on Whit’s door and knowing that inside would be one of the biggest rock stars on the planet.

Let’s set aside the fact that I was currently dating one of the biggest Country stars out there, that I got to hold her hand and eat grilled cheese at her kitchen table and fall asleep with her tucked under my arm on her ridiculously comfortable couch.

Yeah, never mind that because no big deal, right?

But I was actually kind of a fan of Jamie Morris.

In fact, pretty much everyone I knew was. He was just good. His band was good, his voice was good, and his songs were good. He hovered somewhere between the singer song writer and the rock star in that he wrote his own songs and had an awesome voice, but a darker edge than the solo acts usually had, which gave him a sweet spot where men wanted to listen, and women fell in love.

He toured like a banshee. I’d seen him in concert before deployment a few years back—dude was amazing live.

So knocking on that giant wood panel again felt more than a little surreal. Nikki opened the door and ushered me in, her phone tucked against one shoulder and her head. She jerked her chin toward the living room, and I nodded in thanks then walked around the corner to find my girlfriend, Country star Whit Grantham, sitting cross-legged with her guitar in her lap, jotting notes down in her notebook

Along with Jamie Morris, musical icon and rock god, breaker of hearts and stealer of souls (okay, maybe that was a bit much), holding his guitar just the same, his long-ish hair in one of those man-buns that only musicians can make look anything other than trying-too-hard.

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