Page 72 of All of You

“That’s easy for you to say. You win every award every time. It’s easy to be casual when you know you’re going to win and have a decade-long track record to prove it.” I stood and flipped my notebook closed as he answered.

“It’s also easy to win if you decide you don’t give a damn.”

I turned to look at him, but he’d dropped his head back down to focus on his guitar.

Ben arched a brow at me, and I rolled my eyes at him. Then I said the words I knew would provoke Jamie. “Maybe someday I’ll get there. Maybe you have to be an old man before you can stop worrying about such things.”

Jamie’s head shot up, and he let loose one of his heart-breaker smiles. Deadly. “Whatever you’ve gotta tell yourself, little one.”

“Sizeism is beneath you, Morris. I’m going to get a snack.”

I retreated to the kitchen and thought about the two men in the living room, so different, and yet, if Ben could get over his starstruck freeze, I knew they’d be friends. He’d already loosened up in the hour we’d spent together, so maybe he’d be able to talk now if I left them for a moment.

I wasn’t sure what had happened in Jamie’s life, but if he and Ben became friends, Ben could be good for him. He’d be good for Jamie like he’d been for me.

Well, that wasn’t quite right. Ben was fast becoming everything for me, and I wasn’t about to let him be that for someone else.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Ben

“So now you’re best friends with Jamie Morris, is that what you’re telling me?”

Thatcher shook his head with a wry smile, and a little tug of satisfaction pulled in my chest.

He’d been just shy of miserable since last weekend when we’d left Bec’s. For that matter, it’d been weeks, as he’d been fairly morose before that run in, in all likeliness because Bec had refused to return his calls.

I used phrasing like just shy of miserable and fairly morose because calling Thatcher actually miserable or morose would ring false. He was one of the most positive, kind people I’d ever met, and he had a way of looking at things that made political spin look like it was standing still. Not that he ignored hard things, but he was one of those maddening people that could seemingly find the blessing in everything.

Damn him, I’d thought so many times. But lately, I knew he was struggling to find those blessings, to keep that positive spin.

The thing Thatcher didn’t know was that I knew why he cared so much. It was easy to see, had always been easy to see from the day Dillon had introduced me and Thatch to his twin sister.

Not sure what kind of messed up thinking he’d gotten himself into over it, but he didn’t want me knowing he felt something for her, or worrying, and he seemed to think he didn’t want Bec to know, either. I wondered if she did. And I wondered how she felt.

Sometimes, it felt like assuming Bec had feelings at all, maybe other than wanderlust, hunger, and anger, was futile.

“Yes, basically, I’m his new best friend.”

I pulled my ID card from my computer, slipped it into my wallet, and stood. It had been a long week, and we were heading to a movie. Whit had stuff all weekend, and I doubted I’d even see her, though I was going to try to find time, even twenty minutes, because the thought of going another day without touching her or hearing her voice made me feel restless and wrong.

“You’re such a jerk,” Thatcher said, a good-natured frown on his face. “You end up finagling your way into a relationship with one of the hottest Country stars of all time, and now you’re friends with Jamie freaking Morris.”

“Hey man. Power of positive thinking, right?” I joked, grabbed my bag, and we were off, leaving the battalion headquarters behind.

The crazy thing was, it was sort of true. I mean, no, I wasn’t best friends with the guy, but yeah, we’d gotten along. We’d talked about music a bit, and then he’d asked about my life in the Army. He’d actually done a USO tour to Afghanistan the winter after I’d left, and so, in a strange confluence of my Army life and my musical idol colliding, we’d talked about Bagram Air Base and how stupid and surprising it was that it got so cold even though the region was mountainous and so it shouldn’t be such a surprise.

The guy was genuinely nice.

And the music he and Whit made—wow. It had been more than a little mind-blowing to be sitting in that cozy living room listening to the two of them casually start and stop their song as they adjusted, made plans for their all-acoustic version. It’d be a guitar duet, both of them playing and singing.

The finished product sounded astounding, the song so full of emotion, I would have choked up if I hadn’t been hearing it on and off for an hour by the time they were done. I suspected it’d get me when they played it live.

Any fears I might have had about Whit and Jamie being involved, or one of them pining for the other, were removed after that afternoon, and I knew that was why she’d wanted me there. She could have sworn up and down, though I’d never asked her to, and she’d never offered. I could admit to being glad I’d seen them interact, could see the friendly, almost brotherly way they spoke to each other, and then the very professional and focused way they functioned for the majority of the time Jamie was in the house.

(And see? I’d made such progress. He was officially Jamie now, not Jamie Morris, so I felt all kinds of worldly with that.)

The immediate challenge, after I got over the holy-crap-that’s-him moment of thrill and embarrassment at meeting him was recognizing that the guy really was as pretty as he looked, but even more so in person. I didn’t use the word lightly when saying the dude was potent—between the face, the hair, the tats, and the guitar and voice… it was hard to imagine a woman being in the same room as him and not falling all over herself to get his attention.

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