Page 38 of Songbird
He gives me a small smile. “Okay. Maybe notanyone.”
I laugh through my tears, but both cut out completely when Finn drops a casual kiss on my forehead.
“And I’m as much to blame as you are,” he says, like he doesn’t even realize he’s done it. “I shouldn’t have let Dakota near all that dirt. Rolling in mud always gets her riled up. We’d have been here to take your dessert out of the oven if we weren’t playing games in the trees.”
“Right,” I agree absently, resisting the urge to brush my fingers over the spot where his mouth landed on my head. “Thanks, Finn.”
He releases me and glances out the front door, where the instigator waits for her ride at the base of the porch steps. Finn goes out to get her, but when she pads inside, nose wriggling, she gives us a single disapproving sneeze, turns, and heads straight out again.
Finn lets her go with a weary sigh. “Troublemaker,” he mutters with affection before he turns to me. “I’m going to head out andfinish digging out that path. Did you want to join me or go back to your writing?”
“I can help a little while longer,” I say. “If you want me to?”
He sweeps his arm toward the open door. “After you.”
Dakota is sprawled on the porch swing, her paws and muzzle caked with dirt, and she watches us pass her with a disinterested gaze. Back at the scene of her crime, Finn passes me a shovel with a murmured warning and the hint of a teasing gleam in his eyes.
“Just try and get the dirtonthe pile this time, all right?”
That secretive little smile, like the world entertains him in ways nobody else bothers to notice, plays on his lips. My cheeks heat with embarrassment, but I don’t care. How is it possible that I’ve spent two days lost in my music and when I reemerge, feeling stronger and more myself than I ever have, I discover Finn’s experienced a transformation too?
We work together until the sun goes down. Well, Finn works. I’m so preoccupied by the shape of his muscles and the lightness in my chest that by the time we go inside, I haven’t helped at all. But I do have the inspiration I need to write another song.
thirteen
Finn
Astemptingasitis to imagine Rosie not having anything to wear beneath my shirts at night, eventually we need to do laundry. I usually take a bagful up to the main house once a week, but there’s no way I can leave Rosie at the cabin to do that, and the house is never empty, so I can’t sneak her in with me, but there is an alternative.
Rosie’s on my laptop when I step out of the bathroom, two bags of dirty laundry clutched in one fist. It’s the first time she’s opened the computer in days, and I wonder if she’s reviewing the bodyguard applications I shared last night. There are three of them, and if she approves any, I’ll be out of a job. Again. But maybe that’s best.
My thoughts and feelings about Rosie are more complicated today than they were yesterday, and if things continue between us the way they have been, tomorrow’s only going to be worse. She’s beautiful. She’s smart and so incredibly strong. She’s funny, and she’s got a kind of tenacity I find attractive, like she’ll try anything once and isn’t too proud to try again to get it right. Her voice—fuck me, hervoice. It’s this bewitching mix ofvulnerable and powerful that reaches into my heart and picks at its carefully stitched seams. And every space is starting to smell like her. The blankets on the couch, the towels in the bathroom. The air itself is laced with the fragrance of her soap and her body lotion andher. I’m not thinking clearly, and if there’s one thing a bodyguard needs, it’s a straight head.
I almost kissed her. That’s how close I am to losing control. I need Rosie to leave while I still have the strength to let her go, and before I mess up badly enough that it puts her safety at risk.
“Hey.” I stand on the other side of the kitchen table and lift the bags into the air. “Feel like a field trip?”
It takes Rosie a moment to pull her eyes from the laptop screen, and when she does, she snaps it closed like she’s relieved to be free of it.
“A field trip?” She sits up straighter and anticipation makes her eyes gleam. “Where?”
“You need clean clothes. I need clean clothes. It’s time to do laundry.”
“Laundry,” she echoes, and I get the impression she’s just given herself a one-word pep talk because she bounds to her feet with more enthusiasm than anyone has ever felt for washing clothes. It’s cute. “Let’s do it.”
While she laces up her sneakers, I find an old baseball cap to cover her hair. It’s too big, and I adjust the strap at the back while she waits patiently with her back to me. When she passes me at the open front door, I land a little love tap on her ass, high and tight underneath her yoga pants. It just happens, like I’ve got a right to do it. Like I’ve done it a thousand times before. Like Rosie is my girlfriend.
“Sorry,” I mutter, hoping she doesn’t notice the heat in my neck as I heft the bags down to the bed of my truck. “I didn’t mean to… I mean… Shit. Can we forget I did that?”
She laughs as I open her door, and she hops up into the passenger seat. “I don’t know. Can we?”
By the way she sneaks glances at me under the brim of her cap, lush lips pressed together like she’s fighting a smile, I can guarantee she’s not going to forget it anytime soon, and all I can think isgood. I don’t want her to forget it. Wherever she is, whatever she’s doing, I hope Rosie thinks about my palm landing on her ass all the damn time.
I guide my old truck over the interior off-road trails that crisscross Silver Leaf, passing acres of vineyards and avoiding the stables in case Daisy is around, toward Chord’s house. It’s empty most of the year, but definitely now while my brother preps for Cup playoffs. I’ve got the entry code because I sometimes use his home gym, and he won’t mind my using his other facilities just this once.
I pull the truck up to his place, an impressive architecturally designed two-story building with a wraparound porch all clad in white and natural stone. Rosie gapes out the windshield, craning her neck to get a better look at the house’s façade as I round the hood and open her door.
“It’s gorgeous,” she says as she exits the vehicle with a delicate hop. “Who lives here?”
