“Hell yes, I’m starving,” Joel replies as we all get in. Dad shoots me a look from the front seat as he buckles in, prompting me to do the same. “The truth of the matter is some people work together, some people don’t, time will tell, and trust me, it always fucking does.”
Shit. The summary.
Otherwise known as Dad’s way of ending a discussion.
Joel eyes me in the rearview as he starts the SUV while Dad checks his phone. I jerk my chin to Joel to let him know all is well, but in truth, it’s anything but. In the last twenty minutes, I lied to my father. The worst part?
He lied to me, too.
Baby I Love You
Aretha Franklin
Natalie
My phone rumbles in my pocket as I pull to a stop and retrieve my cell to see EC requesting Facetime. Wiping the sweat from my brow, knowing there’s not much I can do about my appearance, I slide to answer with a ready smile. “Howdy, handsome. Just in time, I want you to meet someone.” Unable to see Easton clearly due to the glare of the sun, I lower my phone. “Percy,” I introduce enthusiastically, practically lying atop him to lower the phone, “this is my boyfriend, Easton. Easton, this is the other man in my life, Percy.”
“Hey, man, nice to finally meet you,” Easton greets, the smooth rumble of his velvet voice spiking my heart rate. “Heard a lot about you, but why the long face?”
I lift the camera, giving him a dead stare. “Har, har.”
“Fuck, you look beautiful.”
“You need your eyes checked, buddy. I’m a hot, sweaty mess.”
“You were the last time I saw you, too, and you looked just as beautiful.”
I can’t help my smile as I swat a fly away from my flushed face. “It’s hotter than Satan’s anus out here,” I say, and he chuckles in reply. “You’re lucky you’re up north, where summer doesn’t feel like a three-month sentence.”
“I’d much rather be where you’re at. So you’re home, home?”
“Yeah,” I turn the camera around and scan the house and surrounding grounds for him to view. “My parents flew to Chicago last night for a few days on Hearst Media business, so I’m housesitting for the pool privilege and to bitch to Percy about you.”
“Oh yeah? Any complaints I should know about, Percy?” Easton muses.
Cupping the phone from the glare of the sun, his gorgeous face fills the screen. “You’re too far away,” I say mournfully before whispering a more intimate. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he repeats, black hat on backward, buds in his ears.
“So, you’re on the road?”
He turns the camera on Joel. “Riding with my man here today so I could call you. Say hi to Natalie.”
Joel turns and waves. “See the way he abuses me, Nat?”
“I see it,” I tease. “It’s just wrong.”
“He can’t hear you,” Easton points to his buds.
“Well, tell him I’d ride with him any time.”
“You’re my date tonight. He can find his own.”
“Are we on a date?”
“Yeah,” he grins, tilting his head back against the rest. “That okay?”
“I’m all yours.”
“Yeah, you fucking are,” he declares with a possessive edge. “So, show me around.”
“And this is my one and only riding ribbon,” I say, holding the camera up to the corkboard still mounted in my childhood bedroom closet.
“My little equestrian nerd,” Easton muses as I turn the camera back on me.
“Do you ride? Well, I mean, would you?”
“Yeah, sure. For you I’ll try it,” he says softly, the view of him doing a number on my insides.
“Don’t expect to see me on a motorbike, but you can teach me to play an instrument.”
“That’s a decent compromise. Which one do you want to learn?”
“Maybe the drums?”
“Done. I’ll give you your first lesson in Tahoe.”
“Seriously?”
“Of course.”
“I’m so excited.”
He chuckles. “Easy to please.”
“Well, I hope you’re patient. I have no rhythm.”
“I disagree,” he fires back. “You sure give one hell of a lap dance.”
I bite my lip and shake my head. Every day I read headlines that praise Easton’s genius—declaring him a revolutionary—and every night since Dallas, I talk to the man I met in Seattle. The man who took my hand and helped me make sense of the state I was in.