Chapter Twenty-One
Katie
So, everyone knows.
Flynn, Ivy, and even Scott.
They all know about the channel, the music producer, and the fact that Grant was the one to spill the beans by sending all my videos to said music producer.
Instead of spending the night eating dinner and talking about the wedding, Ivy grilled me on the music and the channel.
Flynn stayed quiet, but his hand also stayed under the table and firmly on my knee for the whole evening.
The house is dark and cold when we get home.
I slip off my shoes, not bothering with the hallway lights as I head for the living room and the fireplace.
All I feel like doing is curling up under a blanket, with the fire on, and watching a show.
I want to forget about Grant. I want to forget about the channel.
I feel Flynn following me.
We didn’t really speak in the car. He drove one-handed, his other hand on my knee, his fingers squeezing my leg every few minutes. I rested my head against the window and prepared for the conversation I knew was inevitably going to happen between us.
I wish I could delay it. I wish I could live in the bubble Ivy talked about for a little while longer.
Flynn flicks on a lamp, but leaves the rest, as I kneel in front of the fireplace and turn it on. It heats up quickly, and I shiver as a fresh wave of warmth floods me. I strip off my jacket and lay it over the back of the couch, heading for my favorite corner.
Flynn watches me sit down, right in the corner, before smirking. One knee at a time, he lowers himself almost directly on top of me and starts crawling.
“Excuse me,” he says, trying to wedge himself behind me and into my favorite corner. “Sorry—I just need—excuse me. One second. I just—there we go.”
When he’s finished, he’s completely wedged himself into the corner of the couch, forcing me to sit up. I glance over my shoulder. “You’re not funny.”
“Liar.” He pats his chest. “I’ll curl up in the corner, you can curl up on me.”
“You’re not as comfortable as the couch.” I pout, but he just smiles wider.
“You’re lying again, Rockstar.”
I frown, giving in and finally lying back against his chest. His arms immediately encircle me. A calm, safe feeling rushes through me as I settle into him. I close my eyes when I feel him press a kiss against my hair.
“So,” he says after a minute or two. “All of my favorite songs, hey?”
Thankfully, it’s too dark in the room to really see it, but I feel my face heat up with a blush. I hum. “I’ve been staring at the records on these damn walls for months. It was an unconscious decision on my part.”
“Uh-huh.” His hand slips onto the waist of my jeans.
“Besides, in my defense, I didn’t expect you to find it on your own and then show it to me,” I say, angling my head to see him.
The low light of the room casts his face in shadows, but they don’t stop me from seeing the way he stares at me, into my soul.
I used to think it was intense, that maybe he stared a little too much. Now, I hope he never stops.
“Why didn’t you tell me that night on the phone?”
“I-I don’t know.” I bite down on my lower lip, chewing for a moment.
He slips his hand from my jeans and uses his thumb to tug my lip free.
“I wasn’t ready. It was my safe space. It had been for a long time.
Grant made me feel so casual about music, like I wasn’t any good.
In college, for a while, I thought maybe I could do it professionally. Sing, write songs, something.”
“You still can.”
I shake my head a little. “It’s not my dream anymore.”
“Because of what Grant said?”
“No.” I stop myself. “Well, yes. But, not just him. I love the bar. I do. I was always good at music, all my teachers thought I had talent, but honestly, I love pouring pints for Doug and his friends all day. I love Roscoe, and I love trying to figure out if he’s actually from Russia or not.”
“Huh?”
“Oh, I have this theory that Roscoe used to be in the mafia and he’s lying low at a small sports bar in Boston because he’s being hunted.”
Flynn snorts. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Yeah, yeah. We’ll see. When they find him, I’ll be the one to say I told you so,” I say, my heart feeling lighter with every word. I sigh. “I think if maybe I had never met Grant, I might have gone down a different path, but I did. And I can’t say I’m that disappointed.”
“So you’re not going to call the music executive guy?”
I lean back, meeting his eyes again. “No. I’m not going to call him.”
“Are you sure? This could change your life. You could be the next Taylor Swift.”
“No one will ever be the next Taylor Swift,” I say. “She’s an icon.”
“She really is,” Flynn says on a dreamy sigh. I smack his chest and he laughs. “You’re an icon too, don’t worry.”
“I think—” I take a deep breath, wanting to voice an idea that’s been forming since I started singing more and more.
“I think I want to get a band, maybe on a Saturday night, and just sing at the bar once a week. We could host different themes, and during the summer, we could do afternoon sessions, maybe.”
Flynn lifts my chin with his finger, leaning down at the same time to press his lips to mine. When we break apart, he smiles at me. “That’s a great idea.”
“You think?”
“Hell yeah.” He kisses me again. “I’m going to be fucking the singer in a band.”
“As opposed to who? The owner of the bar?”
He groans, the hand that’s tucked into the waistband of my jeans dropping lower. “Fuck, that’s hot too.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Uh-huh. Your idiot.” Silence engulfs us, and blood pounds in my ears. I feel a lump form in my throat. This is the moment. If I am going to tell him how I feel, how I really feel, this would be the time to do it.
“Katie, I have feelings for you.”
“I—”
“And I know that all the stuff with Grant is still fresh. That you went through a lot with him, and four years is a long time to be in a relationship with the wrong person. But I think I’m the right person.”
I sit up, moving off his chest and turning around, facing him as I tuck my legs beneath me. “Flynn, I—”
“This isn’t fake. It was never fake. Not since the moment I saw you in that airport lounge and realized you were single. Not since I spent my entire summer trying to make you laugh just so I could hear the sound again. I have no idea what I did to piss you off after that night, but—”
“You gave your number to another girl,” I blurt out.
“What?” Flynn’s eyes snap to mine, and he sits up. “No, I didn’t.”
“You did.” I nod. “We were at dinner the night after we were first together, and you went to the bar. You were talking to these girls, and then you hugged them. Later, in the bathroom, I overheard her tell her friends that you slipped her your number. Told her to call you when she got back to the States.”
Flynn shakes his head, his eyes wide and unfocused. “No. No, that’s not—”
“So you didn’t give her your number?”
“Fucking, of course not, Katie! I had just spent the night with you. I was obsessed with you. Why the actual fuck would I give my number to some random girl?”
“Because you’re a flirt.” I feel my voice rising, the resentment bubbling under my skin.
“Because you play professional football and get photographed with a different girl on your arm every other night. Because you take girls like Heather to charity balls and then never see them again. What was I supposed to think?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe not to believe everything you hear in the media?” Flynn sits forward, throwing his legs over the side of the couch and resting his elbows on his knees. He looks at me, pure disbelief in his eyes. “Do you seriously believe I would do that to you?”
“I—Not now. I don’t think that now.”
“But you did? Back in the summer?” I nod, and he scoffs, hanging his head. “Fuck. You didn’t even know me then. We’d barely scratched the surface, and you passed a pretty big judgment.”
“I know—”
“I think I’ve had maybe five, six, sexual partners in my life.
I dated a lot of girls, but I was never a player.
I wanted—want—a future with someone. I want marriage, a nice house, to come home and tell each other about our days.
I want kids, a few of them.” He shakes his head, keeping his eyes firmly trained on the floor.
“I know I come off as one of those cheeky, charming players that would love to mess around in the media, but I’m not. I’m not that guy.”
“I know.” I wrap my arms around my legs. “I’m messed up from Grant. I know it was wrong, but I saw you with those girls and I just … freaked out.”
“How many times did he cheat on you?”
“You say it like there was a time he didn’t.” I try to laugh it off, but thinking about it again just makes it hurt. Not necessarily about the cheating, but the effect it had on me. Especially now, with Flynn. I can’t even begin to know how to trust him fully, and he’s the perfect gentleman.
The perfect fake boyfriend.
“Jesus Christ, why did you stay so long?”
I shrug, tightening my hold on my legs. “I don’t know. I thought maybe it would get better. Then it didn’t, but I was … I settled. I settled for it.”
“You deserve more.”
“I know that now.”
“You deserve me.” Flynn looks at me, pain all over his face, the shadows jarring the lines in his face. “And I deserve you.”
A lump forms in my throat. I open my mouth, trying to find the right words, but I get stuck on them every time. Instead, I just find myself whispering, “Flynn. I want to be with you, but I just … I … ”
Silence surrounds us again. We stare at each other, the electric fire washing over us and warming the room, a single lamp casting jagged shapes all around us. It’s dark and messy, and hot. Like us, really.
“Are you going to move out?” he asks quietly when I don’t finish my sentence.
I blink, that annoyingly familiar sting of tears coming back. “Do you want me to?”
“No.”
“Neither.”
“But you don’t want to be in a real relationship?” he asks.
“I don’t—Do we have to label this? What we have right now is perfect. It’s as real as it gets.” I sigh, inching forward on the couch. “You make me laugh and feel safe. And, we’re really, really good in bed together. What is the point of defining this when we are perfect already?”
“So you just want to keep doing what we’re doing?”
I lean forward, slipping my fingers between his, my hands taking both of his, and I pull them into my lap. He watches our hands, letting me move them easily and turning his body toward me at the same time. “Are you okay with that?”
“I want to be with you, Katie,” he says. He squeezes my hands. “I want you for the long run. If you need time to come to terms with that, then I can wait for you to be ready.”
The tension in my chest releases, my lungs inflate, and I squeeze my eyes shut.
Thank god.
In one move, Flynn leans over and wraps a hand around my waist, pulling me across the gap between us and onto his lap. I squeal, smiling as he settles my legs over his thighs and wraps his arms around my waist to lock me in place.
“Thank you,” I whisper, running my fingers through his hair. “For being patient with me.”
“Of course.” He leans in, pressing his mouth to my jawline, kissing a path to my ear. His fingers splay on my back and press my hips into his. “You’re my Rockstar. I would do anything for you.”
I lean back, keeping my hands around his neck. “Why do you call me that?”
“What?”
“Rockstar? You called me that at the airport. Why?”
“I guess the first time I met you, I just got the feeling you were made for bigger and better things. You had this energy about you, like someone could offer you the world and you’d say, ‘No, thank you, I’ll take it for myself.’”
The lump is back as I try to swallow his words. “That’s—that’s how you saw me?”
“Yeah.”
“It sounds like the girl I used to be.”
“You’ll be her again.” He kisses me on the lips, lingering close as he murmurs his next words against my lips. “I’ll be right next to you while you figure it out.”