Chapter Nine
Katie
November is all pumpkin spice lattes and orange leaves.
It’s a picture-perfect month for fall. The orange, the reds and browns.
It makes you feel warm and cozy even though winter is right around the corner.
The weather is cool, but we still have blue sky days.
When I was in college, I used to sit in the middle of the quad, my shoes off and my guitar in my hand.
I would play for an hour or so before heading to my next class.
Students would make requests, and I would let my voice carry over the small crowd that gathered, off in the wind.
Back then, music, whether it was in public while playing in the quad or in private while I sang gently to myself on my bed and strummed along with my guitar, was my release. My hobby. It was something I loved, for myself and to share.
Now, it’s my secret. My safe space.
I stare at the guitar in the corner of the room. It’s the same one from college, but it’s not one that I use anymore. My other is at the bar, tucked away in my office, along with all my other equipment. I haven’t played the one on display in years.
Grant didn’t think I was any good, and he wasn’t shy about saying it aloud.
To be fair, I am self-taught. A few extra classes in college, and I know enough, but I haven’t studied music.
He thought I was wasting my time when I sat in front of a YouTube video and tried to teach myself about keys, reading music, or a new instrument.
Whenever I hummed along with a song, he’d tell me to be quiet or just listen to the artist sing it.
Grant is a dick. I know that now, and I never should have let him manipulate me into thinking music was only for people with extreme talent. He just couldn’t understand why I didn’t bother trying to take it more seriously or take lessons.
Truth is, I don’t want a record deal. I don’t want to be a famous musician.
I simply like playing.
Eventually, I stopped playing when Grant was around. Then, when other people were around. Now, I just hide it away and retreat to the makeshift studio at the bar. My new, away-from-the-world safe space.
I lean forward, focusing while carefully threading the gold hoops through my ears.
I glance down at my outfit. Loose jeans, a T-shirt tucked in, and a belt tying them together.
I’ll take a jacket, but Flynn told me that wherever he is taking me is indoors, so I don’t have to worry too much about the elements.
It’s a rare weekend night off. He flies out for Colorado tomorrow for a Monday night game, and normally, it being a Saturday, I would have to work, but he requested I make myself free.
After the week I’ve had, I didn’t have the fight in me to refuse him.
I sit on the edge of my bed to pull my white sneakers on just as a gentle knock sounds at my door.
“Come in,” I call out, focusing on the laces of my shoes more than a normal person probably would.
Halloween was two weeks ago, and I haven’t been able to get the way that kiss felt out of my head.
The way his hands trailed over my body, or the way I loved the sensation of his hot breath against my ear as he demanded I call him a friend.
Flynn Reed is getting under my skin, and I am not even sure I mind all that much.
Although, as I have reminded myself for the last few weeks, I should mind. We went there. We did the thing. He’s a flirt and a playboy.
I don’t want a flirt and a playboy.
I don’t want Flynn Reed. My brain knows this, logic knows this.
My body, however, needs time to catch up.
“You look good,” he says. I suppress a blush as the words practically fall down my spine, warm and inviting.
“Thank you.” I stand, grab my handbag from the bed, and turn to face him. My eyes glance over at him; jeans, T-shirt, button-up flannel thrown over the top, kept open. His sleeves are rolled to his elbows, and his hair sits effortlessly touseled and perfect on his head. Goddammit.
“And me?” He smiles, waving a hand down his own body and turning around as if showing off his outfit.
I roll my eyes. “You look good, too. I guess.”
“The I guess was unnecessary.”
“Someone needs to keep your ego in check. I am happy to take one for the team on that one.” I throw a hand over my heart and nod seriously.
“Good. Scott’s been holding down that job for far too long,” he says, moving to the side to let me pass as I step out of my room. I smile gently and make my way downstairs. “He’s gotten very slack ever since he became obsessed with Ivy.”
“So he’s the one who allowed you to become so over-inflated with confidence?” I turn to look at him, following me down the stairs over my shoulder. There is something I don’t recognize in his features, but when his eyes meet mine, it disappears. I shake it off. “So, where are we going?”
“Hollie told me we have to be photographed more in public,” he grumbles, sitting on the bench by the door to slip on his shoes.
“I figured this would be a fake dating thing.” I nod, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun.”
I raise a brow. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
“You’ll see, Rockstar,” Flynn says as he swipes his keys from the bowl by the door and ushers me out.
Something I’m learning about Flynn is that he’s been raised a gentleman. He may be a flirt and a playboy, but he’s the kind that will open a woman’s door for them. And, he has. Every damn time.
Since I started living with him, if I’m with him and there is a door to be opened, or a jar that I can’t pop without struggling just the slightest bit, or an item too high up in a cupboard to reach, his first reaction is to always step in.
It’s not in an obnoxious way or in a way that would attract attention.
It’s calm and subtle. He will take the jar from my hands gently, opening it up, and then he places it right back in my hand.
He will lean over me, his chest pressed against my back for a moment, reaching for the item I’m trying to get before he delivers it into my outstretched hand.
And he will step in front of me, quickening his pace just a little so that by the time we reach the truck parked in the driveway, he is already there, gripping the door handle, poised to open it up for me.
Like right now. I make my way down the front steps, leaving him to lock the front door and follow me, but before I can get more than halfway to the truck, he’s already in front of me.
It makes my chest tighten, and I say a quiet, “Thank you.”
Flynn Reed is a lot of things, and a gentleman is one of them.
The drive is quiet. Since I have no idea where we are going, I scroll through a playlist on my phone.
I have the terrible habit of playing a song, then changing it halfway through.
I don’t want to miss out on playing a good chorus or a catchy hook just because we are only on the road for fifteen minutes.
‘Better’ by Khalid fills the cab, and I hum along quietly to the lyrics. When I realize that my humming has turned into gentle words, singing along with the artist, I cringe and force myself to stop.
I feel Flynn’s eyes on me, boring into the side of my head before he stares back at the road, but he doesn’t say anything. I go back to humming as the chorus plays again, but I suppress the urge to sing the words. I look down at my phone and add the song to the playlist I keep called Recordings.
I’m about to skip to the next song when Flynn turns into a parking lot in front of a bowling alley.
“Really?” I laugh, looking out my window up at the giant pins and bowling ball boards that make up the sign. “This is your big date idea?”
“Yep.” He parks the truck, hopping out and rounding the hood before I can even unplug my phone from the car. He opens my door and holds out his hand. I slide my palm against his. “I’m going to kick your ass, Murphy.”
When was the last time I went on a date?
Before Grant? Maybe. Definitely not during Grant. He wasn’t really a date kind of guy. He was comfortable with me. He didn’t put in the extra effort of date nights or flowers. I got used to it. I got comfortable with it.
Staring up at the bowling alley’s brightly lit sign, my stomach does a little flip, and my heart skips a beat. I’m … excited.
Flynn closes the car door as soon as I’m out of the truck and sticks out his arm. I hesitate, looking around for people. There isn’t another soul in this parking lot with us. No one is milling around outside the entrance or walking along the sidewalk.
Do I still need to take his arm if there is no one watching us? Do I want to?
Yes. I do want to.
I reach out and slide my hand into the crook of his elbow.
He tugs me closer to him, and I laugh when he starts to pull me toward the entrance like an excitable child.
Whenever he’s out and about, Flynn operates like he hasn’t got a care in the world.
He laughs and smiles, and he acts like a kid sometimes.
Then, when he’s at home, he’s calm and collected.
He always does his washing on Tuesday unless we have a sunny day.
Then he’ll break the schedule, so he can hang the laundry on his clothes line that he said he installed himself.
He doesn’t like cooking, but when he does, he cleans up immediately after he’s done.
He holds open the door to the bowling alley for me, and we walk inside. The place is bustling, almost all the lanes are full, and the music that plays overhead is so loud I can barely hear myself think.
“I haven’t been to a bowling alley in so long,” Flynn says, leaning down to say it right next to my ear so I can hear him. There’s such joy, such excitement in his voice. I have to smile and laugh along with him.
I’m starting to realize there are two sides to Flynn Reed. There’s his public persona, and then there is him.
One at work, and one at home.