Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
When Michael opened the SUV’s back passenger door, Jamie’s eyes practically popped out of his skull. He never questioned Brinton’s beauty, and he liked her regular clothes. They were modest but fit her personality.
Now, she had on one of those tank tops with a deep scoop in the front, the material so thin he could tell she wasn’t wearing a bra. As she climbed in, he caught a flash of butt cheek, the heavy curve jutting out from her shorts.
Did that mean she wasn’t wearing panties?
He called it right then. Those shorts were going to be a fucking problem.
Worse yet, her skin was all glowy. The thick, black lines rimming her eyes made them even more penetrating. Sexier.
Lord, help me.
She caught him staring. Immediately, he felt like an ass. Jamie respected her, and she deserved to be respected, not ogled.
He shifted awkwardly in his seat and tried to think un-sexy thoughts.
A Braves game on ESPN. Changing the oil in the truck. Building an Ikea shelf.
“Hey,” Jamie said. His voice was as coarse as sandpaper. “Sammi said she’d meet us there.”
He braced his boots into the floorboards to physically ground himself. No woman had made him feel both so wildly turned on and straight-up giddy. A witchy spell he never wanted to end.
He still hadn’t figured out when to tell Brinton about re-signing his contract, but that was a future Jamie problem. He’d find the right way to tell her soon. For now, he wanted to bask in everything she had to offer.
It was a hell of a bounty.
Brinton smiled, appraising him carefully. He liked that too.
“You look…nice,” she said. “I like your hair.”
It was embarrassing how long he’d spent on it, but he wanted to impress her. He also shaved and wore his favorite white Henley tee and dark-wash jeans.
“Unlike you, I have one look, and this is it,” he said, gesturing down the length of his body, which gratefully, made her laugh.
“I like your chain too.”
His grin spread wider. Jamie only wore the thick gold Cuban link when he wanted to add a little razzle dazzle. He absolutely wanted that tonight. In fact, he wanted Brinton to know he was game for whatever she wanted from him.
At the cookout, he was too in his own head to tell her how nice she looked, but he wouldn’t make that mistake again. “You look gorgeous tonight. I mean—you always do.”
When she blushed, the same heat spilled across his cheeks.
“Thank you,” she said sweetly, fluttering her cosmically dark lashes. Was she flirting with him?
Mercy, he hoped so.
“Do you like my boots? At first, I wasn’t sure I could pull them off…”
When she kicked her leg across the seat, her calf brushed against his knee, sending a bolt of shameless need straight to his crotch. His eyes traced the planes of her thighs. They were criminally thick in all the right places.
He didn’t stop until he reached the soles of her boots. Frankly, he wanted to see her in those boots and nothing else. He’d probably combust on the spot, but he’d gladly bear every fiery lick.
Instead, with superhuman restraint, he rested his hands on his knees, even as he longed to inch up her sumptuous thighs.
“Bee, you can pull anything off. Ladybird’s?”
She grinned and slid her leg off the seat. He stood corrected: her smile looked even better than those boots.
“Yeah, Birdie’s a peach.”
Jamie cocked his head, thoroughly amused. “Look at you, getting the lingo down.”
“I’m very observant. You could say it’s my job.”
She winked at him, and he chuckled. Her sense of humor, her mind…There was so much to admire. A Rubik’s cube he’d ferociously study until he cracked the code.
He was about to tell her that when she huffed out a breath, eyes filled with something he could only guess was trepidation.
What was she afraid of? At the thought, tension lashed Jamie’s neck and shoulders.
“Birdie told me that she knew your mom. At the lake, you said you didn’t want to talk about her for the article, and I understand that,” Brinton began.
“But…I guess, over these last few days, I’ve really liked getting to know you.
And I realized that I want to know all of you, if that’s on the table? And I want you to know me too.”
It wasn’t that he didn’t want Brinton to know him. In fact, it was startling how natural it was telling her about every other part of his life, including his festering lie.
Even if they weren’t working together on her article, he’d want to know someone like her. Someone dedicated to giving a voice to the voiceless, even if that person was undoubtedly privileged, like himself.
It’d been seventeen years, and yet talking about his mother brought him right back to the agonizing night he lost her. He felt powerless then, and still felt powerless now.
“Can we please talk about anything else?” he pleaded, eyes closed and head thudding against the headrest.
She leaned close enough that he breathed in her sweet scent. But even that couldn’t quell the stinging micro-needles prickling his skin.
“I know this isn’t easy to talk about, but I want to understand…”
He opened his eyes and met hers. They were steeped in earnestness.
“I hope you know that you can trust me with this, and anything else you want to tell me,” she added.
Before he could think straight, the words gushed out. “I can’t trust anyone with that part of my life.”
This was another lesson Jamie learned from his father, who long discouraged any conversation about his mother’s death.
He claimed “living in the past” would make Jamie weak.
Unfortunately, as a grieving young man, he’d believed him.
Jamie wanted to be strong for his mother, even if he couldn’t see her or touch her.
So he’d cauterized the wound, and tried to move on.
“Jamie, I know what it’s like to be scared…”
Gently, she caressed his shoulder. For days, he’d craved her touch, but at this moment, he felt backed into a corner.
He flinched away.
“Then why are you pushing me? Unless you really wanna know for the article, but you don’t wanna tell me straight up?”
Instantly, he regretted those words too. But that’s what happened whenever he thought about his mother. His sense of reality morphed into pure survival instinct, like he was clinging, white-knuckled, from a jagged cliff, one breath from meeting a brutal end.
Brinton’s lips parted, but she didn’t speak. Instead, she angled her body toward the window, cast in an eerie glow as yellow and orange neon lights whizzed by.
God, had he gone too far? She probably thought he was a complete asshole. But he couldn’t even articulate how painful ripping out those sutures would be.
He stayed quiet, hoping she’d sense how much he was struggling. Hoping she’d forgive him.
Jamie flicked his signet ring around his pinky.
“Brinton, I didn’t mean…” he said, a few moments later.
“You think I’d lie to you?” All emotion had drained from her voice. Her eyes stayed fixed on her window.
“No.” He exhaled shakily. “It’s not something I can explain.”
“I feel like I’m putting myself out there, for you. And you’re…hiding.”
He rubbed his brow. “I’m putting myself out there for you too. Brinton, I re-signed my contract. A two-album deal—for you.”
Fuck me.
This was exactly the wrong way to tell her this development. He’d absolutely gone too far.
“What?” she screeched, eyes wide as she finally faced him. “Jamie, why—I don’t understand. I thought you trusted me to tell your story?”
“I’m trying to protect you,” he gritted out. His head was a hornet’s nest. The harder he fought to find the words, the more viciously his thoughts swirled.
“Protect me from what?”
Jamie shook his head. He couldn’t stand to upset her more than he already had. “Bee, please…”
“I thought we’d agreed to help each other?” She buried her face in her trembling hands. “There’s no story if you signed a new contract. Shit, what am I supposed to tell my boss? I’m going to get fired. I should pack my bags tonight.”
“No, I’ll figure something out—”
“Please don’t,” she interjected, the sound grating against her throat. “You’ve done enough. And you won’t even tell me why.”
He wanted to squeeze her hand and reassure her, but she bawled hers in tight fists on her lap. Fully and completely detached from him.
It broke him.
The SUV rolled to a stop in an alley leading to a VIP entrance, away from downtown Iris’s bustling main drag. Jamie stepped around to Brinton’s side, opened the door, and held out his hand.
She accepted it, but her eyes stayed glued to the asphalt.
“Brinton…”
But he didn’t finish. What else could he say? If he were her, he’d tell himself to fuck right on off. He’d blown his chance before he even told her how she made him feel, how he liked who he was when he was with her.
Was this for the best, before he could do irreparable harm?
“Well, you two have fun in there,” Michael said, as if he’d watched Mom and Dad fight over a missed parking spot.
“Thanks, Michael. I’ll call you soon,” Jamie answered.
He held open the club’s heavy back door. Once Brinton was safely inside, he beelined for a place, anywhere, where he couldn’t make this night worse.