Chapter 13 Property of Walker Rhodes
Property of Walker Rhodes
WALKER
The house is too quiet.
Jonah’s not here.
Sadie’s not here.
It’s silent. Empty.
When I first came back home to Marble Falls, I welcomed the quiet. The emptiness. My life felt too loud and busy and this was a welcome change of pace.
But the pendulum has swung too far the other way, and the silence now feels suffocating. The emptiness has turned into a weight.
I think about texting Sadie. I want to ask her how her night is going. I want to tell her I miss her.
But that would be fucking pathetic, so I don’t.
Instead, I spend the evening doing what I usually do. Make dinner. Sit in the studio with two fingers of whiskey I haven't touched, staring at the Martin guitar in the corner like it owes me something.
That guitar is a collector’s item, worth a fortune. It was my gift to myself after making my first million. I figured with how much use that guitar would get over my lifetime, the actual cost would work out to pennies per play.
Bitter fucking irony, right there.
I check my phone. Check the clock.
Tell myself I'm not waiting for her.
The restlessness builds until I can't sit still anymore.
I end up back in the studio with the whiskey, and this time I drink it. The burn helps, a little.
I find myself reaching for the leather-bound notebook on the shelf. The one I haven't opened in two years. The one with half-finished lyrics and chord progressions and ideas that went nowhere.
I sit down at the desk, uncap a pen, and stare at the blank page.
Nothing comes.
Of course nothing comes. Why would tonight be any different than the last seven hundred and thirty nights?
I close the notebook.
Then I grab my whiskey and head out to the pool, needing to burn off whatever the hell this feeling is.
My phone buzzes, and it’s embarrassing how quickly I grab it to see if Sadie’s texted me.
And she has. It’s a ten second video of the band playing on stage at Sutton’s. They’re playing a cover of one of my songs. Doing a decent-enough job of it too.
She texts:
You should come down. Blow the barn doors off the place with a lil surprise appearance.
I text back:
They're doing fine without me.
Sounds like you’re being chickenshit to me.
My lips quirk. Never one to let me off the hook easy.
I text again:
Sutton’s only pays in beer and jukebox tokens. I don’t leave the house for any gig that doesn’t cover my property taxes.
Or any gig at all, these days.
So you're just going to sit there and let them butcher your song?
They're not butchering it. Singer’s a little pitchy, though.
See? You're listening. Just come down.
Nah.
She sends back a series of emojis that might as well be hieroglyphs. A rooster? Poop?
Ah. She’s calling me chickenshit again.
Brat.
I shake my head. Lean back in my chair. Listen to the crickets. I’m tempted, only because Sadie’s the one inviting me. I could go down there. Hang out with her, even if I have no intention of getting anywhere near a stage again.
But something in me rebels at the thought. The crowds, the music, all of it belongs to a different version of my life. A different version of me. I’ve spent the last two years trying to figure out who I am, if not a musician, and I don’t need the reminder of everything that came before.
I text her:
Enjoy your evening, darlin.
A few minutes later, I get a kissy-face emoji in response.
I smile at my phone like an idiot.
And then I put the screen down, pocket the phone, and head out to the pool.
Twelve-hour days of ranch work have built me bigger and tougher than any personal trainer in Nashville ever managed, and most nights the physical exhaustion is enough. But not tonight. I push through lap after lap until my shoulders burn and my lungs work.
But the energy my body’s humming with won’t be burned out with exercise.
Because the physical activity my body is craving?
It’s sex.
Sex with one particular, maddening, unforgettable redhead.
And right now she’s at a bar full of men who are allowed to want her. Allowed to shoot their shot with her.
What if one of them succeeds?
She said she was coming home tonight but it’s a summer night and the whiskey will be flowing at Sutton’s and she’s a beautiful girl.
Fuck, maybe I should go down there. Just to make sure nobody’s creeping on her.
The problem is that I don’t trust myself to sit next to her and take it easy. I’m gonna want to drape an arm around the back of her chair like I’m staking out my territory. I’m gonna give any guy who tries to talk to her the death glare.
I already know none of them will be worthy of her.
I’m her boss. Her employer.
I’m not her boyfriend.
I keep repeating it to myself as I do another twenty laps instead.
When my muscles and lungs are burning again, I take a break to float on my back for awhile and stare at the stars.
There was a time in my life where I could find inspiration in a view like this. Where I could find inspiration in anything. A stray overheard comment. The sight of the Milky Way over the mountains. A kiss.
Anything could be magic.
But the magic is gone now.
I’m still in the middle of swimming laps when I hear a car coming up the road. It’s fucking absurd, the way my pulse picks up as soon as I hear it. It has to be her.
I swim to the edge of the pool and slug back some whiskey. It burns down my throat, adding to the heat of the summer night, the blood already heating in my body.
The lamps are on low inside, and my truck's outside, so she knows I'm here.
“Walker?” she calls out tentatively.
“In the pool,” I answer.
There's a stutter in her step as she comes through the back door and her eyes find me. That bright blue gaze sweeps down my body. Over my chest, my abs. Lower.
She swallows. Her lips part slightly.
Suddenly I’m real glad for all the hard work my body’s been doing, if it makes her look at me like that.
“You're up late,” she says, and her voice has gone a little breathless.
“Told you I’d wait up for you.”
She takes a step closer, and I catch her scent. Fresh strawberries. Lush. Biteable.
And then she slips off her boots and sits on the edge of the pool, dipping her feet in. She kicks her legs slowly, sending ripples through the water. Her bare toes have bright red nail polish on them.
“What are you drinking?” she asks, eyeing the glass in my hand.
I lift it slightly. “Whiskey. Want some?”
“Sure.”
I swim over and hold the glass out to her, and when she takes it, our fingers brush. Just for a second. Just long enough for me to feel the touch like electricity straight up my arm.
She brings the glass to her lips. To the exact spot where my mouth just was. She takes a small sip. Her eyes widen slightly at the burn, and she coughs a little, which makes me smile despite myself.
“That's strong,” she says, voice gone slightly hoarse. She hands it back, and our fingers touch again.
I take the glass, still warm from her hand, and sip from the same place her lips just were too. The intimacy of it, drinking from the same glass, tasting the same burn, feels good.
I realize with a sharp clarity that I'm fucked.
Completely fucked.
Getting excited over putting my lips the same place hers just were. Talk about being pathetically down bad.
Doesn’t stop me from taking another sip from the exact same spot.
“Probably too strong for you,” I say.
“I’ll get used to it.”
She holds her hand out for the glass and I give it to her again. She sips, no coughing this time.
The pool shimmers in endless blue waves, like it’s restless as I am.
“What did you do tonight?” she asks. “Just you, brooding into your whiskey?”
I scowl at her. “Worked out. Swam. Sat around, mostly.”
“That's it?”
Thought of you. Couldn’t stop thinking of you.
I turn the glass in my hand. “Glared at my guitar for a while.”
“Did you play?”
“No.” The whiskey's simmering through my bloodstream, making me reckless. Honest. “I haven't touched it in two years.”
The words land differently out loud than they do in my head at three in the morning. I've never said them to another person before.
Somehow they've come out here, at midnight, poolside, to the woman who works for me and smells like summer and drives me out of my mind without even trying.
Her face turns concerned. “Not even just to play for fun? Just for yourself?”
I take another pull of my drink. “Nobody knows. Everyone asks and I tell them I'm working on stuff, letting it percolate, but it's a fucking lie. The well is dry. I'm done.”
She's silent for long enough that I wish I hadn't said it. The pool glimmers beside us, and somewhere out past the tree line something is singing. Cicadas, frogs, the whole insistent chorus of a summer night out West.
“You're not giving yourself enough credit,” she says at last. “You've been through a lot. I'd bet you really are letting it percolate. You're in the cocoon phase now. Maybe it looks ugly. Maybe it looks like nothing's happening from the outside. But inside, you're transforming all the same.”
I give her a skeptical look. “Are you saying I'm a fuckin' butterfly?”
She grins at me. “That's right. Just you wait. You'll be spreading your wings in no time.”
The pool light catches the blue of her eyes as they rake down me again. God, she’s fucking gorgeous. How am I supposed to function when a mere smile from her makes me feel like I’m losing my mind?
I clear my throat. “How was Sutton's?”
Sadie seems to shake herself slightly, dragging her gaze back up to my face. There's color high in her cheeks that isn't from the whiskey. Not entirely.
She was checking me out.
“Rowdy,” she says. “Got my toes trod on a lot.”
My fingers tighten on the glass. “You danced?”
“A little.”
“With who?”
It comes out rougher than I wanted. A little possessive. A little territorial. I have no right to feel that way about this woman and I feel it anyway, because she's sleeping under my roof every night and taking care of my son every day and invading my thoughts and dreams.