Page 18

His shoulders relaxed. “Yeah, I read, and I like the paper books.”

“Thrillers?” I asked, since the cover of the book on the table was definitely in that genre.

“Anything, really. My cottage is remote, doesn’t have power so I live on solar and gas. It’s very quiet, and there’s not a lot of cell coverage. There’s a secondhand bookstore in the nearest town, and I stock up on whatever they have.”

Remy was full of surprises. “You spend a lot of time there, at this cottage?” Ollie would go stir-crazy someplace like that. I thought it sounded nice. Yeah, I should have seen earlier that Ollie and I weren’t a forever couple.

“The whole offseason. I don’t own anything else.”

“Wow. Is it an all-season cottage?”

“No, but I’ve been playing every winter, so I rent wherever I am.”

Did he not have a home outside of the cottage? How had he not put down roots somewhere? “How many teams have you played for?” Ollie had retired with the same team that drafted him. That obviously wasn’t the case for Remy.

He started moving fingers. “Seven. Yeah, this is the seventh team.”

No wonder the guy didn’t bother to settle in and make this place more homelike. “And your family?”

“I’m an only child. My parents are retired university professors. They have a base in Victoria, but they’re mostly traveling now.” He fidgeted in his seat, looking at the animals. Beast was now gently snoring.

I shouldn’t be running an inquisition on him. “Sorry. Your turn now to take over the questioning if you want.”

A brief smile crossed his face. “Are your parents around?” he asked.

I blinked at him. “My parents?”

His eyes widened. “Shit, are they— Did they pass?”

I shook my head. “No, not at all. No one asks me about them, because most people know who they are once they hear Cash is my brother.” Obviously not Remy.

“I don’t follow a lot of media or anything.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s nice not to have someone know all about you before you even talk to them. My father is a well-known country/blues singer. Ryder Williams?”

He narrowed his eyes, then nodded. “Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of him.”

I bit back a smile. Dad would hate that someone only had heard of him.

“That’s how we met Ollie. His dad retired from baseball about the same time Mom and Dad had our place built, so we were neighbors.

” Neighbors with huge lots surrounded by fences, not the kind who could signal each other from their bedrooms or even see the next house.

“Cash and Ollie are the same age and were best friends growing up. My parents had a messy and public split when I was in high school. It got a lot of press, so I’m used to people knowing they broke up and all the details.

My mom is in Arizona, remarried, and Dad still has his place here, with his third wife. ” Who of course was younger than me.

Remy was watching me closely. “You have just the one brother?”

“Yeah. Cash followed in Dad’s footsteps, which means most people who know who Cash is know Dad.”

His mouth quirked. “Except me.”

“More than you, just not very many people in Austin. It’s nice to start with a fresh slate.

” I smiled at him, enjoying how he was so unaware of my family.

In Austin, and most of the country, they were famous.

But this was a reminder that they weren’t that famous.

There were a lot of people in the world who didn’t know them at all.

“So you’re a musical family—you work with guitars and they play them?

” I nodded but my smile was tight. It was a sore spot.

I could sing and play, but I wasn’t a performer.

And while some families might think singing and playing was fine as a hobby, it was a business in mine.

Working on guitars came in a distant second to performing.

“It looks difficult. Must take a lot of training.”

For a moment, I just assumed he was talking about being a musician. An artist. Because that was definitely the optimum for our family. “Training?”

His brow furrowed again. “No? Figuring out how to fix all the different kinds of parts of a guitar—you’ve got a lot of tools in your shop and I don’t know what most of them are for.”

A strange feeling of pride warmed my chest. When faced with the star power of my father and brother, no one ever admired what I did.

I wasn’t an artist, I was a craftsperson.

Even Ollie had kind of accepted that I did what I did as a sort of consolation prize for missing out on the entertainment gene.

“I took courses and apprenticed with Diane. She’s one of the top luthiers in the state, maybe the country.”

His head tilted. “So you’re good.”

Was I? My family didn’t seem to think so, but… “Yeah. I am. Diane wants me to take over her shop when she retires.”

Remy was the first person I’d told this to. I’d been keeping it close to the chest, secretly afraid if I told anyone, they’d laugh or suggest it was more than I could handle. But no one in my circle of family and friends thought I was successful other than Remy. And he knew nothing about music.

“Is that what you want to do? Take over her place?”

“I don’t know. But I’ve got time to think about it. What about you—what are you doing when you’re done playing?”

His face closed up. That was the wrong thing to ask. But hockey players didn’t have long careers. Ollie was an example of that.

“I shouldn’t have asked.”

He shrugged. He did that a lot. “I don’t know. I just keep playing so I don’t have to decide.”

I got to my feet. I’d intruded long enough.

Goober had curled up in a ball, eyes closed, so it was time to take her and get out of Remy and Beast’s hair.

“Thanks for the drink—and the chance to see these two as…not enemies. Neighbors? I’ll take Goober now so you and Beast can get back to your evening. ”

I needed to leave because I was enjoying being here too much.

There was no pressure, nobody looking to leverage my company into getting closer to my father or brother, but that was selfish of me.

Ollie had no say over what I did with my time or who I spent it with, but he had a lot of power over Remy.

And with the relationship they already had, I didn’t need to add any more tension to it.