Page 58 of Resonance
He straightened with a snap, beaming me a megawatt smile. “My sunny personality.” He picked up his bag from behind the counter and started off, bumping knuckles with Ru as he arrived, then turned back at the entrance to the hallway. “I was thinking I’d make dinner tonight. Anything you don’t like?”
“Kitchen fires.”
I was treated to another one of those scathing expressions that had me holding back laughter as Owen flipped me the bird and then disappeared.
Ru dumped his stuff in the office before joining me at the register. “Slow day?” He eyed the receipt pad on the counter.
“Yup. I’ll probably head out in a minute. Got some errands to run.” Shit to pack, toiletries to gather. Three days from now I was supposed be in the parking lot of Ryder’s manager’s office at nine sharp to board the tour bus, and I was woefully unprepared.
“Owen making your ears bleed yet? Driving you crazy?” Ru was digging, all right, and I could tell he knew I was onto him by the way his mouth curled slyly.
“Nah. He’s all right.” The only thing driving me crazy about Owen was his sexy little body and the images of him in varying positions beneath or above me running on a continuous loop almost every time I laid eyes on him. I sucked on my lower lip and had one of those phantom cravings for a dip. I’d kicked the habit years back, but it still popped up every now and then as some kind of substitute yearning when I was denying myself something else I wanted.
“What do y’all get up to out there?”
I fixed Ru with a flat stare. “We eat. Sometimes watch TV, and then we go to bed like I imagine most of America does.” That wasn’t a whole truth. On the fourth night, I asked Owen where he went after dinner, because he’d started disappearing for a while once we finished eating. He’d said he sat out by the barn or walked in the woods on an overgrown path he’d found—one Aiden and I’d made when we were younger. It used to lead to Aiden’s treehouse, but that was long gone. I’d started walking with him after that, listening as Owen worked out lyrics or chattered about this and that. Sometimes I’d tell him a story about when Aiden and I were kids. Sometimes I’d just listen. And sometimes when we’d get back, we’d sit down with our guitars and play oldies or I’d lie on the couch while he fiddled with a song, occasionally asking if I liked one chord progression over another. This lyric or that one. Sometimes I played alongside him and we’d forget everything else for hours.
I’d miss it while I was gone. Funny how you could get so used to loneliness you hardly noticed it anymore until someone else flipped the spotlight on the dark hollows it’d carved out inside you.
“You’re a good liar. One of the best I’ve ever known. But you’re terrible at it when you’re lying about yourself.” Ru’s expression was arch and knowing.
I picked up a handful of pens scattered over the counter and shoved them into a basket underneath it. “It’s not anything, leave it alone.” There I went again, and Ru’s smile twisted into a smirk. “I’m about to get on the road and… Owen’s skittish as a colt anyway.” Which I understood. Hell, I was, too. I was long past rushing to stampMineon something the second it started feeling really good.
“You got the skittish part right. Both of you are.”
“Yeah, well, my days of giving chase are over.”
Ru snorted and I let my irritation seep deep into the lines on my face. “Not everyone just meets and falls into bed and moves in with the guy practically the next day, then lives happily ever after.”
Ru snorted again and I pulled a tissue from the box on the counter near my knee and offered it to him. “Need this?”
“Nah, just my allergy to bullshit flaring. It’ll pass when you leave, I’m sure.”
God Almighty I wanted to give him a swift kick in the ass sometimes. “Look, I’m about to go out on the road for a month. I don’t know what the hell lies ahead for me and Owen, but he’s got his own sh—”
Ru faux-sneezed, then did it again as I narrowed my eyes at him. He kept on going even as I grabbed him around the waist and hauled him over my shoulder, intent on setting him outside the back door to cool his smart ass down for a while.
The chime on the door stopped our progress, and I let him drop to the floor in a heap as Fiona Nell pranced her dainty self in. She was an Ohio transplant who’d recently moved into town kicking ass and taking names with some pipes that sounded like they belonged on an Aretha Franklin build rather than the tiny five-foot-two slip of a thing she was.
“Damn she’s good-lookin’,” Ru mumbled as he climbed to his feet and nodded a hello to her.
“Sure is. Close your mouth before I tell Quinn.”
“Psht, please. Quinn would be shoving me out of the way. Man, Ivy’s gonna be so pissed she traded shifts with me today. She’s got a total girl crush on Fi.”
“Fellas,” Fiona singsonged toward us, spangling her fingers in a wave.
“Oh hell, you’re doing that croon-y thing that means you want something we probably don’t have.”
Fiona poked out her tongue at Ru, then grinned at me as she slid into my grasp for a one-armed hug.
“I’m leaving you in Ru’s capable hands on that note. If he can’t find something for you, make him write it down. His brain is Swiss cheese lately, but I’ll find it for you.”
“Achoo!”
Fiona’s eyes widened and she took a backward step to put some distance between us. “Don’t be getting near me if you’ve got a cold. I’ve got recording tomorrow.”
“It’s just allergies.” Ru snickered. “Be better in a minute. Youareleaving, right, Dan?”