She smiled again, this time against his lips.
“This is interesting,” someone—Andrew—said from behind them. Dean gave the bassist a slow up and down look as he turned around, because he and Liana weren’t the only ones holding hands. Andrew and Jackie had made up from their fight in a big way.
Liana didn’t look surprised, though. Secrets, eh? Not his to know, Dean guessed. So he just shrugged. “Who’s hungry?”
A young woman in high-waisted jeans held up by suspenders over a Dolly For President shirt came out to seat them, saving them from any further awkward relationship conversations.
Inside, the cafe was stuffed to the gills with hipsters. Jackie recognized someone, so she took a detour to talk to a couple covered in gorgeous tattoos.
The rest of them followed the waitress to a table at the back. “Drinks?” she asked.
Liana ordered a coconut milk latte for herself and one for Jackie as well. Dean wanted his coffee black, and Andrew shrugged. “Sounds good to me.”
She left them with menus, which looked like the place catered to both Liana—egg white omelettes—and Dean’s tastes, too. A south-west omelette covered in chili with a side of sourdough toast? Holy shit, that made his stomach growl.
Jackie joined them a minute later, and she reached across the table to grab a box of Trivial Pursuit cards tucked against the wall. Dean watched in amusement as the three bandmates all moved in synch with each other, shuffling through the randomized deck to find the music trivia questions, passing sugar to Andrew when their coffee arrived, Jackie collecting the menus like a bossy older sibling as the waitress took their orders.
He liked it all. He liked that Liana had this. Hope worried about her, but she had a pretty good little family going on here.
She had a blood family, too, but she didn’t talk about them much. Her parents were divorced, had been since she was a kid, and she’d left her mother’s trailer at eighteen, never to return. She’d told him she saw them every few years. She’d been closest to her maternal grandmother, but her MeeMaw had died when she was a teenager.
He couldn’t imagine not seeing his father. Even though the old man was a bastard, they still did a regular-ish family dinner.
On the other hand, Hope also had a difficult relationship with her mother, and no relationship with her father. So it wasn’t a surprise they’d found each other, and found others. Family could be chosen. And sometimes that was for the best.
He’d chosen Zander as a brother in kindergarten. And now they were brothers through marriage, too. He thought of Jake, and Dani, and he pulled out his phone to take a picture of the restaurant. Dani would love it. Maybe after their baby arrived, they could come down for a visit.
And visit who? Liana?
He’d told her he was going home. He told her he wouldn’t be able to stick around after the end of the tour.
But he liked holding her hand.
As if she could sense he was thinking far too heavy thoughts for so early in the morning, Liana found his hand with hers under the table and gave his fingers a quick squeeze.
“Hey, can we ask about yesterday?” Jackie said, leaning in and lowering her voice.
Liana glanced around, then shrugged. “I guess. Did West fill you in?”
Jackie nodded. “That’s crazy.”
“Well, that’s…” She trailed off and glanced at Andrew.
He just laughed. “That’s Track.”
“I know you like him.”
“I like his music. And he doesn’t even write it. He’s a great stylist, but fuck him. He’s not a great person. I’m on Team Liana, all the way.”
“I don’t want there to be teams.” She groaned softly, and now it was Dean’s turn to squeeze her hand. She took a sip of her latte before continuing. “It’s a small town in so many ways. I just want to keep my nose clean and make music.”
“Do you think Track is really cutting you loose?” Jackie asked.
Liana shook her head. “No. I mean, I get that he wants to. He wants to threaten me with that. But my sales are good. My fan base is solid and I sell out concerts. I’m struggling to get songs that rise to the top of the charts, but that’s because of them, not me. As a songwriter, I’ve got that number one spot, so I can get it as a singer, too.”
Dean didn’t know that. Had that been in his research on her? Maybe he hadn’t understood enough about her job when he’d done his reading.
“You owe him an album, right? And then you’re free?” Andrew frowned. “Can you not just…make the album he wants?”
