“Sure,” he says, to either my comment or the beer, and turns to grab a bottle opener and hands it to me.
“So, maybe we should just. . .hang out a bit? I mean, I don’t think we should expect to just jump into writing together.”
“Yeah,” Baylor muses. “That’s a good idea.”
“Alright,” I say, taking a drink, and his eyes flick to my throat.
In my fantasy, that look is because me drinking this beer is sexy in some kind of way. There could have been a flash of that old heat, but that has to be more my wishful thinking than anything real. We aren’t backstage downing free beers from the college bar we just played.
I start walking toward his back deck, anything to keep the past locked away for now. Surely the view from this deck will be a distraction. I think I saw a couple of chairs out there.
“What do you do for fun these days, Bee?”
He’s taking a drink, unable to answer, so I don’t let him. Instead, I open the door and lead him out to his own deck, making myself comfortable in one of his Adirondack-style chairs.
Baylor stares at me for a long moment before he takes the other one. I frown and shake it off. Maybe I took his chair?
“Don’t answer that,” I barrel ahead. “Let me guess. Skiing, of course. Hanging out with your brothers — no — your whole family.”
He gives a nodding sort of shrug in agreement, gesturing with his beer bottle in hand — an oddly sexy gesture. “What about you?” he asks.
I smile. “You know all that stuff we used to do? Kayaking and hiking. Hang gliding—all that shit?” I shake my head. “Hardly have time anymore or someone is going on about how dangerous it is. I got threatened with a no-extreme sports clause in my last contract with the label, just in case I got wild ideas.”
“You and Quinn never seemed to worry about that in the past.”
“Nah.” I laugh. “Although, I remember you coming along a fair amount of times. But skiing, that could be fun. No one would recognize me at all.”
Baylor is watching me carefully, which is not helping my efforts to relax.
“Can you go on stage in a leg cast?” he asks, a bit of the dry sense of humor I remember creeping in.
“I only have a few things scheduled now that the tour has ended. I can perch on a stool.”
Baylor laughs, this one more than just a smile and a chuckle.
Progress.
“Does that bother you? The getting recognized part, I mean?”
I shrug. “Makes some things complicated. Like buying groceries. Or going on a run without Caleb.”
“Groceries?”
“If I go into a grocery store, I’m surrounded. It’s hard to even get mundane tasks like that done. Someone will post something on social media and then there are more people than the store can contain. Plus, people will photograph my bags, what I’m buying. What brands.”
I look over at him and cringe.
“Enough rock-star problems, though. Back to you.”
Baylor shrugs. “No problems getting groceries.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh.
“This is an amazing place, Bee,” I tell him, leaning back and relaxing — really relaxing for the first time in way too long. Given enough time, I could take a nap in this chair.
We hear a knock at the front door, and I am both relieved and annoyed when he gets up to answer it. I want more alone time with him. The desire to just push myself into his arms and wedge myself there grows the more we hang out together. I’m still just as clueless as how to bridge the distance between us.
Maybe this was just a good start and I need to calm down.
