“I didn’t mean to hear your phone call,” she said. “You came around the corner really fast, and you didn’t see me at first.”
“It’s fine,” he said. “It doesn’t matter.” He heard the hardness in his voice come back and he swallowed to get it to go away.
His phone chimed. Since he never let it get very far away from him, he heard it loud and clear. The weight of his device sometimes pounded him into the ground by noon, but he couldn’t just leave it behind. He worked with celebrities, and they expected him to be on call twenty-four-seven. In fact, theypaidhim very well to be available at all hours.
As a band manager, it would be far easier because this wasretiredband management, and Adam might be able to get an hour away from his phone to go on a date, or get a massage, or simply go running up the canyon.
His life had definitely been a little bit out of control, though Harry had been one of his least demanding clients.
“Do you still work in that cupcake place?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “They promoted me to a baker.” A hint of brightness entered her expression, and Adam smiled at her. Her eyes dropped to his mouth and quickly rebounded to his and then flitted away. Adam had seen other women look at him like this, and his heart grew a size and then sprouted wings.
Could Joey be interested in him too?
He shook the thought away, not sure what to do with it. His phone chimed again, and then again. Then it rang. He sighed the mother of all sighs and looked at it. Morris’s name sat there, and reality came rushing back at Adam.
He had no idea what time it was, but it didn’t matter. Morris had said he wanted to make the announcement when his parents arrived, and he’d likely gathered everybody into the main living room of the house to do exactly that.
With his right arm around Joey, he was slower picking up his phone and swiping to answer the call. But he’d moved too slow, and the call ended before he could tap it on.
He swore under his breath, and with his left hand, triedto dial Morris back, but he wasn’t as ambidextrous as he’d like to be. He couldn’t quite do it before his phone started ringing again. This time Tex’s name shone on the screen, and Adam managed to swipe on the call and say, “I’m on my way in.”
“Yeah, we lost you, bro. Where’d you go?”
Adam looked at Joey, and she brought her gaze back to his.
“I got a phone call,” he said. “I need a minute.”
“All right,” Tex said good-naturedly. “We’re all in here waiting for you.”
Adam could only imagine what Tex would look like when he walked in the house with Joey—probably ready to take a weed whacker and give him a haircut with it. He let Tex hang up, put his phone back down on the ground next to him, and said, “I’ve got to go in, baby doll.”
He swore someone else controlled his body as he reached up, took her ponytail in his hand, and ran his fingers down the length of it, letting the hair slide through. She looked at him, and he gazed back at her, an invitation for coffee sitting right there on the tip of his tongue. He couldn’t quite get the words to go out, and she sat up and leaned away from him.
“What did they want?” she asked.
Adam’s brain misfired because he’d forgotten that she didn’t know that he was going to be Country Quad’s manager—her daddy’s manager, he thought. Adam felt sick to his stomach.
No wonder God hadn’t let him speak a dinner invitationand make a complete fool of himself. He scooted away from Joey and got to his feet, then extended his hand to her. “Your uncle has an announcement,” he said, donning his professional skin again.
He’d hidden feelings for women before. He could do it again. He and Joey’s paths didn’t cross that often, and she didn’t even live at home. Besides, once he had a house and a home office, he’d call Country Quad to him. He wouldn’t go to them.
She dusted off her backside, then turned and went around the back of the house where Adam had come from the front. He glanced back that way, then followed her instead. The backyard sat empty, the big lot extending out diagonally from the back of the house to include at least an acre of lawn. There were some apple trees back here, and a shed over against the fence where the cement pad ended. Tools and small yard machines still sat out in front of the shed, and Adam hated moving with everything inside him.
Of course, he didn’t have a wife and five children, and a solitary move was far easier than what Morris and Leigh had to accomplish.
Joey slid open the sliding glass door about the time Adam realized that they’d be walking in and facing the entire Young family together, as if they were a couple. Before he could say anything, she stepped inside, and she’d barely moved out of the way before Adam did too.
He managed to stop then, but he’d already committed himself to the lion’s den. Every eye came to him or Joey, andhe felt the weight of their stares like gravity pushing, pushing, pushing him down into the ground.
“Well,” Trace said in his homicidal cowboy tone. “Where have you two been?”
Thankfully, he didn’t speak too loud, and Morris, who held a mic, said, “All right, now that everyone’s here, we have an announcement to make.” He nodded around the room and added, “Can I get Tex, Trace, Otis, and Luke over here?”
“What is going on?” someone demanded from Adam’s left. Murmurs ran through the family, and Adam sidestepped behind a couple of teenagers, hoping to disappear completely from Joey’s side.
She’d moved too, and he found her standing with Harry and Belle, which was the worst place possible for Adam. He wasn’t sure how Harry would feel about him taking a job with his uncles and daddy, and Adam once again questioned the decision he’d made.
