I also want to run my hand over her leg, trace my thumb below the hem of her shorts until I’ve reached her inner thigh. I want to sneak my fingers under her shirt and skim them up her sides. I want to feel all her curves that she’s been showing off for weeks with all those sundresses.
But I won’t. I can’t.
So it’s almost a relief when she opens her eyes again, forcing me to dart my gaze away from her before I get caught. Before I become too tempted.
Focusing my attention on Freddie, I watch as he climbs up to the top of his cat tree, and I do my best to pretend that this woman’s presence doesn’t affect me.
Soon, she starts singing out loud, her volume very low at first and then gradually growing a bit louder, almost like she can’t help herself. When I glance over at her, she stops, giving me a shy smile. “Sorry.”
“Why in the world are you apologizing?” I ask. “I’m honored to be getting a free concert.”
She laughs that off, but I mean it. I wasn’t a fan of Riley’s music when she showed up here, but I’m quickly becoming a fan ofRiley. Her voice is achingly sweet. It sounds different now than it does in her songs I’ve heard on the radio. The way she’s singing along with Stevie Nicks feels raw and honest and real.
“This is hardly a concert,” she says.
“You could play for me. You brought your guitar.”
Her face is difficult to read, and I wonder if I should take back my request. It wasn’t a serious one. Sure, I’d love to hear her play, love to watch her up close in her element. But I don’t want her to feel like she ever needs to perform for me. She doesn’t need to bethatRiley Rowland. Not while she’s here.
Then she asks, “Do you really want that? You haven’t gotten sick of seeing me play around the inn?”
I stretch one of my legs out and playfully nudge her with my bare foot. She makes no move to squirm away. “Not at all. And yes, I’d enjoy it if you played for me. But only if you want to. No pressure.”
She drags her bottom lip between her teeth before setting it free, and I can’t help but think about how I’d like to be the one biting her lip. I wonder what little sounds I could pull out of her if I did.
When she meets my eyes and smiles, all traces of her apprehension are gone. “I’d love to play for you,” she says.
As she runs upstairs to grab her guitar, I get up and stop the record. Then I snag a throw pillow from the couch and toss it on the floor, sitting there to give her enough room on the couch.
Freddie apparently takes this as an invitation, because he hops down from his tree and comes over to me. I rub my hand along his back a fewtimes, and he arches into the touch. Then he climbs over my legs and sprawls himself out across my lap, his butt pointed up in the air and his back paws dangling over my knee. I can’t imagine how that would be comfortable, but cats are weird. When I scratch his head, he begins emitting a low, rumbling purr.
Riley comes back downstairs and finds us like this. Resting her guitar case against the couch, she shakes her head. “Uh oh,” she says, but it looks like she’s fighting a smile. “This is a bigger audience than I expected. I’m not sure I can handle this.”
“Don’t worry, Freddie’s an easy critic.”
She laughs. “Why did you name him Freddie?”
“I didn’t. I adopted him when I moved here. But I like to pretend he was named after Freddie Mercury.”
“Maybe he should be performing for us instead,” she says as she removes her guitar from the case and situates herself on the couch with it.
“Sure, if you want to spend an hour watching him contorting his body and licking himself. It’s an inspiring performance.”
That gets another small laugh out of her, and then she stares down at her instrument, spending a few seconds pressing her fingers in some pattern against the fretboard without actually playing anything.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she was nervous. But that can’t be true. She performs for stadiums full of people. Playing for one chef in a small town can’t be any pressure compared to that. Even if the chef tends to be a bit cranky.
“What do you want me to play?” she asks.
“Anything,” I tell her. Which is true, because I’m not going to treat her like a jukebox. But also, although I’ve obviously heard some of her songs, I’d be hard-pressed to come up with the name of any of them off the top of my head, and I don’t want to hurt her feelings by telling her that.
When she closes her eyes and starts strumming chords, the melody sounds familiar. Though it’s not until she sings the first line that I recognize the song. It didn’t occur to me that she’d play something other thanher own music. But she did say “Silver Springs” is her favorite song, and as she plays it, I can feel that.
As she sings the words, I hear how they mean something to her. She’s not singing too loudly, but her voice still fills the room, lighting up all the drab, dark corners.
Seeing her in her element like this reminds me that she’s famous, that her life is entirely different from mine. Yet at the same time, knowing she’s here singing on my couch, so close I could touch her, it reminds me that Riley Rowland is also, in fact, a real person.
She can be both at the same time. A larger-than-life celebrity, and a woman who cleans up after herself when she cooks and spills coffee on people when she doesn’t watch where she’s going.
