“That’s … apparent.”
He nodded, his fingers moving against me. “It’s been three weeks. That’s like decades in the music industry.”
“I imagine it is,” I said. But I could not imagine it was as he was saying it. Had he not been withanyone? Or just not with me?
I was quiet for a moment, listening to him breathe, listening to my heart beat, watching his hand move beneath my dress. Possessing me.
The bedroom door swung wide open suddenly, and Fergus was standing there at the threshold, his bald head buried in a pile of magazines. Hayes’s arm was back at his side before I could even register what was happening.
“Hey, mate, we picked these up for you,” Fergus said, finally looking up. “Sorry. Door was ajar.” He stepped into the room and very casually tossed a handful of magazines onto the credenza before turning and leaving. As if he hadn’t just walked in on us.
“We should probably lock that,” Hayes said, calmly.
I nodded. “We should.”
It was hours before we left the room.
I had the thought that, regardless of how unconventional or ill-fitted the two of us together seemed, the chemistry was like nothing I’d ever experienced. And by the way he responded to me, it appeared that for him it may have been the same.
He lay there at one point, staring at the ceiling.
“What?” I asked, my fingers tracing his ample mouth. “What are you thinking?”
“Just… I don’t know. I don’t want to say the wrong thing again.”
“Okay.”
He reached for my hand then, stilling me, his eyes intense. “This thing… us… It’s more than I expected.”
I hesitated, not wanting to misread the moment. Something had shifted. “Yeah,” I said, “for me, too.”
We went for a walk before dinner. Down the winding tree-lined drive and out onto Quimby Lane.
“So I’m going to do the TAG Heuer thing,” he said, his fingers entwining with mine.
“Really? That’s good.”
He shrugged. “Expanding my brand, right? Life outside of August Moon…”
“You’re not thinking of quitting the band?”
“No. I couldn’t… Not now… No. It’smyband. I can’t leave them. Contractually or otherwise…
“And all this.” He waved his free hand in the air, gesturing at our surroundings: massive hedges hiding estates, endless green. “All this stuff that kind of falls into your lap. All this is because of them.Us.I’m not ready to end us.
“When Ol and I first started writing music together, we never imagined this. We fancied ourselves a modern-day John and Paul. But really we were just a couple of posh toffs sitting around our parents’ country homes writing songs about love and loss and things we hadn’t actually experienced because we were thirteen.” He laughed then, trailing off.
I squeezed his hand but said nothing.
“How’s Isabelle doing?”
“Good. I told her.”
He stopped, his eyes wide. “No fucking way.”
“I told her you were a client, so… not exactly everything.”
“Not anything at all actually,” he laughed.
