Page 39 of Beneath a Tennessee Sky

Chapter Thirteen

Jinnie

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I WAKE UP DISORIENTATED at first, but then I feel Jack’s bare chest beneath my cheek. I hear his steady breathing and smile. Two weeks ago, I had convinced myself I would never get the chance to do this with him again. And then he called one day when I least expected it. At first, I wasn’t sure it was real. But then he sent me the airline confirmation.

He’s changed. I can see and feel the changes in him, but I also sense the Jack I fell in love with is still in there. I trace my fingertip over his chest. I knew his body so well. Even with the months apart, it was like no time had passed at all. The penthouse is quiet.

Last night feels like a dream.

Jack stirs under my touch with a sleepy groan escaping his lips. His eyelashes flutter open, and when he sees me watching, his mouth curves into that lopsided grin that still makes my stomach do a silly flip-flop.

“Mornin’, sunshine,” he rasps, voice thick with sleep.

I press a kiss to his collarbone. “You snored.”

“Liar.” He catches me around the waist, flipping us until I’m pinned beneath him. “I make manly sleeping sounds.”

I laugh, shoving at his chest. “You sound like a chainsaw choking on a kazoo.”

His lips find the sensitive spot below my ear, the one that makes my toes curl. “Take it back.”

“Never.”

We’re late getting out of bed.

“I have to get going,” he says. “We have to.”

“Maybe I should just stay here,” I say. “I don’t want to intrude on your world.”

“You’re not intruding. I told Liz I’d be there at nine. She gets pissed when I’m late.”

An hour later, Jack laces his fingers through mine, tugging me down a hallway with several doors. Red lights were above a few.

“You sure they’re cool with me being here?” I ask.

He squeezes my hand. “Dex owes me for the last three all-nighters. Trust me, these sessions are like a party. People hang out in the studio all the time.”

That gives me pause. “People?”

He shrugs. “Executives. Writers. Other producers. Sometimes I’ll have another guitar player in there with me.”

I’m relieved it isn’t groupies. I’ve been imagining him surrounded by half-naked women all this time. To know he’s just hanging out with a bunch of guys playing music and singing is a relief.

“I’ll get your usual,” a woman says.

I turn to glance over my shoulder and my earlier relief is gone. A young woman wearing a very short skirt, thigh-high boots, and a black sweater is watching us.

“Thanks, Cora,” Jack says. “Can you bring in a Diet Coke as well?”

The woman looks at me. “Sure.”

“This is us,” Jack says.

He opens the door and I’m not sure what I expected, but the studio looks more like a living room. A man is sitting at a massive board of what looks like a thousand buttons and controls.

“Dex, this is Jinnie. Jinnie, this is the pain in my ass who makes my songs sound good.”