His brows went up. “A song that made you cry, leave your house in the dead of night and walk to the elementary school playground?”
To this, I offered lamely, “It’s a good song.”
His eyes moved over my face as his lips whispered, “It’s a good song.”
I held my breath unsure what was happening but I was sure what was happening to my heartbeat. It was escalating. And my skin, it was tingling. And my blood, it was firing.
I stopped holding my breath and pulled in a needed one.
Then I straightened my shoulders and said quietly, “I’m home safe now, Chace. You can go.”
His eyes came back to mine and he didn’t go.
Instead, he asked, “What song was it?”
No way in heck I was sharing that.
“Dobie Gray’s, ‘Drift Away’.”
There it was again. Another fraking lie!
His eyes lit and his mouth twitched before he asked, “The song that moved you to tears and drove you into the cold night was a song about a man who gets through by listening to rock ‘n’ roll?”
I was realizing I really needed to pay more attention to lyrics when I answered with another lie, “Yes.” Then to add validity to something that was nowhere near valid, I added, “My favorite part is when he sings while people clap.”
And right then, in my apartment, I watched Chace Keaton throw back his handsome head and burst out laughing.
Seeing it, hearing the deep richness of it, my hands went behind me and curled into the iron of my foot stand so they could assist my legs in keeping me standing.
I was prepared to ask him to leave when he stopped laughing (not that I wanted him to stop laughing, ever) but he got there before me by tipping his eyes back to mine and ordering through his laughter, “Put it on.”
I blinked and my chest seized.
Therefore I had to force out my, “What?”
His eyes scanned my apartment, spied my stereo then came back to me.
He tilted his head to my stereo and repeated, “Put it on.”
“Put what on?” I asked stupidly.
“‘Drift Away’.”
Oh God!
“Um… I’m kind of tired,” I informed him.
“Faye, honey, you just ran through a very cold night chasing an abused, terrified kid. You’re not tired.”
There it was, him reading me again.
“Um…”
“But I bet that song will help you relax and unwind.”
He was right. It would. It was on my unwind playlist for that very purpose.
“Uh…”