He stared at my hand then spread his arms. “I’m kind of a hugger, if you’re cool with it.”
I smiled and accepted the hug, marveling at how weird life was. This was how I’d dreamed it would go for all those months I’d been obsessed with young Miles Crowe, and the reality was that had it happened back then, I might have exploded into bits, overcome with excitement.
But now, stepping into his arms was...
Nice.
No, not nice. Nice was a hug from a friend or a cousin.
This was not that.
His body heat spread to me through the thin cotton of his shirt, and the steady thump of his heart beat beneath my ear.
He tightened his arms, and his heartbeat sped up. Could he feel mine doing the same thing? I kept my head tucked against his chest. What would happen if I tilted my chin up?
He would kiss me.
I would kiss him back.
But he was my client, and I hadn’t crossed that line with a client, ever.
Then again, none of them had ever looked as sexy as Miles did when he laughed and his eyes crinkled. And I had never been pressed against any of them this way with a river breeze stirring the fine hairs at my neck and sending a shiver down my back.
We’d been standing this way too long, and the fact that I wanted to stay there set off a quiet alarm in some muffled part of my brain.
I stepped away, and it felt like trying to escape a gravitational pull, every part of me straining to be held against him again. But I hadn’t worked this hard to put my past behind me only to drag it into my present now. “Truce in effect.”
“So...what do we do now?” he asked.
I looked over my shoulder, back toward my beloved Bywater. “Now that I don’t have to worry about blowing my secret identity, we go find you a home for the Turnaround.”
Chapter Ten
We walked back up Plessy and cut over to Montegut to look at a property, then on to Clouet to look at another. I kept two feet between us at all times as we meandered down sidewalks or along the street whenever sidewalks disappeared. I needed the space. I couldn’t escape the nagging feeling that after diving deep into his music and getting to know this grownup version of Miles, there was a buried part of me that would betray me by falling for him all over again.
I wouldn’t. But I would make sure my wounded inner fangirl behaved herself too. This was a redemption story for both of us, Miles and Elle as we were now, not for the screwups we’d both been.
Back on Dauphine, Miles glanced up the street. “Want to grab some lunch? I’d love to eat something at Miss Mary’s that won’t try to kill me.”
I shook my head. “Thanks, but I think my shame spiral has hijacked enough of my day. I need to get dressed and tackle some client stuff.”
“Isn’t that what you’re doing now? We can call it a business lunch.”
I smiled. “You’re right. I guess this has been half work, but I really need to get into the office.”
“It doesn’t feel like work to me either. Which is weird. Normally, music is the only thing that doesn’t feel like work to me.”
My insides swooped a little, and I didn’t like that. I didn’t need Miles Crowe comparing time with me to making music.
“Thanks for the walk,” I said, picking up my pace slightly to get home so I could change. “I’ll look at those property specs again for the three Bywater leases. Why don’t you tell me more about the vibe you want in the Turnaround, and I’ll make a recommendation?”
He kept up with me but still managed to look like he was on a Sunday afternoon stroll, his energy mellow, his expression thoughtful. “I want it to feel like it’s been there forever. Like it grew up inside a building, like it was always meant to be there. Exposed brick walls. Wooden tables and chairs. Leather booth seats. Dark, warm colors. Brass trim on the fixtures. The kind of place where everything is well-made but not so fancy that you can’t relax and enjoy yourself.
“I want it to feel like the bar you always go to when you want to be with your friends but you don’t want to make a big production out of things. I want the whole thing to