Hot and Bothered (5 page)

He’d toned down the drinking and the partying after that, too, and quit driving under the influence, but no one had reported on that.

“Your students—every single one of them—said you were the best teacher they ever had.”

“They were just being nice.”

“I don’t think so.” She tilted her head. “I want you to start again.”

“What?”

“The lessons. Some of the kids want to work with you again. I told them—” She hesitated, but only for a beat. “I told them you’d be available to teach again for the next six months.”

Her words swirled in his head and his gut. His instant joy collided with all the messages saying
No, not you, it’ll never work, you’re a shitty role model
. He’d loved those kids, and he’d hated himself for not being the man who deserved to teach them. He never wanted to disappoint them like that again.

“No,” he said.

She crossed her arms, which was probably supposed to make her look stubborn and tough but mainly made it harder for him not to covet her breasts.

“You can mess with my hair and my clothes, and you can make me go to parties, but this is over the line. That’s not my image. That’s my life.”

A few of the musicians had gone back up front and were messing around, so he couldn’t hear what she said next, just watched her lush lips and thought about kissing off all her lipstick. “What?”

She leaned in. He guessed at some level he’d wanted her to. He could smell her perfume, assaulting his senses and traveling every synapse in his brain, right down his spinal cord.

“Not for your image. For
you.
Because you loved it.” Her lips were closer to his ear than they had to be, surely. If he could feel warm breath, if he could sense the movement of her mouth, if he could imagine her tongue curling into the crevices of his ear and her teeth nipping his lobe—she was too close.

“Let me make this happen.”

Her breath feathered against his skin, a sensation that wound its way through his whole body.

Neither of them said anything and she didn’t move. He breathed her, the soft scent of lust under all the perfume, the strongest and best.

She stepped away, taking her warmth and scent with her. Disappointment curled in him. He hadn’t really thought that she’d—that anything could happen between them—

He hadn’t thought it, but he’d wanted it.

“Okay,” he said. Somehow, it felt as if he was agreeing to more than music lessons.

She was straightening her clothes, stiffening her back, putting her whole Haven costume on again. “I’ll let you get to it. I didn’t mean to take up your whole break.”

“No—it was— I’m glad. And thanks.”

Don’t go.

He didn’t just mean physically. He wanted her close to him again, taking him in. She’d seen him. She’d said—

This is you, right?

Because you loved it.

“So, yeah—I’d better go. I’ll be in touch about the lessons. And regardless, Wednesday, my office, meeting with Pete.”

“Yeah,” he said.

She turned away slowly, as though she, too, felt the tension between them and was unwilling to let go.

An arm came around his shoulders from behind. “You want to get back up there?”

He watched her head to her seat, the tight sway of her in those jeans, the perfect compact hourglass of her figure. He could still feel the whisper of warm air across his cheek. An inch and she would have been kissing him.

“She your girlfriend?”

It was Devon, the house band’s leader. Mark turned and got blasted with beer breath and a way-too-up-close view of Devon’s scruffy beard. Well, that was a serious comedown.

“Nah,” Mark said.

“Too bad, huh?”

“Nah. Women like that—”

“More trouble than they’re worth?”

Mark nodded, thinking,
I can’t afford what she’s worth
.

5

S
HE
SET
UP
Mark’s first guitar lesson for Monday afternoon. It was absurdly easy. She emailed one of his former students, a high schooler who’d been playing guitar for a few years. She had to talk to his mom, too, since she was footing the bill. Haven had expected some pushback from the mother, maybe even some concern about whether Mark was a good influence on her son. Haven had prepared a speech about how Mark had turned his life around. But all the mother said was, “I’m only paying for these lessons if he practices.”

It was also surprisingly easy to convince Mark to let her attend the lessons, or at least the first one. “
I told Jimmy Jeffers I’d stick to you like glue from this point on,”
she’d said, and his response had simply been,
“I guess there are worse fates.”
After the night she’d spent watching him play, she wasn’t sure whether to take that as resignation or flirtation. She couldn’t point to anything that had crossed any line, and yet she had left the club in a state of agitation, her body fizzing, warm, needy. The soap scent of his skin had been bright in her sinuses, her mouth still dry from the charge that leapt between the two of them when she leaned in.

Mark had agreed to meet his student in the high school band room, and the two of them sat now on uncomfortable folding chairs, guitars in their laps. Haven had tried to stay quiet and watch, but her antsiness got the better of her, and she ended up pacing. To take her mind off Mark, she read the posters and brochures tacked up on the walls. But she couldn’t calm down or keep from half listening as Mark talked to his student.

Gavin Hecht looked a great deal like Mark had before the first stages of his makeover—long-haired, scruffy, badly dressed. He was also pimply and awkward and scrawny, but damn, for a kid he could play the guitar. And Mark was good with him. Low key, not demanding, man-to-man. Doing more listening than talking, but asking a lot of questions.

Haven pretended to thumb through a book about building a better color guard, but really she was hyperconscious of every move Mark made. He leaned back in his chair, watched Gavin patiently, both the kid’s fingers and his face, as if there was so much to learn from this guy that he couldn’t tear his eyes away. And yet, every so often his gaze fell on Haven like a touch—on her hair, on the hem of her skirt, on all the parts of her that were alert to him.

Which, for complicated reasons, made her think about her date on Saturday night—two nights after she’d watched Mark jam—with Jewelry Marketing Guy, whose name was Greg. It had been perfect, on paper. Greg had showed up in a thoroughly pressed blazer, taken her to an art opening, introduced her to people he knew and made smooth small talk with people
she
knew. He took her to dinner, held the door, removed her coat and turned it over to the hostess, pulled out her seat. He told her about his job and listened intently while she talked about hers. And there was something to be said for
not
feeling as though she had a whole Olympic luge team hurtling around in her stomach. She was way more relaxed with this guy than she’d been with Mark, and that seemed to bode well for compatibility. Compatibility, after all, was what she was after.

After a tasty death-by-chocolate dessert, he paid for the dinner without making too big a fuss about it, and he hailed them a cab and took her back to her apartment. In her mental tally, she gave him points for each of those accomplishments, and she decided that she should definitely let him kiss her.

The driver asked if he should wait, and Greg said no, he’d walk home. That was smooth, Haven thought. No cab idling at the curb, but no making it too obvious that he hoped for curbside—or upstairs—action. Another point in the plus column, and none—none!—in the minus column. This was the most promising date she’d had in eons. She couldn’t wait to tell Elisa.

The street had been quiet outside her building. “Thank you,” she said. “I had a lovely time.”

“Me, too,” Greg said.

He took a step closer to her and bent to kiss her. It took a long time for his face to get near hers. Was he moving at snail speed? His lips touched hers. Then he drew back and smiled at her.

Huh.

Well, it had been a very brief kiss. Not really long enough to
feel
anything.

For some reason, she thought of Mark’s face in the barbershop mirror. That intense gaze, as if he knew exactly what she was wearing under her clothes and, even worse, what she was thinking.

Greg had looked at her closely, as if gauging her reaction, and then lowered his face again.

Kissing
her. Like, serious. Not bad technique. Not wet or sloppy or too much tongue or anything negative she could think of. In fact, on paper, this should have been perfect.

It was just that it was
entirely on paper
. Not a molecule of arousal stirred in her.

Whereas on Friday night, watching Mark play guitar, just
talking
to him, it had
all
been stirring. Parts she didn’t even know she had, actually, little invisible hairs and supersensitive bits of skin.

Those same parts were stirring now—
Where is he? What is he doing?—
almost as though they were iron filings, straining toward him. If she let down her guard, would she be drawn right over there?

She let herself watch, because it was too hard not to. Mark was explaining something about picking technique, leaning over his gorgeous—almost tiger-striped—acoustic guitar and showing Gavin what he was doing. While Mark was talking, Gavin started strumming and messing around with fingerings, which would have driven Haven crazy—because obviously he wasn’t paying attention if he was playing. But Mark didn’t make him stop. In fact, Mark stopped playing and talking, and listened to Gavin, with his full, undivided attention.

“Let me show you something,” Mark said. He played the same lick, but with embellishments. It made Gavin’s rendition sound small and flat, as if Mark’s was full of something—emotion, Haven thought—that Gavin hadn’t quite managed to reach for.

Gavin played the phrase again. And wow. Not flat any more. The kid had played something almost soulful, and yet not an imitation of what Mark had played. This was very much Gavin’s. Mark had heard it in the kid’s playing and brought it out of him.

Hell, yeah, there would be more music lessons. And maybe she’d see what else she could set up along these lines. There were organizations, nonprofits and so forth, that helped get music into kids’ lives. She’d bet Mark would love that. It wouldn’t hurt his image, either.

Huh. That last bit had been an afterthought, not her main focus.
Eyes on the prize,
Haven,
she chided herself.

“Thanks, man,” Gavin said, and began packing up his guitar.

Even the way Mark shook hands with Gavin, earnestly, seriously, that same man-to-man vibe about it, was perfect.

“What about little kids?” she asked Mark, after Gavin had left and they were alone in the echoey band room. “You like working with them, too?”

She leaned against the piano, keeping her distance from him, as if that would help. As if that would stop the iron filings from aligning to him.

He nodded. “All ages. Any kid that’s serious about playing guitar or piano.”

“You play piano, too?”

He shrugged. “Enough to give good lessons. Hey, you want me to show you a couple things on the guitar?”

She shook her head. “I’m hopelessly unmusical.”

He wrinkled his nose at her, and the almost-smirk of it did something funny to her lower belly. “Nah. I saw you tapping your foot the other night.”

Oh, had he? He’d been watching, then, when she didn’t know he was. He’d been watching her the same way she’d been watching him.

That revelation showed up as warmth in her chest and heat between her legs and something that swirled on the surface of her skin. She had to get ahold of herself. No good could come of any of this, not the little hairs or the sensitive skin, not the iron filings, not the hyperawareness and not the way he was urging her into one of the uncomfortable chairs and settling the guitar in her lap, wrapping her hand around its neck with warm, strong fingers. Musician fingers. Not just warm and strong, but probably agile, too. Well, hell.

She was disappointed and grateful when he released her hand and let her do it herself.

“Thing is,” Mark said thoughtfully, “There’s native talent. And that’s helpful. But a lot of music is hard work. You can’t say you’re not musical if you’ve never put in any work. That’s what I mainly try to get across to the kids. I mean, I’m psyched if I teach them something new, and especially if I get them excited. Like I said, the best rush is getting to kids who don’t get excited about much. But the other thing is, I try to help them realize that sticking with it and working hard is more important than being some prodigy.”

She looked away from her fingers on the guitar’s neck and up at his face. His eyes were bright.

“I bet even when you weren’t the best role model, you did them more good than harm,” she said.

He shrugged. “Who knows? Anyway...” He unfurled one of her fingers and reconnected it with the string. “This is a C chord. First thing everyone learns.”

He guided her fingers, then showed her how to strum the chord with her other hand. “How’s your dad doing?” she asked, to distract herself from the way his touch had raised goosebumps along her arms.

“He’s improving,” Mark said. “I’ve been talking to him almost every day. I think he’s lonely.”

She caught his eye; his expression was wistful but also pleased. “I bet you cheer him up a lot,” she said. “I’m glad you guys have been talking. I know you said you wanted more connection to him.”

“I wish it hadn’t taken this to make it happen.”

“Me, too,” she said. “But the important thing is, it’s happening, right?”

He readjusted her index finger where it clutched the string to the fingerboard. It hurt, the way the string cut into her flesh, and without thinking, she reached for his hand and turned it over, stroking her thumb across his fingertips. “Calluses,” she observed.

He drew an uneven breath and she dropped his hand, aware suddenly that
she’d
crossed a line.

She stood up quickly and handed him the guitar. “I’d better get going.” She smoothed her skirt down and checked to make sure no pins were coming out of her hair. Despite the fact that everything was in order, she felt ruffled, as if the uneven thud of her heart were somehow visible.

“Set up more lessons,” she told him from the safe distance of the doorway. “Meanwhile, I’ll send you some info about nonprofits that have to do with music and kids. We could do some fund-raising work for them—I think that would go a
long
way toward getting your image back on track, and might be something you’d find fun, too.”

“Sounds good,” he said. He held his guitar by the neck and stared after her. She couldn’t read the look on his face.

Well, damn it, she shouldn’t be trying to interpret his mysterious looks, anyway.

“Tomorrow. Pete. My office,” she said.

And got the hell out of there.

* * *

“M
R
. S
OVEREIGN
’
S
HERE
to see you.”

Bennie, Haven’s receptionist, poked her head into Haven’s office.

“Thanks. Send him in.”

Haven had purposely asked Pete to come a few minutes before Mark so he wouldn’t feel ganged up on. She wanted a few minutes alone to make nice with him, too, and get him in a good frame of mind. She hoped she could soften him up for Mark’s apology.

Pete Sovereign was a good-looking guy. He still had the boy-band appeal—clean shaven with longish blond bangs falling in his face and bright green eyes that would have dazzled her if he’d been her type. She came briskly around the desk and put out her hand. “Haven Hoyt.”

“Pete Sovereign,” he drawled, the Southern accent ringing false, since she knew he was New England born and raised. He had a loping gait that she suspected was put on, too.

She took her hand back. He’d held onto it too long, almost as if he were thinking of leaning down and kissing it. And he was giving her a ton of eye contact, all kinds of dark, stormy and come-hither. Pete Sovereign had an image going on.

She could respect that. He’d figured out what worked for him and stuck with it. The result was a healthy solo musical career, and he was in no hurry to go on the tour because it would mean taking a break from his own work to do it. She was sure it would only be worth it to him if he was convinced they’d make a fortune, and if Mark flaked out on them—

Well, that would mean no fortune for Pete or any of them.

“Mark’s on his way.” She hoped he was, anyway. She’d called him last night to make sure he wouldn’t forget the meeting, and he’d been drunk enough that she could hear it in his voice. She’d told him to quit drinking, slug a quart of water and take two aspirin. She had her fingers crossed that he wasn’t passed out or too hungover to move.

“So, hey,” she said. “I know things haven’t been the easiest between you and Mark, but I want you to know I’m working with him, and we’re smoothing out the rough edges.”

“I’ve heard good things about you and your work,” Pete said. “Sounds like if anyone knows what to do with rough edges, it’s you.”

She tried not to let the flattery get under her skin, but she couldn’t help blushing.

“I hope Mark hasn’t totally poisoned you against me. I’m not
all
bad.”

“I always reserve the right to make my own judgments.”

“I admire that.”

An awkward moment settled on them, and she didn’t know what to say next. He didn’t fill the silence. Finally she said, “Anyway, I just wanted you to know, Mark and I both really appreciate your willingness to stop by today. Takes a big man to give a guy a second chance, let alone a third. I respect that.”

She watched his face carefully for signs she was troweling it on too thick, but he just nodded and got a faint smile on his face. “Well, I mean, no biggie. My pleasure.”