His brow lifted. “I wasn’t talking about sex. Although it must be on that dirty little mind of yours.”
I prayed he couldn’t see the flush creeping up my neck. “I’m saving all of my dirty thoughts for my future husband.”
“Sure.” His smirk was pure arrogance. “That doesn’t sound like a lie at all.”
16
Max
With an arrogant smile, Fiona slid off her desk and walked past me to her wall of notes and calendars.
“It’s true, Devlin,” she said over her shoulder. “My dirty thoughts are many, and yet none of them involve you.”
I leaned back in my chair. “Oh yeah? And who do they involve?”
“Brett.”
I burst out laughing again. Even as my fingers clenched the chair like I was trying to rip it in two. Jealous. Over Brett. Who wasn’t even a real fucking guy.
The problem was she looked, to paraphrase Mateo, drop-dead fucking gorgeous. When I’d first seen her in here, dancing to The Clash in pearls and a goddamn pencil skirt, a storm of desire had swept over me. Made me dizzy but in a good way. And my damn palms were sweating again.
The evidence of her ambition and talent literally hung on the wall behind her as we sat in a law firm that the internet had told me had one of the most competitive hiring processes in the state. Of course, Fiona Quinn had nimbly stepped over her competition while wearing pearls and that mischievous smile. The power of her position here, the power of her standing over me, was goddamn intoxicating.
What I wouldn’t give to serve her many demands, give her as many orgasms as she had meetings until she was blissed out and stress free.
“Anyway, back to planning this concert,” she said. “We need to set up the website and have that go live immediately so we can start selling tickets. And I’ll talk with my brother-in-law and ask him to sponsor the show to fill the gap.”
“Mateo said he’d whip up the design tonight so we can get it printed tomorrow,” I added.
She scribbled something down. “We have a printer in-house. Let me handle that once he’s done. Are you going to paper the street with them, like when we were teenagers?”
“Hell yeah.” I kicked back in the chair. “You remember that?”
She tucked her golden hair back behind her ear. “I remember walking down that street with Roxy and seeing the concert posters papered across the buildings and up and down the telephone poles. A solid block of color, that excitement before seeing a live show. That buzz, you know?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t get to see music in the same way on the road. Or maybe…” I paused, chewed on my lip. “Maybe it’s different. Seeing a live show with strangers instead of with friends. Like when you want to talk about it after —”
“And there’s no one around who gets it.”
I pointed at her. “Maybe that’s it. I miss sharing that high. It’s hard to describe.”
She watched me closely, and then set her notes and pen down. Perched back up on her desk and crossed one leg over the other, all grace and delicacy. “Is it hard, moving around so much? Never settling down?”
“It’s a grand adventure,” I said. “It’s never seeing the same thing twice, eyes wide open to take in this big, beautiful country. It’s no routine, constant change, learning the rhythm of each town or city and being constantly surprised. I think settling down sounds boring.”
She studied me for a few seconds, looking so pretty it hurt. “I guess it depends on who you settle down with. I see starting a life with someone, settling down with them, as romantic. You build this life with them that’s all yours, a life that will last. Plus, I’m like your dad. I don’t think I’ll ever leave this city. I love it too damn much, love being close to my family too damn much.”
“Have you ever left though?”
“What, New York?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Have you ever been anyplace else?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I spent a couple of summers on tour buses with my parents when I was in middle and high school. Roxy and I were baby roadies.”
I shook my head. “I love your parents.”
“They’re something else.” She smiled. “We complained a ton in the beginning, but by the end, I remember loving the spirit of it. The total… I don’t know…”
“Freedom?” I offered.
She fiddled with her diamond earring. “You’re right. There was a sense of adventure, which I did end up appreciating after I got over my anxiety of having things be out of control. I liked meeting The Hand Grenades’ fans, seeing all of these mini-families spring up that weren’t biological but found. Brought together through music and shared experiences. I always enjoyed that at The Red Room.”
“It is a family,” I admitted. “Pop’s extended family.”
“I saw that on the road with them. And it was one of the more thrilling summer vacations of my life. But even though the experience was pretty epic, I wanted to be home again. My home. Does that make sense?”
It did, and it didn’t for me. Because even though the past few days had been filled with confusing emotions that pushed and prodded at my thoughts, my own mother swore by this lifestyle. I missed her, so much, and I felt close with her this way, even if we weren’t talking all the time.
“It makes sense for you,” I said. “You could get back to your calendars and your fancy pens.”
She laughed a little. “True. The absolute lawlessness by which my parents lived that summer was hard for me but fun for them and Roxy. But more than anything, I missed my roots.”
Roots. There it was again. Roots just hold you back was something she told me often, that the life Pop led—the life Fiona wanted—was a recipe for a boring-ass life.
“What’s your mom like?”
My eyebrows raised automatically. “Goin’ deep there, Fiona?”
“I think friends talk about all kinds of things,” she said. “But I’m only asking. You don’t need to answer.”
I raised one shoulder. “I’m teasing. I’m just not used to talking about her. Mateo and Rafael knew her off and on after the divorce, the few times she came home briefly to see me. They don’t really like her. Not a lot of people do. Which I get. To know my dad is to be his number one fan.”
“It’s hard for me to picture him as heartbroken,” she said softly.
I leaned my elbows on my knees, hands forming a fist. “It was pretty brutal. He always took care of me, I was always loved, but I could tell he was different. Like he retreated into himself. Head down, working all the time, not a lot of joy.”
“And how did your mom handle it?” she asked.
“She was happy,” I said. “She was finally living the life she was meant to. She has a motorcycle, she rides with a few clubs when she’s in a city for long enough, but she’s a loner too. Charming as hell. Funny. People like her.”
I resisted the urge to ask Fiona if I had a Max Devlin thing. Like what Mateo had said, how I charmed my way into situations and out of them and didn’t always face consequences. It was the kind of thing that kept rattling around in my brain. Sometimes, when I thought about it, I thought about my mom too.