Offering a smile, I pretend to act as natural as possible.
“Hey, what are y’all talking about?” I say, bubbly.
“Oh,” Zach shrugs. “Just about how one good person can change the world.”
Zach grabs hold of my left hand, and Andrew my right. They pull me to my feet on the count of three, and then pull me into the air.
I let out a yelp as the two big men hoist me off my feet and then catch me.
My heart hammers rapidly as I lie in both of their arms.
“So, Harm,” Zach says. “You ready for your boudoir shoot tomorrow?”
“That’s tomorrow?!”
Andrew nods. “I took the day off.”
“We’ll start outside, get some professional shots of you with your guitar in the city, and then head in.”
I feel like a pool of Jell-O in their arms. “Head in for . . . some sexy shots or something?”
Zach nods. “Exactly. Since you’re the sexiest guitarist of all time.”
“I don’t get it. What are we going to do with those shots?”
I feel Zach’s forearm flex under my thigh. He shoots Andrew a look, and they put me down onto solid ground.
“Some of the shots will just be for my personal collection, if you know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure,” I say in a pouty voice. “Maybe you’ll have to show me what you mean tonight?”
“I mean, I guess I can have you do some poses tonight.” Zach brushes my hair behind my ear. “You sexy fucking thing, you. We’ll do a lot more than practice poses, though.”
“We still need to address the elephant in the room,” I say. “You know, how I moved out? I guess I, uh, got a little nervous.”
“Nervous about what?”
“We’ve been moving so fast, Zach,” I say. “And as much as I’ve loved spending time with you, I don’t know why you felt the need to be all secretive about going to the West Coast. Especially if you were just seeing your mom. You could have talked to me. I could have helped you process things. That’s what people do…what couples do.”
“Sorry,” he swallows. “It’s just hard for me to realize that I’m not alone in this big world any longer. I’ve been relying on myself for so long, and this was something that I had to do. I wanted to process things on my own at first. I get the reasons that you’re moving out, and even though I don’t like it, I understand. We have been moving fast. But I wish you would have talked to me first.”
“Well, this is me talking to you now.” My hair stands on end and I smile. “So…can I crash at your place tonight?”
Chapter 30
Harmony
I’d totally forgotten that I had agreed to do a boudoir shoot. The idea had started out one drunken night weeks ago. Give me a guitar and get me short shorts, boots, and a cowboy hat, and then spend a day taking pictures around the city for my music Instagram page—which I haven’t yet started using, but badly need to if I’m going to make it in this business.
The goal is to toe the line between sexy and musical, because music taps into the same part of the brain that sex does.
Faith Hill is my favorite example of a female musician who does this. I went to see her when I was young. The way she alternates between tempting the audience with sex appeal, and being a strong woman with an incredible voice who plays the crowd like a fiddle, has been what I’ve wanted to do ever since. I never knew music, power, and feminine strength could be combined so flawlessly. And I certainly never felt like I could be someone who did something as difficult as that on a stage.
In the morning, I put on my short denim shorts with frayed edges, a cowboy hat, and a tank top. Standing in front of the mirror, I practice different poses.
I try to look tough.
I growl at the mirror, imitating Zach’s one-hundred-percent angry face. It’s the face he made when he charged Roddy at the show that night.
I can’t hold it up, though, and a few seconds later my “tough” face becomes a smiling face.
Rolling my eyes at myself, I sigh and let out a laugh.
In my younger years, I would always practice my “mean” face by imitating my stepmom. Mean and tough are in the same ballpark, but they’re also pretty different.
Being mean for no reason isn’t a character trait you should seek out. Tough is, though.
Pulling out my phone, I look at a selfie I took a year ago when I was living in Blackwell and wrapping up my senior year of college here, since I’d left Vanderbilt.
I tried to look mean and tough, but instead I just looked . . . sad.
My cheeks are redder now. Fuller. I look more confident.
I take a picture in the mirror and compare the side by side of me now and me one year ago.
Damn. I look hot now, if I do say so myself.
Maybe it’s being away from my family. Maybe it’s the beautiful city of Nashville.
Or maybe it’s the afterglow from the makeup sex Zach and I had last night.
Who knows.
My phone buzzes on the bathroom counter with a text from Zach. He’s here.
It’s go time.
It’s so hot, I have a nice sheen of sweat on me while we head to all the different spots across the city.
We shoot at the pedestrian bridge and a few street-art murals, and then we end up at the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Andrew has me strike different poses, and Zach stands to the side for much of it as the prop man, handing me my guitar or shining the light reflector onto me to get the best shot.
A few hours and many fancy poses later, I’m surprisingly worn out.
After we finish shooting in front of the Country Music Hall of Fame, I clear my throat. “So when does the actual boudoir portion of this photoshoot get going?”
I bite my lip as I say the words, feeling my stomach clench.
Zach smirks at me, poking his tongue into his cheek. “I’ve been looking forward to this part of the shoot all afternoon.”
Andrew leans back, examining the shots in his camera. “We’ve got a few hundred photos of you all over Nashville. I think that will suffice.”
“Let’s head to the boudoir location,” Zach says.
I scrunch up my face. “I thought we were just going to go back to Andrew’s place.”
“Well, we can. How about this? We can either go back to Andrew’s, or we can do the shoot in a new secret location.”
“Well, when you say it like that, of course I’m going to choose the secret location.”
“Hell yeah, you are, because you’re amazing like that.”
I jump on the back of Zach’s bike, and Andrew gets into the car with his equipment.
Five minutes later, we pull up to a corner property.
It’s an old bar that has clearly been out of business for a while.
Running up to the window like a little kid, I look inside.
The place has a bar and barstools, as well as booths and tables. Zach opens the door so we can go inside.
The place is very clean—with no layer of dust like I expected after seeing the outside.
“I just closed on it this week. Officially, I have to wait for the building inspection and some other red tape. But this is it, Harm.”