“You’re not an outsider. Not to me. I don’t want you to think of yourself like that.”
She reached for him them, couldn’t help herself. She squeezed his forearm gently. “I know. But there is a difference between wanting me there and needing me there. What you need is to figure out how you all move forward and coexist as a band, as a family. Go. I’ll be here.”
“I feel like I’m leaving you out of something that you helped create.”
It was impossible to miss the undertone of fear lacing his words. “All I did was give you the process. You did the creating.”
“Pretty sure it’s not as simple as that.”
“You want to come over and have dinner with me tonight?”
Jase grinned. “Are you inviting me over to your place?”
“I might be. You could, you know, stay, maybe?”
“Are you inviting me to . . . ah, fuck me.” Jase slapped his hand to his forehead. “I just told Matt I’d go out with him and the band to talk through these songs.”
After a flash of disappointment, she smiled. “I think that’s the best possible outcome, isn’t it? For you all to get to hang out together.”
Jase stepped into her space a little more, his lips close to her ear. “The best possible outcome is me sliding my tongue between both sets of your lips in any fucking order I feel like.” He stepped back. “But, yeah, if you exclude that, it’s the best possible outcome.”
The intensity in his words, the way his breath had whispered against her ear made her shiver. “Jase,” she whispered, looking up the hall to check no one could possibly overhear before looking straight at him.
“Don’t look at me like that or I’ll be shoving you backwards into that office of yours and—”
“Jase, we’re in the studio. Are you coming?” Matt yelled down the hall.
“Not tonight,” he muttered quietly and then grinned. “Be right there.”
“Urgh. Now I’m all flustered.”
“Is that your way of admitting I just turned you on without touching you?”
“Go away,” she said, trying to bite back a grin.
He leaned back towards her. “Admit I made your knickers wet and I’ll go.”
“Fine, yes, you probably did. And seeing you aren’t coming over tonight, I’ll just have to sort myself out.”
Jase reached down and adjusted himself in his jeans. “Fucking unfair to plant that image in my head right before I go talk to my family.”
“I think you brought that upon yourself. The invitation to my place is open. Not a tonight-only deal. There’ll be a time and place for us. But this is the time and place for the band. And good news: Jimmy was up all night. He already decided that today would be a practice day for the songs on the rest of the album. You’re basically free to go.”
“Have I told you I’m going to fall in love with you? All the way in love with you.”
Her heart exploded in her chest. “You might have mentioned it.”
“Have you had any thoughts on whether you might do the same?”
“Jase, come on,” Matt yelled again. “Flirt with Cerys later.”
Jase looked down the corridor. “Gimme a minute.” He focused his gaze back on her. “I need an answer, Cerys.”
“Yes, Jason Palmer, I think I’m going to fall in love with you too.”
Jase grinned and walked down the corridor with his fist in the air like Judd Nelson at the end of The Breakfast Club. She couldn’t help but laugh.
She’d come to America hoping to progress her career. But if all that came of it was finding the man whose broad shoulders and tight butt she currently watched walk down the hallway, it would be enough.
Thirty minutes later, as she sat at her laptop updating her notes on Young Punk’s session, Jase walked into her office, shut the door, then put his hands down on her desk either side of her.
“I like your hair up like this . . . better access.” He pressed his lips to the side of her neck, gently at first, but growing bolder, licking her skin, nipping her ear.
Shivers rippled through her as she tilted her head to the right so he could reach even more of her. No part of her neck was left untouched. Every part of her lit up for him.
“Fuck.” He snatched his hands from the desk and stood up.
As she turned, a huge grin on her face, he adjusted himself through his jeans. “I liked that.”
“Me too. I gotta go, but I’ll message you, okay?”
“Okay.”
She lifted her chin towards him, and he rewarded her with a lingering kiss.
“Don’t work too hard.”
“Enjoy your afternoon.”
She watched Ben slap him on the shoulder as they left the studio.
A few moments later, her father yawned as he stepped into her office. “Did Sad Fridays just leave?” His tone was incredulous.
“Yeah. They had an epiphany of sorts and have gone somewhere else to talk about it.”
“Talk about it? They need to get on and rehearse the goddamn album.” The lines on her father’s forehead almost made her smile. While she fully respected the band’s act of rebellion, she understood—as someone who wanted to be a successful music producer—that it was a shit thing to do to bail on a booked resource.
But as the woman falling in love with Jase Palmer, she knew what Jase did was the best thing for him, his brother, and his band.
“I think this might be one of those things that puts them back half a day today but speeds them up from tomorrow.”
“We didn’t get to talk,” Jimmy said.
“We can talk tomorrow when you’ve had some rest. I booked you a car for the ride home. Figured it wasn’t safe to drive after such a long and exhausting day.”
“You booked me a car?” Her father looked at her as if she had grown two heads.
“Yeah. Should I have not done that? I decided it was okay, seeing we book cars for some of the clients if they need it.”
He rubbed his hand over his eyes. “Not used to having someone look out for me. It’s . . . unusual.”
“Unusual as in I’m a grown man so back off? Or unusual as in I might get used to the idea of someone caring I get home safe?”
Jimmy thought for a second. “The latter. Listen, tomorrow. Do you want to come in early? Go through the Sad Fridays recordings and see where we’re at at the halfway point with them?”
“I’d love that.”
“I’ll bring breakfast.”
“That’d be nice, Dad.” She said the word without thinking.
Perhaps he was too tired to notice, but Jimmy didn’t acknowledge the slip. Instead, he tipped his chin. “Thanks for booking me the car,” he said.
And despite being the only person left in the studio, she didn’t feel remotely alone.
“Stop looking at me like I came to steal your souls or some shit,” Jase said as he placed their beers on the table of the empty bar.
Ben reached for his pint. “That actually might be less shocking than that song. You storm out of there on Friday, leaving us thinking you were being a complete and utter douchebag, like always. And this”—he gestured up and down at Jase—“You. The person who came back. I don’t know. It’s a head fuck. In a good way.”