“It’s hard to tell a lot of the time,” I told him honestly. “It seems like you can’t make up your mind about me.”
“No, I know how I feel,” he admitted. “It’s just difficult.”
“Why?”
“Because I made a mistake.”
He wasn’t making any sense. “A mistake how?”
He shook his head. “It’s not for you to fix, fixer,” he said with a grin. “It’s for me to untangle myself. You can’t help me this time.”
“But I’d like to.”
“I know. You always want to help.”
“Is that what you really think?”
He nodded.
“Well, that’s nice to hear,” I mumbled. “But you wanted to come to this—is it a party?”
He shrugged. “It’s a small get-together.”
My eyebrows rose. “This is small?”
He grinned, and the garden torches caught the gold in his eyes. For a moment, they glowed as he stared at me.
I had the sudden and unfathomable urge to insist that we go home, now, immediately, so we could build on this bridge and see if it could remain. There was a concern with that, though, because us, sitting together as people, not as fixer and client, could become problematic. The smart thing to do was have a truce and no more, because as tempting as this fragile peace was, it was dangerous territory, me wanting to be closer, the distance being so much safer.
“You wanted to come,” I grumbled at him, “so go talk to your damn friends. Why’re you wasting your time checking on the help?”
He looked startled. “You’re the help?”
“Aren’t I?”
His eyes narrowed, studying me. “You’ve been helping me, yes, but I don’t think that defines your role.”
I was picking at him for no reason. I hated his default petulance and petty anger more than anything, so why I was trying to instigate a fight, I had no earthly idea. Except that by now, it was normal, the sniping we did at each other, and it kept us apart, which really was the only way true change happened. As a fixer I was there to promote change, enable it, but not be the focus. He wasn’t supposed to pin his recovery, sobriety, and new lease on life, on me. That was where things always got murky. It had happened to me before; you fixed someone’s life, and they got attached. I always made sure that by the time I left, whatever in their life needed fixing had, in fact, been fixed, but I also made certain that they hated me and wanted me gone. Already, I could tell that I didn’t want Nick Madison to hate me. Normally, I didn’t care. This time, for whatever reason, I did.
“God, your eyes are so dark,” he mused hoarsely, which brought me back from my wandering thoughts to him. “Are they actually black?”
“Yes, they’re black,” I told him. “Better to give you the death glare with.”
He laughed, and the sound, again, was so good. It soothed me, slid over me like a warm blanket on a cold night. “You do so love glaring at me,” he commented with a sigh before he turned and rose, walking the twenty feet or so over to the guy who had just finished an acoustic version of “Layla.”
“Can I borrow that?”
“No, man, I—oh—holy shit,” Tanner gasped, and the small group of people all got out their phones at the same time. “Nick Madison?”
I had no idea why he said it like that, because most of the people at the party were famous. More were than were not. I had to wonder why he wanted to bring attention to Nick on purpose.
Nick gave them the smile that was splashed everywhere. He was huge, after all; he’d played Wembley Stadium on his twenty-first birthday, sold it out, and then did it again the second night. Sometimes I forgot that he wasn’t just Nick who needed help, but was a superstar too. He was a household name, whether you loved him or hated him. “How about I take pics with everybody after, but for now, can I just play?”
Lots of smiling and nodding, and some even put down their phones as he turned, walking back over to me, strumming the guitar. “Let me guess what’s in your mother’s collection.”
I shook my head.
He lifted his eyebrows playfully. “Loggins and Messina?”
“Of course,” I said, chuckling.
“James Taylor?”
“Naturally.”
“Well, let’s see,” he mused, strumming some more, thinking, as I heard chords I knew because my mother had been playing the same songs my whole life.
“Play something of yours,” I said, and everyone clapped.
He made a noise like he was thinking and then shook his head. “For Mom,” he said before he started the opening chords of “Something in the Way She Moves.” I’d somehow forgotten that the original James Taylor version had always been my favorite.
God, it was beautiful. There was an ache in his voice and a softness and a depth that I felt inside, holding my heart. When he did “Carolina in My Mind,” I got a lump in my throat and had to glance away from him.