He looked startled.
I clapped him on the shoulder. “What’s the matter? Too horrible for words?”
“No, that’s not—it just hit me that yeah, you’re gonna leave.”
“Once you get going on the album and your life is in alignment, yeah, I need to get outta the way so you can make with the living.”
His gaze held mine.
“Isn’t that what you want?”
“You’re missing the point,” he informed me. “Haven’t I been living since I woke up on that first Saturday in June to find you in my kitchen?”
“What’re you talking about?”
“I think an argument can be made that I’m living now.”
“You wanna talk semantics?”
“No,” he said, and there was a trace of a smile there. “My point is that you don’t need to leave for me to get on with my life. Those two actions are not mutually exclusive.”
I scowled at him. “Of course they are. I’m the fixer, and you’ll be fixed up by the time I walk out the door.”
“And why do you have to go?”
“Well, for starters, because you don’t want me there when––”
“When what?”
“When you start to date again,” I snapped at him. “You’re going to want your privacy, and not have me there breathing down––”
“You’re wrong,” he said, and really, those eyes of his were quite something, burnished golden brown. I was drawn in and held there. “I need you.”
“Not forever,” I replied gruffly, looking down at the salsa. “You’re young, Nicky. You need to spend a ton of time dating and getting to know people, and along with all the other amazing changes in your life, finding the right person will be great too.”
“I so enjoy having you to do all my thinking for me.”
I chuckled, lifting my eyes to his face. “You see, that’s what I’m talking about. I’m a buzzkill, and you know that’s true.”
“No,” he replied softly, hoarsely. “I thought you were. I thought a lot of things about you, and then, I don’t know when it was, but I was standing on the patio one night and I realized I could hear the crickets.”
I grinned at him, knowing where he was going, because it only made sense.
“I’d never been outside and been able to hear them before, not at the new house, and definitely not at the old one.”
“And that was a good thing?”
“Yes,” he said with a sigh, his eyes warm and soft as he stared at me. “And when I looked around, everything was where it was supposed to be, and not sterile, you know, not perfect, but clean, and everything has a place, and it feels like home.”
I nodded, because it did. “When you start having more people over and having people stay, then––”
“No. It’s like a retreat now,” he informed me, “and it needs to stay like that, gentle and easy, like a sanctuary, not a frat house.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I assured him. “I think you need a place to decompress once you’re out in the world again on a regular basis.”
He nodded.
“Because you need to do that too, to travel and go on tour and do all the things you’re supposed to, and be young and wild and crazy but not get lost in the undertow again.”
“So partying after a show, but maybe ending the night with chamomile tea and going to bed instead of getting blackout drunk and snorting a few lines when the sun comes up.”
“Oh look, he can be taught.”
He laughed, and his smile was wide. “I can’t do that, you know? I’m an addict, and I’ll always be an addict. But I think from now on, my highs have to come from other places.”
I tried not to grimace.
“What? What’s with the face?”
“Now I’m worried that you’re gonna turn into an adrenaline junkie or something.”
He scoffed. “No, but don’t you think I’ll need someone to watch over me?”
I nodded. “That’s why I need to hire you a real assistant. Someone who knows you’re their priority, unlike Brent.”
“I don’t want an assistant to travel with me,” he murmured. “I want something else.”
I shook my head. “You don’t want whoever you’re in a relationship with traveling with you. Then you can’t be yourself when you’re out on the road.”
“You’re wrong,” he said flatly. “It’s actually the other way around. I’ll be more myself, and I’ll want to show off, being the best person I can be every single day.”
“That’s not how that works,” I explained to him. “Everyone needs time away.”
He suddenly crossed his arms. “And you know this because of all your vast experience being in relationships.”
“Shuddup,” I ordered him. “You’re too young to be fighting with me about this.”
“That didn’t sound patronizing at all,” he assured me, getting up and leaving me alone at the table. “And baby, you’re so wrong.”
It took a second.
“The hell did you just say?” I snapped at him, turning around in my seat.