Stevie makes a dozen calls, her tone firm and professional, and I can’t fucking believe it, but I get a half chub again listening to her.
Her competence is just the sexiest fucking thing.
I curse some more and make calls too. I hate doing this—I’m still getting used to making messes. But I gotta practice putting myself first, and there’s no better time like the present.
I tentatively book several jets. I also google what the halfway point is between Nashville and Blue Mountain in case I can’t make it through a whole week without her, and I need to meet up for a quickie. Then I make a note to get the Bentley serviced.
Make another note to hire a personal assistant. Not one who works for Blue Mountain, but a person who works for me and only me.
“Would you be interested? In sharing one with me, I mean?” I ask Stevie.
She nods. “Hell yeah, I would. Jesus, I never thought I’d have a big enough life to hire a person whose whole job is to manage that life.”
“You mad at it?”
“Nope.” Her eyes flick to meet mine. “One of the perks of dating someone who’s famous.”
“And hot. You forgot the hot part.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
That crease between her brows stays put as she wrangles the next few months into submission. Or some semblance of it, anyway.
It comes out looking like this: first and foremost, we want to prevent any kind of burnout. So we schedule as much downtime as we can and time for ourselves when we’re not traveling or working.
It feels official and . . . lame, if I’m being honest. Scheduling “alone time.” But most of adulting is lame, so I might as well accept it and move the fuck on.
I’ll be in Nashville next week, pending a few meeting changes. Stevie will be here the following weekend and the week after that. Then I block off a nice two-week chunk for me to go back and forth as my schedule permits.
By noon, my calendar looks like a legit bloodbath. Lots of red and lots of question marks.
“Yikes,” I say.
Stevie shuts her laptop and sighs. “I know. But the beginning will be the hardest—”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Sorry, sorry,” she says, laughing. “The beginning will be the most difficult. But let’s think of it as our version of ‘they split their time between Lake Como and, I don’t know, the Lower East Side.’”
“Except ours is the ’ville version. Asheville and Nashville.”
“Exactly.”
“You okay with this?” I bend my elbows and put my hands on my knees. “Really? I want to make sure you’re happy.”
“After the hell that was this past week without you?” Her lower lip dips inside her mouth, followed by a flash of her tongue. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m happy. Stressed. But happy. Relieved. You?”
I stand up and lean over the table to kiss her. “You’re here. We’re making plans for a future together. What do you think?”
She smiles into my kiss.
“I know what you mean by roots and wings,” I say, my lips still on hers. “This feeling I have—it’s like flying. But I’m also building foundations with you. I’m grounded, but—”
“Light?”
“Yes.” I smile.
I commit the moment to memory. It’ll give me something to hang on to when shit really hits the fan after we tell my family our dirty little secret.
What if they reject Stevie? What if they never believe another word I say? To be fair, my family’s done their fair share of lying too. We’re all sinners in our own way. Beau didn’t tell Annabel about his CTE until it was almost too late; Samuel and Emma lied about the feelings they had for each other. Milly’s withholding information about Kingsley, and Rhett is . . . well, Rhett, and he sure as hell isn’t being a straight shooter about what’s going on in his life.
But my lies—there’s more of them. And they feel somehow more intentional than my siblings’. A fake relationship isn’t a lie of omission. It’s a fucking scheme. It was strategized—premeditated—in a way theirs weren’t.
I don’t think Samuel and Emma will reschedule the wedding, but . . . yeah, this is definitely going to leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.
A bad taste that might linger for a while. I hate the idea of my family never really accepting Stevie or accepting us together. My sister can hold a grudge like nobody’s business, especially when she’s as ornery as she’s been lately. I want everyone to be happy for us the way we’re all happy for Bel and Beau, and Samuel and Emma. It’s what Stevie deserves.
But is it what I deserve? After all the dumbass lies I’ve told?
I hope I haven’t fucked this up beyond repair.
Chapter Thirty-One
Stevie
Hank has Mondays off, but with the sudden change in our schedules, he goes to his office at the Main House around lunch to try to nail down all his proposed new meeting and call times.