Exposed (VIP 4)

Again, though it’s beautiful, I don’t know why this excites Rye. It isn’t anything we haven’t seen before.

Turning back into the house, I make my way past the living room. Each room is designed for comfort, with slouchy, deep couches and chairs, and inspiration in the form of art on the walls and objects of interest that I recognize from our various trips around the world. Rye is a collector. On our off days, he heads to the markets or small shops in whatever city we’re visiting.

My fingers trail over a teak Danish-modern sideboard, drift past a Georgian marble bust of a young girl with one of Rye’s baseball caps resting jauntily on her head. And then I find it. Peppered around the lower wings of the L-shaped house are recording studios. Beautifully fitted and comfortable studios.

Knowing my boys as well as I do, this place would be a dream to record in. There’s an upstairs and downstairs gourmet kitchen and several expansive bedroom suites. All the amenities of home, coupled with state-of-the-art facilities. One could entertain or hang out while not recording, swim in the pool, exercise in the gym, or sweat it out in the sauna.

Every room, every view is soothing and serene. Inspiring.

Smiling, I reach for my phone and dial.

Rye answers on the second ring. “You get in okay?”

“Just now, yes.” I sit in a gray, velvet club chair. “I’m in your house. Or should I call it a recording studio?”

“Both, I guess. What do you think?”

“It’s beautiful. I wish we’d had places like this to use with earlier records.” Technically, I never need to be at any of those sessions, but it seems that where Kill John goes, I go. I am utterly enfolded in their world.

“That was the idea,” he says. “I’m planning to lend it out to friends when we’re not using it.”

“Not rent it? You’d make a killing.”

He chuckles, and the warm sound rolls over me in a hazy wave. I close my eyes and sink into the chair.

“I’ve been thinking I could produce more, Bren. Make music that way.”

His hands.

A lump rises in my throat. “You’d be great at it.”

No one knows music the way Rye does. He’s already produced more than half of Kill John’s albums, and I honestly don’t know why he doesn’t do all of them, because the ones he handles are the most popular.

We’ve been quiet for too long, and Rye clears his throat.

“Thanks.” The tentative tone makes me wonder if I’ve surprised him with the compliment. Then again, I haven’t given him very many over the years. Regret lies heavy on my shoulders.

“I mean it, Rye. You have a way with music that’s transcendent. Killian and Jax might write the lyrics, but you polish everything up and breathe life into them.”

Why hadn’t I ever told him? Because we’d always been focused on hating each other.

His breath hitches, and I know I’ve affected him.

“Thank you,” he says with a rasp. Then pauses. “The guys stopped by. They…ah…well, they knew something was up and wouldn’t go away until they got it out of me.”

“The fiends,” I tease softly, like I’m not quietly aching for him. He’d been so alone, when he didn’t have to be.

He hums, a bit self-deprecating, before forging on. “I told them about…everything.”

I know this. Scottie had texted. But the quiet, almost shy pleasure and relief Rye can’t quite hide in his voice pokes at my tenderized heart. He’d needed his guys’ support but didn’t know how to ask for it. “I’m glad, Rye.”

“Yeah, me too. We’re working things out.”

“Good.”

Emotion shouldn’t be able to reach through a phone and wrap around a person’s heart. But it does. I’m not certain either of us knows how to handle it.

Rye clears his throat, and when he speaks, he’s back to his old, playful self. “You meeting with Mr. Taco today or tomorrow?”

I roll my eyes. “Mr. Taco is the worst name ever. It’s not even clever.”

“It’ll grow on you,” he insists in a teasing tone. “By the time you meet him, that’s all you’ll be able to picture.”

“Are you trying to sabotage me?” I ask lightly, because I know he isn’t really.

But he answers with quiet seriousness. “No, Berry. Never that. I’d wish you luck right now, but you don’t need it. And, admittedly, I don’t know if I can wish you luck.”

“Why?” I whisper, feeling the need to follow his hushed tone.

“Because I don’t want you to go.”

My breath hitches, the fluttery feeling in my heart threatening to make me say things I shouldn’t. “Rye.”

“But I will,” he says quickly. “Let you go. You deserve to be where you’re happy.”

He’ll let me go. Because I’m not really his. And he’s not really mine. I stare blankly at the wall and wonder why everything aches.

“I understand,” he says steadily. “And the guys will too.”