The Pool Boy (Nashville Neighborhood 2)

I smiled. “Hey, that was all your idea.”

“Yeah, I know.” He shrugged. “I couldn’t wait any longer.”

His words caused flutters in my belly, and I tucked a lock of my hair behind an ear. “Well, I have a bedroom. It has a bed and everything.”

He exaggerated his fascination. “You don’t say? This I gotta see.”

Troy released me, scooped up his shorts and t-shirt, and followed me through the doorway out into the living room. I passed the couch, the fireplace, and was nearly to my bedroom door, before I realized he’d stopped.

He stood with his gaze fixed on the wall, and my pulse quickened when he examined the pictures hanging there. It was a series of photos taken of me throughout my stalled career as a performer.

There was one photo from twenty years ago, where I was sitting on a stool with an acoustic guitar in my lap and a microphone in front of me. The background was blurry and indiscernible to anyone else, but I recognized it as the coffee shop I’d often performed at when I’d been a music major at Vanderbilt.

I’d been in a band for a hot minute right after graduating, and there were pictures of us on stage during the Tennessee State Fair. Beside that, my debut at the Opry House.

Last, and most important to me, was the framed artwork consisting of two sheets of paper lined with bars and musical notes.

Troy gestured to it. “What’s this?”

I fiddled with the belt to my robe, not wanting to give away how proud I was and risk sounding pompous. “It’s ‘Reckless.’ The first song I ever sold.”

You mean the only song you ever sold.

Troy’s brow furrowed as he read the lyrics, and his gaze traced over the notes. He’d said he was learning the piano, so it was likely he knew how to read music.

“Have you heard it?” I asked.

Without prompting, I sang the first line of the chorus, which was the most recognizable part. The song had been a modest hit for Alan Foles six years ago, but since then, we’d both faded into obscurity.

Troy’s mouth dropped open in surprise, but I wasn’t sure if it was my abrupt singing—or if he recognized the song. He stared at me with unflinching eyes as I softly sang about secret love and being scared to tell the other person how I felt.

The atmosphere in the room grew enormously intense in a single heartbeat. The lyrics and their meaning were so powerful, it forced me to trail off.

Oh, Jesus.

Was this how he felt about me all these years?

“You make me want to be reckless,” he sang back, completing the line in his smoky voice and with perfect pitch, and my hands tensed into fists beneath the long sleeves of my robe. I had to clamp down and squeeze my throat shut to stop the gasp from escaping. Hearing him sing my lyrics was an emotional assault I was entirely unprepared for, and I blinked back the tears that stung my eyes.

It was so beautiful and perfect, I worried I’d fall apart.

And despite my effort to look unaffected, Troy could tell.

His expression warmed and his voice softened to a hush. “I like that song,” he said. “I had no idea you wrote it. That’s awesome.”

“Yeah, well,” I raised my eyes toward the ceiling to drain back the tears, forced a casual smile onto my lips, and shrugged. “Alan did a great job with it.”

The sudden emotional turn in the conversation had put Troy off-balance because he dropped his clothes and pulled the throw blanket off the back of the couch, wrapping it around his waist and using a hand at his hip to hold it closed. I had the weird feeling that he hadn’t covered himself because he felt vulnerable. He’d done it to make me more comfortable.

“What else have you written?” he asked.

I swallowed painfully. “Nothing.”

He tilted his head in question, and I dropped my gaze to his hand clenching the gray blanket. The fabric draped loosely around his waist, dipping down on the side opposite where he held it closed, revealing paler skin that hadn’t seen the light of the sun.

“Maybe it was my job, or the way things got with Clark, but the music dried up,” I admitted. “I haven’t been able to write at all the last two years.”

He hesitated. There was a question he wanted to ask but wasn’t sure if he should. Or maybe he didn’t know how to phrase it. But he pressed forward. “It’s none of my business, but can I ask what happened?” He frowned at himself. “You don’t have to tell me. You probably don’t want to talk about it.”

I went with the easiest answer. “He fell in love with someone else. And he forgot he was still married to me.”