Chapter 10

Reese stood just outside of room 522. Suite 522.

Sterling’s suite. Sterling James’ suite.

Six years ago, she would have squealed like the little girl she was to think about this moment. Three days ago, she wouldn’t have imagined it. Now she shifted her weight back and forth on the thick cream carpet, trying to summon the courage to knock. It was just a strategy session. He was just a client.

And he was also her celebrity no-way-it’s-ever-happening crush turned real-live-guy-who-might-break-my-heart. Staci had sent her a text earlier, basically warning her about this very thing.

Staci:Gird your heart tonight!

Reese:Isn’t the verse “guard your heart?”

Staci:Probably. But people are always saying you should gird your loins, so it seems like that might also apply.

Staci:Wait. Stop thinking about your loins!

Reese:I wasn’t. Til you brought them up.

Staci:Gird your heart and guard your loins! I’m pretty sure that’s Biblical.

Reese had laughed for a good few minutes about that last text. She missed Staci, even though being on tour was exciting. Maybe too exciting. She should definitely be taking that advice to heart, even if it was a little bit off.

The door swung open and she jumped back. Sterling smirked and leaned against the doorway. “Are you going to stand out there all night, or are you coming in?”

Reese hesitated, distracted by the way his muscles bunched under his thin, gray T-shirt. His hair looked like it was still wet from a shower. The scent of his cologne or body wash or whatever product he had on was giving her brain fog. “Um.”

“I’ve got candy, little girl …” His eyes crinkled with his teasing smile.

She giggled. “If by candy, you mean pizza, then yes, I’m coming in. Actually, I’d come in for candy too.”

Sterling moved out of the way, ushering her inside the suite. The spicy fresh scent filled her nose as she moved past him and she fought the urge to lean closer to him. Reese remembered suddenly how there was a rumor going around middle school that the cologne all the guys wore had some kind of pheromones in it to attract women. All men’s colognes seemed to have that. Save a few that were really stinky, Reese felt like all their scents were intoxicating. She should probably keep at least a table between them so she wouldn’t find herself climbing up into his lap or something. Especially now that he had lowered the drawbridge and opened the gates to let her in.

“I got us a bottle of wine. I know how much you like it,” Sterling said.

Never mind. Reese froze and turned her eyes to him slowly.

He couldn’t hold it together and bent over at the waist, laughing. “Your face! Priceless.”

“You don’t have wine?”

“No wine,” he said. “I don’t drink on tour. Not off tour either. And I would never supply you with alcohol after seeing what one glass of wine did to you. I swear, you were like a different person.”

“Yeah. Good thing I never drank in college. Who knows what would have happened to me?”

Reese had hardly looked around the room, distracted by Sterling’s bad idea of a joke. She whistled, looking around the spacious room. He had said it was like an apartment and it was. Bigger than the apartment she currently lived in with Staci. With a clean, modern feel and high-end finishes in the open space. Dark wood, plush carpets, and sleek, modern accessories made it look like money.

Through an open doorway Reese saw a bedroom with a king-sized bed and a few clothes rumpled on the floor. There was a kitchenette, a bar, and a living area with an enormous flat-screen TV. A few pizzas sat on a long dining room table with wood and upholstered legs. Across the room, double glass doors led out to a balcony.

“What did you do with that picture you made me sign, by the way?”

Reese set down her laptop bag on the table, trying not to meet his eyes. “Oh, I’m sure I have it somewhere.”

“Reese, look at me.” Humor colored his voice.

“Hm?” She glanced over and he held her gaze, a half-smile creeping up his face.

“You know exactly where the picture is. Bedside table? Fireplace mantel?”

“You’re impossible. I’ll have you know that it’s in my closet.”

He looked offended. “You put a picture of me in your closet?”

“Yep. Along with all the other pictures of guys I’m stalking. Is this pizza for show or can I eat?”

Sterling laughed and joined her at the table. Reese made sure to sit across from him as she grabbed a slice of pepperoni. “I didn’t know what you liked so I got four. Sorry I don’t have plates. He tossed her a handful of napkins, which fanned out over the table.”

“Classy,” she said. As she chewed her pizza, Reese thought about how different Sterling seemed. The Night and Day label that he had been wanting to escape was remarkably accurate. Though she suspected this slightly sarcastic version of Sterling was much closer to the real him. Or, the real him when he was happy. When she had seen him serious or grumpy, he didn’t seem like he was acting per se, but he seemed much more content in this playful version of himself. He seemed like he was in a good space. It made her happy to see him like this.

“Tell me how you got into social media stuff.”

Sterling managed to make the simple act of eating a slice of pizza look attractive. “My major was PR, but I always leaned toward social media and that aspect of branding. I went to UT and Austin has a pretty great music scene. It’s not Nashville, but it’s pretty awesome. I started working for a few clients there, just helping set up their accounts, creating a content strategy and overarching plan for how to best use social media to grow and get fans. When I graduated, I wanted to do something similar on a bigger scale and saw the job posting at Azul and a month later, I was moving to Nashville.”

“You like your work?”

Reese set down her slice. It was impossible to keep answering his questions with a mouthful of cheese. Sterling James was asking her questions. She had to push away the thought so she could appear like a normal, rational person having a conversation over pizza. It felt normal. Until she remembered how she used to fall asleep with a poster of him above her bed. Definitely needed to push that thought back.

“I like what I do, but I don’t think I’ll stay at Azul long. I hope not, anyway.”

“Why not? Do you miss Texas?”

“I love Nashville. Texas will always feel like home. But I didn’t mind getting some distance between me and my family.”

“Can I ask why?”

Reese made a face. “Nothing serious. I mean, my parents are still married and they are really great. It’s just … I’ve got a big sister, Rachel. Just two years older than me. But she’s a beauty queen. Literally: Miss Texas. I pretty much grew up in her shadow. People always compared us. And it wasn’t like I wanted to be a beauty queen, but it was like everyone had to make sure I knew I couldn’t be. I had to be the smart one.”

Sterling’s face was tight and his eyes seemed darker, almost angry. “Reese, you are beautiful. I’m sorry they made you feel that you weren’t.”

Sterling James just called me beautiful. Reese tried to make her brain move past that thought. “You don’t need to say that. I mean, I’m comfortable in my skin now, even if I’m no Rachel. But it’s like, even after she was done competing and all that, I still couldn’t keep up. She got married her senior year of college to a doctor. He was an intern then. Full doctor now. They’ve got two kids, both gorgeous, of course. And then there’s me.”

“You don’t need to be married or have kids to have value, Reese. Being a smart girl, I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that, but I’m telling you anyway.”

Reese couldn’t keep the smile off her face. To deflect a little, she looked down at the untouched piece of pizza. She hadn’t meant to unload all this on Sterling. Earlier it was Johnboy. Now she was sharing her personal insecurities. And he was being so nice. She couldn’t quite get her head around this moment.

“Thanks for saying that,” she said. “The thing is: I want that life. I want to get married to someone that I could see myself waking up to every morning for the rest of my life. Raising a family. Not the way Rachel is. My own way. But still, when people compare us, it makes me feel unsatisfied with my life and impatient for things.”

As if Sterling could sense how hard it was for her to talk about this, he shifted the subject. “You mentioned that you like what you do, but you don’t want to stay at Azul. Why not?”

“My job is fantastic. My boss is just … I don’t know. He’s not a people person. I don’t really jibe with his style either. I’m not sure I fully trust him. He’s pretty much in the old PR world of spin. I like to keep things a bit more authentic wherever possible. My hope is to go out on my own and manage clients and accounts freelance.”

“Why don’t you just do that now?”

“If I want to get my foot in the door with musicians and other bigger clients, I need the backing of someone reputable. People like you aren’t going to just randomly run across a solo person handling accounts. Not unless there is some serious word of mouth going on. How about you? Do you love your job? Based on tonight, I would say yes.”

Sterling wiped his mouth, looking up to the ceiling in thought. She had expected a quick yes. The joy he found in his work was obvious when he came off the stage earlier tonight. But on day two of the tour and the first concert, Reese knew she didn’t know the half of it yet.

He dropped a crust on a napkin. There was a pile of six there. Six! How had he eaten six slices in that little time? Reese resisted the urge to take his crusts. She loved eating other people’s crusts. But that felt a few steps too intimate.

“I love some of it. I don’t want to complain, because I have been very fortunate to have the success and opportunities I’ve had. I mean, going from a normal high school kid writing songs in my bedroom and posting them on YouTube to packed stadiums—that’s like the dream. But it’s hard, too. You give up a lot.”

His voice dropped as he finished talking. Reese could see his thoughts traveling somewhere else. Clearly there was something that weighed on him much more than what they had hired her to take care of with his image and the stress over a possible rebrand. The nosy part of her wanted to press him about what he had given up, but he probably had tons of people he could talk to about his personal life. He might think she was butting in. Of course, he had just asked some personal questions … but maybe it was time to stop being so personal.

“Should we get started?”

Sterling nodded and stacked the pizza boxes and cleaned up the table while she set up her laptop. He had finished the questionnaire, but Reese hadn’t had time to go over it yet. She skimmed his answers as he returned to the table, holding out a bottled water. As she took it, their fingers brushed. Even that slight touch sent heat to Reese’s skin. Sterling just had that physical appeal. Good thing the table was between them.

But as they spent the next forty-five minutes going over his answers and more questions that she had related to his brand and social media usage, his bare foot found hers under the table. She had kicked off her sandals when they sat down.

At first it was an accidental bump and he pulled away, both of them smiling across the table. “Sorry,” he had said.

A few minutes later, his foot returned, stopping just inches shy of hers, though she could sense it there. She could have pulled away, but instead, felt drawn to lean her leg a little, angling her foot closer. When the side of his foot brushed hers, Reese avoided looking at him, focusing on her computer screen as she typed. It was clearly an intentional move, but one they could both pretend not to notice.

When his foot shifted again so that his toes covered hers, Reese felt her entire body shudder to a halt. Her fingers froze over the keys, eyes on the blinking cursor in front of her. Even her breathing hitched in her chest. Slowly she dragged her eyes up to meet Sterling’s gaze. His hazel eyes sparkled with humor and a small smile lifted one corner of his mouth, as though he was daring her to say something about the small touch.

Her thoughts were moving too fast for her mouth to catch up, even if she wanted to respond. It was a tiny touch. Not an inherently romantic one, though Reese couldn’t remember the last time she had touched someone else’s foot at all, in a friendly way or otherwise.

Did this mean something to him? Probably not. Even though Morgan said he had changed, he had a history that involved probably a lot of women and a lot more than foot touching. This meant something to Reese, even though it was such a tiny thing. She tried to push through the fuzziness that had settled into her brain and ignore the tingling in her limbs. It was just a touch. From Sterling James.

She had to stop thinking about him like that. Like Sterling James, the famous rock star. Most of the time now she didn’t. He was simply Sterling, the incredibly handsome, sometimes moody guy who happened to have a job playing music in front of thousands of screaming fans. But every so often the realization hit her of exactly who he was and she had to reconcile the guy across from her with the guy whose music she knew by heart. It was more than a little disconcerting, even though she was starting to feel more comfortable around him. Especially now that he didn’t think of her as some rabid fan.

How did he think of her? Yesterday he had told her that she wasn’t his type. Had that only been yesterday? Morgan was right in saying that time on tour moved differently.

Her thoughts moved from what he had said to how he had been standing when he said it. So close that all she could think about was what it might feel like to bridge that distance and feel her lips against his. Thinking about that now while his foot sat on top of hers was dangerous. He had said she wasn’t his type. He was a client. This should be a non-issue.

And then there was Morgan. They hadn’t known each other long, but Reese really liked her. And was going to spend the next two months with her as well as Sterling. Maybe she hadn’t spoken her feelings out loud, but Reese could see them very clearly. What would happen to their friendship if Reese and Sterling started dating? How did you even date on a tour bus?

What would happen to her job if the public got wind that Sterling was dating her? Kevin would fire her in an instant. Even if she didn’t want to stay with Azul long-term, she needed to do a good enough job that Sterling would recommend her so that she could freelance and get clients by word of mouth.

Reese considered pulling her foot away. But how harmful could it be to just let her foot stay where it was? It’s not like he was holding her hand or something overtly romantic. She knew that she was justifying, but in that moment, she just didn’t care. She craved his touch.

His phone buzzed to life on the table and he checked the screen, his lips turning down. “I’ve got to take this.” He stood and her skin was screaming at the loss of contact as he made his way out to the balcony. “Hey, Mom.”

Sterling hadn’t mentioned his family at all. Because she knew basically all Sterling James facts and trivia, Reese remembered that his mom lived somewhere near L.A. with his younger sister, who might be high school age. Morgan had mentioned that his dad was an alcoholic and had left them when Sterling was younger, but Reese didn’t know details.

He was probably a great older brother. She remembered seeing the sweet way he interacted with the younger fan at the meet-and-greet last weekend. He had made her feel special, focusing all his attention just on her. That was part of the reason she had made him write what he did on her photo. Because in her glass-of-wine-haze, her ovaries had been working overtime as she had watched the interaction. It had her thinking only of Sterling holding a little girl with his hazel eyes and brown hair like hers.

Reese closed her eyes. She probably needed to get out of this room. She needed space from Sterling. His magnetism on its own pulled her tightly to him. But the smiles and the joking banter and the way he’d put his foot on hers—it was too overwhelming for her heart to handle. Unless she wanted to lose it all to him.