Bo & Ember (19 page)

I cocked my head to the side. “That’s … observant.”

The truth was, I’d noticed all of those things about Yardley myself. It was interesting to get a male perspective though, even if it was a gay one.

Tyler shrugged and stood. “I just kind of want to be around when her perfect little head pops off.”

“What are you talking about?” I stood and brought my plate to the sink.

Tyler took a deep breath and his eyes flickered to Bo for a split second, though I could have imagined that. “No one that perfect can keep it up for long. I only know that because there is
no
such thing as perfect. Most of us just crawl along doing the best we can and try to hurt as few people in the process.”

He looked down for a moment then seemed to force a smile as he looked back up. “Well, Ember, talk over those floor choices with Bo, and shoot me an email when you can. I’ll keep you guys informed next week with texts and pictures, and all that good stuff. Go, be rock stars. I’ll maintain the fabulous here in Concord while you bring it to the city.”

“Thank you, Tyler.” In an unguarded moment as far as Tyler and I were concerned, I gave him a tight hug. I knew I was hugging him for more than I had information on, but I think we both needed that hug.

“No problem. Bo,” he mock-saluted Bo, who rose and stuck out his hand to shake Tyler’s, “see you at the end of next week.”

Tyler left and Bo and I cleaned up lunch and prepared for our final Concord recording session with Beckett and Yardley.

“You know,” Bo said as he stuffed the last of the baby carrots in his mouth, “working with Beckett hasn’t been so bad.”

I snorted. “Are you disappointed that none of your horror stories came true?”

“What stories?”

I looked to Bo out of the corner of my eye. “Oh, I don’t know, that he and I would suddenly wake up seventeen and in bed together again?”

Bo bit his bottom lip and playfully smacked my butt. “You’re such a smartass, you know that?”

“You’ve got a board meeting tomorrow, right?” I asked, changing the subject.

Bo leaned against the counter and rubbed his hand over his face as he yawned. “Yes. This is the quarterly one. I won’t have to leave as early as I did this morning, but I’ll be gone through the middle of the day, easily.”

“I think I’m gonna take a drive down to Barnstable and hang out with Monica. I know we’ll only be in the city for a week, but I still haven’t seen that much of her.”

“That sounds good. You know you don’t need to, like, ask my permission for that. Even if I was going to be here all day you could have gone.” He pushed off the counter and walked to the basement door, holding it open for me as he loosened his tie.

“Are you recording in your suit?” I asked, hopefully.

“I hadn’t really thought about what I was wearing.” He looked down, seeming surprised that he was still in his business clothes.

“Keep it on. It’s hot.” I kissed the side of his cheek, right by his ear, and let my lips linger there for a minute.”

Bo sighed as I felt his cheeks heat. “Don’t start, Mrs. Cavanaugh. It’d be embarrassing to finish while Beckett and Yardley are here."

I giggled and walked through the door. As I descended the stairs, I continued my train of thought. “I know, but we haven’t really spent much quality time together outside of the bedroom in the last couple of weeks. I just want to make sure we’re checking in with each other. You’ve been pretty busy with DROP.”

“They’re happy to have me back on Eastern soil, that’s for sure. But, since we’ll be on tour this summer … or whatever … there’s lots of work that needs to be done for the upcoming spring and summer programs. I like to have my hands on that whenever possible. The last thing I want to be is a director-at-large. It’s my organization, and I want to run it.” Bo’s voice was filled with a mix of passion and determination.

“I know, love. I just want to make sure you’re not going to burn yourself out. We’ve had a
lot
of change in the last month, and—”

Bo stopped me with a hard kiss on the lips. “I’m better than I’ve ever been,” he said when he finally pulled away.

Standing in the middle of the studio, it was hard not to believe him. Everything about him became more vibrant when surrounded by sheets of music and guitar strings. Bo and I took a few moments to tune our voices and instruments before Yardley and Beckett arrived to round out this week’s recording session.

“He didn’t really seem different to me the last time we were there, but he hardly says anything as it is.” Monica grabbed two popsicles from the freezer as she brewed ginger tea. Her nausea, it seemed, was far from subsiding.

I plucked the green popsicle from her hand. “I know I probably read too much into it, and projected my own anxieties, and all of that, but I’m glad he seems better now.”

“Eh,” Monica waved her hand, “it’s married life, right? Ups and downs. Drama, good and bad, is like the pulse of life. Without it, how would we distinguish between the two?”

I nodded in agreement as I sucked on the frozen treat.

Monica poured her tea and met me at the table. “Have you gotten to the bottom about Tyler and Bo’s
history
yet?”

“No.” I sat forward, placing my elbows on the table. “Honestly, I don’t know if I even want to. It’s kind of tagged as a “let sleeping dogs lie” thing in my brain right now.”

"You want some ginger tea?”

“No, I hate ginger.” I scrunched my nose and stuck out my tongue.

“The only hippie in the United States that hates ginger…” Monica gestured to me as if we were in a crowd of people.

I stood and walked to her cabinet, pulling down some peppermint rose tea.

Monica’s eyes focused on the tiny box. “And where the hell did that come from?”

I laughed. “I brought it here the last time I came. I knew you’d never drink it, so I stuck it in the back.”

“Are you offended by my tea?” Monica teased.

I steeped the silk bag and walked back to the table. “So, I’m impatient. When are we going to start looking pregnant?”

She rested her cheek on her closed fist. “I feel like I’m a thousand pounds. It’s like having three periods worth of bloat at once. Seriously. I don’t know, though. I hope soon so I can just move into leggings. Jeans are my enemy at the moment.”

“When do you get to find out what you’re having?”

The tight sarcasm in Monica’s lips shifted into the softest smile I’d ever seen on her. “January sometime.”

My eyes filled with tears again. “We’re in February, I think. God, I’m so happy for you guys.”

Monica shed a rare tear as she sipped her tea. “I’m happy for us. How ridiculous is this? Oh! You had an appointment yesterday, right?”

“Yes!” I jumped to my feet and retrieved the pictures from my bag. “They look just like yours, but … you know.”

“Did you hear the heartbeat?” Monica asked as she smiled at my pictures.

I nodded, feeling that comforting warmth circle through my bones. I took a long sip of my tea and smiled.

“Motherhood looks good on you, Ember. I gotta say, you’re like a whole new person since you got knocked up.”

I snorted, causing me to sputter on my delicious—and expensive—tea. “You’re ridiculous.”

“It’s true.” Her eyes bugged out. “You’re all extra calm and graceful. You know what? You’re all Raven-like these days.”

I tilted my head and smiled. “Bo said the same thing.”

“Do they know yet?” Monica asked of my parents.

I shook my head. “Soon.”

She knew of our plans with Grounded Sound and when we wanted to tell everyone.

“Just make sure you tell them before they hear it on the news.”

“No shit. All right, I gotta go.” I stood and brought my teacup to the sink and tossed my popsicle stick in the trash.

“Rock New York, super star.” Monica saluted me with her empty popsicle stick.

I laughed and rolled my eyes. “You’re sick.”

“I probably will be in a few minutes,” she joked as I shut the door.

Ember

“T
hat drive was easy,” Bo remarked as we made our way to Grounded Sound’s studio in the heart of New York City.

“I’m glad
you
drove. I hate city driving.” We ascended the stone steps that led into the well-maintained brownstone.

It was a gorgeous building. From what Bo and I could surmise from our Internet snooping, the Honeywell family had invested in Yankee real estate since the Civil War when they moved money there to protect their assets. Further digging showed before and after pictures of the Honeywell plantation after it was burned to the ground and they rebuilt in Savannah, where the family home still stands.

After the rebuild, it seems, the family had their hands in everything—arts, entertainment, business … a broad investment plan designed, no doubt, to continue protecting their assets. Over the past thirty years, they’d found a way to combine the three, and Grounded Sound Entertainment was born.

I had a new respect for Yardley, and the kind of stock she came from, but it didn’t do anything to quell the curiosity of what might lie beneath her facade.

We were buzzed in and greeted by a friendly receptionist who looked like she was cut from the same cloth as Yardley. Brunette, but with a perfectly polished bob and a set of white pearls to match her pageant-like teeth.

“You can head right down to Studio A on your right.” The young woman with an ID badge that read “Brielle” handed us our own visitor passes that doubled as card access for the studios. Ours didn’t say
visitor
, though. I grinned as I read the word “Talent” in bold letters.

“Thank you,” Bo and I said in unison.

Brielle smiled at both of us, but her eyes twinkled just a bit more when she nodded to Bo.

From GS’s website, we knew this was a four-story building with two studios in the basement, one on the main floor, offices on the second floor, and what we could only guess was an apartment on the top floor for when Yardley or her family came into town. This was as professional an operation as I’d ever seen, and it intrigued me that it all took place behind the facade of a row of brownstones.

“Have you talked to Regan?” Bo asked as we moved down the short, narrow hallway.

I held my ID badge over the swipe pad next to Studio A’s door. “No. I called him the other day when we found out about this trip, but he didn’t—”

The door clicked as it unlocked, and my sentence was cut short as I opened the door and found Regan talking with two people I didn’t know as they stood casually around a set of microphones.

“Regan!” I squealed as I rushed over to him and gave him a hug. It had only been a few weeks since we’d seen each other, but with all the time we’d spent together the past year, it felt like an eternity.

Regan’s arms tightened around me and he lifted me a few inches off the ground. “Hey you!”

Once he set me down, he and Bo engaged that manly handshake-hug thing they always did.

Regan took a step back and gestured to who I assumed were the other members of the band. “Bo and Ember, I’d like you to meet the other two massively talented members of Celtic Summer. This is Chris. He’s lead vocals and occasional percussion.”

A roughly five-foot-eleven, broad-shouldered Chris shook my hand. His brown hair was shorn into a tight buzz cut, and below the hem of his grey short sleeves, I saw the makings of an insanely intricate tattoo. His eyes were clear blue and he had a small gap between his front two teeth.

“Nice to meet you.” He spoke with a tinny rasp that I knew had to drive the women crazy.

“And,” Regan continued, “this is Shaughn. She’s vocals and guitar.”

Shaughn was a very petite five-foot-two, or so, with a fire-red pixie cut. She didn’t look frail in any way, though, and her strong handshake cast away any lingering doubts.

She spoke in a syrupy-thick Irish accent. “Nice to meet you both. Regan talks a lot about you.”

“Great accent!” I cheered excitedly. I was riding high on adrenaline and happiness.

“Thanks,” she said in a purely American accent as she sighed heavily.

“Wait,” Bo cut in. “What happened to the accent? Which is the accent?”