Finding the Magic (Tom Kelly's Boys Book 1) (15 page)

"Oh shit, does that mean I can come over sometime?" Steven asked. He stared at Drake longingly—there might as well have been sparkles in his eyes.

"Probably so, but you better get lost right now, because I'm still pissed about you looking in the first place."

Steven stood up with a gigantic smile plastered on his face. He looked at me. "He just invited me over to his fuckin' house!" he said.

"I heard that," I said nodding and smiling at him.

Steven made fists and pumped his arms as if congratulating himself. "Yesssssss bitches!" he said. He stood and went to the door, but looked back at Drake before opening it. He pointed directly at him. "You won't regret having me over. We'll just chill sometime. I fuckin' knew it." He opened the door and started to walk out, but stopped long enough to slap the door and let out an excited yelp before closing it.

Drake laughed as he drank the juice I poured him, then he turned to grab me. "What a piece of work," he said.

"He's obviously a big fan of yours," I said, laughing. I looked up at him. "Without Steven, I would have never known you were back there, though."

Drake was quiet for a second then shrugged. "I guess I owe him one."

Chapter 23

Megan still hadn't made it home, and once Steven left, Drake and I were once again alone in the guesthouse. I told him I wasn't much of a chef but that he could help himself to whatever we had in the pantry if he was hungry.

"Dad's at the house and he loves to make breakfast," he said. "He'd whip something up if I told him we were going over there."

He had on his grey pants from the evening before, but no shoes or shirt, and I stared at his broad back as he rinsed his glass and bent to put it in the dishwasher.

It wasn't sinking in that he was mine. In my eyes, he was so perfect that I couldn't help but doubt the trueness of my situation. I tried to remind myself of all the sincere things he said the night before, but the magnitude of his beauty was enough to make a girl doubt.

"What are we?" I asked. He came over to me and bumped into me, pushing me against the kitchen counter. I looked up at him and we both smiled.

"What's that mean?"

"I don't know. I guess I'm just trying to settle into our situation." I shrugged, shyly. "I mean—I figure it's safe to say we're not seeing other people or anything."

How mortifying. Did I just ask him for some sort of commitment?
I knew it made me seem insecure, but it was too late and the words were hanging in the air.

He looked down at me with an unreadable expression. "Did I not make my intentions clear last night, Addison?"

His accent made him seem intimidating, and I took an irregular breath as I stared at him. I smiled and squirmed because he had made his intentions clear, and I just had to go and beat it into the ground.

"I'll say it any way you need to hear it," he said. "Is it the word girlfriend you want to hear? Do you want me to say you're my
girlfriend
?"

I giggled, and covered my face, but he continued, "Because I'll say it. You're my girlfriend, lover, lady, kitten. Fill in the blank with whatever you want. But that's not the important part. The
my
part of that phrase is more important than whatever comes after it. Because that's what you are. You're mine, Addie. You can say it however you want, but what it comes down to is you're with me now."

I thought about that for a second. "What kind of time commitment are we talking about here?" I asked.

"Well, I can tell you right now that it's gonna be on a regular basis. We'll have to figure it out as it comes, but I don't plan on going days in between seeing you, if that answers your question. Why? Are you too busy for a boyfriend?"

And there it was—gut-clenching butterflies at the sound of that word coming out of his mouth referring to who he was in relation to me. What was the question? Did he ask if I was too busy for him?

"No. I'm not too busy, I was just sort of wondering what to expect from here."

He ran his fingers through the hair on the back of my head and held me securely in place as he leaned in to speak. He was only inches from my face when he said, "What to expect is that I don't really feel like being apart from you. I want you to be in the same place at the same time as me as often as we can." He let is eyes roam over my face and the hint of a smile touched his lips.

"We can start with breakfast," I said, smiling. I was nervous about seeing his family, but had an innate desire to face my fears and confront them as soon as possible.

"Do you like eggs, and bacon, and regular breakfast food?"

I put a hand on my stomach. "I will
destroy
some breakfast right now," I said.

And right when I said it, as if I could make it happen on command, my stomach growled. We both burst into laughter for a few seconds, before agreeing we should head out for breakfast.

He called his dad before we left. He was only on the phone long enough to ask him to make breakfast, and I assumed Tom agreed because Drake hung up with a smile. I couldn't believe I was having breakfast cooked for me by a ruthless pirate. Drake and I talked about his dad last night. He said Tom was indeed a real life modern day pirate, but that if you asked him what he was, he'd say he was a smuggler. Either way, the dangerous and powerful Captain Tom was delicately cracking eggs for my breakfast at this very moment.

"Is it weird that I think it's cool that you're dad's a—that your dad, you know, does what he does?"

Drake was driving, but glanced at me smiling.

"Does it do it for you that we're dangerous?"

"No."

"Don't lie."

He was smiling as he stared at the road, then he glanced at me.

"Okay, so maybe it does do it for me a little bit," I said. I reached out and put a hand on his thigh. "Are you dangerous?"

He did the same, putting his hand on my thigh, only he gave mine a squeeze. "You have no idea."

"Are you dangerous to me?" I asked.

He glanced at me. "No."

I leaned over, stretching the seatbelt to the max, and put a kiss on his jaw. Seconds later, we pulled into the driveway. He stopped at the gate, and pushed a few buttons on his phone to get it to open. He parked at the front door, and we went inside.

I made the decision to act like I didn't know his family hated the idea of me being around. My plan was to simply pretend I'd never overheard that conversation.

Tom was staring down at the stove when we rounded the corner to the main part of the house.

"Smells good," Drake said.

His dad looked up and squinted at us, waving.

"It's Drake and Addie. You need to put on your glasses."

"I don't need em to cook, and I can see you anyway. Drake said you played real good last night, Miss Addie," Tom said. He looked at me with a smile and a wink, and I thought if Tom Kelly couldn't charm you, no one could.

"He didn't say she played good," Rory's Irish voice said from the living room. He was in the middle of the living room floor laying on one of those foam back rollers. I hadn't even noticed him there when we came in. He sat up and looked straight at me. "He didn't say ye played
good
, he said ye were a bloody genius and dad and I were twats for not coming to your show. He said ye had the whole place on their feet and that the next time we decide to stay at home when you play a show, he was gonna hang us from a tree."

"I did not say I was gonna hang you from a tree," Drake said. "I didn't specify what I would do."

"Well, I assumed it was something along the lines of stringing us up."

"You shouldn't have missed it," Drake said.

I glanced at him like it really wasn't that big of a deal. "They didn't miss anything. You guys have a piano right here," I said.

"They
did
miss something. They missed the fuck out. They missed the thousands of people on their feet clapping and yelling for you."

"They were clapping for all of us."

He looked at his brother. "They weren't," he said. "She was amazing. They were freaking out for her. She might as well have been Lady Gaga."

I looked at Rory. "Hardly," I said.

"Would you and Lady Addie like to come make your plates?" Tom asked from the kitchen. Drake and I went into the kitchen. As we approached, I could see that he'd already made a ton of food. There were pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon and toast all spread out on the countertop.

"I changed my mind I want some," Rory said.

"I made extra because I knew you would," Tom said. Rory came into the kitchen, and the three of us piled food on our plates. We sat around the bar talking about everything from dogs, to music, to sports.

You can imagine how surprised I was when Drake randomly said, "Addie lives right there." He pointed in the general direction of his backyard, and both Tom and Rory looked at him with confused expressions. "Yeah, the kid who lives there heard they had a family of pirates living back here and Addie pretended she wanted some furniture to come check us out."

Captain Tom Kelly let out a hearty laugh at that. Rory and Drake laughed too, but Tom's laugh was that of a real pirate if I've ever heard one.

"So what do you think now that you've met us, brave Addie?" Tom asked, still smiling.

I only had a split second to think of something to say so I went with honesty. "I like you guys, and I think you're great at making breakfast. I'm not so curious about your job now that I know those two things."

Rory stared at his phone, but Tom regarded me with an expression I couldn’t figure out even though I tried desperately. "I like you too," he said. His face broke into the same handsome smile he shared with both of his sons. He was so charming that it was hard to imagine he was the same guy who carried around a skull. The thought made me look around for it. And, yep, there it was, on a little catchall table against the wall. A bona fide human skull.

"You ever been deep-sea fishin' Miss Addie?" Tom asked.

His question startled me. "Sir?"

"Have you ever been out deep sea fishing?"

Maybe I should've been freaked out that a guy with a skull was asking me about deep-sea fishing, but I liked Tom, and found it easy to trust him. Maybe he was just good at getting people to trust him, but I was sold.

"I grew up in Jensen but I've never done that. It isn't my dad's thing, I guess."

"Do your folks live in Miami now? How'd you end up livin' behind us?"

"My friend Megan lives back there in her parent's guest house. Her dad's a big plastic surgeon."

"Is she hot?" Rory asked.

Drake and I both answered, "Yes," at the same time, and we looked at each other, him smiling at me and me looking marginally jealous. I came really close to telling Rory that Megan thought he was hot, but at the last second I remembered he didn't know she had seen him. I caught myself right before I said it, and my heart raced at what a close call that was.

"So your folks are still in Jensen?"

"Yes sir. And my sister. She's two years older than me. She's a physical therapist. They were at the concert last night. Drake met them all."

"Is her sister hot?" Rory asked.

"Yes she is Rory. They're all hot. Every girl there was hot last night which is yet another reason you're an idiot for missing out."

Rory looked at me. "When are ye playing again?"

Epilogue

The next time I played for a crowd that size was eight months later. My next big performance was in London.

It was something I had to do.

I didn't play Rachmaninoff. I checked that off of my fear list when I played it in Miami.

Drake and I had fallen into a bit of a routine during the last eight months. I stayed busy with school as he did with work, but we constantly made efforts to be together. At first, we spent two or three nights a week at one place or the other, but lately, we'd been waking up at one another's house nearly every morning.

Unfortunately, there had been some pirate drama since that show in Miami, but I can't fill you in on that. The story is far too long for me to tell in this epilogue, and I would never do it justice since I wasn't the one at the center of it all. You'll be hearing from Megan in book two, and she'll give you the scoop.

Until then, take comfort in the fact that Drake and I are extremely happy together.

He came with me to London for the show. We had been inseparable since October, and there was just no way I wasn't bringing him with me on the trip. We made plans to stay for two weeks and tour Europe a little bit. Drake wasn't fond of flying over the ocean, but Tom gave him some pill that would make him not really care what was happening to him for ten hours. It was left up to me to babysit, but thankfully, he just slept most of the flight. We bought a seat for my bench, and she got strapped in like the paying customer she was.

The show went off without a hitch. I was at the very top of my game, and was thankful for every second of my newfound confidence. Confidence is elusive, but if you can catch it and harness it, anything is possible. The bench helped me with that—at least I thought it did, which was all that mattered.

Drake and I hit Paris and Amsterdam while we were over there. The hotel we booked in Paris had a beautiful piano in the lobby, and Drake set up a time for me to play. He liked the attention I got from it—said attention looked good on me and made him want to take me upstairs and have his way with me.

I loved that my playing turned him on. It was a win-win. I got to do something I loved and a side effect was that this really hot guy found me irresistible because of it.

I had just played for a crowd that went from two to about fifty by the time I was done, and Drake was leaning against the opposite wall of the elevator, standing next to my bench with his hands on the rail and his feet kicked out in front of him.

There were two other couples in the elevator besides Drake and me. They'd been listening in the lobby, and told me how much they enjoyed it. They commented on my bench, just like everyone else did. One group got off on the 4
th
floor, and the other on the 10
th
.

Drake just stared at me until they were all gone. Before the doors even closed behind the last pair, he was on my side of the elevator, pinning me against the wall.

"I love it when you play."

"I know. Your reaction to my playing is even more fun than the playing itself."

"You know it's not just your playing, right Addie? I mean it's certainly a bonus, but I'd love you just the same if you didn't play the piano."

"You mean you love me for who I am? Did Dreaded Drake Kelly just confess his undying love?" I batted my eyes, put a hand to my forehead, and pretended to swoon.

"I'm gonna need to confess my sins after what I'm about to do to you."

I reached up to play with a piece of his hair. "I'm so glad you're here with me."

He bent and put a kiss on my cheek. "I'm the one who talked
you
into coming to Paris, so I'm glad you're here with
me
."

I leaned my head on the wall and stared up at him, smiling. I still had trouble believing someone like him was under my spell. It made my heart happy.

"I love you, Drake."

He smiled down at me. "Love you too, Kitten."

The End

(until book 2)