Page 66 of Sounds Like Love

“It could make writing this song easier. We could be on the same page about it. It could be the best thing we’ve ever done,” he added, the possibility a growl on his tongue, and the idea of it made my heart quicken, though I wasn’t sure if it was in excitement or fear.

“It—and what’sitto you?”

“Sex,” he replied easily. “Intimacy. Different kinds of music.”

“And then after?” I asked.

He cocked his head in a silent question.

“After the song, what then?” And in my head, I added,What would happen to us?

“Why think that far ahead?”

Because it matters, I insisted. “And itneverworks out. Look at Fleetwood Mac! Sonic Youth! Emma and Lachy Wiggle!”

He stared at me. “You’re comparing us to theWiggles? C’mon.”

I thought about it for maybe a second and a half before common sense took over. “No—no.This”—and I motioned between the two of us—“will just get messy, and I can’t have messy in my life right now. Not with everything else.”

“Okay,” he relented, sounding sincere. “I can appreciate that.”

“Good.” I took a breath, and grabbed my phone from the bench. “I’m going to take a walk. Clear my head.”

Because I certainly wasnotstill thinking about us. About the way he growled the possibility of what we could be. About some other version of Joni saying yes.

I wasn’t thinking about that at all.

He sighed, leaning back on his hands. “Alas. I guess I’ll stay here.”

Unless he wanted another repeat of what happened at Cool Beans earlier. I eyed his sleek black ensemble. In LA, he’d blend in, but here? An idea occurred to me. “Hold on,” I said as I left the stage and dipped behind the bar. I pulled out the lost and found box as he came over to see what I was digging through. There were always errant shoes and hats, along with swim trunks and—“Ah! Here we are.” I pulled out a blue and yellow Hawaiian shirt. “This is perfect.”

He deflated a little. “I’ll look ridiculous, bird.”

I handed it to him. “But it’ll work.”

For a moment, he looked like he had half a mind to burn the shirt instead of wear it, but then with a sigh he reached down to the hem of his own shirt and began to tug it off, revealing that same puckered scar on the side of his abdomen, surrounded by smooth flesh and muscle. I gave a yelp and averted my eyes, but I’d already seen too much of his chest. He wasn’t incredibly stocky, but was lean in the way that dancers were. Well built like a musician who subsisted on almonds and old pop song routines. There was no escaping the blush that crept from my ears to my cheeks, and what was worse was that he could see it.

“It’s nothing you haven’t seen before,”he teased.

I held the shirt up higher. “Just put this on.”

Thankfully, he didn’t poke at me anymore and took the shirt in question. He shrugged it on and buttoned it up. “Okay, I’m clothed. It smells like tequila.”

“Probably from a parrothead,” I supplied, and finally turned to look. The shirt was much too big on him, draping loosely over his shoulders, but somehow eventhatlooked purposeful. Was there really anything that Sebastian Fell didn’t look good in?

“Want to find out?”he asked as a grin curled across his mouth.

I ignored him, grabbing the keys from the countertop. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Vacation Dad,” I said and left the Revelry. I didn’t know where I was going, but my feet did.

And they led me straight to the beach.

I followed the steady flow of tourists toward the boardwalk, the reassuring rush of the waves in and out rinsing my thoughts—well, most of them. No matter how much I tried to think of anything,everything, else, I couldn’t get the sight of Sebastian’s bare torso out of my head, or the way he told me that us getting together could be the best thing we’d ever done—

Stop it, Jo, I told myself.He doesn’t mean it.

But … what if he did?

Tourists ambled from the ice cream shop to souvenir shops to the small permanent carnival at the base of the pier, and I followed them, wishing I could blend in like white noise. I decided to count the seagulls so if Sebastiandidoverhear my thoughts, they wouldn’t be of the frighteningly clear fact that the thing he would look best in, in my opinion, was nothing at all.

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