Page 77 of Chasing Dreams
Austin aimed the remote at the screen and flicked off the game. “Come here.”
She leaned forward until her head touched his chest, and he smoothed her silky hair, holding her head against his chest, wishing he could impart comfort and strength through that simple touch.
He wished he’d been able to do more. He despised the familiar helplessness that swamped him when situations were out of his control. “I know something that’ll cheer you up,” he said.
She lifted her head. “What’s that?”
He picked up his phone, opened an app, scrolled with his thumb and tapped.
“’Holdin' me back. Gravity's holdin' me back,’” sang a smooth voice she recognized.
“Harry Styles?”
“Yup.”
She turned toward the island that separated her small kitchen and spotted the white cylinder on her counter. “Where’d that come from?”
“I ordered it. I’ll put the app on your phone for you. You can talk to it as well. Alexa, volume up.”
She grinned. “There are guests two floors above us who paid to spend the night in the 1800s.”
“Alexa, volume down.”
The device immediately lowered the sound.
“Can it play his song that goes ‘walk through fire for you, just let me adore you?’”
“Sure. You can listen to anything you like. Alexa, play Adore You.”
“‘Walk in your rainbow paradise,’” Harry sang.
“Oh my gosh, that’s amazing.”
“You’ve never seen these while you were online shopping?”
“Probably, but I wouldn’t have known how to set it up.”
“I’ll bet I could get this thing to make you a cup of coffee.”
She laughed out loud. “You’re right. That cheered me up.”
Relieved to see her mood lighten, he sat up straight. “Want to go out? A movie maybe?”
Shaine glanced at Austin’s expression, knowing he’d suggested an excursion only for her. “We should stay near the phone.”
“No problem.”
She smiled. “Okay.”
He headed for the bedroom. “I’ll change clothes. It’s getting almost as cold here as it was in the mountains.”
The music ended. Things had changed between them. Shaine couldn’t put her finger on the exact time or place it had happened, but it had. He was still the same person who’d gone out of his way to comfort and help her. He was still the same man whose touch turned her insides to jelly, but whose voice calmed her fears and made her heart pound for different reasons.
He was still Austin Allen, a man who knew and saw more than most people would in their entire lives. And though he was going along with this business for her sake, she would soon become one of the things he turned off, closed out, refused to see.
She was going to have to learn to tune out things, too.
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