Page 53 of Love Unexpected
Diedre’s words flitted through my brain.You’re the one taking the risk, here, Rosie. No one else.She was right, of course. And I was suddenly terrified that I was going to live to regret it.
Chapter Nineteen
Rosie
We pulled into the hotel parking lot in Nashville a little after seven p.m. Luckily, Alex’s itinerary had allowed us a quiet dinner that we’d picked up on the road without having to do any correlating publicity; I wasn’t sure I could have handled a second round of what lunch had been.
“Chesapeake Hotel and Lounge,” I read off the bright neon sign that hung above the parking lot. “I suppose they’re expecting us?”
“Nah. I just picked this place because of the honeymoon suite.”
Tyler guffawed from the back seat and I suddenly wanted to smack them both. “Very funny.”
Isaac grinned. “Chesapeake has hotels all over the Central United States, and they just installed charging stations in all their parking lots. We get a full charge, we help them get the word out, we stay in their best suites, and everyone goes home happy.”
I stretched my arms over my head, though the car didn’t actually allow me to extend them fully. I was ready to get out and walk around a little.
“I’ll go get us checked in,” Isaac said before climbing from the car. Standing outside, he pulled his hoodie up and over his head, an attempt, I imagined, to make it slightly more difficult to recognize him.
The hotel wasn’t dead, by any means, but it wasn’t exactly bustling either. I hoped, for Isaac’s sake, that no one inside would notice him.
“Should I have offered to check us in?” I asked. “I don’t mind. And why doesn’t he have an assistant who travels with him to do stuff like checking him in at hotels?”
Tyler shifted and opened his car door. “Isaac has never been about the fanfare. The rich-person privileges. He’d just as soon give all his money away than use it to pay more people to tend to him.”
“He does have an assistant though, right?”
“Back at the warehouse, yeah. But Alex keeps her busier than Isaac does. He just likes to do stuff himself.”
“Yeah, that makes sense with his personality.”
“Plus, he likes the attention. He’s not famous enough that everyone recognizes him everywhere he goes. Just famous enough that some people do. And he likes interacting with his fans.”
It baffled me how anyone couldlikethe kind of attention that Isaac received, but I sensed the truth in Tyler’s words. For as uncomfortable as I was when we stopped for lunch in Asheville, Isaac had been perfectly at ease eating lunch with an audience, shaking dozens of hands and taking selfies and signing t-shirts. A familiar pulse of uncertainty throbbed in my gut, at war with the earlier desperation I’d felt at the idea ofnothaving a relationship with Isaac. I had never felt so conflicted.
“Hey, you want to go for a walk really quick?” Tyler asked. “If I don’t unfold myself out of this car, my muscles might be permanently hunched for the rest of forever.”
I hesitated, but only briefly. I didn’t get any relationship vibes from Tyler, despite Isaac’s powers of suggestion. A walk was likely just a walk. Nothing more. “Sure,” I said.
I climbed out of the car, joining him in the relatively quiet parking lot. It was a little cooler in Nashville than it had been in Charleston, but it still felt like spring, the air warm enough that I could lose the blazer and still be comfortable in my shirt sleeves. We followed the sidewalk that lined the parking lot to where it curved and led to an outdoor terrace filled with potted plants and benches.
Tyler stopped next to the first bench. “So how long do you think it’ll be before Isaac figures out who you really are?”
I froze, my heart suddenly pounding so hard I worried Tyler might be able to hear it. What did he know? Or what did hethinkhe knew? I swallowed, trying to keep my voice casual, dismissive. “What? I don’t know what you mean.”
“How long before Isaac figures out thatyouandAnaare the same person?” Tyler asked, this time more pointedly.
Hot dread washed over me, making my skin prickle and my face flush. I lifted my gaze to meet Tyler’s, relaxing a tiny fraction when I saw the understanding in his eyes. He wasn’t out for blood. He actually looked rather proud of himself. I sank onto the bench behind us. “How did you figure it out?”
He sat down beside me. “It was a hunch, really. Just based on my observations.”
“Like what?” I wasn’t sure I actually wanted to know. But then, Tyler had been watching me all day while doing his filming. Maybe I was less of a closed book than I thought.
“The first thing I noticed is that you love Red Renegade,” he said, matter-of-factly. “You knew those songs Isaac played. All of them. I caught you mouthing the words more than once, and when “Wings that Weep” came on, your face noticeably brightened. Plus, you knew which album you’d seen on the cover of Bridget’s t-shirt.”
I winced. I’d worried about the Bridget thing; that had been a total slip. And even though I’d made an actual effort to keep myself from singing out loud, Red Renegade’sstuff was so familiar to me, it was hard to pretend like I was a first-time listener. “That still feels like a pretty big leap to make based on my preferences for a band.”
“Maybe. But it doesn’t take detective-level observation skills to see the most obvious clue.”
