Page 41 of Sweet Music
He hadn’t exactlytauntedCody that Cash wasn’t coming, but he might as well have. The boys’ light joking had to be devastating, especially when Cody had been walking on air after the visit with his dad.
Cody had trained his face into the blank teen expression he so often wore. But Bella knew he was using it to cover his real feelings.
One kid had stayed behind, though—Annika Corbin. Bella smiled at that. The Corbins were good people. Annika’s mom brought her little sister to reading group all the time, and she was super nice.
“You know nobody actually cares if your dad is famous or not, right?” Annika said quietly to Cody once the others had gone. “We all like you anyway.”
Cody cleared his throat.
Annika blushed all the way to her hairline and glanced around frantically, like she had said too much and was about to make a break for it.
“Thanks,” Cody said gruffly, just in time, in Bella’s opinion.
“Hey, do you want to form an alliance?” Annika asked Cody, the gentle smile returning to her face.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Well, the snowball fight is last-man-standing kind of contest,” Annika explained. “But you can still form alliances and help each other until it’s just your own team members left.”
“Awesome,” Cody said, a tentative smile on his face now. “Yeah, let’s form an alliance.”
The two began walking as they talked, Cody’s dark head leaned down to Annika’s auburn mane, both dotted with hints of snow from the flurries that had begun to fall more steadily now.
Bella felt relieved that he had at least one good friend today. Hopefully, it would soften the blow from Cash not showing up.
She had been so convinced the other night that he would be here today. He had honestly seemed super excited. But it was probably pretty naive of her to think that a huge star would just drop everything to spend days out here in the middle of basically nowhere, even if he had grown up here.
She had even been feeling good enough about that first meeting that she’d reached out to offer to arrange a quick breakfast or evening get-together yesterday. Cody had a math test Thursday, and a guitar lesson in Burlington last night, and even though Cash being in town was a big deal, she really wanted to keep Cody on his routine as much as possible.
But Cash had let her know it was fine, and he hadplenty to keep him occupied. He had even said again that he would see them today.
He was probably back on tour already when I messaged him,she thought to herself, feeling exceptionally stupid.He never had any intention of seeing Cody again.
A commotion from the park caught her attention and drew her back into the present.
“No way,” one of the kids yelled from down by the skating rink.
Bella turned to look just as a young woman squealed and a murmur went through the crowd.
Cash Law was crossing the street between the Lawrence’s ice cream shop and the park, jaywalking of course.
He wore sunglasses that didn’t disguise him in the least. And he looked every bit the part of a rock star in a black leather jacket that stretched over his wide shoulders and a pair of tight ripped jeans.
Bella couldn’t help sympathizing with the woman who had squealed out loud. Cash was absolutely gorgeous. No matter how you felt about him, there was really no denying that.
Larger than life,she thought to herself again before she could shut down that line of thought.
It wasn’t until he spotted her and jogged over that it registered that he was carrying something.
Her mouth watered at the sight of the white paper bag. It could only contain one thing—doughnuts from Morning Rush, a food cart that the owners often set up on the day of big events in town. Theyonly sold two things: coffee and doughnuts. But both were mouthwateringly fresh and delicious.
“Hey,” Cash said, his deep voice sounding happy. “I’m really sorry I’m late. I wanted to grab doughnuts and Tripp said the Morning Rush cart was incredible. But the line was insane.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Bella heard herself say before she could hold it back.
“You were afraid I wasn’t coming at all,” Cash said, the smile dropping instantly from his face.
“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to pull herself together. “Cody will be glad you’re here. And he’s never had Morning Rush doughnuts before. That was very nice of you.”
