Page 3 of My Song for You
From the look on my best friend’s face, you’d have thought Nolan was four years old and it was Christmas.
Rebecca announced the next game—darts—and we returned to our respective teams. I spent the next hour flirting with the fans, signing autographs, and finding out what they loved about our songs and about the band. This was one of the things I loved most about what I did: interacting with the fans. The real fans. Not the groupies who were hoping to add us to their I-slept-with-a-celebrity tally. They usually couldn’t tell us what they loved about our music. We were just hot bodies as far as they were concerned.
“And the grand prize,” Rebecca announced, “goes to Kirk Helmson’s team.”
Cheers broke out among the teams, including Mason’s.
“Hey, bro,” Mas said with a laugh, “you finally won the Steward Cup.”
Kirk snorted. “You mean Stanley Cup.”
“Sure, whatev.”
Kirk collected the tiny metal trophy on behalf of his team and congratulated everyone as if they really had won the most coveted prize in the NHL.
“You guys want to meet up for drinks later?” Aaron asked after we had packed up our instruments to leave. As part of the event, we had agreed to play a couple of our songs off the debut album. The president of the record label had been quite clear: under no condition were we to play anything from the upcoming album. And basically whatever he said, we did. No questions asked.
“Count me in,” I said. Kirk and Mason also agreed to meet up at our favorite bar.
On my way to my apartment, I stopped at a grocery store and wandered up and down the aisles, grabbing whatever appealed to me and didn’t require much thought. Cooking wasn’t one of my favorite pastimes.
As I pushed my shopping cart down the cereal aisle, I spotted a woman I’d never thought I’d see again—a woman I had known back when we were kids. Only I didn’t remember her looking quite so hot back then, with her long copper hair in a messy ponytail. The woman who was my ex-girlfriend-from-high-school’s little sister.
The woman signing with her hands…to a four-year-old boy.
Chapter 2
Callie
Oh my God. The three freaked-out words echoed in my head at the sight of Jared Leigh walking toward me in the cereal aisle. If he had been any other rock star, dread wouldn’t have dragged me down like a cinder block in water.
If he had been any guy other than the one who used to see me as nothing more than his girlfriend’s annoying little sister, I would’ve totally been fangirling, and theOh my Godwould’ve been screams of joy in my head.
“Mommy,” my four-year-old nephew said, pointing to a box of sugary cereal, “I have that one?” He signed the words as he spoke, using the American Sign Language he was learning in preschool, and gave me the same dimpled smile his father used to give me. The same dimpled smile that caused my heart to temporarily cease functioning whenever Jared flashed it.
“May I have that one?” I corrected.
“Yes, that one.” Logan pointed to the cereal again and once again unleashed his dimpled weapons.
“No, say the full sentence,” I reminded him. “Say ‘Can I have that one, please?’ ”
“Can I have that one, please?” Without waiting for my reply, he grabbed his favorite brand and dropped it in the cart. Then he gave me a look, daring me to say no after all the work I’d made him go through just to get the cereal he wanted.
Even though I shouldn’t have, I laughed. It was hard to argue when he had a point. My constantly correcting him like a grammar-crazed schoolteacher was a family-sized pain in the ass, but his preschool program, his audiologist, and his speech pathologist had all been adamant about it. In order to help Logan learn to hear with his cochlear implant and learn to speak, we had to go through these painstaking exercises.
“Hey, Callie?” Jared said. I startled. Somehow, with the grammar lesson going on, I’d temporarily forgotten he was here. In the same aisle as me. While I was with the son he didn’t know existed.
Jared looked at Logan, and my heart stalled in my chest.Shit. Shit. Shit.I bit down the urge to toss Logan over my shoulder and run out of the store. Run away from the conversation with Jared I longed to avoid, much like you’d want to avoid being trapped in a room filled with pissed-off venomous snakes.
“Hi.” I also signed it, a habit whenever I was around Logan.
“Hi,” Logan repeated.
He cocked his head to the side, studying the tall man in front of him, who had the same wavy brown hair as his own. But Logan’s hair was longish and messy. Jared’s was short on the sides and longer on top and was artfully styled away from his face. He also had facial stubble that made him look even sexier. In the past five years, since I’d last seen him in person, his hotness factor had climbed exponentially. Unfortunately for me and my poor idiotic heart.
Jared smiled at Logan and crouched to his level. “Hey, buddy. You know what? That’s my favorite cereal too.”
Of course it was. Go figure.
