Page 41 of I Need You Tonight
“She’s our new social media person,” I explained to Nolan.
A furrow formed between his eyebrows, unseen by Nicole, who was attempting to extricate herself from Rocky’s enthusiastic welcome.
When she finally succeeded, she stood up and held out her hand to Nolan. “Hi. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too,” Nolan said politely, but I knew him well enough to understand what he was really thinking…and it didn’t bode well for me.
I mentally shrugged it off. We needed someone to help us manage our social media, and we couldn’t do better than Nicole. The guys would quickly realize this and would be thanking me in no time. Or at least I assumed they would be.
“Everyone’s out back,” he told us, pulling Rocky away from the front door.
I stepped into the house. Hailey had been busy while her boyfriend was touring. From what I could see, the inside had been repainted a light brown and the furniture seemed like a modern version of rustic, with lighter colors and clean lines. The only reason I knew those terms was because my aunt was an interior designer. Or at least she had been the last time I’d seen her and the rest of my family.
“Place looks good,” I said.
“Definitely an improvement over my old apartment,” Nolan replied, smiling in the same goofy way he always did whenever he was thinking about his girlfriend.
“Rocky!” Logan said from the kitchen doorway.
The puppy barked at his favorite four-year-old and bounded toward Jared’s son. Logan kneeled and let Rocky lick him. Nothing was cuter than a little boy giggling over puppy kisses, as he liked to call them.
Taking hold of Nicole’s hand, I led her over to the pair.
“Hi, Uncle Mason,” Logan said and signed, still kneeling. He held up his fist to me.
I fist-bumped him. “Hey, Logan, this is my friend Nicole. She’s going to work with the band while we’re on tour. Nicole, this is Logan, Jared’s son.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said to him.
“Do you curse like Uncle Mason?” he said, a hopeful expression on his dirt-smudged face.
I laughed. “Hate to disappoint you, buddy, but I’ve yet to hear her swear even once. Besides, I don’t think the dollar-per-swear-word rule counts for her. She’s a guest.”
Nicole’s gaze darted to me. “Dollar-per-swear-word rule?”
Nolan snickered. “Jared wasn’t thrilled when Mason cussed around his son, especially when Logan started repeating the words. So Aaron suggested that Mason had to cough up a dollar every time he cursed.”
I let out a mock huff. But I couldn’t complain. I would’ve felt the same way if our places were reversed. Although at the time, when Jared first adopted the payment rule, he’d had no idea Logan was his son. Probably just as well—otherwise he might have charged me five dollars per word.
“Let’s play, Rocky.” Logan charged outside with Rocky close on his heels.
“Logan’s hearing-impaired?” Nicole asked.
“No, deaf. But he has a cochlear implant, so he can hear a lot of what goes on around him. He just doesn’t like listening to music with it. He prefers to feel the vibrations through the floor.”
“Jared is the band’s guitarist, right?” At my nod she added, “That’s so heartbreaking that his son can’t listen to you guys play.”
I shrugged. “It is what it is.”
Outside, I introduced Nicole to everyone else in the backyard, including Hailey and Callie. Beckie was also there, standing next to Kirk—close enough for me to wonder if something was going on between them.
Like Nolan, the guys looked less than impressed when I introduced Nicole as our new social media person and said that she’d be joining us on tour. But also like Nolan, they managed to keep Nicole from guessing that something was wrong.
Food and drinks had been set up on the patio, and Aaron had returned to manning the grill. I grabbed a beer for myself and was pouring Nicole a glass of wine when Nolan approached the table.
“Band meeting in the living room,” was all he said before heading inside.
Nicole was busy talking to the three other women, all of them laughing at something one of them had said. I handed her the glass of wine. “The band is having a brief meeting to get me up to speed since I’ve been away for a few days. I’ll be right back.”
She smiled sweetly at me, and my cock twitched at the thought of those luscious lips on it.
Keeping that erotic thought in my head, I entered the house, braced for the interrogation I was about to face.
