Page 35 of When the Storm Breaks
“You’re saying you don’t want her here?” He was trying to goad me. I wasn’t going to stoop to his teen combat tactics.
I wanted her here. I wanted her in my kitchen. In my bed. On the island. Underneath me. On top of me. I wanted her in every way imaginable.
“Hey Vivienne,” Ridge said over the whirring of the blender, his phone in hand.
“Yeah?” she asked without turning around.
“What kind of music do you like?”
“All kinds.”
“Huh. Okay.” I side-eyed him as he scrolled through his playlists. Seconds later, he hit play, a smirk on his face as “The Ghost of You” by Acadian Storm blasted from the speakers. “This band is in my top ten. Might be inching its way up to number one.”
“Stop being a dick,” I said through clenched teeth. “Change the music.”
“Nah. I like it. You like it, Viv?”
I wrestled the phone out of his hand and cut the music as the blender stopped whirring. For a few seconds, there was total silence.
“I always wonder if bands listen to their own music,” he pondered. The little shit. He was lucky I hadn’t rearranged his face.
Shiloh turned from the counter and set a smoothie in front of me then focused her gaze on Ridge. “Can you do me a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Can you keep this to yourself? I’m here for five and a half more weeks and if you want to hang with me, you totally can. But I don’t want my whereabouts to be all over social media, okay?”
“I won’t say shit to anyone. Swear on my life.” He crossed his heart. “I’m good at keeping secrets. Been doing it all my life.”
Shiloh gave him a smile. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“So you like Acadian Storm?” she asked, leaning her elbows on the counter and propping her chin in her hands. He nodded. “Is that song your favorite?”
“Yeah.” He hung his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “It got me through some hard times. Used to listen to it on repeat.”
Shiloh nudged my arm. “Play it again. For Ridge.”
“Nah. It’s okay,” he mumbled. “Just forget it. I need some sleep.” Shoulders slumped, he headed out of the kitchen and I watched his back until he was gone, somehow feeling like I’d been the one to fuck this up. I’d been trying to get through to him and he’d just shared more in the past five minutes than in all the months he’d been living with me.
“Hey.” Shiloh placed her hand over mine and I dragged my eyes away from the doorway and to her face. “You should listen to the song some time. It’ll probably tell you more about Ridge than he could ever put into words.”
“Is that what you do when you write your music? Do you share your truth?”
She studied my face before answering. “I slit a wrist and bleed onto the page.” She laughed but I could tell she hadn’t been joking.
I knew the song. But I’d never listened to it that closely. Now I would. It wouldn’t only tell me what Ridge couldn’t, it would also tell me a lot about Shiloh. And as much as I tried to deny it, I wanted to know everything about the woman standing in my kitchen.
“Uh oh,” Noah said. “I missed.”
I looked over at Noah who was using his hands to scoop up the smoothie that pooled on the counter and dripped onto the floor.
Shiloh burst out laughing. It was just another Saturday morning in my crazy life. I had a son who only stayed with me on the weekends. A brother who had a previous life I knew nothing about. And now I had a rock star looking for calm in the storm.
Funny. I’d always thoughtIwas the storm.
A knock on the front door had Noah abandoning his efforts to clean up the mess. “Hayley’s here. Yes!”
