FIVE

Hamish paused a moment before he opened the door to find her standing on his porch that Wednesday night. It was as if the breeze had blown the clouds away and the sun shone bright and warm.

“Hi.” She grinned, and he stepped back, allowing her entry.

“When you smile at me the way you do, it fills me up with so much joy I can’t quite contain it all.” He said it, not entirely having meant to.

She turned then, the light from the chandelier suspended in the entry sending a shower of jewels across her skin.

The smile she wore was even better. Open and full of affection. “That’s a very nice thing to say. Thank you. I’m genuinely happy to see you.”

He kicked the door closed, and she winced.

“That’s such a beautiful piece of woodwork. I was thinking you might put one of those strike-plate type things right where you kick it closed. That way you won’t harm the craftsmanship.” She bent to slide her fingertips over the place he habitually used as a hands-free spot to shut the front door.

Hamish wrapped an arm around her waist and hauled her to his side. “Hello, my beautiful Pippa. I’m going to need a taste.”

Her expression smoothed as that smile of hers returned, sending his senses into overdrive. As he lowered his head to take her mouth, he drew a deep breath, filling his lungs with caramelized sugar and heady flowers.

In those moments when it was this…simple, gorgeous, intense connection between them, there was absolutely no doubt within him. She was it. She was it, and he was happy to snap her up and fill her life with pleasure.

His self-doubt fell away, and he let himself trust this true thing.

She moaned low in her throat, and in two steps he’d backed her against the nearby wall and had bent his legs enough to have better access to the kiss that built between them like wildfire. Christ. He wanted more and more. All.

He might have taken her right then if the bleeding timer on the stove hadn’t gone off.

“I’m going to blow that oven up,” he muttered as he broke away from that kiss, leaving her giggles in his wake. “Come through to the kitchen. I need to check on dinner.”

“You were made for candlelight,” he told her as they dug in. He’d lit every candle he had, as well as about thirty flameless ones.

“You’re full of compliments tonight,” she said, spreading butter on a slice of bread for each of them. Always taking care.

“I’m…” He broke off, and she let him, keeping a close eye while she ate. “I guess I just wanted you to know what I was feeling.”

She nodded. “Okay. Tell me about what you’ve been up to for the last two weeks.”

If he’d said the same thing a month earlier, she’d have pursued it. He felt that distance—distance he’d put there—more than ever.

“I wasn’t entirely ready to start on a new album, but it happened anyway. I’ve got two new songs completed and a few more in the incubation stage.”

Her pleasure seemed to build and fill the space. “That’s amazing! I’m so happy for you. I can’t wait until you’re at the stage where you want to share.”

Before her he never shared. He made his music, recorded it fourteen times until it was perfect, and then he sent it to his management who got the music to the label.

His lyrics were very personal, and it was one thing when it was out in the wider world because for whatever reason, it felt more anonymous. But letting someone else see or hear before he finished was to lay himself bare.

Of all the people he knew, Pippa deserved that intimacy. No. He wanted to share that intimacy with her. Show her parts of himself she would protect. Knew, too, on some level he needed to get over his bullshit fear or it truly would be the end of any chance they had to be together as more than close friends who had sex and kissed a lot.

He’d fantasized about sharing that depth of connection between them. All the while she’d been there, waiting for him to get his head right.

Decision made, Hamish stood and held a hand to her. Her eyes widened, but she placed her fingers against his, and he helped her to her feet and then downstairs to the home studio he’d had built.

He pushed open the door into the main room. “I do most of my writing in here.” Suddenly shy, he looked down, but her laugh was so full of wonder his gaze was drawn back to her.

She’d wandered to the rack of guitars but kept her hands at her back, fingers laced tightly. “These are yours? That’s a stupid question. Obviously, they are.”

“I write with the acoustic, but once I start laying down tracks, I’ll use the others too.” He pulled one free. “You can touch it. Do you play?” She loved music, he knew. They listened to it together frequently.

“I don’t. I just love it when other people do.” Her gaze dropped to the instrument in his hands. “Looks well loved.”

“I bought this when I was twenty. It’s been with me ever since.” The bridge was smooth from years of use; touching it always made him feel welcome. The Martin had been at his side for every song he’d ever recorded and a hundred more he never had.

“Addie and James wanted to give it to me for my birthday, but it was, I don’t know how to explain it. I just needed to earn it.” It had meant everything to him that they’d listened and respected what he’d wanted to do. And had been so proud of him when he’d done it and managed to save enough.

They wanted to do for him. To make him happy and fill his life with all the things he’d never had. Love and attention chief among them. “Once I showed a real interest in music, they were behind me all the way. Drove me to gigs. Helped with gear loadout more than once. They paid for a pressing of what later became my first EP.”

“They’re really just the best. The kind of parents I wish I’d grown up with. No wonder you, Jessi, Leif, and Charlie are all so fantastic.” Pippa paused in front of what Addie called his awards wall. He’d tried to pretend it was no big deal. But she’d known, as real moms did, how much it meant that he could see the product of all his hard work when he was down there. It helped him keep going on the days when it felt like he’d never write a good song ever again.

“Is this where you do all your recording? Does this mean you’re rooted here in Seattle now? At least for the next while?”

“Would that make you happy?”

That slipped out, but once he said the words, they both knew he was hoping the answer was yes.

“It nearly always makes me happy to see you.” She turned and lifted a hand to his cheek, and he covered it with his own.

“Nearly always?”

“When you push me away it doesn’t make me happy. I respect it, because everyone should have the right to set those boundaries.”

“I’m a mess,” he told her quietly.

“No, you aren’t.” She shook her head.

“I’m terrified of hurting you so much you leave me forever.”

Her features softened. “I can’t do any of this for you. I wish I could. But I’m always your friend. I know your heart. But eventually, if you keep pushing, I’ll give you all the distance you claim to want. If you don’t want it, be a big boy and act like it.”

That gave him pause. Sometimes she was so soft and sweet it was hard to remember she also had a spine of steel when necessary.

“I don’t want you out of my life.”

But that wasn’t what she meant. One of her brows rose. “Okay.”

“I can’t imagine my life without you in it,” he amended. “This distance is never about you.”

“In the end, it is. But you need to do what’s best for yourself. I will too. But I’m not out to break your heart. Or disappear.”

He brushed a kiss against her temple as he pulled her into a hug.

After they both seemed to feel better, Hamish led her to one of the chairs before he settled in the recliner he composed in most often. She seemed to know he needed her not to speak. Which moved him so deeply the ground at his feet felt like it crumbled to dust.

All his life he’d been a stranger. Everywhere he went. Everyone he was around. Over the years there’d been a handful of people who’d ever made him feel seen and understood. Through it all it was music he’d felt recognized and welcomed by.

He drew fingertips over the strings before he grabbed a pick, and without thinking it over too hard began to play. He’d started writing it months back. It had been tender, like a toothache, but he put it aside over and over until finally getting it all in place just a few days before.

Pippa knew, of course, that he was a musician. She’d seen him on stage more than once before she’d met him in person. Even when he was cooking or driving a car, he was otherworldly. He’d sung her little snippets. Always other people’s songs.

And though she’d been in his home on multiple occasions, he’d never brought her down to his studio.

The moment was so precious to her she was afraid to breathe too heavily, afraid to move and shatter this magic that had developed between them. With this man she’d wanted to know so much.

And that he’d do this after their whatever it had been. Not a fight. But she’d laid down some of her own boundaries too. And now he was opening to her in a way he never had before. Which was wonderful but also…made it harder to continue to see both Xander and Hamish at the same time.

He sang conversationally, his accent rising as he did. “Don’t tell me you miss me when I’ve been here all along.” Nearly a plea.

Tears in her eyes, hands clasped tight, she listened and opened the door to her heart a crack more because he was Hamish. Unique and perfect in his own way. But so very soft. Wounded beneath a mask of sarcasm. Beautiful. So beautiful.

Eyes nearly as dark as his hair, currently in a messy tousle around his gorgeous face. A nose slightly crooked from being broken twice. He’d told her the story of the second time, being caught up in a brawl before a show. A show he’d performed anyway. His beard had gotten long over the summer but currently it was closer trimmed. A septril piercing in his nose currently held a titanium hoop she’d given him. It only made him more handsome.

He looked a little rough and dark. Broody. Sometimes on stage he leaned hard into that Scottish rock-and-roll star persona, playing up the accent and the swagger. But it was a mask. His lyrics were a glimpse into the heart of the songwriter. He felt things deeply and seriously.

But every time she’d tried to hold him closer, to know him on a deeper level, he’d dissolved like smoke.

She might have walked away a dozen times, but he’d never rejected her. He’d just gotten terrified of opening up. She could watch it on his features, and though it had made her sad, hurt her feelings even, mainly she wanted to get that look off his face. She didn’t want to back him into a corner like a rabid animal, but she couldn’t walk away either. Something unfurled and blossomed every time she was with him.

He took up a place inside her, and she wasn’t sure how or when or even why. But he was there.

When he finished, she wanted to clap. Instead, she said, “That’s astonishing. Hamish, I’m so honored you shared that.”

His smile in response made her so glad she’d said what she had.

“It’s called ‘Ghost’. It came during the sad, slow death of a close friendship,” he told her. “It was a low point on several levels in my life. Things had gotten very dark, and I felt so fucking alone. Judged by everyone. Betrayed by those who’d just wandered off when I needed them most. Stung. Humiliated.”

“It takes so much courage to be that honest with your art.”

He said, “Ah, but they don’t know, you see? They think I’m a hard-living slag, aye?”

“You want them to see that. But music is a language all its own. People hear your songs, and they know who you are. Here.” She pressed the heel of her hand against her chest, over her heart.

He set his guitar aside, leaning it against the chair, and moved to her, crouching. The look on his face wrenched something deep inside.

“I’m not nearly as good as you make me out to be,” he whispered.

“Or. You’re so much better than you let yourself believe.”

He rested his forehead against hers before he stood and brought her along with him. “Come through. I’ll show you the recording booth and the soundboards. I’ll even let you peek at my platinum records.”