Chapter Twenty-Six
Emily went to bed, feeling like she’d sprouted wings, and she was now flying over the clouds. Nash had a way of making her feel like a million bucks. They only had three more days here, and she wanted to stay forever.
Would this end as abruptly as it began?
She noticed that after their water fight, he’d seemed quieter, watched her in a new way. Something was bothering him, but she wasn’t sure how to get it out of him.
She brushed her teeth after throwing on casual cotton shorts and a sweatshirt. Her phone buzzed. Emily reached down and picked it up, seeing that Mia had texted:
“You’re famous, famous, famous! You owe that boy your career. He’s going to make us a lot of money.”
Emily’s stomach lurched as reality crashed through her idyllic life here at the ranch.
Without a doubt, she was starting to enjoy the performance side of things, and connecting with those who enjoyed her music, but she wasn’t ready for running from the paparazzi forever, or feeling like her life wasn’t her own.
She groaned, knowing what she really wanted. But it was far too early to be thinking this way! And still, she wanted to build a future with Nash. The life of a celebrity seemed to feel far from what she envisioned for herself. Strangely, she wanted to go back to being #LittleMissHarvestRanch, and no one could ensure that happened more than one of the best men that the Slades had to offer.
Emily sighed, collapsing against her bed. Maybe it was time to change the lyrics of her song from calling Nash a bad boy to a good ol’ boy.
She tossed her cellphone aside, and it crashed into the lamp. She shot up on the bed, cringing at the sound of breaking glass.
Nash was the next to barrel through the door. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m just trashing the place. You know how musicians are!” She jumped off the bed to clean up the mess of the broken lamp, and yelped when her bare foot caught a shard of glass. Nash rushed forward and scooped her up into his arms. She laughed and held on to him.
“You need to stop moving.” He set her on the loveseat across the room, not releasing her. His hands shifted against her back. Instinctively, she nestled into him. She should be used to his strong grip by now, so why did she want to snuggle every time he touched her?
“It was my cellphone,” she admitted. She found the sliver of glass in her foot and plucked it out. Luckily, it hadn’t gone too deep. She grabbed a tissue for it next. “I threw my phone across the room.”
“And why would you do that?” He left her to snatch up her phone and passed it on.
Pressing the tissue into her foot, she opened up the text with her other hand and showed him what Mia wrote:
“You’re famous, famous, famous! You owe that boy your career. He’s going to make us a lot of money.”
His lips tipped up. “How are you going to thank me?”
She chuckled, despite her misgivings. Nash had a way of making her worries more bearable. “Oh really? Why don’t you tell me how much you charge for your fake boyfriend services? The world still needs to be tricked into believing that I’ve got what it takes to go big.”
“You don’t need me,” he whispered. “You’re already there.”
Her heart sang—if only she could catch that emotion in her music. She giggled. “I like the way you talk.”
“Let’s cut the preliminaries,” he said. “What about that payment?”
She dropped the tissue and wound her arms around his neck. “I’m sure we can work something out.”
“One fake boyfriend coming up.” His mouth found hers, and she startled at the passion that she found there. She could be in his arms all night—forever! And that was the problem. Everything that she’d been working for, she was recoiling from now. She took a deep breath and looked up into his eyes. They were gentle on her. “Honestly, I don’t want the kind of life that she’s talking about there. I don’t want to be famous.”
“I get that.” He rearranged himself, so that they were sitting side by side. He captured her knees and brought her legs over his lap. His thumb rubbed over her calf in a circular motion. “How does your brother handle it?”
“For a while… he didn’t. It took him a very long time to find that balance, and… well, he’s on the road a lot. That’s the part that he doesn’t like—when he’s away from Liv.”
“I understand,” he said, touching her nose. “I wouldn’t want to be away from you.”
She ducked her head, feeling her cheeks heat. She felt the same way. Her pulse quickened. No, she couldn’t get her hopes up that this was leading to the same type of relationship that River and Liv had. “It’s much too soon to think about those kinds of things,” she whispered.
“Is it?” he asked.