At six foot one, he was half a head taller than I was and he kept in shape, but he wasn’t overly muscled or built. His face had matured in these last six years, his features sharper and far more chiseled than they had been as a teenager. In his black button-down shirt and dark jeans, he didn’t really look like the billionaire I knew he had become. He just looked likehim. A more polished, confident, and older version of him, but still him.
I was glad for it. It was comforting to know that he hadn’t let the sudden influx in his bank account turn him into some flashy new-money playboy. I smiled. It would always be nice to know that he was out there in the world, just being himself and making wherever he was better for it.
I stepped up to the bar to grab another drink, laughing and looking over my shoulder as I finished out a conversation with Larisa. I smacked into something hard. My breath left me in a rush and I let out a decidedly unladylike grunt, but then I froze when the wall chuckled and I realized it hadn’t been a wall at all.
“It’s nice to see you, too,” Bart said, grabbing my waist to steady me as he peered down into my eyes with just the slightest hint of a smirk on his full lips. “You do know you didn’t have to tackle me to get my attention, don’t you?”
Now that he was this close to me, my heart kicked into a higher gear, and for a moment, I just let the familiar, clean scent of him wash over me. Bart had never been one for super strong colognes. He’d told me once that he got nauseated if he wore something he could smell all the time, and so he’d always opted for subtle scents with fresher, more aquatic undertones than those that were too spicy or woodsy.
I’d always loved the way he smelled since I felt very much the same about overpowering scents, and as I breathed him in, a part of me felt like it had finally come in out of the cold. It was such a feeling ofhomethat it sparked an idea for a song in my mind and I smiled back at him, waggling my brows so he wouldn’t suspect how deeply he still affected me.
“I know, but everyone else was just coming up and saying hi, so I decided against being as boring as that. I needed to do something a little more original.”
“Obviously.” He laughed, using the arm that was already on me as leverage to tug me into him and give me a big hug. “I’ve been meaning to get to you since I got here. How’ve you been?”
“I’m good,” I fibbed, but it wasn’t a total lie. For the most part, I was good. I was healthy, happy with my friends, and blessed with my family. My career wasn’t going well and I had no money, but life wasn’t only about finances. “Congratulations, by the way. I heard about the company. I also heard about your dad. I’m so sorry, Bart. He was a good man. I’m sure you miss him a lot.”
“I do, and thank you,” he replied, hesitating for a moment before he smiled again. “Hey, do you want to pause this conversation to get some drinks? Then we can go somewhere quieter to catch up. I mean, it’s been, what, six years?”
“Something like that,” I replied. “Sure, let’s do it. See? I knew the tackle would work to get your attention for more than just a few minutes to say hi.”
“Yep. It was definitely that.” He chuckled as he turned toward the counter and asked the bartender Tanner took over from occasionally for a bottle of champagne and two glasses. “It’s got nothing to do with seeing an old friend for the first time in six years.”
I laughed and followed him down the hall until we got to a quiet, empty bedroom downstairs. It was the only room we’d come across that didn’t already have people in it, and while it would be strange to talk to him on a bed, it was the only option available.
“Larisa did this room up with Tanner’s mom in mind,” Bart said as he followed me in, flicking on the lamp standing on the nightstand and smiling. “Thank God she’s not here tonight, right?”
“Why?” I teased. “What are you planning on doing with me in here? I thought we just came to talk. She could’ve been part of the conversation.”
He arched a brow at me, only the corners of his lips kicking up into a smile. “You must not remember Mrs. Harris very well, then. She can talk the hind leg off a donkey. We wouldn’t have gotten a word in edgewise, but I guess we’d have walked away with plenty of ammunition against Tanner, so it might’ve been a fair trade.”
The mattress dipped underneath me when I sat down at the edge of the bed and patted the spot beside me. “How are you really doing? I’m sorry I couldn’t go to the funeral. I wanted to, but I got a job for that day, and I couldn’t turn it down.”
He gave me a small smile and sat down a little closer to me than I’d expected him to, but I supposed it was automatic. Muscle memory. We’d spent so long not sitting a socially acceptable distance away from one another that it would’ve felt weird if he did it now.
“I’m probably as okay as I can be,” he admitted softly. “It’s hard, but I’m doing my best to look on the bright side. Knowing my dad isn’t in pain anymore is no small thing, but then something happens and all I want to do is call to tell him about it. Like with the company sale. I have no idea how long it’s going to take before it starts feeling real because everything only felt real once I said it to him, but now…”
“Now there’s no phoneline to where he is,” I finished for him, falling back into that natural rhythm we used to have without skipping a beat. “I shudder to think about what that must be like. Honestly? It makes me want to call my parents and keep them on the phone for the rest of my life.”
“You should,” he said bluntly. “Call ‘em every day at least. You might not be able to keep them on the phone for the rest your life, since that’d probably make things like working a little bit difficult for all of you, but call them as often as you can, while you still can. It sucks when they’re not there on the other side of the line anymore.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, glancing at him and noticing the tightness of his jaw. “We don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I’ll listen if youdowant to.”
“Let’s talk about happier things,” he said almost immediately, blinking away the sadness and giving me a smile instead. “Tell me about your music career. Shawn said you’re doing work for other people now? How’s that going?”
I shrugged, trying to put a positive spin on it so it wouldn’t sound like I was feeling sorry for myself when he was going through something so much worse, and also because I preferred putting good vibes out into the universe than bad ones.
“Writing for other people is good,” I said. “It allows me to hone my skills and stay current, and it also helps me network and get my name out there.”
“You’re not thinking about giving up on your own music, are you?”
Damn it.When he looked at me like that, it was like he could see straight into my head with those annoyingly perceptive eyes.
I sighed. “Can you still read my mind, Bart Philips?”
He chuckled, unapologetic as he shrugged. “Shawn might’ve told me it’s not going quite like you were planning, but you still can’t lie for shit. Even if he hadn’t said anything, I’d have known you were putting a spin on it. I believe that writing for other people does all those things for you, but I don’t believe that you’re particularly happy doing it or that it’s where you wanted to be by now.”
Talking to him like this came so easily that a highlight reel of memories of our relationship started playing out in my head. We dated officially for four years, from ages sixteen to twenty, but before that we’d been close for another two. Although we’d been apart for as long as we’d been involved, the connection I’d had with him was still there, and it was still the most intense connection I’d ever had in a relationship.