Love's Rhythm (12 page)

Oh, Nick, you had it all. Why the fuck did you let it go?

“Is that your helicopter near the soccer fields?” Josh asked, and Nick blinked, yanked back to the here and now. “Freaked us all out when we saw it. Rhys reckoned it must belong to some drug lord camped up in the mountains.”

“Really, Josh?” Lauren rolled her eyes, shaking her head, her cheeks still flushed with a heat Nick wanted to feel with his lips. Christ, he wanted that. That and so much more. “Drug lords? That’s your reason for a helicopter turning up here? I think I’m cancelling our satellite TV subscription.”

“
I
didn’t think that. Rhys did. I said it probably belonged to the dude Mr. McGimmons had been selling his
race-horse
stock to. Said the dude finally realized the race horses couldn’t run for—”

“Josh!”

Nick laughed again, giving Lauren a grin. He couldn’t help it. The whole situation made him feel…feel…fuck, it made him feel alive. “It
is
mine,” he answered. “Well, I assume it is.” He turned and gave the silent hovering Aslin behind him a questioning look. “You didn’t just steal someone’s chopper, did you, As? It is mine, yes?”

Aslin’s expression—calm but at the same time serious—didn’t change. “It’s actually Wolfmother’s. Yours wasn’t filled up.”

Josh laughed. As did Lauren. A genuine laugh, relaxed and soft and so perfect, so musical Nick’s stomach clenched. And it hit him. He wanted this. Being a family. Being a part of something more than just a life of empty hotel rooms and soulless award shows and superficial people at superficial parties. He wanted
this.
Her. Josh. Laughter. Love.

Life. Real life.

The life fate had offered him the day he met Lauren.

He wanted it. All of it.

“Okay, hot shot.” Lauren’s humor-laced voice stroked at his senses and he blinked, his throat tightening when he realized she wasn’t agreeing to his unspoken desire but talking to Josh instead. “Time to go wash up for lunch.”

Nick felt his pulse quicken. She was going to tell him to leave now. He could see it in the way she looked at him. The smile for her son still played with her lips, but her eyes were guarded once more. Guarded. Unreadable. She was going to tell him to leave and he didn’t want to. Not at all.

Josh gave Nick a wide grin. “Are you staying?”

I’m not going anywhere, Josh.

The answer formed in Nick’s mind. At the very moment a solid thud sounded on Lauren’s front porch, followed by a muttered curse.

Aslin ground out a muttered word that may have been fuck. He flicked Nick a dark scowl. “Holston.”

Nick cocked an eyebrow.

With a slow smile, Aslin turned to Lauren. “If it’s okay, can I ask you to put up with the rock star here for a while longer? Just while I deal with the moron outside? I’d rather get Holston out of the road before Nick walks back to the Cricketer’s Arms.”

For the first time in his life, Nick sent out a silent thank you to a member of the paparazzi.
Perfect timing, Holston. Remind me to send you a Ferrari.

“Fuck, yeah,” Josh burst out. And then stared at his mother, eyes wide. “Shit. Sorry, Mum.”

Lauren gazed at them both, her expression as ambivalent as her eyes. She pulled a slow breath, the action making her breasts rise, pushing them against the soft material of her pyjama shirt. Nick felt his groin stir, but he shut down the response, putting the memory of those perfect, lush breasts from his mind. Just.

Aslin raised his eyebrows. “Ms. Robbins?”

“Okay. As long as the rock star is fine with toasted-cheese sandwiches.”

Nick couldn’t stop his smile. “The rock star is.” And Lauren knew that. They’d been his favourite winter indulgence from as far back as he could remember, his specialty whenever he
cooked
for them both, and the only meal he’d requested on his birthdays.

“Excellent.” Josh’s grin split his face. “Can I call Rhys, Mum? Ask him to come ’round?”

Much to Nick’s amusement, Lauren lifted an eyebrow at their son—their son, Christ he loved the sound of that. “Do you really want to share Nick with Rhys, Josh?”

Josh studied her, snapped his gaze to Nick, narrowed his eyes, eyes the very grey as Nick’s own, and then swung back to Lauren again. “Next time.”

Nick burst out laughing.

“I’ll be back in a while, Nick.” Aslin put a hand on his shoulder, fixing him with a steady, pointed look. A look that told him not to waste his time
.

With a nod at Lauren and a wide grin at Josh, the man pulled open the door and crossed the threshold in one giant step. Nick heard Holston’s muttered curse followed by feet scrambling on the wooden porch, and then Aslin closed the door behind him, leaving Nick alone with the two people who meant more to him than he could ever express. Now if only he could be given the chance to do so.

He swallowed, suddenly completely unsure what to do next. His stare found its way to Lauren’s face, to her soft lips, her clear blue eyes. For the first time he noticed fine lines at their edges, lines that told him of a life lived without him. They looked beautiful on her. Beautiful and secretive and compelling. Once again, he was overwhelmed with the need to place his lips to her face, to trace those tiny lines with his kisses. To explore her beauty with his lips as he smoothed his hands around her waist and pulled her to his body, as he held her close and rediscovered everything about her he’d never forgotten.

“Mum?”

He started at Josh’s voice, his heart racing when he saw Lauren do the same thing. She blinked, licking her lips, her hands flittering to her face as she dragged her stare from Nick’s.

“What’s up, Josh?” There was a tremble to the words, a strained need Nick felt all the way to his core. As much as she tried to deny it, and she did, he could see it in every nuance in her body, every ragged breath she took. She was as affected by him as he was her.

Affected? Huh, don’t you mean undone? Undone and remade and turned inside out?

“Why are you wearing only your pyjama shirt?”

Her cheeks turned scarlet. “Err…”

Nick choked back a laugh before it could escape him. Thankfully, Josh didn’t seem interested in the answer. “Can you sign something for me?” he asked Nick instead. “I’ve got your first album on CD in my room. Every time I play it Mum tells me to either turn it off or put my headphones on.” He slid Lauren a quick sideward glance. “I don’t think she likes it much.”

“That’s it, Josh,” Lauren crossed the small space between them in two steps and snared him in a head lock, a hilarious move considering he was almost as tall as Nick. “You’re in sin-bin. Go. Now. And don’t come back out until you’re clean and ready to be nice to your mother.”

Josh laughed, squirming out of her grip and shoving her away with a gentle push. “Yeah, yeah. I’m going to have a shower. Try not to be too embarrassing in front of Nick while I’m gone.” He turned his grin on Nick, and for a split second it was like looking in a mirror from fifteen years ago. The eyes, the hair, the face not yet a man’s but not really a kid any more. Even if Nick hadn’t known who Josh’s father was, that grin, that cheekiness, would have screamed it loud and clear. It was enough to make his head spin. And his chest heavy with a powerful, indescribable pride.

He was a father.

“You’ll still be here when I get out?” Josh asked. An anxious tension fell over the boy and Nick could see, as desperately as he was trying to play it cool, Josh was more nervous and excited then he was letting on.

A chuckle bubbled up inside Nick’s heart. Like mother, like son.

He gave Josh a wide smile and said the words he knew to be truer than any he’d uttered in his life. “It’s okay, mate. I’m not going anywhere.”

Josh balled his fist. “Yes.” He grinned at his mother again and was gone, half-running, half-loping down the hallway until he ducked into a room to his right and was gone from Nick’s sight.

“You can’t mess with him, Nick.”

The level statement jerked Nick’s attention back to Lauren. She stood still, her arms folded over her chest, her eyes worried.

“He’s too great a kid to mess with. I won’t let you do that to him. I know how hard it is to get over you. I won’t let you do that to my son.”

“
Our
son,” he said. “And you just heard me. I’m not going anywhere.”

She studied him, her stare moving over his face as if she hunted answers to questions she hadn’t voiced.

Ask them, Lauren. Please ask them.

“Don’t do this to me again, Nick,” she whispered. “Don’t make me believe in something that can’t happen.”

He took a step toward her. “Why can’t it? We’re both older now. Wiser. Why can’t we have what we always wanted?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she let out a sigh and turned away from him. “I’m going to make toasted cheese sandwiches,” she said over her shoulder as she began walking. “You still take yours with double cheese and Vegemite?”

He swallowed, forcing a smile to his face. “You better believe it.”

“Just like your son,” he heard her mutter with a shake of her head. And then she laughed, a soft little chuckle, and his heart soared.

He followed her into the kitchen, taking in the tidy counter tops, the organized clutter. On the fridge was a collection of drawings, some on paper browning with age, Josh’s name scrawled on the top corner, some on newer paper with other names. Those had pictures of a woman with long pink hair and a big happy smile accompanied by words like,
To Miss Robbins, love Thomas
.
Dear Miss, From Chloe
.
My best teacher, by Heidi
. Drawings of a beloved teacher by students lucky enough to spend five days a week with her. He studied those artworks, his lips curling into a smile. He was jealous of those students. Insanely jealous.

“Can you pass me a knife, please?”

He turned away from the fridge and crossed the kitchen, stopping beside Lauren at the counter. She was pulling thick slices of brown bread from a loaf, her back to him. He looked around, finding what he thought must be the utensils drawer. It was, and he wrapped his fingers around a butter knife and turned to her.

Her lips met his before he could pass her the knife, her hands snaking up around the back of his neck, her fingers threading into his hair. She kissed him, her lips and tongue taking searing, slow, sensual possession of his mouth. She kissed him, and just as he slid his arms around her waist, just as his cock pulsed with eager want and he pulled her hips to his, she stopped and slipped from his hands, turning back to the waiting bread.

Nick sucked in a long breath, fighting for calm. He studied her profile, his balls swelling, his lips still wet from her kiss. “What was that?”

She didn’t take her attention from the sandwich she’d started to fix. “An itch scratched.”

He raised an eyebrow, his body on fire. It would be so easy to snake his arms around her and haul her against him right now. Crush her mouth with his, slip her buttons free and capture her breasts with his hands. So easy. But with Josh likely only minutes away from finishing his shower, he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. When he told Josh he was his dad, it was going to be face-to-face, calm and steady and certain. Not busted feeling up his mum in the kitchen.

Later maybe, months perhaps, being busted by Josh feeling up his mum wouldn’t be so much a problem, would be par for the course in a family home populated by a couple blissfully in love, but at the moment…no, not the way to break the news to him.

So he placed the knife on the counter beside the loaf of bread and jar of Vegemite and retrieved the cheese from the fridge. He wouldn’t let himself consider the possibility of such a euphoric, utopian happy-ever-after not eventuating. He would
make
it happen. How could Lauren kiss him like that if she didn’t feel for him what he felt for her? What she’d felt for him so many years ago?

She couldn’t. He just had to show her that.

By making this lunch together perfect.

Five silent-stretching minutes later, Josh came bounding into the kitchen, hair dripping, gangly limbs hidden by baggy jeans and an AC/DC T-shirt. He carried a CD and black Sharpie with him, and Nick noticed the nervous energy radiating from him again. “Are you sure you’re okay with signing it?” He handed the CD case to Nick, a shy smile at the edges of his mouth. “I’m not going to sell it on Ebay or anything. I promise.”

Nick laughed. “Oh, well, in that case.” He placed the case on the counter and looked at its cover artwork. He stared at himself, sixteen years younger than he was now, his face a pouty mask of smoldering torment and contempt. His first album.

Pulling the marker’s lid off with his teeth, he stared at the case, pen poised in his hand.

“Josh, can you grab Nick a drink, please?” Lauren’s voice played over Nick’s senses. “There’s apple cider in the fridge in the garage and lemons in the fruit bowl.”

A soft beat fluttered at Nick’s temple and a smile spread his lips. She remembered his favourite drink—cider and lemon—and was making his favourite lunch.

He looked at the CD case lying on the counter before him, bent slightly at the waist and wrote,
Josh. Play it loud and play it often. I’ll deal with your mum when you do. Promise.
He paused for a second, and then signed
Nick.

The smell of melting cheese and toasting bread seeped into the long breath he pulled, and with it came an onslaught of memories and images and sensory ghosts. How many toasted cheese sandwiches had Lauren made for him in their life together? Too many to count. How many had he had in the last fifteen years? None.

“Heads up, Nick,” Lauren said, and he turned and saw her place two fully stacked plates on the table. She graced him with a quick smile, the thick curtain of her hair—still tousled from sleep and his hands and their earlier lovemaking—tumbling over her shoulder. The desire to feel those cool silken strands sliding against his skin once more was a palpable taunt. To use her very phrase—an itch that needed scratching. And so he did. He crossed to her in three quick steps and combed her hair away from her temple with a single gentle stroke of his fingers.