Spencer Cohen Series, Book One (The Spencer Cohen Series 1) (6 page)

It was then I realised he was holding my hand as much as I was holding his. He didn’t just let his hand sit limp in mine. He ran his thumb along the side of my hand and his fingers kind of gripped onto mine. It was comforting and warm, and above all, it just felt really nice.

I swallowed down the unexpected lump in my throat. “And if we have to dance?”

It took him a moment to answer. I wasn’t sure if he was aware of the static between us or if it was just me. “Oh, I don’t dance.”

“Okay, fair enough,” I said. I was okay with that. Some people didn’t like to dance, and that was fine. “But what if there’s loud music and I need to lean in close?” I asked. My voice was husky from trying to whisper and getting all breathy instead.

He blinked quickly and licked his bottom lip. We were still holding hands, so I took one hand each in mine and spread his arms out at the sides. I leaned in slow, feeling his warmth but not quite touching, and ignoring how good he smelled, I put my lips to his ear. “This okay?”

He nodded, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t breathe.

I pulled back so I could see his face but still kept hold of his hands. “If he’s watching us, I might lean in to talk in your ear. But it will only be to get his attention.”

He cleared his throat. “And that worked with other guys?”

“Other clients?” I clarified. There was a distinct difference between guys I liked and guys I worked with. “It usually works, yes.”

He let out a deep breath. “Oh, okay.”

“And I’ll only kiss you if we need it to seal the deal,” I told him. “Kinda like the make or break kiss. He either won’t care, or he’ll let me know he didn’t appreciate my touching you. But if I do kiss you, you’ll need to trust me that it’s because Eli’s watching and warring with himself about coming over. Just go along with it.”

His eyes were wide. “Oh.”

I almost laughed. “We don’t need to practice kissing,” I added. “Unless you want to.”

He snorted, and a blush crept up his neck. “Ah, I think I’m familiar with how it works.”

“Though I’ve only had to kiss one client once. Most of the time a well-placed hand and whispering in your ear will do the trick. Like this,” I said, letting go of his hand so I could put my hand on his waist. On his hard, well-defined waist. “Jesus, what you got going on under that shirt?”

He blanched. “What?”

I gave his side a squeeze. “You’re like ripped or something!”

He jumped and grabbed my hand with a laugh. “Ah!”

“You’re ticklish?” I asked, laughing with him. “Good to know.”

His cheeks were red, but he was still smiling, and the serious mood between us was broken. I didn’t know whether to be grateful or disappointed. I shook myself out and took a deep breath. “Okay, serious again.”

He looked at me weirdly. “What was it like when you kissed that guy?”

“My client?”

He nodded.

“To be honest, it was awkward,” I admitted. “I didn’t really like him, so it wasn’t natural, if that’s what you mean?”

“You didn’t like him?”

“I mean, he wasn’t my type.”

He nodded. “Did it work?” he asked. “Did it get his ex’s attention?”

“It sure did. Like I said, I’m good at what I do.”

He bit his bottom lip and looked away. Eventually he nodded, as though he’d come to some conclusion in his head.

“If you want to draw the line at something, please just say,” I told him. “If me kissing you makes you uncomfortable, you have to tell me. Ultimately it all comes down to you. You’re the boss here.”

He took a while to answer, and I worried for a second he’d say no to the possibility of me kissing him, or even touching him. I didn’t know why that bothered me. Probably because he was so cute and he smelled so good and his lips looked so damn kissable…

“It’s fine,” he answered. Then he shook his head and chuckled nervously. “My God, this is weird.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, unable to stop from smiling. “Only if we let it get weird.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets again. “So, what do we do for the next few hours?”

There was absolutely no reason for him to be here for the next few hours at least. If it were anyone else, I would have bid him farewell and told him I’d call past his place at seven. But this was different. I didn’t know why it was different. It just was. So instead of telling him to leave, I said, “How ’bout you pick another record for us to listen to?”

Then he had to go and pick Jeff Buckley’s live LP, and I knew right then and there I was in trouble.

He sat on my papasan chair like a cat in the sun and listened to the vinyl recording of my most favourite album. I sat on the sofa with my laptop, trying to find out what I could on Eli Masterson, but truthfully, I was just watching Andrew.

“So, Eli works eight till four, Monday to Friday?” I asked, trying to get my mind on the job.

“Shush.”

I blinked. He just fucking shushed me. “Really?”

He grinned at me. “You can’t talk while this is playing.” Then he tilted his head a little and listened to Jeff Buckley sing. “Show a little respect to the man.”

“Oh, I respect Mr Buckley.” I threw a cushion at him.

He caught the cushion and sank down a little in the papasan chair as he laughed, curling up all comfortable-like and smiling, still reading over the album cover and looking as though he belonged there. As though I wanted him to belong there. And that realisation startled me.

“What?” he asked. “You look like you swallowed a pill.”

I shook my head. “Nothing. No, it’s all good.” Trying to get my heart rate back to normal, I looked back at the laptop screen, just as the song “Hallelujah” started. And like always, it made me stop. I took a deep breath and just listened.

When I looked over at Andrew, he was smiling at me. “I see what you mean. It’s a great song. I don’t know about perfect—”

“Shush!” I said back to him.

He chuckled again and waited until the song was played out. “Yes, Eli works eight till four, Monday through Friday.”

Right. Eli. Shit.
“Does he play any sport on weekends? Soccer, football, tennis?”

Andrew shook his head. “Um, no.”

“I just wondered if there was somewhere else we could just turn up to, that’s all.” I sighed. “Does he have a favourite grocery store? A café? Bookstore? Park?”

Andrew rattled off a few of Eli’s other haunts and what he did in his free time. From what I understood, they rarely did anything together, and Eli seemed rather boring. It was hard to explain, but for all Andrew told me about Eli, the less I knew about him.

“What did you guys used to do on a Sunday afternoon?” I asked. “Didn’t go to a jazz bar with friends?”

He shook his head slowly. “Nope.”

“Why not?” I asked. “You love jazz.”

“I guess we never got around to it,” he said with a shrug.

“I think I need to talk to this Eli of yours.”

He froze and his smile was gone. “Why?”

“To tell him to wake up to himself,” I said jokingly, although I wasn’t really joking at all. “Because that’s the first place I’d take you.”

Andrew laughed at that, and his cheeks tinted pink. “God, I thought you meant you were gonna knock on his door or something.”

“Well, no. I wasn’t going to. I mean I could, but I prefer no contact with the target, thanks.”

“The target?”

“Yep.”

“You make it sound like it’s some covert operation or something.”

“It is! We have code words and everything.”

“Code words?”

“Well, phrases, but yes,” I told him. “Like if he approaches you in a bar, I’d say, ‘I’ll just wait outside,’ which is code for
good luck
. Or if the target is having sex with some other dude in the bathrooms, I’ll say, ‘Shots of tequila are on me,’ which is code for
game over
.”

He made a face. “I hate tequila.”

I found myself smiling at him. “Me too. But I think you missed the point.”

He laughed again, which told me he didn’t miss the point at all. He turned the LP cover over in his hand. “How did Jeff Buckley die?”

“Um…” Random subject change, but okay. “He drowned. Walked out into the Mississippi, fully clothed, singing Led Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love’, and never came out.”

Andrew blinked. “Jeez.”

“Why?”

“I never knew, that’s all.”

Just then, his phone beeped. He fished it out of his pocket and read the screen. “It’s Sarah,” he said.

So while he had a text conversation with his sister, I did another quick Facebook scroll on Eli, his friends, family—anything that might strike me as odd. There was nothing out of the ordinary. There were also no pictures of him with Andrew. Granted, he didn’t post a lot, or often, but still. I’d have thought he would have at least mentioned having a boyfriend, let alone a live-in boyfriend. Not to even mention the fact they were supposed to be engaged. Or even the break-up. People were forever posting break-ups on Facebook for sympathy and to notify their list of friends that they were back on the market. There was no mention of Andrew at all.

So then I looked up Andrew.

Andrew’s timeline was mostly people tagging him in jokes or memes. There were a few posts from Sarah. They seemed like nice people. Nothing religious or political, nothing offensive. Some holiday pictures and, after scrolling a while, I found a picture of Andrew and Sarah. It was an old photo, when Andrew and Sarah were little, in what looked like some family holiday. A happy family, a perfect family even.

A pang of sadness pierced my chest, and I quickly exited out, just as Andrew put his phone away. Thankful for the distraction, I asked, “Everything okay?”

“Oh yeah,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Mom’s invited her to a lunch thing next month and Sarah just gave me the heads up that if she has to go, so do I.”

“Sounds fun.”

He scoffed. “If by fun you mean boring as hell, then you’d be correct.”

He had no idea just how good a family lunch sounded. He stared at me for a long second, then reached over to put the album cover on top of the record player. “Come on,” he said, standing up. “Let’s go.”

I slowly closed my laptop. “Uh, where exactly are we going?”

“You’re going to buy me my first Jeff Buckley album.”

I grinned at him. “Oh, am I?”

“Yes, you are. Unless you want to give me that one.” He pointed to my record player.

“Like hell. That’s my favourite.”

“That’s what I thought,” he said, walking to the door. He turned back to look at me—where I hadn’t moved from—and clapped his hands together. “Look alive, Spencer.”

“Alright,” I said, collecting my wallet and keys. I quickly grabbed two bottled waters out of my fridge and handed one to him as we walked out the door. “Are you always so pushy?”

He laughed, and those little lines crinkled the corners of his eyes, and the sun gave a warmth to his skin. He went down the stairs first and waited for me to get to the bottom. I guessed he was unsure of which direction to go. I pointed my thumb to the tattoo shop’s dead bolted door. “Can’t access the shop from the outside, so we’ll have to go around,” I nodded toward the end of the building, and we settled into a comfortable stride next to each other.

“I assume there’s a music store around here somewhere,” he said as we neared the street.

“There’s a few,” I told him. “Did you want a CD or an LP? I could have just downloaded it for you if that would have been easier.”

“LP, for sure.”

“Do you have a record player?”

“Well, no. But I think I’ll have to get one. I would imagine jazz and blues from vinyl would be incredible.”

I grinned at him. “I’ve created a monster!”

“You can’t just play classic vinyl albums to a music lover and not expect him to want it.”

I grinned. “True.”

We walked the two blocks, the banter between us never stopping. He talked with his hands when he explained things, which I found to be rather endearing, and I’m pretty sure I hadn’t stopped smiling since we left my place. We tossed our empty water bottles into a recycling bin before I led him down a side alley off the boulevard and stood in front of the door to the music shop. “Before we go in, you must promise me something.”

He was suddenly serious. “What?”

“This place is special, and thus, must remain a secret.”

“Thus?”

“It’s a word.”

“That no one has used in two hundred years.”

“Not true. I just used it now.”

He laughed. “Okay, so I’m not supposed to tell anyone I came here?”

“Nope. It’s like Vegas.”

“As in ‘What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’? Really?”

“Yes, really.” I nodded. “It’s too awesome to be popular.”

“Isn’t that redundant to their business profitability?”

“Possibly. But it’s completely old-school indie. I think the owner was a pot-smoking surfer from the sixties and has principles against corporations, though I’ve never asked him. Anyway, if too many people know about it, then it becomes mainstream. And that would ruin it.”

He frowned at me. “Then it’s not like Vegas. It’s more like
Fight Club
.”

I laughed and bowed my head. “Ah, Grasshopper. You have passed the test. You may enter.” He beamed, and I opened the door with a laugh.

He stepped inside. “Okay, wow.”

The music shop was like a tribute to the 70s. Instead of neon lights and flashing digital screens, there were band posters and vintage T-shirts pinned to the walls. And rows and rows of vinyl records.

“Cool, huh?”

He nodded slowly, and still looking at the rows of albums, he said, “Where do I start?”

“This way,” I said, leading him to the folk section. “They’re categorized by genre, then alphabetically.” I found the B section. “Here. Jeff Buckley.”

He flicked through some of the covers. “Which one would I like?” he asked, more to himself than to me.

“His
Live from Sin-é
album,” I told him. “He covered Billie Holiday and Nina Simone. You’d love it.”

I took over looking through the covers, and when I looked up, he was staring at me. I mean, we were standing shoulder to shoulder, rifling through vintage records, and he was staring right at me. “What?”

He quickly turned back to the album covers. “Nothing.” He shook his head. “You can look through these. I’ll just… check out the record players,” he mumbled so quietly, I barely heard him. And he walked off to look at the old record players and turntables.

Odd. But, figuring I didn’t exactly know him that well, it was hard to gauge what was weird behaviour or not. I found the album I was after and pulled out the sleeve. The vinyl looked unscratched, so with a smile, I slid the album back into the cover and followed Andrew over to the far wall. “Found it,” I told him.

“Oh, cool, thanks,” he said. He was clearly distracted by the record players, because he didn’t look at me. “Which of these do you think?”

They were only table top units, not whole cabinets like mine. He seemed undecided between two. “I think the black one. It has speakers built in,” I told him. “And it’ll match the frames on your wall and your piano.”

He smiled at me. “True.”

“Now,” I said, looking around. “It’s only fair that you pick an album for me.”

He looked around the store and blinked. “Oh.”

“Not something you’d think I’d like, but something you’d pick for yourself.”

He headed straight for the jazz section. He flipped through covers, pulling faces at some, frowning at others, and some got a look of disgust. But then he pulled out one record, read the back of it for the song list, and he smiled. He held it up for me to see. It was called
Jazz Piano: Funk and Fusion
. To say I was surprised was an understatement. “The cover looks like a bad 70s porn movie.”

He laughed but quickly looked around to see who might have heard me. “Well, the cover isn’t great, but the songs are.”

He handed it to me, and I read over the names of songs and artists I’d never heard before. “You’d listen to this?” I asked.

“I would.”

“
Jazz Piano: Funk and Fusion
?”

He chuckled. “Don’t knock it until you hear it.”

I exhaled through puffed out cheeks. “Okay, you’re the boss.”

I took the albums to the counter and the guy there gave an approving nod. His huge afro didn’t move. “Excellent choice,” he said, looking at Andrew’s pick.

“See?” Andrew said, nudging me with his elbow. “Told you it was good.”

I rolled my eyes but then said to the guy behind the counter, “And the black record player, thanks.”

Andrew pulled out his wallet, but I handed the sales guy my card. “I’m paying.”

“You can’t do that!” Andrew objected.

“I just did,” I said. I had no idea
why
I did. But it felt right. The cashier finalized the sale, handed me back my card and I handed the records to Andrew. “You can carry them,” I told him, picking up the record player.

He was quiet for half the walk back to my place. “I can’t believe you did that,” he said.

“It was no big deal,” I replied.

He made a face I couldn’t interpret, and when we got to the tattoo shop, he stopped. “Thank you,” he said, his hand on the door. “It was very kind, and I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful.”