on a small show to promote it.”
Her eyes lit. “You could do that? They could have real-deal songs out there?”
Fuck. Me. He forced a smile. “If they have enough material and patience to put together a track or two. Recording can be tedious.”
She clapped her hands together. “Oh my god, that would be fantastic. They’ll think they’re stars! Imagine how proud they’ll be to have an actual song out that people can buy. I love this idea.”
Great. Fantastic. Shoot me. All he could picture was little kids running around his studio, screaming into the mics and climbing all over the expensive equipment. “How far along are they with having a full song ready to go?”
Tessa rolled her chair back. “Why don’t you go see for yourself? They’re working on it now in the music room.”
“We don’t have to—”
But Tessa was already cruising around the desk and grabbing for his hand. “Come on. They’ll be thrilled to meet you. They were so bummed when the other guy had to bail. But now they get to work with a genuine rock star!”
He snorted. “Marginally popular at best.”
And if his band didn’t get it together soon, they would be candidates for Where Are They Now? shows in the not so distant future.
His stomach knotted as Tessa led him down a hall filled with colorful drawings and finger-painted artwork pinned to the walls. He rubbed the back of his neck, finding sweat there. This was so not his scene.
But when they rounded the corner and Tessa stopped in front of a window that looked into a wide room, he forgot his discomfort for a minute. Ms. Uptight Receptionist was sitting in the middle of a circle of older kids, strumming a guitar and singing something. He couldn’t hear anything from outside the room, but the way her fingers moved over the strings was all confident elegance. Huh. The woman who had sneered at the idea of him being a musician appeared to be one herself.
And the tight-lipped, steel-spined posture she’d maintained during most of their conversation was gone, replaced with this sexy sway and bright-eyed smile. He let his eyes linger on her profile then travel down, watching the way her throat worked when she let out her notes and the way the swells of her breasts rose and fell with her breath. He adjusted his stance, willing his body not to react. Then Tessa cracked open the door, and Oakley’s sultry voice hit him in the gut—smooth water over jagged rocks. Every ounce of his blood traveled straight south.
Goddamn. If a voice could be fuckable, hers was. And the woman attached to it wasn’t hard to look at either. Dark hair and eyes that went cat green when she was annoyed—which had been about ninety percent of their interaction. He’d wanted that tour more than he’d let on just so he could keep teasing her and making those pink lips of hers purse. He put a hand on Tessa’s shoulder. “Don’t interrupt her.”
Tessa looked over at him with a knowing smile. “I told you she was pretty amazing.”
“Is that who I’m going to be working with?”
“Mmm-hmm. She works reception in the mornings, but once the kids get here after school, she helps out with them. If we do this project, I’ll find someone else to cover the desk so that she can take this on fully.”
“We met up front. I don’t think she likes me very much,” he said, keeping his voice low and his eyes on Oakley.
“Let me guess. You flirted with her.”
He glanced over at Tessa, feigning an innocent Who-me? expression.
Tessa sniffed. “I knew she sounded weird on the phone. You Ranch boys are a menace.”
“Hey, you’re married to a Ranch boy.”
“I stand by my statement.” She glanced at the room and the woman in it. The singing had stopped and Oakley was directing the kids on something or other. “If you want to get along with Oakley, lay off that kind of thing. She has a lot on her plate and likes to keep things professional. She doesn’t strike me as someone who’s looking for a walk on the wild side, anyway.”
“Who says I’m the wild side?”
Tessa gave him a withering look.
“Fine. If she wants to keep things professional, I can do that.”
Mostly. Maybe.
Tessa’s eyes narrowed for a moment, but then she shook her head. “Come on, let’s go in and do introductions so y’all can start planning.”
When they walked in, the kids were all chatting at once. But one voice rang above the others.
“I swear to God, if she mentions another One Direction song, I’m going to puke,” said a young girl with short-cropped black hair and a Runaways T-shirt. “That’s all we did last week. Their songs make me want to punch someone in the face.”
Pike had to bite his lip to keep from laughing.
“Reagan,” Oakley said sharply. “That isn’t how we share our opinions here. Be respectful.”
Mini Pat Benatar turned her green-eyed gaze to Oakley. A little bit of a staring contest ensued, then Reagan finally gave in and turned to the girl she’d been addressing. She let out a heavy, dramatic sigh. “I’m sorry. One Direction songs make my stomach hurt, and I would really like it if we could do something different.”
She punctuated the sentence with a toothy, plastic smile.
Pike instantly liked her.
The boy-band fan clearly did not, though. The blond girl crossed her arms and sneered. “At least it’s not as bad as your weird music. No one’s even heard of the stuff you like.”
“Okay, let’s get back on task,” Oakley said, a tired edge to her voice.
Tessa stepped forward out of the shadowed back of the room. “Sorry to interrupt, guys. But I wanted to introduce you to someone.”
Oakley turned and her gaze landed heavy on Pike. For a split second he caught her raw reaction—lips parting, gaze flicking down the length of his body as if she couldn’t resist a full look. But as quickly as it was there, she reeled it in. Wariness descended over her face, but like the younger girl, she managed to fake a smile, clearly more for the kids’ behalf than his. All the other heads in the room turned toward him, too—most of the kids staring at him with open curiosity. Tension coiled in his neck and shoulders.
“Everyone, this is Mr. Ryland. He’s going to be taking Mr. Gull’s place and has kindly offered to help with your song project.”
“You’re in a band,” Reagan blurted out. Not a question.
The outburst startled Pike out of his stiff posture. Oakley turned to correct Reagan. But he interrupted her before she could. “How’d you guess? You know Darkfall?”
Reagan crossed her arms, her eyes not meeting his but looking at the rest of him instead. “No. But your ears and eyebrow are pierced and you have lots of tattoos. Some have music notes and drumsticks in them. It’d be pretty dumb to get those if you weren’t in a band.”
His lips tilted up. “Yeah, I guess it would be.”
“My mom says all tattoos are pretty dumb, though.”
“Reagan,” Oakley corrected, pressing fingers to the spot between her eyes.
He laughed. He liked that the kid didn’t mince words. Plus, the fact that this girl had plucked out details from his intricate full sleeve tattoos from across the room was pretty impressive. “I guess your mom would think I was a big dummy then.”
Some of the kids in the group giggled and others started to announce who had tattoos in their family.
Oakley shook her head at the quickly deteriorating order in the group and then clapped her hands. “All right, all right. Let’s