Chapter 15

Riley typed and filed and made phone calls. Anything to keep her mind off of Evan and how far away he was.

She didn’t know what was wrong with her. She’d dated a lot of men, and she always ended up single again. Some men were easier to get over than others, of course, but she’d never been this anxious or this miserable—and Evan was just away on business.

By lunchtime, he’d texted just once. Made it. Miss you already.

Riley couldn’t help sighing and smiling at her phone at the few simple words. The intercom on her phone beeped, and she jumped. “Riley, we need you back here,” Hope said through the speaker.

“Is it time already?” Riley had been invited to the meeting about the mayor’s daughter’s wedding to make sure notes were taken and assignments noted so nothing got missed.

Hope didn’t answer her, because yes, it was time already. Five minutes past time. Riley practically pushed her chair back into the wall behind the counter where she worked, grabbed her notebook, and hurried down the hall to Hope’s office.

She’d been working at Your Tidal Forever for years, but Hope Sorenson still inspired some fear in her. “Sorry,” she said upon entering the office and finding everyone else there. Charlotte smiled at her in the same, calm way Charlotte did everything. She wasn’t the official consultant on this wedding, but Regina wanted something custom for her wedding, and Charlotte had the best brain when it came to custom altars, ceremonies, and dresses.

Lisa and Shannon were working the wedding together, and they were both settled on a loveseat, a huge binder open across their laps.

Riley took a seat on the couch where Charlotte sat and flashed a smile in Hope’s direction. “Sorry,” she said again.

“It’s fine,” Hope said, glancing away from her laptop on her desk. “Shannon?”

Shannon had been working closely with Hope to become the president of Your Tidal Forever one day, and Riley really liked her. She was much less intimidating than Hope, but her expectation for perfection was the same.

“Let’s start with the venue,” Shannon said. “Regina is a little bit older, and she has some very specific ideas of what she wants.”

“What she doesn’t want,” Lisa said, and she and Shannon exchanged a look. Riley tried not to roll her eyes. The last thing she wanted to deal with right now was a Bridezilla with political ties.

“Right,” Shannon said, flipping a few pages in their binder. “She doesn’t want anything overhead obstructing the sunshine. She doesn’t want anything with too many things that will ‘fly away,’ meaning streamers, vines, stuff like that. She doesn’t want a teeny tiny altar, but something, and I quote, ‘with beef.’”

Charlotte snorted, and Riley looked at her. She burst out laughing in the next moment, and Shannon giggled too.

“Beef,” Charlotte said between chuckles. “I just…sorry.” She quieted and looked at Hope, who was smiling. “I was just imagining like a cow-themed altar or something.”

“Heft,” Lisa said, giggling, and Riley found herself joining in another round of laughter. This meeting was exactly what she needed to get her spirits back up, and she hadn’t even known it.

Shannon continued to read Regina’s rather lengthy list of things she didn’t want, and Charlotte said, “I’ll come up with a few sketches we can show her. When will she be back in again?”

“Next Friday,” Lisa said, glancing down. “She wants Ash to design the dress.” She looked at Riley “What’s her schedule like right now?”

Riley started tapping on her phone to get to the right calendar. “I know she’s booked pretty far out…” Swipe, tap, type, swipe. “It wouldn’t be until January before she could start making the dress. She’d meet with Regina well before that, of course.”

“Let’s get on her schedule,” Lisa said, making a note for herself in the binder. “I’ll tell Regina about the timeline, but it should be fine. Her wedding isn’t until next April.”

Riley nodded and added call Ash about Regina Keani’s wedding to her own to-do list. The meeting continued, and Riley kept detailed notes of which assignments were given to whom, and when things needed to happen. She’d put everything in the shared calendar, and everyone on the team would get notified when dates and deadlines were approaching.

A few hours later, she returned to the front desk to find a bouquet of flowers sitting there. She stopped mid-stride, and Charlotte almost hit her from behind. “Riley, what’s going on?” She moved around her, bumping her as she did. “Oh. Those must be from Evan, right?” She glided over to the desk where Riley worked and plucked the card out of the dozens and dozens of red roses sitting there.

Riley’s breath hitched in her throat. Maybe she’d been overreacting about Evan. Of course he was going to travel for his band. They’d talked about it already. She just needed more time to process how his life was going to go, and how it impacted hers. If she’d known about this trip for the last couple of weeks, she’d have been more prepared to go home alone tonight.

“They’re from Evan, all right.” Charlotte turned around, the open card in her hand. She grinned at Riley like she’d won the lottery and handed her the card on her way into her office. “You’ve got yourself a real charmer there, Riles.”

“Thanks,” Riley said, hating the nickname but not saying anything about it. She glanced down at the card.

Sorry I had to leave so suddenly. I miss you and I’ll call you tonight and I can’t wait to show you my house here in Malibu.

With love, Evan Her heart fluttered in her chest, the same way the small card did as it floated to the ground after she’d dropped it.

With love.

The phone rang, shattering the stupor she’d fallen into. She bent to pick up the card before hurrying the last few steps to her desk to answer the call. So she’d go home alone tonight. It wasn’t the end of the world.

Evan was coming back.

***

Later that night, Riley sat on her lanai, watching the sun sink into the ocean on the horizon and eating the Chinese take-out she’d picked up on the way home. Evan had texted to say he was minutes away from being home, and he’d call her as soon as he could.

But twenty minutes had gone by, and her phone hadn’t made a peep. She glanced at it again just to make sure it had enough battery, and it was fully charged. Still plugged in, even.

Foolishness hit her, and she picked up another egg roll. Before she could take a bite, her phone rang. She dropped the food back into the Styrofoam container and swiped on Evan’s call.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey.” A huge exhale came with his voice, and he sounded tired.

“Long day?”

“So long. Did you know Hawaii is three hours behind California?”

Riley smiled. “Everyone knows that, Evan.”

“Yeah, well, my old bones didn’t know it.” He sighed again. “I had a little trouble getting in my own house.”

“Oh, this sounds like a good story,” she said.

“It’s embarrassing.” He chuckled, and she could just imagine him lying on a fancy leather couch in his posh Malibu home, talking on the phone to her.

To her.

It still seemed a little bit surreal that someone like him could like someone like her. Maybe even love her, if that card that had come with the roses was really true.

She’d been telling herself for hours that using with love was just how people signed cards. It was no big deal. Those words didn’t actually mean that Evan was in love with her.

“You don’t have to tell it if you don’t want to,” she said.

“I’ll save it for another time,” he said. “I wanted to talk to you about my meetings today.”

“Oh, am I going to get to know what ‘stuff’ you talked about today?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It was pretty ugly, number one. But the band is on the same page. Basically, our record company wants more music from us, which is great. But they don’t want full albums, not really. They want songs they can release as singles over time, and then maybe, in the future, they’ll box them up and sell them as an album too.”

“That’s…weird,” Riley said, though she didn’t know much about the music industry. “I’ve never heard of that.”

“Exactly,” Evan said, his voice bringing more passion with it now. “And what most people don’t understand is that not every song is a single.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what that means,” Riley said.

“It means that the songs we release early off an album, those are singles. They’re our best songs. The most popular ones. The ones you hear on the radio over and over again. Not every song is catchy, popular, or played on the radio fifty times a day.”

“Are your songs played on the radio fifty times a day?” she asked, teasing him.

“Ha ha,” he said. “But you get the idea.”

“I do,” she said. “And I got the flowers too. Thank you, Evan. They’re stunning.”

He only hesitated for half a heartbeat before saying, “Like you, Riley,” and making her smile.

“How long will you be there?” she asked, wishing he was here instead. Even with that ridiculous motorcycle. She’d climb on the back and hold him tight as they flew through the night.

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “I know that’s not what you want to hear. But the meeting devolved very quickly today, and we’ve got a call with our producer at TriCities tomorrow. I might know more then.”

Another man spoke to him in the background, and Evan said, “Riley, I have to go, sweetheart. I’ll talk to you again soon, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, wishing she didn’t feel so small and insignificant compared to him. It wasn’t fair to put him so high up on a pedestal, but she didn’t have anyone giving her a hard time about coming into her own home or anyone there with her to remind her to take her vitamins, manage her money, or keep her schedule straight.

She couldn’t judge him, though. Evan had lived his rockstar life for twenty years, and he wasn’t going to change now.

That thought stuck in the back of her throat like an errant popcorn kernel.

No, he wasn’t going to change now—not even for her.