It made me squirm. “What?”
“The hair looks good.”
He was gone before I could reply. I stared warily at the spot he’d been standing in moments before, hating that I cared that he liked my hair.
* * *
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU aren’t choosing any of them?”
I was unmoved by O’Dea’s frustration. “Just as it sounds. I’m not choosing any of those people to be my manager.”
As promised, he had given me the entire weekend to mull it over, but I’d known from the moment the last guy walked out of my apartment that I wouldn’t be choosing a new manager. It required too much trust. Plus, this person would be in my life a lot and I was already overwhelmed by O’Dea, Autumn, and Brenna after eighteen months of being alone.
O’Dea glowered at me as I finished my breakfast. “Does this mean you’re not signing the contract?”
I nodded over my shoulder to the couch. “It’s there. Signed.”
He looked even more pissed off. “Please tell me you did not sign a major record deal without the advice and guidance of a manager.”
“Yes. I’m a moron.” I rolled my eyes at his melodrama. “O’Dea, this is the fifth one of these I’ve signed and I actually read them before I sign them. I know what a legit contract should look like. Okay? Or are you trying to tell me that you’re planning to screw me over?”
“Of course not.” He looked peeved. “I just want to know why you don’t want a manager.”
“I can manage myself.”
He seemed to contemplate this as I finished my omelet and hopped off the stool. I was about to attempt to rinse the plate one-handed before putting it in the dishwasher when he took it out of my hand and nudged me out of the way.
I refused to acknowledge the way my skin prickled at his nearness.
“Thanks,” I muttered, finding a safe distance on the other side of the island.
“So . . . What did you get up to yesterday?”
I smirked at his back. The question was asked far too casually.
Yesterday was the first day he and I hadn’t seen each other since I moved into the apartment. Autumn had stopped by for some lunch but the rest of the day I got to spend reading. The Friday after my interviews with the managers, O’Dea had taken me to my health check. I’d also explained how important dental health was to me and he’d gotten me an appointment after the health check with his dentist. The nurse at the first appointment had taken much the same tests they’d taken at the hospital, but she also threw in an STD test. I wanted to tell her it was pointless, but the truth was the last person I had sex with was Micah and there was more than a possibility the manwhore might have passed something on to me.
As for my dental appointment, it wasn’t too bad. I’d been vigilant about my teeth while I was homeless.
After the dental appointment, O’Dea had asked me if there was anything else I needed before he returned to the office, and I said that I was out of books to read. We stopped at a bookstore and he disappeared while I mused over what to buy.
As I was deciding between two fantasy books, he returned holding a bag with the bookstore logo on it and handed it to me. “An e-reader. We’ll set you up an account and you can download what you like.”
“You need a credit card for that,” I’d argued as I followed him out of the store.
“I’ll give you mine.”
I’d scowled. “No, you’ve already spent too much.”
“The company has.” He’d opened the passenger door to his car for me. “I need to get back to the office. Get in.”
I’d scooted in, feeling uncomfortable about taking the money for this when it hadn’t bothered me that he was feeding and clothing me. “I have money,” I’d muttered as he drove away.
“That you can’t access without alerting everyone of your whereabouts. You ready for that yet?”
No. No, I wasn’t. “I’ll pay you back.”
So, I’d spent two hours the day before trying to decide what I wanted to read on my e-reader, and except for lunch with Autumn, I’d spent the day devouring two books.
Saturday was spent writing with O’Dea again. We mostly tweaked the couple of finished songs I’d written. Like last time, it was a lot more fun than I cared to admit out loud.
“I had lunch with Autumn,” I answered his question.
He stuck my plate and a couple of mugs from the sink into the dishwasher and turned to me. He leaned back against the kitchen counter, his arms crossed over his chest. “Aye, she told me. What else?”
“I’m sorry, um, when did you become my prison warden?”
“It’s only a question.”
“It sounds like an interrogation.”
He cocked his head, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Why don’t you want to tell me what you were up to yesterday?”
I laughed at the ridiculousness of the conversation. “O’Dea, I read two books yesterday. That is the extent of the excitement that was experienced in this apartment.”
“So why evade?”
“I’m not! You’re . . . you really are acting like I’m in prison here.”
“You know you can come and go as you please, but until the idiot who put you in hospital is caught, I do worry about you wandering around on your own. Which is what you did yesterday.”
Confused, I shook my head. “What are you talking about?”
“I bumped into Callum, your neighbor on the second floor, as I was coming up here this morning. He’s a graphic artist for the label.”
“Okay.”
My response made him glower. “You met him yesterday.”
“I did?”
“Skylar . . .”
I met a Callum yesterday? I wracked my brain trying to—“Oh. The guy with the beard?” I’d taken a brief walk down the riverbank for some fresh air in the morning. When I was coming back into the apartment building, a guy with a beard had held the door open for me. I hadn’t thought anything of the encounter because we’d merely smiled at each other and said hello.
“Aye, the guy with the beard.”
I scowled at his annoyed tone. “Why are you acting like I’m hiding something from you?”
“Because you are. I asked you what you did yesterday and you omitted that you spent time with a bloody stranger and told him who you are. For someone who is trying to keep a low profile while we write this album, it surprised me, that’s all.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I took a walk down to the river. I needed fresh air. When I came back, the guy with the beard held the door open for me and we exchanged hellos. End of story. Why are your panties in such a twist, O’Dea?”
“That was it. That was all that was said?”
I wanted to slap that suspicious look off his face. “I’m not exactly in the mood for making new friends, so yeah . . . that was it. And don’t ask me again because I don’t appreciate being treated like a liar.”
After a moment’s contemplation, O’Dea sighed and uncrossed his arms. “Shit. He must have recognized you. I passed him on the way into the building this morning and he asked me when Skylar Finch moved in.”
Panic suffused me. “What?”
O’Dea’s expression softened. “Hey, don’t worry. I warned him not to open his mouth.”
“You trust that he won’t?” I went to reach for a glass of water and my hand shook so badly, I had to wrap it around the glass to stop it. The idea of the paparazzi turning up at the apartment terrified me.
O’Dea’s strong hand covered mine around the glass. His warm fingertips were calloused from playing the guitar. The act itself was surprising enough but the fierceness blazing from his eyes took my breath away. “He won’t tell anyone, Skylar,” he promised. “You’re safe here.”
With my heart racing for an entirely new reason, I couldn’t tear my eyes from his as I nodded. “Okay.”
As if he’d just realized what he’d done, O’Dea let go of my hand around the glass as if it had scalded him and abruptly moved back to his side of the island. That bland mask came down over his face again. “I need to be in the office today, but I’ve cleared my schedule for the next few days so we can work on the album here. We will, however, eventually have to take this to the label to start recording.”