My how time flies, Emille thought as she laughed along with the rest of the guys as Jack described the reason he was once again single. It was over a year since they'd all been able get together like this. Ryce was on a world tour, but now that he was back stateside, they could expect him to pop into Austin at a drop. He was coming back for Austin City Limits in October, not as a performer, but as a reveler. David was preoccupied with something, but you'd have to know him pretty well to notice. He was laughing and ribbing everyone as usual, but every now and again he quietly took a sip of his beer and zoned out. Knowing him, it was probably woman troubles.
Peter was the one who worried her most. He was smiling and laughing with the rest of them, but there was something in his gaze every time it landed on her. He was in a mood. Probably about her kiss with Ryce, but Ryce was the kind of guy you could kiss like that and know it meant nothing. He was no Peter. And if Peter felt he was justified to be angry because she'd kissed a friend, then she was justified in being furious because he'd taken it as his duty to warn Ryce off - as if she wasn't a grown woman with the ability to decide whether or not she wanted to risk her emotions on a man.
Darkly, she glared at him, even as she squeezed the wedge of lime on her glass into the water. If he wasn't so temperamental he'd be an awesome guy. Something of her thoughts must have shown on her face because a sudden silence descended on the table. Emille glanced around at the other guys. They were looking back and forth between her and Peter, but Peter hadn't taken his eyes off her since he'd sat down. Gooseflesh chased a wave of heat over her flesh as Emille tried her best to conceal her reaction to that look.
"Hey, y'all," the d.j. said over the microphone. "Guess who we've got in the audience tonight? Our own hometown bad-boy of country Caleb Ryce. Hey, Ryce. Can we convince you to give us a song?"
Ryce, never one to turn down an opportunity to increase his fan base, excused himself from the table - grabbing David as he went. David was in Ryce's original backup band, so it came as no surprise that after a few moments whispering with their heads together, Ryce took to the microphone and David sat behind the keyboard.
The audience went wild as he greeted them. "Hey Austin! It's great to be home, even for one night." The ladies started whistling, and Ryce was ready with his trademark sexy grin. "Wow! What a welcome. Hang tight ladies. Just let me and my boy David here get through this song, then I'm all yours." The whistling continued, and true to form Ryce was already seducing a woman in the front row from the stage.
If looks could kill, Peter would have shot him dead right there, but Ryce was oblivious to the threat.
"Let's get down to business. This is the favorite song of my favorite girl in the world. We were out fishing early one morning, when I looked at her and was inspired. I never told her, but now she can brag that she's the girl who made me famous." He chuckled, and the audience laughed along with him. Ryce looked out into the audience until he spotted their table, then pressed two fingers to his lips in a benedictory kiss. Playfully exaggerating that slow Southern accent that had the power to seduce people all around the world, he leaned into the microphone and drawled, "Emille, my darlin', my how you've grown."
David's hands began to move as he played the opening notes of Ryce's first hit, The Hill Country Rose. It was a ballad that never failed to send chills down Emille's spine.
"In the Garden of Eden, there once grew a rose.
It was bent by the wind, and it tumbled.
Shattered and broken, it searched for a home,
that it could not find among the flowers.
My darlin', you are the rose that cannot grow tall
among the lilies and blooms of the Garden.
Such a rose of your beauty, must grow alone on a hill,
to reign over the world, not a garden."
He captured Emille's attention completely from the first word. Against her will, her lids lowered, as she was embraced by the song. Emille was lost to the harmony of David's playing and low crooning in backup to Ryce tugging at the heartstrings of the women in the audience. She did not see Peter's heated, almost resentful gaze as he continued to look at her. Resentment was the easiest emotion to identify in his eyes, but there was so much more there. In the heat of that gaze was something far from superficial.
Ryce's song went on to describe his doomed search for that perfect flower in a garden. They were all the same, and some were too exotic. What he wanted was a flower that was both familiar and strange. It wasn't until he had given up on his search, and stepped out of the garden that his gaze had been caught by a glow from a hill near the garden. It was a rose so familiar, that had been strengthened by the storms that existed outside of the garden. It's beauty was perfection, for it had rooted in ground that nurtured no competition like that in the garden. As he drew nearer, blossoms grew from the path of his feet. The garden then spilled from where it belonged. But, none of its flowers ever grew as beautiful, tall, and strong - and none could weather a storm - like that rose that grew out beyond the garden.
Critics, fans, and people in general who took the time to break down the song, always said that Ryce had written it for a woman he had loved. Others thought it was about his search for the perfect sound in Texas' city of music. Mostly, they said it was about a man who idealized one woman while he played the field. Eventually, he'd gone after the woman of his dreams, but never quite changed his playboy ways. That's why, they said, the garden followed him home, but the rose remained his idea of perfection.
Now that he'd let it out that song had been written about her, Emille knew for a fact that everyone's interpretation of it was wrong. It had been written well before Ryce had become famous. In all the time that they had been friends, Ryce had never - nor had she - ever felt anything for each other beyond the love of abiding friends. There was more behind the meaning of this song, and she would ask him about it.
At the end of the song, the audience rose and applauded. Emille was on her feet, a broad smile on her face. When Peter and Ryce had surprised her tonight by showing up at the gym, she had been content to know she'd be spending the night with the entire group for the first time in ages. What she hadn't anticipated was to be serenaded with her favorite ballad. She was loud. She was appreciative. She felt amazing.
Then she realized that she was having a night out with five of South Texas's most gorgeous bachelors, and here she was, dressed like a colorblind nun.
She covered her heated face, hoping that if anyone noticed her embarrassment they'd think it was her joyful reaction to Ryce's serenading. Taking control over her emotions, Emille schooled her features into a pleasant smile. Nate kissed her cheek. David winked at her from his seat behind the keyboard. Ryce remained on the stage to follow up with the audience's request that he cover the old classic, 'Unchained Melody', but he took time in between the end of the ballad and the start of another to purse his lips into a sexy little kiss that he sent her way. Emille glanced at Jack and immediately wished she hadn't, because very deliberately he turned to stare at Peter.
Emille didn't want to look, but she was compelled to do so.
He was slouched in his seat like he had nowhere else to be in the world. His gaze was steady, unblinking, dark, intense. She'd never seen him like this. His eyes glittered in the low neon lighting of the club.
Uncomfortable, Emille looked away and pretended to listen as Ryce continued to sing covers of popular ballads and a few of his own songs. Her heart was thrumming so loudly, she could not hear. Shyly, she cast a quick glance out of the corner of her eye to see what Peter was doing - if he'd turned his attention to the stage instead of her.
While everyone else around them reacted to Ryce's deep voice, Peter was sat still in his focus. With his hands clasped over the lean stretch of his stomach, he gave every impression that Emille was the most fascinating thing in the club.
It was disconcerting. Nervously, she whetted her lips and leaned closer to Nate, whispering in his ear. "I've g
ot to go. It was great seeing you guys, but I have to work in the morning." It was Monday night, after all. And these guys were all businessmen.
"Alright. Need a ride?" he asked.
She rubbed his shoulder affectionately. "No. I'm driving." Emille grabbed her bag, hoping to escape before Jack and Peter caught on. But, as she stood, all three of the men got to their feet.
"Leaving already?" Jack asked a little too tauntingly.
"Yep," she smiled. "Not all of us can be our own bosses."
She waved to Ryce and David, who both responded with winks - neither missing a beat in their performance. Then, what she most dreaded happened. Nate gave her a hug and a friendly kiss on the lips. Then Jackson was there with one. It was like they'd planned it, but Emille wasn't certain because Nate kissed her like that all the time. While his kiss was a brotherly peck she'd come to expect, Jack was acting way out of character, and nearly got a punch in the mouth from her reflex. Both congratulated her on the progress of her weightloss, encouraged her to continue doing what she was doing, and reminded her not to be a stranger anymore. Curiously, Peter had remained silent during the exchange. Finally, she could not avoid him anymore. It was time to say goodbye. Though she was braced for his standard European kisses, Emille wasn't braced for his company.
"I'll just bum a ride with you," he said coolly.
"What? You can't. I mean… your car."
He unhooked a set of keys from his keychain and handed them over to Nate. "Give those to Ryce for me." David usually stayed with Jack, but Ryce tended to stay with whomever he felt like when he was in town. If he was in Austin for more than a day, he'd rent a car. But it was expected that he'd stay with one of his friends. They'd all roomed together while in college, renting one of the first houses that Peter had purchased. That had been the start of a decade-long friendship.
Peter had her well and truly cornered. Emille couldn't deny him the ride without it seeming suspicious. Not when everyone knew he lived just a few miles away from her place.