I WAS A grown woman, and today’s exercise was supposed to be fun. A bucket list item, in fact. Something to mark off the catalog of things I’d always put off doing. There was no better time than now. I was pushing the restart button. Newly divorced from my cheating bastard of a husband of three years, I was vulnerable on my own again and looking for a new lease on my suddenly lonely life.
Rather than throw myself out of a plane or visit Paris without someone to swoon with under the Eiffel Tower, taking up guitar lessons seemed to be the next best thing. Lucky for me, guitarists were a dime a dozen in the neighborhood I called home; all I had to do was walk down to the music store on the corner and ask for the next available slot.
I took that journey into the tapestry-lined walls of Just Strummin’ It only a week ago, where I purchased the Yamaha acoustic guitar in Oriental Blue Burst I now clutched with sweaty hands while my leg bounced against the dented cushion of the waiting room chair. On that particular day, I walked with my head held high and a skip to my step. Today, however, as I’d strolled under the green awning of my favorite Starbucks, past the antiquated bookstore I prayed would never go out of business, crossed the street to take in a whiff of what could only be a freshly baked batch of cupcakes from Pumpernickel, and wound up at the music store—my skip lacked the same pep.
I was totally out of my element as I people watched. The girl behind the counter had a head full of long dreads, a sleeve of intricate tattoos on her left arm, and gages in both ears. She strutted around, humming the words to a folk-rock song I hadn’t heard before with so much confidence I wished she’d spare some and toss it my way. She was intriguingly odd, but stunningly gorgeous. I, on the other hand, was plain, ordinary, forgettable, and resentful of my inability to assimilate to hipster living. I stared down at my poor attempt to fit into this trendy neighborhood—a city my ex-husband persuaded me to uproot my life in Arizona and move to because it was up and coming, the place to be, the hot spot—and snarled at the CBGB T-shirt I bought at a thrift store I meandered into one day after I found Charlie—my ex—screwing some chick in my Murphy bed.
“Wanna-be,” I muttered to myself in disgust before sensing a presence beside me and looking up into the most amazing eyes I’d ever seen. And let me clarify what I meant by amazing. Those eyes weren’t simply some run-of-the-mill blue. No, they were the color of the water somewhere in the Caribbean—turquoise swirled with green, sprinkled with sapphire and bronze specks. And that was just his eyes. They could be a person all on their own, they were so all-consuming. But no, the face attached to those eyes was equally gorgeous, if not more so—tanned, bearded, chiseled, and mighty fucking fine.
“Mrs. Dillon?” The lips ascribed to the mighty fucking fine face moved when he spoke, jolting me out of my wet dream.
“Uh . . . Um . . . No,” I stuttered.
The breathtaking specimen consulted a paper in his hand and then asked, “So, you’re not my six o’clock?”
I’d be his six o’clock, his eight o’clock, and his ’round the clock, but I was getting ahead of myself. “No . . . Um . . . I mean, yes. I am your six o’clock, but I’m not Mrs. Dillon.”
The reason for my sudden lack of intelligence gawked at me, clearly confused, and narrowed his piercing eyes.
I winced, hating that his lids obstructed the view of those soulful irises, but quickly regained composure before I sent him running for the hills in exasperation. “Force of habit. I was Mrs. Dillon, but I’m no longer marri—Never mind.” I shook my head and smiled shyly at the hint of amusement flashing across his face. Unraveling my tongue from the knot caused by his hotness, I took a deep breath and tried to get this out right. “My name is Emily Ryder now. Emmy. You can call me Emmy.” Why did it seem to take an hour to complete such a simple process?
“Milo. Nice to meet you, Emmy.” Milo—cool name for a hot guy—offered me a hand. I placed mine—clammy and all—in his and shook with fervor. Looking down at my vice grip on his teaching fingers, he cocked a side grin and a rough and gritty rumble spouted out of him. “Now that we got that out of the way, what do you say we get started on your first lesson?”
The vibration of his throaty chuckle mixed with his deep, sultry voice caused me to squeeze my legs together in fear of leaving a puddle of my desire on the waiting room chair. That wouldn’t be embarrassing at all, now would it? Terrified of the possibility, I rose from said chair, nonchalantly checked for signs of embarrassing leakage, and emitted a sigh of relief when I realized I was in the clear.
I bent down to grab the handle of my guitar case only to be stopped by Milo’s tattooed fingers curling around the handle. “Allow me,” he said, lifting it effortlessly off the ground.
“Oh,” I squeaked with my hand to my chest. Polite and dominant. Well, what have we got here? “Thank you.”
Milo simply nodded, motioning me to follow.
“Just lead the way,” I managed to say without fumbling on my words. I hoped our lesson was somewhere in his bedroom, under his sheets, with my legs wrapped around his waist, screaming something along the lines of, “Give it to me, Milo!”