The Only Song (Only You)

9. Sadie

Chapter 9

Sadie

M y head spins.

Asking Jaxon for a solo felt like I conjured up a litany of bad luck. He left the plane so abruptly I didn’t even get to ask him if we’re headed to the same hotel. Then my Uber got lost and made me wait an extra hour and now, the concierge is telling me the last thing I want to hear. To say I’m in a bad mood doesn’t cut it. I’m furious, frustrated, and fed up.

The clean-cut concierge offers a gentle smile. I return it with pleading eyes.

“Can you please check again?” I ask. Or maybe I whine. I don’t care. I was up far too early for this flight and have zero patience. Maybe, if Jaxon hadn’t been so rude at the end of the flight, I’d be more tolerable in trying to fix the clusterfuck situation I’m in. Instead, I’m left jittery and unnerved as if ants are crawling over my skin with the nagging feeling of not knowing. It eats me up inside. I want to melt into the ground and disappear. I want to know why the fuck my hotel booking isn’t showing up because I’m on the verge of a mental breakdown and this is not the time, nor place, for one.

“I’m really sorry, Miss,” the concierge sighs, his silver badge glinting as he shakes his head disappointedly. “Your reservation isn’t showing and we have no more rooms available.”

“None? Not a single one?”

“Yes. We have two weddings, a conference and—” he points to the violin case on my back, “orchestra members staying in the hotel. We’ve been booked out for months.”

Fuck .

A small part of me thought this might happen. Another part hoped it wouldn’t. That being a last-minute addition to the orchestra was lucky and not unlucky, like how I’m feeling now.

“I can give you the numbers of some of other hotels?—”

I raise my hand, fighting tears, fatigue and some growing sense of rejection in my chest. “Thank you for checking. I’ll… I’ll figure it out.”

I give him a small smile as he waves the next guest over and trudge away to find a quiet corner in the lobby to sulk. Or scream inwardly.

I stick out like a sore thumb. Radioactive green suitcase. Red hair mussed from frantically pulling at it. Scowl on my face as I glare at my phone trying to understand what went wrong. To add insult to injury, I’m getting hangry. I forgot they didn’t really serve food on short flights and I wasn’t going to overpay for pretzels or nuts.

This is just my luck. This is what I get for?—

“Sass?”

I pace right into a hard chest, recognizing the smooth voice more than the body. I bounce back immediately, then backstep some more for good measure. Jaxon raises a brow in amusement, his mouth twitching, hands in his pockets, smirking at me, clearly unfazed.

“Tanner. Hey, um, hi.” I don’t bother to ask why he’s here. The concierge already confirmed this was the orchestra’s hotel of choice. So, of course, I’d run into him again.

An awkwardness hangs in the air. Jaxon’s clean scent intoxicates me, jet black hair slightly damp, dark chocolate brown eyes appraising me.

“Everything okay?” he asks. I feel a flash of déjà vu. The curiosity in his voice after I hung up with my mother. The slight concern when turbulence had me clutching my seat for life. To now, in a hotel lobby, with no room to go to.

I lie through my teeth. “Everything’s fine.”

“You keep saying that.” He cocks his head to the side, as if seeing me at an angle might produce the right answer. “You’re not a good liar, Sass.”

I sigh. I’m too tired and aggravated to be having this conversation—especially with him.

He always makes life look so damn easy, like struggle was never a part of his vocabulary. In the space of me getting here, he’s already checked in, unpacked, and taken a shower. I can tell from how amazing he smells—soap mixed with his woodsy scent. It makes me envy the ease with which he can live his life while I may as well boulder up a steep wall and hope not to fall.

“Sass. What’s wrong?” It doesn’t even come out as a question. He eyes me with a hint of worry, head still cocked in a way that bares his neck, the light catching on golden tan skin.

I swallow, shake my head, and smile thinly, still trying to keep up the act that there is, in fact, nothing wrong.

Except I have no place to stay at the moment that wouldn’t break my sad bank account. The numbers glare at me every time I open it.

Jaxon shifts from worry to annoyance, clearly bothered by my non-response.

“Sass. You can tell me.” His voice is gruff, low, cut from the same wood as the scent that floods my nose. It soothes me until I remind myself that it shouldn’t.

I’m still mad at him for leaving me hanging on the plane .

“The hotel says there’s an issue with my booking,” I finally reply. And because I’m hangry, tired, and maybe a little horny thanks to Jaxon looking all fine cleaned up, I add, “and I desperately want to be in a bed.”

He nods, looking behind me with an unreadable expression. The man is full of mystery and I’m tired of finding all the wrong pieces to his puzzle. So instead, I sigh. My legs are sore from standing and my stomach cramps from hunger.

“Stay here,” he says, then he spins around and walks straight to the concierge. I peer at him from the side. He smiles brightly at them, voice low enough I can’t overhear what he has planned up his sleeve.

I’m so used to seeing Jaxon all put-together and professional in his midnight black suits. Now, he’s dressed in a simple black tee and joggers, and my mind is too tired to fight how hot he looks in it. The simple attire accentuates his body—lean, cut, and toned.

It agitates me as much as it turns me on.

I scramble all my thoughts as he jogs back to me, instantly grabbing the handle of my suitcase and pulling it towards the elevators.

“Hey!” I call out, trailing behind him, confused. “Where are you taking my stuff?”

“Follow me, Sass!” he calls over his shoulder.

I glare at him once I reach the elevator, but he holds his arm out over its jaws to let me slide in, unfazed by the storm cloud over my head. I get a whiff of his clean scent again and immediately take a stance on the opposite side.

The elevator climbs while we remain in silence. Staring at each other from opposite ends. My hazel eyes on his dark brown.

Time suspends for a moment and a second wave of déjà vu hits me. Jaxon staring at me in my audition recital. His scowl when he realized I was his seat partner. Those dark chocolate eyes looking down on me under a starlit sky six years ago.

I’m saved by the ding of the elevator as the doors whoosh open on the twenty-fifth floor. Seems rather high for the basic queen-sized bedroom I booked.

Jaxon holds his arm out over the door again and gestures for me to exit first. I walk ahead but pull back once he’s out to ask, “Where are we going?”

“To a room,” he says, walking confidently down the hall, eyes ahead. The lights reflect off his glasses as we pass door after door.

I’m starting to feel more panicked than when I didn’t have a room.

“I’m sorry, but who’s room?”

“Yours,” he says, a tilt in his smile. My heart skips again at the same time my stomach drops at the way he says yours . He stops at a door with PLATINUM SUITE etched on a gold plate. With a tap of his card on the door pad, the light turns green, and the bolt unlocks. I’m hit with the fresh scent of clean linen, warm amber lighting and cold air conditioning that rushes to my warm cheeks. Jaxon pushes the door wide, then spins to hold it ajar, waiting for me to come in.

I step in slowly, carefully, as if I’m walking into a trap.

“Relax, Sass. It’s just a hotel room.” Jaxon rolls his eyes, letting go of the door. The weight of it lets out a huff of air when it closes. I hear the lock click. Then the deadbolt. My shoulders tense to my ears and the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

“What is this, Tanner?” I ask anxiously.

Jaxon slides a keycard to me from across an extravagant kitchen island and it’s then that I take in my surroundings. Black granite stretches to a kitchenette that lines one half of the right wall. The other half is taken up by a large TV and a black L-shaped couch sits beside tall glass balcony doors that show off a view of the Chicago skyline.

“Holy shit,” I whisper under my breath. I’ve never stayed in a hotel room like this. I’ve never even imagined it. So, what the fuck am I doing here?

There’s a door to my left I realize that could either be a closet, a bathroom, or what it actually turns out to be, a bedroom. Fit with a king-sized bed with a thousand thread count white sheets and fluffy pillows. I instantly want to dive into it. The balcony stretches from the living room to a side door in this room, where an even better view of the skyline can be seen from here. Beside the bed is the most exquisite bathroom with a wide bathtub, one of those half-open egg shell ones, the type that’s separate from the shower because the shower is massive, made up of white marble tile opposite a mirror with a double vanity and a toilet to the side.

I come bounding back into the kitchen-slash-living room to see Jaxon relaxed in an island chair, texting on his phone.

“Tanner. Can you please explain to me why there’s only one bed in here?”

“It’s a one-bedroom suite, Sass.”

But it’s not just one bed. There’s only one bathroom and shower, only one kitchen, only one couch—only one everything . Clearly, this was meant for one person, or one couple, of which we are not, and yet…

“Whose room is this?” I ask again. My heart pounds in my ears.

He looks up from his phone then, and when our gazes clash, it feels like a seismic shift. Or maybe it’s from the smolder in his eyes when he says, “Yours.” At my silence, he then adds, “And mine.”

The earth falls from beneath my feet. A wave of realization rushes over me like a tidal wave.

This can’t be happening.

As if hearing my thoughts, Jaxon continues, “You needed a room. I got you a room.”

This is a mistake. I’m already shaking my head, blood rushing to my cheeks as I feel shy and embarrassed and flustered that he’d go out of his way to offer me this.

“No. We can’t be sharing a room,” I protest feebly. Chicago is the first city of the tour, which means we’d be sharing this room for four weeks until we fly to LA. But Jaxon just appraises me, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “Correct. You’re taking the bedroom, and I’m taking the couch.” He says it as if it’ll make me feel better. I don’t.

My head feels dizzy, that earlier feeling of the room spinning spirals my thoughts, and I can’t get any of the dots in my mind to connect how I got here. I try to string a sentence but no words come out. Instead, my mouth opens and closes like a broken, unhinged puppet until I settle onto the couch in defeat.

“I—I—,” I stammer, my hands darting up to scrunch my hair. Waves of uncertainty and confusion crash over me. “I don’t know how to pay you back. This room looks?—”

“Don’t,” he cuts in immediately. “Pay me, that is. Just stay.”

I look at him incredulously and my hands drop. “Why?”

“Because.” He stands and without giving me further explanation, he wheels my suitcase into the bedroom. I stare at him wordlessly from the couch as I watch him grab a blanket and pillows from a hall closet and place them on the couch.

“You look wrecked, Sass. Go get some sleep.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, the couch sinking with his weight, then softly adds, “The couch is mine.”

My breath catches. The lightness of his touch sparks a pleasant zing between my thighs. I crush it immediately by abruptly standing up.

Without looking, I make my way to the bedroom, my sore back and stiff shoulders aching for relief in the soft bedsheets.

I don’t protest anymore, too tired and sleepy to pry into the why. Too horny to be close to Jaxon any longer.

I pause at the door and look back over my shoulder.

“Thank you,” I whisper. Jaxon gazes at me softly, then nods and I can’t help but think if there’s a secret behind those dark chocolate eyes.