Read Online Love Songs for the Road by Farrah Taylor - Free Book Online Page B

faces from the light of the flash. Her shirt was soaked, and horrifyingly, see-through. The caption read: “Introducing Marcus Troy’s hot new nanny, Ryan (no last name yet, folks, but we’re working on it).” The story had been posted a full day earlier, and there was only one comment. “What’d she have to do to get that job?” asked somebody named BRadfar, “Win a wet T-shirt contest in that hick town where Troy lives these days?”
    Oh my God, she texted Em. Not good.
    Em texted back a sad-face emoticon, and Ryan opened a browser window on her phone, typing in “Marcus Troy Nanny Ryan,” but she found no other images of herself, and at least at first glance, no other site had posted that particular picture. It was impossible to tell, of course, but CelebriBites couldn’t have been too popular if the story had been up a whole day and there was only one comment. She Googled “Ryan Evans” and the picture didn’t appear. That must have meant that nobody had managed to sleuth out her last name yet. Maybe that also meant nobody cared about her and her wet T-shirt. She just hoped it would stay that way. Was this what it meant to be part of Marcus’s life—you would be subjected to the constant threat of Internet exposure? How did he live this way, and how would anyone else begin to share a life with him in an environment like this?
    “Hi there,” Marcus said suddenly, plopping down in the seat across from hers. “Mind if I hang here for a minute?”
    “Oh hey,” she said, cramming her phone into her bag. “What’s up?”
    “Not much.” He unbuttoned a button on his shirt, which made Ryan swallow, hopefully invisibly. “I’m just killing time, I guess.”
    “Why, thank you. How flattering.”
    Marcus laughed, a bit uncomfortably. Ryan was trying to hold it together. Wasn’t there a law against taking a picture of someone without his or her permission? Didn’t that photographer need a release from her before selling (she assumed) the picture to a gossip blog? She tried to block out these thoughts and focus on what Marcus was saying.
    He’d been acting a little odd since that instant they’d locked eyes, when he’d lost his place in that dark, strange song of his. Not that Ryan was absolutely sure that she was the reason he’d spaced out, but there had definitely been a moment. And ever since, Marcus had seemed unfocused. Unlike the friendly, teasing, naughty character he’d been only yesterday morning, the man in front of her seemed a little forlorn.
    “I liked that song of yours,” she said, thinking it might cheer him up to hear praise for the song that the audience hadn’t seemed to appreciate very much.
    “Oh yeah? Which one?”
    “That super-depressing one. About locking the door on yourself.”
    “Are you being serious?”
    “Yeah. I liked it. It was…interesting.”
    “Interesting? I’d rather you say you loved it or you hated it. But ‘interesting’? Interesting is the kiss of death.”
    Ryan realized she was no music critic, but how could interesting be considered an insult? She realized she was in over her head—Marcus probably didn’t get a whole lot of criticism on new compositions from his staff—but tried to come up with something intelligent to say.
    “No, I really mean it. Most of your music is good-time music.”
    “Ouch.”
    Everything she said was turning into an insult, somehow, though this was the exact opposite of what she meant. She’d had no idea how sensitive musicians could be.
    “Well, it makes people feel good—you see that, right? They were loving it. But in that ‘Lock the Door’ song, you were obviously digging deeper, and I for one appreciated it.”
    “Really? Do you mean that?”
    “I do. I mean, it was a little dark and a little weird, and I don’t know if I understood every line, but life can be dark and weird, and sometimes people need to hear about that, too.”
    “Exactly.” He leaned forward in his seat. “I just wish I could do