Reckless (Thoughtless, #3)(185)
She immediately perked back up and leaned forward to kiss him. Shaking my head at the lovebirds, I turned away to give them some privacy. From the room behind me, I heard a person speaking through a microphone and cringed. Damn, someone had just turned on the karaoke machine. I’m not sure why I ever let Kellan convince me that we should get one. I’d only used it once, when just the two of us had been home, and that had been mortifying. But it was pretty amazing when Kellan took over, so I wasn’t entirely disappointed with the purchase.
Excusing myself from Denny and Abby, I twisted around to head into the living room. Lightly kicking balloons out of my way, I came upon a sight that both made me laugh and warmed my heart. Griffin, in all his attention-seeking glory, was standing in front of the fireplace with Kellan; Kellan was holding our little boy in a front-facing infant carrier. Adorable wasn’t a strong enough word to describe him. There was just something about an attractive man holding a baby . . .
Our living room had a capacious, open layout with clumps of furniture spaced here and there to break the space up. I could easily see every person who was curiously watching the two D-Bags about to perform. Anna, Gibson, and Kellan’s sister, Hailey, were among them. Much to the chagrin of Gavin, Hailey had decided to move out here after she’d finished college. Well, I suppose Gavin wasn’t too upset about it; it just gave him yet another reason to come visit. In fact, last I saw, Gavin and Riley were in the band’s “practice room,” a soundproof building that the boys used to work on new material. Riley was quickly becoming just as adept with the guitar as his older brother. He was also becoming just as impossibly attractive, a heartbreaker in the making.
Clearing his throat, Griffin brought the microphone to his lips. “Ladies and gentleman, I want to thank you all for coming tonight to The G and K Show.” He licked his lips, then air-kissed the crowd. “It’s our pleasure to entertain you.” He started suggestively thrusting his hips, and I slapped my hand over my eyes.
Anna, sitting on an ottoman in front of them, busted out laughing. Gibson was sitting on her lap, giggling. Wearing a frilly red dress, white tights, and the cutest pair of Mary Janes, the adorable girl had her blond hair neatly pulled into symmetrical pigtails. Anna told me that Griffin had spent thirty minutes getting the pigtails to perfectly line up. When Gibson started clapping at her daddy’s antics, everyone around started laughing.
Kellan, also laughing at Gibson, brought his microphone to his lips. “Can you just start the music so we can get this over with?”
Griffin frowned at Kellan, but pressed Play on the machine. When Debbie Gibson’s “Lost In Your Eyes” started playing, Kellan lowered the mike and stared at Griffin in disbelief. “Are you kidding me? This is the song you wanted to sing?”
As my sister fell over backward she was laughing so hard, Griffin pointed at his daughter. “It’s Debbie Gibson, dude. Gibson. It’s for my daughter.”
Kellan sighed as he closed his eyes. “If we’re gonna do a duet, can we at least sing ‘Electric Youth’?”
Griffin made an obscene gesture then headed back to the machine to change the song selection. Behind his back, Kellan started cracking up. When Kellan held the microphone back up, a tiny hand reached out to grab the cord. I smiled at our son, Ryder. Kellan had named him. He loved that the name was similar to his half brother’s. I loved that it sounded a bit rock ’n’ roll. The son of the lead singer of one of the hottest bands on earth should have an interesting name.
Ryder’s face was just at the edge of the carrier; he was chewing on the end of it like a dog gnawing on his toy. His little fist curled around the microphone cord in triumph and he gave it a tug or two. Kellan smiled down at him and bounced a little on his feet. Those two were peas in a pod already. Ryder loved me without a doubt, but he was daddy’s boy through and through. And he looked just like Kellan—thick light brown hair that stuck up no matter how hard I tried to keep it down, and deep, dark blue eyes that looked like the evening sky. Maybe I was a bit biased, but everything about him was perfect—his cheeks, his nose, his toothless smile, the cute little freckle on the back of his neck. Everything.
The boys had a tour starting for their successful sophomore album this summer. Ryder and I were going to go with the boys, just to see how it went. If it was too hard touring with him, then we would go home and work out something else out for future tours. Short visits, maybe. But Kellan and I were pretty easygoing, and Ryder was a dream baby, so I was expecting this tour to be just fine. Keeping Ryder away from the public was my biggest concern. Kellan’s too. That’s why we had a team joining us—we’d bumped our bodyguards up to two, and we’d hired a nanny. I didn’t really think we’d need the nanny, I was pretty on top of things, but Kellan thought the extra help would be worth it. “And besides,” he’d told me, “with a nanny, we could have a night or two alone for . . . dates.” I was sold after that.
As “Electric Youth” started playing through the speakers, Jenny wrapped her arms around me. She had an engagement ring on her finger that twinkled in the living room lights. She and Evan hadn’t been in any great hurry to move their relationship along, but he’d finally proposed to her last week. That left Matt and Rachel. Rumor was, Matt was going to propose to her on the day the boys left for their next tour. Rumor also had it that Matt was sweating bullets about it. I was positive he had nothing to worry about; Rachel was going to say yes.