So hungry.
I put my hand on the small of her back, pressing her close and kissing her. Until I hear an "a-hem” from my dad.
We break apart, and Lou is smirking as she wipes lipstick from my face.
“I love you. Does that make it easier?” she asks.
“Much,” I say.
“Good. Because youhaveto come with me back to the stage,” she says. She looks at Sean and my dad. “All of you.”
I have so much more I want to say, but her touch is firm and insistent, and her eyes are full of something I don’t understand yet—something fierce and unwavering.
She tugs me forward, and I go willingly.
I follow Lou back through the hallway and up to the stage, where Nash is playing one of his biggest hits.
One that I wrote.
Rick gives me a nod like he’s glad to see me. Another sound tech gives me a smile, and a couple of guys on the crew wave.
They’re greeting me like I just got back from war. Like I’ve been gone too long.
And when they see Lou and me holding hands, our sides pressed together, they smile. They share glances. Some of them even walk by and give me a high-five.
“Uh …” I say in Lou’s ear. “Want to fill me in?”
A sense of anticipation builds, tension buzzing in the air. She smiles at the crew, a satisfied look in her eyes. "You’ll see."
Nash finishes one song—he’s almost to the end of his set, in fact—when he starts playing the first few notes of another song, one that feels ripped straight from my soul.
I groan. “Does it have to bePanic?”
She squeezes my arm, but her eyes are looking around, falling on Manny and then Rick, who gives her a nod.
And suddenly, Nash’s vocals are replaced by …
Mine.
I look at Lou in shock and take a few steps closer to the edge of the stage, angling enough to see the huge screens behind Nash.
A grainy recording plays over the speakers—it’s me—Duncan—all those years ago, singing the same song in a tiny hotel room.
The footage fills the screens.
I don’t move. I don’t dare breathe.
The crowd stirs as confused murmurs spread through Hot Strings Hall like an off-key chord rippling through the arena.
On-screen, there’s a knock on a door, and then Nash walks into the hotel room.
And on stage, Nash freezes.
There I am—me, Patty O’Shannan—talking about going solo.
There Nash is, telling me the songs are too rough—a song that sounds almost identical to the one he just started playing.
A song that soundsso much betterwith me singing.
