TRISTAN
This feels good. I haven’t played in front of an audience in a few weeks. I forgot how free I feel when I play. Especially with the way the stage lights blur the faces in front of me and the fact that not a single person here will recognize me on sight. I pick open-mic nights and dive bars and places where anyone who has ever heard of the Prince family wouldn’t be caught dead.
These people don’t care. As I smile and wink and tell the crowd that the next song is my last one, I can feel that they’re having fun. I’m better than they expected, and yeah, I know my looks do half the job for me, but they feel good because I feel good, and it’s a high like none other.
Simple. Uncomplicated. Joy. Music for music’s sake. For once, I’m not me and I make people happy.
I feel like I can fly every time I get on stage. I start the opening bars to a song I wrote myself. I always play it last, after the hits—the Tom Waits and the Jack Johnson. I play their favorites and warm them up before I play something I’m not sure they’ll like.
“This one’s for dancing,” I tell them, a half grin on my face. “I love to dance.” I play a bar, getting them excited, sensing I have them in the palm of my hand.
I want to get sappy with them, tell them I do it all for them, these faceless strangers, but that would be a lie, because I partly do it for me.
“Find a partner. Pull them close.”
The crowd shifts as I play the opening bars.
“When I’m alone, I wonder. About the girl I met when I was younger.”
I let the words hang in the air, anticipation building, before I see movement out of the corner of my eye. Someone is shifting to the center of the room. A couple.
My stomach lurches, even as my fingers play the notes with no guidance from my brain.
The lyrics are a big blank space, though.
Katie is here. Katie andSeth.There’s a roaring in my ears as he bends to whisper in her ear. She’s a tiny thing in her heels and her silky dress, glaring at me, her eyes fierce. Something possessive and hot winds through my stomach. Seth is touching her shoulder, but she’s looking atme.
I play the line again, even though I should be playing the next one. The crowd doesn’t realize.
“Would we be together? If I wasn’t like a—”
I can’t get the next word out. My heart is racing now, stuttering and thumping. Seth’s mouth is at her ear, and the next word is supposed to bebrother. He’s going to fucking kiss her.
I kick the mic stand over before I realize what I’m doing. Someone in the front yelps, and I apologize, even as the bar manager rushes over to right the stand.
Katie is still staring at me, and I give her a sheepish grin.In response, she draws a line across her throat and then jerks her head toward the hallway.
With anticipation simmering in my stomach, I duck off stage and into the dark.
36
KATIE
Itell Seth that something has come up for work and I’ll be right back. He graciously lets me leave and says he’ll wait for me at the bar.
I feel more than hear Tristan as I stride down the hall toward the bathrooms, my heels sending satisfying vibrations up my legs as they tap on the sticky floor. He dogs my steps, heat rolling off him.
“Left,” he says in a low voice, and I turn left into a short hallway that ends in a metal door that saysexit only.
I round on him. He doesn’t have the grace to look worried, just gives me a slow smile, his eyes simmering with what I assume is amusement at my expense.
“Bailey,” he says, the laugh evident in his voice.
I fold my arms to keep from strangling him and lean against the wall. He kicks a leg up and leans against the opposite wall, then folds his own arms. His biceps push against the t-shirt. With the ball cap and the boots, he looks like a truck-stop fantasy.
Dirty-hot. And now I know exactly what he was doingthat night he snuck out and I tackled him, and I want to scream.
“Come here often?” he asks.
