She licks her lips like she’s eating this up with a spoon. “And so then you created this entire karaoke identity,” she says, and I get the sense she’s not going anywhere. She’s here for the long haul.
“It wasn’t immediate. I just had fun. But the next few times I went out with friends, I missed it. I found myself thinking about it more and more. Wanting to do it again.”
“You never performed in high school musicals or anything like that?”
I shudder. “No. I don’t dance.”
“Not all musical roles require dancing.”
“I don’t act either,” I say. “I never wanted to.”
“Did you have a rock-star dream?”
“Honestly, when I was a kid, I liked to blast music and play video games. I’m ridiculously good at Halo, which is not a skill that comes into play often in my life—except when I’m hanging out with my friends and their teenage kids. Anyway, I found myself looking for other opportunities to sing karaoke. I went out again, then again, and it kind of became…my thing. Every time I went home, I thought about how much I liked it.”
She sets her chin in her palm. “You couldn’t stay away from it, so you had to create an alter ego?”
“Bingo,” I say, the hair on my arms standing on end from the way she nailed it. It wasn’t hard to piece together, but she understood instantly where I was going with the story. “Fell in love.”
“I love that,” she says. “So how did you pick Sam Silversmith? Did you do this in San Francisco?”
“Sounds like the kind of a guy who moonlights. A guy who’d play the saxophone with aviator shades on and nobody would know who he was.”
“And you like that, right? That nobody knows it’s you?” It’s asked with understanding, like she truly understands my need to be mostly incognito.
“Well, yeah. That’s one of the reasons I like karaoke. Because when I sing, I don’t have to be Mister Boss. Mister Serious. Mister Responsible. When I’m Sam Silversmith, I just go out and let go.”
“Well, your secret is safe with me,Mr. Silversmith,” she says, lifting her glass, then wiggling her brows. “Safe for now…until I decide what I want from it.”
When we finish our drinks, I’m tempted to ask her if she wants another. But things have been prickly between us since that night at her place. My fault, yeah. But her fault too. Pretty sure neither of us has quite cracked the code on working closely with someone you want to fuck.
You want to do more than fuck her.
“I should go.” But she furrows her brow. “What do you want me to tell everyone at work if they ask where I found you?”
“On a hot date,” I say dryly.
She shoots me a searing stare, brimming with…holy fuck. Is that jealousy? It sure looks green there in her eyes. “I will say no such thing.”
I hate that I love how jealous she is. Nope. I’m wrong. I just fucking love it. “Tell them you found me…playing golf,” I say, improvising.
“You had an alleged eight-fifteen or whatever tee timeafteryour alleged Yappy Hour meeting?” she asks.
But I’m not deterred by the logic leap. This all seems doable, especially for a guy who sticks to a schedule. “Night golf, sweetheart. It’s a thing,” I say, and…
Her breath seems to catch. Onsweetheart, maybe? Yeah. I think so.
“Night golf it is,” she says, then sticks out a hand to shake.
A promise that she’ll keep my secret—for now. As we shake on it, she glances down at my arm, then lets go of our hands to run a finger along my rose tattoo.
The temperature in me spikes. Her hand on my skin is electric. My bones buzz as she traces the petals.
“Temporary?” she asks.
I lift a brow. “You’ve seen me naked. You tell me.”
Her eyes flare again. “Temporary. How long does it last?”
