Page 99 of Before the Encore

Bonnie loved watching her sing. Watching Madison sing naked was a completely different sensation altogether. Warm light washed over her toned body, her foot tapping a drum. Bonnie wanted to burn the image into her brain forever.

“She changes everything, the ground beneath my feet,” she sang. Soft. Controlled. Her unique rasp coating each word in its own form of Madison polish before presenting it to the air.

Bonnie stayed quiet, listening, taking it in. Then Madison stopped suddenly, slapping her hand over the strings and plucked a different tune.

“That’s all I have. I started with the bridge.” She stabbed a finger towards the thunder paragraph. “I had an idea. A canon where you start and I join, and it builds and builds before the chorus.” Her fingers slid along the fret, and the tempo changed. “So, you’d be like this.” She squinted, lifting her voice several octaves in a terrible squeaky impression of Bonnie. “I’ve been waiting, drifting, fading.”

“I do not sound like that.”

Madison laughed, messing up the strum. “Yeah, you do. My hopeless heart’s yours for the taking.”

Bonnie nudged her with an elbow. Two can play at that game. She joined in, starting with the first line, lowering her voice to a deep imitation of Madison.

Madison shook her head, her mouth pulling into a sexy grin, laughter falling past her lips. Bonnie’s voice died in her throat, and she cracked up, ugly snorting that only made Madison grin wider.

“That sounded more like Barry White than me.” Madison dug her fingers into Bonnie’s ribs, and they fell back on the sofa, laughing harder. The guitar twanged as it fell to the floor, and Madison stopped her tickle torture to pick it up.

Bonnie took a swig of water from a glass on the table, her throat dry. When she put it back, Madison watched her carefully and absentmindedly began playing the chords for ‘Ghost’.

“You know,” Madison started, fingers passing over the fret. “We never spoke about this song, and I’ve been wondering…who’s a ghost to you?”

Thrown off by the question, Bonnie took another swig of water to steady herself. She didn’t like talking about her personal life at the best of times. Dragging up a period of time that humiliated her made her cringe.

She didn’t want to ruin an amazing night.

But she was safe with Madison.

She forced herself to meet Madison’s gaze. “Olivia Steinberg.”

Madison nodded. “I thought so.”

“You did? How?”

She shifted chords, waiting a beat of four before answering. “I did a bit of Googling. She’s the only person apart from me who you were seriously rumoured to date in the last five years.”

She stilled. Part of her felt flattered that Madison had looked into her dating history. The other felt oddly vulnerable. “And I’m the stalker?” She let out a soft laugh. “But yeah. It wasn’t for a long time, but I liked her.”

The admission caused a flicker of emotion to race across Madison’s features. Jealousy?

“What happened?” she asked, carefully.

“We were friends, and then we dated, low key, nothing serious, but I think I always wanted more than what she was willing to give. I didn’t want to lose her, so I just went along with what she wanted. Then one day, she just disappeared and stopped replying to my messages. No explanation. That was that. She dips in and out of my life when she sees fit, but we haven’t been romantic in years.”

“What a bitch.”

“What?” Bonnie couldn’t hide her surprise.

Madison chewed at her lip, placing the guitar back against the wall, the strings ringing. “You don’t do that to people you care about.”

Bonnie blew out a breath, preparing herself to ask the question that’d been haunting her. “Is it true that she wants to make a track with Lipstick Fever?”

“Yeah. Her manager has been hounding Roberto nonstop.”

Bonnie’s heart dropped to her toes. “Are you going to do it?”

“I don’t know.” Madison’s steely gaze flicked to hers. “Do you trust me?”

Nausea crawled up her throat. Bailey’s voice and cutting laughter echoed in her mind. But she pushed it away, listening to her gut. “Yes.”